Bernie Sanders and his supporters have created, curated, refined, and promoted an ideology and political agenda that is viewed as a threat by many powerful people, organizations, companies, industries, and sectors of society. As a result, Sanders faces a wall of opposition similar to a tsunami induced tidal wave. See the alphabetical list below for a summary. This list will be expanded on as new significant developments arise.
Note: To understand the ironic context of this historically epic political battle, you’ll want to read the spoiler alert at the bottom of this page.
- Amy Klobuchar. With a loyal base of supporters, Amy Klobuchar has proven to be an exceptionally effective and popular candidate. She is now actively campaigning for Joe Biden. Her message of cooperation and civility is popular with many voters.
- Barack Obama. News was leaked that Obama supports Biden.
- Billionaires. If you’re a billionaire, you likely don’t want to pay more in taxes. You also don’t want to pay a living wage to people who are currently working for much less than a living wage. Bernie Sanders wants to help your gardener, maid, delivery person, and other workers earn more money and get access to an education. That means no second private jet. So, most wealthy people will probably be resisting Bernie.
- Brad Parscale. There is a billion-dollar Internet and media initiative that is described as “heavily funded, technologically sophisticated, and staffed with dozens of experienced operatives. … [on the] 14th floor of a gleaming, modern office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. … Presiding over this effort is Brad Parscale, a 6-foot-8 Viking of a man with a shaved head and a triangular beard.” Parscale was the digital director of Trump’s 2016 campaign and he is heading up the 2020 campaign for Trump’s reelection. (source)
- Democrats. There are democrats who fear Sanders, and others who resent him for what transpired in 2016 to bring division in the Party. They perceive him as divisive and consider him to be the reason Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. They will do whatever they can to stop his momentum.
- DNC. The Democratic Party leadership has indicated that Joe Biden is their favorite.
- Donald Trump. In addition to Donald Trump himself, there will be many family members and other surrogates campaigning on behalf of Trump. One of Trump’s most effective skills is to spread information about an opponent that might not be entirely factual. People immediately accept it as true, and it’s hard to unravel such things. Advantage Trump.
- Healthcare Industry. If you’re trying to profit off of sick children, charging as much as parents are willing to pay for insulin, EpiPens, and hospital care, Bernie Sanders is someone you’ll want to stop because he will interfere with your extortion scheme.
- Hillary Clinton. During the critical months of the presidential primary election, Hillary Clinton is promoting her latest book, and with the help of Hulu she is promoting a documentary series that focuses on the 2016 election in a way that’s very critical of Bernie Sanders.
- Mainstream Media. There are too many examples to list here, but the establishment media which is owned and controlled by their corporate overlords is very resistant to Bernie. In 2016, people lost their jobs as a result of collusion with the media in an effort to bring down Bernie. A 2020 example of favoritism is shown below where news media outlets showed Joe Biden winning the Iowa Caucus before any data had been received. In a Sanders versus Trump campaign, the media generally favors Trump. For example, you can quickly and easily go to YouTube and find very high quality video of the complete Trump New Hampshire rally provided by ABC, NBC, CBS, and other major news outlets. At the time of this article being posted, if you search YouTube for the Bernie rally video, you will discover there is a media blackout of that event and the only recording is the one created by the Sanders campaign, and because these are regular working class people, they don’t have huge budgets for video production, so the audio and visual quality are sometimes poor. This is not a criticism, it’s simply an effort to illustrate the imbalance of resources that will make it challenging for Sanders and his supporters.
- Michael Bloomberg. Of all the candidate endorsements Biden has received, Bloomberg is possibly the most capable of donating a virtually unlimited amount of money to help Biden win the general election. Undoubtedly, that money will initially be used to beat Sanders in the primary election.
- Military Industrial Complex. There’s lots of money to be made in having perpetual wars. Even if the wars are not ours to fight, we can sell arms to countries around the world. Defense contractors and others making money off weapons of war will fight to stop Bernie Sanders.
- National Organization for Women. The president of the National Organization for Women has issued a a kind of fatwah against Bernie Sanders, urging Elizabeth Warren not to endorse him and claiming “He’s really, as far as we know, done next to nothing for women and for our issues” and “We think that our constituents, our members, will not necessarily think of Sanders as the best choice.” (source)
- Non Voters. There are approximately 100 million people who insist on not voting or engaging in any civic responsibility. Their job, as they see it, is to spread their ideology of non-participation to friends, family, colleagues, and strangers. All 100 million of these people will be encouraging others not to vote for Bernie.
- NRA. The NRA includes 5.5 million members and the organization has over $400 million in revenue that promotes their message. While Sanders has a past reputation for being supported by the NRA, he currently has a D- grade with the NRA.
- Pete Buttigieg. The candidate who won Iowa, beating both Sanders and Biden in delegate count, has dropped out and is now campaigning on the road with Joe Biden.
- Petroleum Syndicate. The massive network of relationships involved in perpetuating our dependence on fossil fuels will be fighting to stop Bernie Sanders and his Green New Deal. They want to continue receiving tax payer funded socialism bailouts for their industry.
- RNC. The Republican National Committee will be utilizing its entire national network of contacts and supporters to beat Sanders.
- Trump Supporters. There are millions of Trump supporters who have a strong and emotional loyalty to Trump. They will be attending rallies, active on social media, and promoting Trump to everyone they know.
- Wall Street. The financial power brokers do not like Bernie and will fight him. They want taxpayer funded bailouts as socialism for the rich. Bernie wants them to pay the poor back for the years the poor have bailed out the wealthy.
Media Favors Biden
In the same way that Fox News predominantly favors Donald Trump, numerous mainstream news media outlets favor Biden. In the example below, on the night of the Iowa Caucus, news coverage showed Joe Biden winning the caucus even before any data was received.
MSNBC
BING NEWS
Spoiler Alert: Republicans Already Do What Bernie Proposes
A collective voice of resistance declares that Sanders is a radical, extremist, socialist, and possibly a communist, who is promoting crazy ideas that just can’t be done. “How will we pay for these things?” is the typical refrain.
Ironically, most of the initiatives Bernie Sanders is suggesting, can be done, have been done, and are being done right now in Republican states under Republican governors.
- College education for all? Already being done in Tennessee. That program was launched back in 2015 and continues to be expanded on.
- Millions of dollars invested in K-12 education? Also being done in Tennessee. They’ve made historic investments never before seen in the history of the state. That took place just a month ago.
- Eliminate chronic homelessness? Already been done. Utah took care of this back in 2015. Maybe you missed the NPR special report.
- Justice reform? Republican states are so effective at reducing incarceration and recidivism that they are having to close prisons. What are they doing with the millions of dollars saved? Spending it on education.
- Marijuana legalization? Many Republican states have legalized marijuana, and are now making millions of dollars in revenue from a tax on sales. (source)
- Rebuilding infrastructure? With all the money Republican states are generating through marijuana sales tax, justice reform, and job programs, they are able to use the surplus for rebuilding their infrastructure.
- Jobs programs? Already being done in Republican states through cooperative programs that involve free college education, mentoring, and partnering with local businesses.
- Healthcare for all? The combination of education for all, mentoring, and jobs programs along with millions of dollars invested in comprehensive mental health programs keeps people employed and covered by healthcare. This approach also creates an abundance economy where funding is available to help those in need. Recently 22 studies including one from Yale confirmed that it’s cheaper to have healthy productive employed taxpayers who boost your economy, than it is to have sick uninsured people who get paid for sick leave or go to work and get others sick. We already kind of knew this from common sense.
Do you want examples? I could do this all day. Bernie’s so called “dangerous and crazy” ideas are already being done by Republicans and they are laughing all the way to the bank because they’ve convinced Democrats, of all people, to fear Bernie and his ‘extremist’ agenda.
The video below shows what Republicans think of Bernie Sanders. At the start of the video is a comment from Pete Buttigieg during the time he was running against Bernie.