 Well, we got some news that was, um, I guess you could say unexpected, uh, Bernie Sanders after previously definitely saying he's not going to run for president again is reportedly not ruling out a run in 2024, assuming Biden does not seek a second term. So as Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post explains, Senator Bernie Sanders is open to running for president in 2024 if president Biden declines to seek reelection according to a campaign memo, a top political advisor distributed to allies on Wednesday that was shared with the Washington Post. In the event of an open 2024 Democratic presidential primary, Senator Sanders has not ruled out another run for president. So we advise that you answer any questions about 2024 with that in mind, says the memo from Fah Shakir, a close Sanders advisor who was his campaign manager when he ran in 2020. The memo was shared by a person with direct knowledge of his contents on the condition of anonymity because it was not released publicly and confirmed to buy a second person with direct knowledge of the contents. Shakir did not immediately respond to a request for comment while it's frustrating this private memo leaked to the media. The central fact remains true, which is that Senator Sanders is the most popular office holder in the country, said Sandra spokesman Mike Casca when asked for comment. Casca and the memo based that assertion on a recent poll. So my understanding is this is a memo that they send out a questionnaire rather than they send out to candidates who are potential endorsement prospects. And one of the questions is, well, if we endorse you would you endorse us in the event Bernie runs in 2024. Now, of course, there's a huge caveat here. This will all hinge on what Biden chooses to do. If he chooses to run in 2024, then the nomination is his. I mean, you can technically wage a campaign, a primary campaign against a sitting president. But primary campaigns against incumbent presidents are very, very difficult to pull off. And it's almost a waste of time. I mean, in theory, I think that every single sitting president should face a fierce primary. They shouldn't just automatically have the nomination of their party again. But the reality is that it would be difficult to pull off. So if Biden says I'm running again, then that will basically close the door to Bernie 2024. But it's not a foregone conclusion that Biden will in fact run again. Now, there are reports suggesting that he's telling allies he fully intends on running. But 2024 is still a couple of years away and a lot can change between now and then. So before I talk about whether or not I think this is a good idea for Bernie Sanders to run again, let me just say in the event Biden were to run again, what specifically would he run on? I mean, in 2022, they're grasping at things to boast about. I mean, the good things that they were previously bragging about, which were objectively good. The child tax credit, the $1,400 checks, which were supposed to be 2,000, but were helpful nonetheless. Those are things that have come and gone. The child tax credit expired. So what exactly are you going to pitch to voters? Why should they come out and vote for you? How are you going to galvanize young people? And the answer is I don't think he can. I mean, Biden has proven that the centrist way, the third way has failed. Now, the thought I'm assuming from the Democratic Party was that look, we have to be more moderate because that's how we win. Because if we're too liberal, if we're too woke to socialist, then the Republican Party is going to attack us and call us communist. Now, Biden in no way, shape or form has governed as a lefty. But what are Republicans calling him? A communist and predictably so. So this whole strategy of trying to appeal to Republicans trying to build bridges and extend all of branches to your political opposition. It has been a demonstrable failure. Biden's approval rating currently has still not rebounded. And his approval rating was at 33 percent, according to at least one pollster. Now, this is a reputable pollster. It's Quinnipiac and it seems to be an outlier. But still, that should be startling to the Biden administration, nonetheless, because that's almost that like George W. Bush levels when he was leaving office after the Iraq War. So, you know, the thing is that the Democratic Party has proven that their centrist way of doing things, triangulation, trying to hold hands and sing Kumbaya has been a fucking cadastrophic failure. It's been a palpable momentum killer. So what are you going to do? You're going to bring forward some Gen X version of Joe Biden. People to judge or Kamala Harris and say, oh, well, we're going to do the same thing. I mean, I don't even know what Biden is fighting for. He ran on a public option isn't even fighting for that. His signature agenda build back better. It seems like the left fought for it more than Biden fought for it, even though that's not what the left wanted. They wanted to expand or Biden's plan was to expand Medicare. The left wanted Medicare for all. They fought for his agenda more than he did. And he didn't even get that accomplished because he couldn't bring people like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Simba to the table. And perhaps, you know, there would have been no way to get them to play ball. You could use the carrot or the stick approach. I've talked about strategies that he could implement that he chose to not deploy. But even if he failed, that's when you break out the pen. Where's my pen? It's good for visual aid. You break out the pen, you start signing executive orders. He still hasn't done that. So what have you done? And so the answer is he hasn't done enough. He's failed. He's proven us lefties right. So the question is, who's next? Who's going to be the person to carry Bernie Sanders mantle? And I've thought about this now for two years, and the answer is no one. The answer is no one. There's just nobody with the experience and political savviness that Bernie Sanders have has. I mean, they're members of the squad who are potential presidential prospects. But the problem is that I don't want someone to just run because they have good policy ideas. That's certainly important, of course. But in addition to policy ideas, you need to know how to accomplish that agenda. You need to have experience as a lawmaker. And Bernie is the only one with the knowledge and somebody who I think would actually fight, even if things don't look good. So when it comes to this question of should Bernie Sanders run for a third time? If you asked me at the end of his campaign in 2020, my answer was a definite no because I can't take the heartbreak again. I can't take getting my hopes up and thinking that maybe this country would go in a better direction and then seeing my dreams crushed before my very eyes. Like, I can't stomach that again. But with time after sitting on it, I can't stomach the perpetual dread that I feel knowing that this country will never change at the current trajectory that it's headed on. If we have Pete with a judge in power, Kamala Harris in power, nothing fundamentally changes. We're going to continue to go back and forth. GOP, Democrat, GOP, Democrat, I've explained this cycle before. It's a death spiral where, you know, after Americans remember how terrible and psychopathic this death cult known as the Republican Party is, they vote for Democrats once again. But then once they realize how incompetent and factless Democrats are, well, they get demoralized and they stay home, Republicans win again. And then once Americans are reminded yet again how psychopathic the Republican Party is, they come out and vote for Democrats again. And every single time we see this cycle happen, we're circling the drain. And so the thing that we have to do is break the fucking cycle. And the way that I see it, Bernie Sanders is the only person capable of breaking the cycle. I'm not saying that if he were to get elected, he'd be a panacea. I'm not saying that he will definitely be the next FDR. But what I am saying is that he's the only politician who I'm confident would actually try. Now, Bernie Sanders is not perfect. I don't think that he has he has the assertiveness that you need to be a politician, right? I think that he tries to cow it out to the Democratic Party. And I think that that hurt him a lot in 2020. I think that if you run as an outsider, if you run as somebody who isn't trying to just play the establishment game as he did in 2016 more so, I think that that's how you're successful. But talking about strategy or not, that's not necessarily what I want to tackle currently. The question is, should Bernie Sanders run again? Yes, he should. Yes, he should. I would prefer a 175 year old version of Bernie Sanders compared to any Gen X milk toast and neoliberal who's going to do the same fucking thing. We have to get off of this Bill Clinton mindset of trying to be centrist, trying to be ideologically directly in the middle between the far right and corporate Democrats. It's just not working. The country is deteriorating. Our planet is dying. We need someone who's bold, who makes a difference in people's lives so they don't fall for these dumb fuck culture war bullshit games that the Republican Party continues to play. Now, that's not to say people had better lives and they had, you know, education, healthcare, all of a sudden racism would go away and homophobia would go away. But what I'm telling you is that people would overall be less susceptible to far right radicalization if they saw that they had a government or a president who actually cared about them, because there would be less inclined to listen to dogmatic idiots like Donald Trump and other far right ghouls, demagogues, if they knew that Bernie Sanders was trying and fighting. Now, Bernie Sanders is consistently the most popular politician in America. And that's weird. I feel like I don't understand how that works because Americans can, on one hand, fall for the GOP's culture war bullshit except transphobia, except all of these bad ideas, but still think that Bernie Sanders is good. I don't know how Bernie Sanders does that, but he does have crossover appeal and he doesn't actually compromise his policies or morality to have this crossover appeal. I think that people just see him as a normal person who's fighting for a better future. So Bernie Sanders should absolutely run again. I would be in favor of it. Am I saying that I think he could win? Uh, no, I think that, you know, I'm not going to get my hopes up again. But does it give me a tiny, teeny tiny infinitesimal amount of hope at the prospect of Bernie Sanders running again and possibly doing a little bit to change this country? At least set us on a different trajectory. Yeah, it does give me hope. I can't remember the last time that I've been hopeful. It just feels like currently that, you know, our fate has basically been determined. We've decided to put profit over people. We've decided to just kill the planet and go backwards. And living with that reality is really almost unbearable to me. Like I can't take it. So even if my dreams and hopes will be crushed yet again, if he loses for a third time, is it worth it to have just like a year during the primary of hope, just a tiny bit of hope? Yeah, I think it is because it's a little bit of hope or nonstop fucking dread from failed politician after failed politician, bullshitter after bullshitter. So let's fucking do it. I'd be all on board with Bernie 2024. Again, not saying I'd get my hopes up, but would I fight to make him the president? Fuck yes, I would because there's no other person currently who could do it. Bernie's the one person. And as long as he's alive and is healthy, cognitively and in physical good health, and he wants to do it, fuck yeah, I'm down. He doesn't have to do this. He doesn't have to subject himself to the abuse from the media or the smears from the Democratic Party establishment. He doesn't have to do this. But if he wants to, I will back him because I care about this country. And, you know, he's not going to be the one to change everything at this point in time. But all he needs to do is change the direction and show Democrats doing popular things, helping people, fighting the GOP. That's a winning strategy. If he could just show the next generation of congressional Democrats what to do, then I think that that's more than I can ask for.