The implication is that it’s easy to say universal healthcare, student loan amnesty, and stimulus checks for all. It’s harder to say ‘but if we give stimulus checks, we might cause inflation’, or ‘universal healthcare might cost a few trillion a year, and I’m not sure how we can finance that’.

Stroking the plebs is not a new thing. Trump exists for this reason, AOC literally strokes the left with every tweet, so does Bernie.

Also, it’s easy to say free college for everyone. Especially when you know that the students who will actually need their college paid for won’t be going because the price of tuition is only one factor in why people decide against college. I would say Bernie definitely understands this nuance, but it doesn’t make for a nice soundbite and kinda seems like subsidizing college for those who would have went regardless.

No I definitely added a clause stating their true desires were irrelevant. Just that’s it’s easy to get yourself a powerbase by making sweeping promises that play at emotions. It’s not so easy to actually enact the needed change and occasionally it is impossible. If they’re the especially ugly type Populists can then use them as proof that the engrained powers are working against the people.

The only reason I mentioned my own believes was because I used to consider myself fairly well educated, having been a huge history nerd my entire life alongside the CS stuff we all do here, and yet I didn’t even realize Bernie was a populist until after Trump was president and the election was over.

It’s easy to get sweeper up in emotions, that’s my point.

i see, thanks for explaining

i think i agree, populist messaging can be a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands... on the other hand, i wonder how else politics of change can work without it?

it seems very hard to get a message through when theres such a huge low-pass filter... maybe there are other ways?