Pretty much everything you said is backwards. Have you ever actually watched a speech given by Bernie Sanders? It's become a running joke that he almost literally talks about nothing else other than the enormous amount of total wealth pooing into the one percent. His entire shtick is income inequality, going after Wal-Mart and Jeff Bezos, and has been for a very long time. Sure, he leans left on social issues, but he wasn't the one weaponizing his minority status. Do you remember the 'Bernie-Bro' narrative, and the media's attempts at implying that he only does well among white voters? I think you got it backwards if you think it's the progressives that are the ones hyper-focused on identity-politics.
Yup, I have. There's nothing Progressive about Bernie Sanders or his rhetoric. Its the same toxic, divisive class envy, redistribution rhetoric that Left wing demagogues have been using for decades to gain and retain power. Its the sales pitch for Socialism, and it appeals to a ideological and naive base of people who are influenced by the politics of envy.
Socialism isn't progress and its not revolutionary, its regressive and it's authoritarian underpinnings are archaic. Bernie Sanders has some pretty nutty ideas. Healthcare as a right being one. It shows little he understands and or cares about the truly revolutionary principles this Nation was founded upon
Bernie's pitch for Medicare for all never includes his home States failed attempt to implement single payer. In 2010, Vermont hired Jonathon Gruber and William Hsio to run the numbers on a State Single payer initiative. According to Gruber and Hsioa, Vermont would save 1 billion dollars over 10 years by enacting its single payer initiative, so in 2011 Green Mountain Care was signed into law. 7 years later and it still hasn't been implemented. Why ? Because the tax increases necessary to fund Green Mountain Care would have devastated the States economy. Vermont would have to double their annual revenue and bring in a extra 1 billion dollars in revenue annually to fund it. Even it's Progressive Governor at the time knew it wasn't feasible or sustainable. California was forced to shelve their Single payer Senate bill for the same reason, cost
I dont take Sanders or Occasio seriously, I see them as kind of a running joke. Promising equality and fairness and " Free Healthcare, College, a living wage, etc ", its just nonsense.
As for the loses, that's something else that the mainstream media likes to card-stack. We've all always known that not every candidate was going to win. But guess what? We've had quite a few wins. Rome wasn't built in a night, and this is going to be a very slow-going insurgency. Another thing that we got going for us is that, regardless of what anyone says of his age, it looks like there's a pretty damned good chance that Sanders is going to run again, and he's now current the most popular politician in the country by most polls. Then there's the fact that as these four years pass, cable-watching old farts are dying off, and kids likely to vote against an establishment candidate are coming of age.
I am absolutely not sorry that Donald Trump was elected president. Had Hillary won, a lot of folks on the left would have just went back to sleep, and we'd continue this vicious cycle for decades longer.
Socialism is NOT Progress and its not revolutionary. Its authoritarian and archaic and its not compatible with the truly revolutionary principles this Nation was founded upon. Remember when Venezuela was the idealized version of Socialism ? Sean Penn used to holiday there, and every Socialist pointed to it as a working example. Well, not so much anymore. Now its the poster child for failed a Socialist state, a cautionary tale for the rest of us
No now the idealized Socialist example is Scandinavian Socialism, even though those Countries are far from being Socialist
Bernie Sanders likes to use the Scandinavian example because he knows his base wont bother doing the leg work. As if we could simply cut/copy their example and paste it here in a Country of over 300 million people, and a Country with open borders to boot. Im convinced people like Sanders and even Obama know exactly just how destructive their policies and agenda's are. How could they not know ? How could they possibly believe that the US opening its borders and then providing free healthcare and college tuition and a living wage was sustainable ?