LogFAQs > #934438157

Historically the Democrats has spent the past 50 years or so dashing to the Right on economics. Pushback from the FDR Left is something that Sanders has supported for a long time, but he never could have gotten off the ground without the internet to help him build a network of support.

The Democratic party had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the Left both on civil and fiscal policies... it's just that up until Sanders, the Left had no luck at all on the economic front, and this is in great part due to how Democrat politicians have conducted themselves in these past 50 years. I won't bother giving a history lesson over the discrepancy; this post is going to be too long as it is.

There are divisive Left positions that Sanders has historically supported (and seems to still do) but they aren't hills he's going to die on due to lack of support, so he doesn't bring them up much. That, coupled with what I'm about to cover next, is what sets him apart.

Sanders has such a devout following compared to other candidates not just because of the policies he supports; it's that he's supported them consistently. Sanders does not do what almost every other Democratic candidate has done; he doesn't engage in election pivoting. His political positions do not change based upon what group he is speaking to or where he is in the country or whether he's in a primary or general election, etc.

Look, for example, at Elizabeth Warren. She's a classic example of the pivoting Democrat in this election (so was Kamala Harris, who was even worse than Warren about it). She talks Left very well when she's in office or early on in elections, and then becomes Hillary Clinton 2.0 later on. In this day and age it's harder to get away with pivoting because the dishonesty of it is so easy to prove via recordings/paper trails on the internet. Politicians who pivot cannot be trusted to even TRY to fulfill ANY of the policies they claim that they want to implement, and supporters of Sanders believe that Sanders is the only one who can be trusted not to pivot- aka, not to lie about his policy positions.

And let's be very clear here; this lack of trust in candidates other than Sanders is something that neoliberals cultivated themselves. Obama's pivot from his election promises to his performance when he was given a supermajority in 2008 was a massive wake-up call for people on the Left; it cemented the idea that people without progressive records who take corporate money can never, EVER be trusted to do ANYTHING that they say they will.

What this means is that it doesn't really matter how much the other candidates SAY they are on the Left; if their records don't show it, it is now assumed that they are lying, and if they pivot like Warren has, then they are PROVEN to have lied and they lose support. It's not just a matter of whether or not someone professes to support Left positions; it's whether or not they can be trusted to be telling the truth when they say that, and most Democrat politicians cannot be.

So Sanders still is set apart, both by his positions AND by the fact that he has a record of consistently supporting said positions, which is arguably far more important than any other factor. Even Donald Trump pivoted after getting into office, though that shouldn't surprise anyone considering the git lies nonstop.

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