Lol. You're making too many assumptions about me. I'm 48. I lived through the Carter years. My personal memories go all the way back to Nixon. I was glued to the radio and TV the day Carter was elected. Carter was daily news for me. I remember a few things about him that history apparently likes to forget.
Obama didn't have a lot of political experience when he won in 2008. Sanders has decades of it. I first became aware of Sanders roughly around 2004, learning he was one of the very few congressmen who opposed the USA PATRIOT act and the invasion of Iraq. I think he was right on both counts.
You're quite right, one of Obama's main weaknesses was that he had to work with an extremely obstructionist Republican-controlled congress who had zero interest in working with him at all, were actively working to undermine everything Obama was trying to do--even though Obamacare was based on the Republican's own Romneycare, which the conservatives had lauded. Obama couldn't and can't change the course of history alone. Neither can Bernie.
I don't think that's Sanders' weakness. Hillary....my problem with her is she's a corporate shill. Her agenda isn't mine. So it doesn't matter to me how any other politicians will support her agenda, because her agenda conflicts with mine. She's a democrat-in-name-only in my opinion. Better than any republican but not by much. She's the "lesser of two evils" and I'm really sick and tired of that.
Bernie actually has the same agenda I do. I've watched him work since 2004--and he's already had decades of experience in politics, beating long odds, beating predictions of loss, time and time again. He's the first candidate in my lifetime that I actually WANT to see as President. Not "the lesser of two evils".
I despise what the country's politics and government have turned into. I despise how greedy, corrupt, deaf, and dishonest it has become. I despise the disinformation campaigns and all the outright lying these people do.
You do realize we're being governed by an entire group of law-breaking criminals, right?
Bernie, by contrast, is a huge breath of fresh air to me. We need more like him, imo.
He can't fix anything alone. But there's already the Progressive Congressional Caucus, a group of like-minded congress people happy to work with him. Elizabeth Warren, another hero of mine, also more than happy to work with him.
And to me the solution to an obstructionist congress isn't to pick Hillary over Sanders, but to move congress itself to the populist left. Get rid of the extremist right (whose polices and views and voting record are far to to the right of mainstream America), replace them with new people who aren't extremist nutcases.
Possible? Absolutely. It's what the neoconservatives did themselves, after all. We can do the same.
Will we? I don't know. I'm a democratic socialist myself, and in the minority. But everything I've seen happen in this country since the 1970's supports my democratic socialist views. I don't like what the USA has become. I think I'm not alone. I don't like what the conservatives have done to the country. I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Careful of self-fulfilling prophecies. If you're convinced you can't, you're defeated before you even started. Social unrest is already brewing. Protests and riots now the likes of which I've not seen since the early 70's. People know the country isn't working for them. People sense our government has gone deaf to us.
Bernie, for us, represents hope. In one single day, he already raised more money than any other candidate in either party, except Hillary, who hasn't disclosed what her campaign has raised yet.
Even if Sanders loses, which I admit is likely, at the very least, he's our voice. He's raising the issues we care the most about, bringing it into the national consciousness. Even some conservatives like him (wow--that's a surprise!).
I can't see Hillary doing much for us. She's too much "same old same old". Sanders, is exciting. Sanders really is what Obama only seemed to be when he was Candidate Obama.
I'm not interested in shrill mudslinging and insults and all the anger and hate I see in politics now. Sanders doesn't do negative campaigns. At least, he's different. He's honest. His words and his actions and voting record match. He doesn't just say one thing then vote the oppposite once in office like so many others. His views are mine, his concerns are mine.
He's at least someone who seems to really hear us, not just giving us lip service while serving the corporate wall street agenda.