by Benn Ray
The other day, when Kamela Harris announced she was looking at Baltimore to house her campaign offices, I posted a link to the story on Facebook. That fairly benign post very quickly devolved into how unacceptable she is as a Democratic presidential nominee (it wasn't my point to endorse her although I am Kamela Harris curious) because her "progressive bona fides weren't quite pure enough" for the more self-righteous lefties I have in my feed.
The result was me be bickering with dudes, again, about how a female Democratic candidate isn't left enough to deserve their vote. It felt so depressingly familiar - here we are at the very start of the 2020 presidential campaign season, and I'm already fighting with more Bernie Bros more than I am with Trumpians (again).
So I thought, to kind of underline the point of what their agenda really is and how absurd and transparent it is, I'd take the list of announced Democratic presidential candidates and apply a "Progressive Purity Test" (I need a better phrase because I'm a progressive and I think the the whole BernieBro thing is bullshit) to each candidate to reveal who the only viable candidate for the Sanctimonious Left is - the One True Democratic Nominee.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California - she's a former State's Attorney. So, she's on the wrong side of the law for the BernieBro left.
Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julien Castro of Texas - as former HUD Secretary, he was too cozy to Wall Street- selling off people's mortgages off to big banks when HUD was supposed to protect them.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii - despite being hand-picked Bernie acolyte - Gabbard has some pretty obvious conservative beginnings. Also, she has opted to meet with genocidal Syrian Dictator al-Assad as well as President Donald Trump.
Maybe this Gabbard quote helps, "In short, when it comes to the war against terrorists, I'm a hawk." She's also used phrases like "Islamofascism" (a big self-righteous leftie no-no) and has been very hard on immigrants - specifically refugees.
Former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland - he's wealthy, so that can't align with the values of any good socialist. Also, he voted to fast-track TPP and is a self-avowed bi-partisan fetishist.
On an unrelated note, this is a candidate who, when his name is mentioned around Marylanders, inspires a rather uninterested, "Who?"
Former congressional candidate Richard Ojeda of West Virginia - he voted for Trump. Now, that might not exclude him from consideration as a presidential candidate from the BernieBro Left, but it should. Also, as the Paste link points out, dude's a sham.
Businessman Andrew Yang of New York - yes, he favors Universal Basic Income, but he rebranded it the "Freedom Dividend" because it tests better with conservatives. He's also a wealthy businessman who is not afraid to take large cash donations. Maybe socialists are okay with rich guys when they're tech-rich?
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York* - Gillibrand has a lot of problems, but from the BernieBro Left perspective, she should be disqualified because she was once a pro-gun Blue Dog Democrat and she has a history of being very hard on immigrants. She claims to have evolved, but any good BernieBro knows that's just code for "phony".
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts* - Warren, when she was a registered Republican 20 years ago, claimed she believed in the inherent fairness of the free market. As a Democratic Senator, she's taken efforts to assure Wall Street that she is a ... retch... capitalist!
Plus, she also campaigned with Hillary Clinton and didn't endorse Bernie Sanders. That is a sin that the BernieBro Left simply cannot abide.
Those are all the official Democratic candidates we currently have at the point of my writing this. So who does that leave us with? Well, Bernie Sanders of course. He is the only true, progressively pure, candidate that deserves the vote of the self-righteous left (or, as I'm starting to think of them, Left Wing Incels) as a Democratic Presidential candidate.
The only drawbacks are:
1. Bernie hasn't announced.
2. He is not currently technically a Democrat.
3. He lost last time. (Even if it was stolen, he also had a lot of Russian help.)
4. He is an old white guy from Vermont.
5. He is soft on guns.
6. Well... you get the point and if you are a BernieBro, you've already stopped reading. And if you're not, you might mistakenly get the impression that I don't like any of the candidates so far, and that's not true.
So BernieBro Left, shaddup already.
So BernieBro Left, shaddup already.
* Gillibrand and Warren have officially announced exploratory committees, they have not yet officially announced they are running for President yet.
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