To me, Biden seems more like a “Let’s all work together for the benefit of all” kind of guy whereas Sanders sounds more like a “My way or the highway” kind of guy.

@kritiper Reflected in their supporters as well.

Biden isn’t over-promising “free stuff” he has no idea how to pay for. That’s the key distinction for me.

To avoid any biased misinformation you might receive here, you can try…. Biden vs
Sanders

The first two responses have it all backwards.

@longgone: “In what way are Biden’s policies preferable to Sanders’?”

Policies anyone?

Sanders will completely destroy health care with the asinine Medicare for All idea. It will be even worse than if the Republicans get rid of Obamacare.

Now, I know that the Bernie Brigade is going to dump all sorts of shit on me for saying that. But – tough.

Sanders is pushing for government more or less along the lines of Scandinavian countries, which would, among other things, increase health and education benefits. Biden wants things to be more or less the same, while undoing some of Trump’s more extreme measures.

@LostInParadise Although Sanders taughts the Scandinavian countries, which DO have high taxes and plenty of public services, the Scandinavian countries are free-market capitalists. You cannot have an Ikea or Lego corp under a Socialist government and economy, as proposed by Sanders. It would be taxed into bankruptsy and liquidated,

Neither Biden not Sanders policies would support free-market capitalism. And not many of their supporters, nor democrats in te past decade, want the America they would bring. They just hate Trump. Or they hate conservatives

To focus more on the original question, as I think either would be a disaster so I am an outsider, most people think of Biden as a traditional Democrat and Sanders as possibly leading a socialist revolution, which he has the background to carry out. In the words of Biden, America doesn’t want a revolution, America wants results.

To be fair, both candidates have desirable qualities for POTUS but I think people fear Sanders’ version of Socialism (which is NOT the Free Market Capitalism of Scandinavia) and think Biden is too, well, in Biden’s own words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created. um, by, um, you know, the THING, the WE THE PEOPLE.”

I literally don’t care. I will vote for anybody over Trump.

I’m sure you would. But if there was any chance of anyone of them winning besides Trump, you probably wouldn’t vote at all. You wouldn’t like living under a socialist agenda by any name.

@Yellowdog ”...the Scandinavian countries are free-market capitalists.”

The Scandanavian countries have a mixed economy.

Do you like having fire departments? public libraries? K-12 public education? public universities? Social Security? Medicare? Public parks? Public utilities? unemployment insurance? etc.

All of those are “socialist” programs. The US is already a mixed economy…

”...under a Socialist government and economy, as proposed by Sanders”

Can you point to a single policy on Bernie’s platform or any statements he’s made that indicates he wants to entirely abandon private business and corporations?

The top marginal tax rate in the US under the Republican Eisenhower was 90% during which the US had a huge economic expansion. Under Bernie’s tax proposal, the highest marginal income tax rate (on income above $20M married, joint) is 52%, which is only 2% higher than the highest marginal tax rate under the first term of Reagan (after he slashed the rate).

In the historical perspective of tax rates, Bernie’s proposals are very moderate compared to where we’ve been as a country. Let’s keep things in perspective…

@Yellowdog For FFS. We’re not talking Soviet Union communism here. We’re talking about making healthcare and education far more affordable. What the hell is wrong with that? A healthy, educated workforce yields higher yields, profits, and economic growth

I completely agree with @gorillapaws. I’m not a Bernie supporter as most on this list know—mostly because I think that there is a relatively large vocal minority who are just horrible to people both in person and online (a woman wearing a Warren shirt in LA got a lit cigarette thrown in her face yesterday and screamed at as she was on her way to the poll booth). Even as a centrist moderate I think none of what Bernie has to say is terrible, and even if he (or Warren) were elected, he would be moderated by Congress and SCOTUS.

But to write Bernie off because he’s a socialist is just stupid alt-right wing regurgitated Fox bullshit.

@LostInParadise ”...Biden wants things to be more or less the same…”

While I agree with your summary, I think people hear this and miss an important nuance to your statement. People hear “keeping things the same” and they make the inaccurate interpretation that the phrase means that things aren’t going to change from how they are now, and that’s simply not true.

“Keeping things the same” means maintaining the current rates of change, it doesn’t mean setting the rate of change to zero. In other words, if you’ve got a hose that’s filling up a bucket, “keeping things the same” doesn’t mean turning off the hose and maintaining the water level in the bucket, it means not touching the valve and having the bucket continue to fill at the same rate.

So “keeping things the same” means maintaining the rate of decline in the middle class, so that in 4 years there will be an even greater disparity in wealth and income inequality. “Keeping things the same” means maintaining the current rate of CO2 emissions so that the planet will have a significantly higher percent of CO2 in the atmosphere. “Keeping things the same” means college debt is going to be an even heavier burden on Millennials as tuition continues to rise which will cripple the economy. “Keeping things the same” means companies will continue to merge and become even larger monopolies and oligopolies with even more power than they enjoy today. “Keeping things the same” means continuing to outsource more and more jobs.

Bernie has a lifelong history of supporting communism in Moscow, Cuba, and Central America. He supports excessive ‘wealth taxes’ and the ‘Green New Deal.” Open borders. and a lot of the freebies.

Bernie and Biden are both very likeable but both have serious flaws. The last democrat I voted for was Obama in 2008 (not 2012) and I kind of hoped Joe Lieberman would run—I’d still vote for someone like Lieberman. But I’m done with Democrats for now, and wish you all the best.

In zero ways, unless you are a large corporation or something.