Bernie Sanders

Bernard Sanders is an Independent US senator from the state of Vermont and two-time failed presidential candidate who endorsed and campaigned for pro-establishment candidates Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders was promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America which has pro-imperialist views.

The Infrared collective has made statements in which it believed Bernie's 2016 movement had potential to become a working class populist movement, but these efforts were thwarted by both liberal activists within his campaign and the democratic establishment who favored pro-establishment candidates.

Foreign Policy

Bernie has a history of supporting US imperialism through NATO. In an interview in 2020 he said "I believe in NATO", which is supported by his actions such as the backing of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and supporting the NATO-proxy state of Ukraine over the anti-imperialist state of Russia in the 2022 Ukraine-Russian conflict. This position is more imperialist than that of Donald Trump, who has suggested the US should pull out of NATO all together and that "NATO is dead".

On the Palestine-Israel conflict, in 2023 he rejected a call for a long-term ceasefire in the ongoing Gaza genocide by Israel.

In relation to socialist states, in more recent years he has expressed opposition to them by calling Venezuela's socialist president Maduro a "vicious tyrant". He has also stated he would intervene if China took military action on Taiwan, which goes even against the US government's formal position of "One China" policy that Taiwan is part of the PRC.

2016 Presidential Run

Bernie's movement started when he ran for president in the 2016 election as a Democrat. He called himself a "Democratic socialist" of the Scandinavian model and his campaign slogan was to create a "political revolution".

He surprisingly exceeded all expectations by winning 23 states and 43% of the vote against the establishment darling and heavy favorite Hillary Clinton, who won the Democratic Party nomination. This was in large part due to votes from the rural working class, who saw his campaign as a way to show their discontent with the Democratic establishment. Many in his movement wanted him to continue his run as a third-party candidate in the general election, such as Jimmy Dore, but even though Bernie called for a "political revolution", he dropped out of the race and endorsed the establishment-backed Hillary Clinton.

In a debate titled "Tankie Defeats Destiny" with the streamer Destiny on February 23, 2021, Haz Al-Din suggested the Democratic party "rigged" the election against Bernie and that the mainstream media was changing peoples views against him in a "rat-fuckery way". One piece of evidence he provided was the Wikileaks emails showing Hillary Clinton was given the questions prior to a CNN debate against Bernie, among other biased actions by the DNC. Later in the debate, Haz suggests that after the primary large swaths of his working class supporters joined the "MAGA" movement started by the Republican candidate Donald Trump, which went on to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election.

2020 Presidential Run

In 2020, he ran for president again to win the Democratic Party nomination, this time, the main candidate favored by the establishment was former vice-president Joe Biden.

Due to Bernie's Democratic Socialist views and endorsement from Democratic Socialists of America, the organization gained thousands of followers during and after his 2016 campaign. Because of it's roots in western-establishment Social Democracy, this ideology mostly only appealed to college-educated gentrifiers in urban areas, who are completely detached from the sensibilities of the working class. This demographic of urban institutionalized activists composed the majority of the people who ran his 2020 campaign, along with backing from The Squad such as AOC. Due to this situation, his campaign ended up pandering to Woke social and identity political issues instead of focusing on class issues, which alienated the working class who propelled his 2016 campaign.

In February 2019, the Infrared collective published a blog titled "ADOS and Bernie Sanders", in which it outlined how the ADOS (American descendants of slavery) movement, which was "up in arms over what they perceive to be Sanders’ reluctance in fully supporting reparations" could actually appeal to the white working class who had voted for Bernie in 2016. In it, Infrared states:

"Sanders, for example, has said before that not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist or a sexist, and continually emphasizes winning the white working class, despite that many voted Trump."

"Sanders is not talking about the white working class as opposed to black Americans. He is talking about the rural white working class as opposed to the white coastal, suburban and business elite. He is not talking about the white poor as opposed to the black poor. He is talking about poor whites as opposed to hypocritical white liberal gentrifires, suburban whites, Wall Street, etc."

"There are major obstacles to achieving reparations for American Descendants of Slavery. The first and foremost obstacle is not the white working class: It is the hypocritical white liberals who run the Democratic establishment."

During this time, Infrared held the belief that many white working class people were disaffected with Trump, and they could still be won over by Bernie's political movement, such views were outlined in the following quote:

"When the white working class voted for Trump, they did so following the lead of the upper segments of the white middle class and white business owners. Then, with Trump’s tax breaks to the rich and his continued attacks on federal programs once benefiting them, this same white elite benefited but the white working class soon became aware, and is increasingly aware that they were cheated."

In a 2021 live-stream that lasted two days during December 4th and 5th titled "Infrared Haz spends 12 hours debunking Vaush on Hake debate (Destroying Vaush Parts 1 and 2)" Haz Al-din clarified that:

"We believed(In early 2019) there was at this time, a working class discontent with Trump... Trump's base was discontented with him and that Bernie has a chance to win these people. Obviously, now we know, that the rot of the Democratic party, was much much much deeper than we anticipated at this time"

The final result was that Bernie only garnered about 30% of the vote during the primary, much lower that his 2016 results, he swiftly dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden who became the Democratic nominee. On the other hand, Donald Trump increased his vote share of the rural working class during the 2020 election, but narrowly lost to Joe Biden, who ran up his vote share with white-collar college-educated suburbanites.