Bernie is done. 2020 Election is officially over.

Of the democratic party, in two states only. Meaning he's won the under 35 leftist votes in two sparsely populated states.

What year are you talking about? Because last I checked, open borders, and abortions after births are zany left.

There are lots of conservative democrats. I mean pretty much everyone who appears on MSNBC falls into that category.

Laughable. Even Sanders just said that he has been treated better by CNN than by MSDNC. They aren't even a news channel anymore.

oh, so he surrounds himself with criminals and yes men...

Are you able to distinguish between your perception and reality?

You said this of Trump... "I didn't realize that corruption and giving power to the people were the same thing."

Then you immediately after said this, "Trump's upsides (populism, fighting against corruption, fighting for the people..." 

Do you see why we would think those were contradictory statements?

Trump didn't make your contradictory statements. You did.

Yet the economy is better than its been in decades,

and Trump has lost personal  riches.

I'm saying the 3rd option, Trump is not who you think he is, and socialism works only on paper. Add in human nature and socialism becomes indistinguishable from stupidity.

wealth gaps are growing..

Wealth gaps were higher under Obama when there was much more unemployment. Why was that?

Simple. You can only go so far up the ladder when the government controls how much wealth you can have with welfare.

Trump instead gave Americans a job and the freedom to invest in yourself and learn more job skills.

Also, a corresponding drop in welfare participation rates shatters the ceiling the government places on the poor to keep them in their place.

When has the government ever controlled how much wealth people can have? 

There are hard caps on how much welfare you can receive state by state. The only way a poor person can break the cycle of inequality on welfare is to defraud the system.

You saw it on the debate stage last night as our "hopeful leaders" descended into anarchy.

Does it really matter?

Honestly, it depends on the amount of wealth. A billionaire is a threat to democracy in the same way a nuclear weapon is a threat. Even if you put strict rules around how it can be used, the risk of it being used is huge. Someone like bloomberg has the money and connections to pay off virtually everyone in the halls of power. His wealth is a threat. 

ok, but he now has more money than he could possibly spend. He was certainly critical to the success of the company. But the vast majority of the work that was done to make that company a success was done by his employees, not him personally. Does he deserve to be rich for that, absolutely. Does he deserve to have enough money to destroy democracy, absolutely not. 

There are lots of improvements we could make to get their money out of politics, but the money itself is a threat. They will always find ways to use it to help them push their agenda (which probably isn't the same agenda as the people). Maybe they buy out all the news agencies, maybe they buy out social media platforms and use those to push their agenda. It doesn't matter what rules you put in place. A man with 100 billion dollars will find a way to use it to benefit himself. It will always be used to amplify his voice to drown out the voices of others. That is not healthy for a democracy. 

could not disagree more. Bernie spent a lifetime devoted to public service and helping people. Bezos designed a website that sells stuff. He did it really well and deserves to be rich. But to pretend that a lifetime of service to the people is worthless is insane. 

A billionaire is a threat to democracy in the same way a nuclear weapon is a threat.

Isn't that ironic? Democracy is the only system where a person can become a billionaire honestly, and then have the created billionaire be called a threat to the very system that allowed the possibility.

A nuclear weapon and money are two entirely different things. Money has near infinite purposes, but a nuclear weapon has one

Having large fines associated with attempts at corruption could make it unprofitable to try to use money to influence politics.

What is the threshold at which someone's money becomes a "threat to democracy"? Because just picking on billionaires because they are a small minority of people seems like something used for political viability than a number that actually has inherent meaning associated with it.

I will once again have to ask how much money it takes to threaten democracy, because at the least we agree he deserves to be wealthy.

Media isn't the end all be all. Bernie is the front runner and the media hates him, no matter how many millions Bloomberg and others are spending. People simply don't trust it anymore.

That is a gross mischaracterization of Amazon. (I don't like Bezos btw, I think he is scummy.) But he created a website that provides cheaper and more convenient products for millions of customers. Amazon employs 798,000 people, as well. 

I wasn't trying to compare Sanders and Bezos because public service and private sector entrepreneurialism are two entirely different things. But, I was saying that Bezos undertook a lot of more financial risk, so his resulting much larger financial rewards are to be expected.

They then use that wealth to twist democracy to suit themselves and allow them to make more money.

true, the analogy is limited in scope. But they are both extremely dangerous if they are not properly controlled. 

but if they successfully use their money to corrupt the system, they can prevent those kinds of fines from existing. Or build in loopholes to avoid them. It is true you could spend a lot of time and effort trying to fight them back, but in the end they have the resources to find new ways to use their money to corrupt the system. 

This is certainly debatable, but I would say a billion dollars is probably the point at which it becomes a threat. At that point they have the ability to drown out the voices of everyone else. Bloomberg (a republican) has dumped half a billion dollars into ad buys and bribes and managed to buy his way into 2nd place in a democratic primary (in some polls). That is extremely dangerous. 

agreed. people who work hard an innovate deserve to reap the rewards of that. But no one can spend 100 billion dollars in their lifetime. The way they tend to spend that kind of money is by dumping it into political campaigns, super pacs and various other ways to buy influence and corrupt the system. 

In some polls Bloomberg is in 2nd nationally. And he isn't just buying ads, he is paying off the media and politicians all over the country. That 500 million he has spent on ads didn't just disappear into the ether, it went to MSNBC, CNN etc. That kind of money buys you alot of good will. 

He also dumped millions into the DNC and various other political organizations all over the country to buy endorsements. 

i'm not saying he didn't do something innovative. He absolutely did. He deserves to be wealthy. He does not deserve enough wealth to buy democracy though. 

Fair enough. And bezos would struggle mightily to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in a single lifetime. That is a pretty massive reward on his investment and risk. But once he passes the line into billions, and god forbid hundreds of billions, he becomes a massive threat. He has the money to buy up news agencies, politicians, political organizations etc. America has had those kinds of problems before with railroad barons. The solution was to break up their companies so they wouldn't be such a massive threat. We need a modern day method of controlling that kind of insane wealth concentration. 

I'm curious. Do you believe....

A. No one is an honest person?

If so, then the real threat to democracy is dishonesty, not billionaires.

Or

B. All Billionaires become corrupt?

Which means then that you think people should be stopped before they become billionaires.

I find it difficult to believe a billionaire would twist the very system that made his huge wealth possible. If I became a billionaire, I would want more Democracy.

The richer the general population is, the more money the businesses of billionaires make. Billionaires only become possible and sustainable in prosperous societies.

Saying that billionaires subvert their democracies doesn't make economic sense.

Ok, and you will have the same exact problem as me. You want to tax billionaires much higher. They will fight like crazy to make sure your taxes either don't go through or that there are tons of loopholes in the tax code, like they already do.

Bloomberg was temporarily a Republican, but he shares next to no values with them. He is now a Democrat, and he acts like your average moderate Dem. He also said during the debate he spent $100 million to take seats from Republicans in the primaries. 

Him buying his way onto the stage is more of an issue of DNC corruption and changing rules after getting some large donations, and his ads still have yet to put him anywhere near the lead. 

Or they dump billions into charity. The 1% of income earners are responsible for 1/3 of charitable donations. They sign a "giving pledge" sometimes to give all of it away

And every candidate shits on him at the debates for a variety of reasons. Just the fact that people are saying he is buying the election turns a lot of voters away from him. He doesn't have any delegates currently, does he? And if people want a winner, they won't vote for someone who spends a lot of money and has no delegates. I really don't think he has any chance from what I've seen.

Well, nobody says they want anyone to be able to buy a democracy. I am saying that there are other ways to make sure that they don't do that than just taking their money.

So, your method of controlling "insane wealth concentration" is to put what, a 100% tax on every dollar over $1 billion earned or what?

I believe that power leads to corruption.

...then why wouldn't you?

So both of your options are incorrect. 

And it would inherently benefit them to do so. 

lol this is just patently not true.

why?

They can, and do, make huge sums of money off of corruption.

They use their money and influence to get laws that benefit them.

So there are no honest powerful people?

How can they both be incorrect? You said that power leads to corruption, therefore,  All Billionaires become corrupt. Which means then that you think people should be stopped before they become billionaires.

All your charges appear to be what is possible and what could be done, never what actually is done. You convict people on what you think they are capable of doing, instead of what they do.

The richer the general population is, the more money the businesses of billionaires make. Billionaires only become possible and sustainable in prosperous societies.

How is it not true? The average American today has a smart phone with a computer in it more advanced that the computer that took man to the moon. People are richer today.

And billionaires do only become possible and sustainable in prosperous societies, this is why Africa has so few. Billionaires make money off of an educated, prosperous population.

Saying that billionaires subvert their democracies doesn't make economic sense.

Because their democracies are what enables them to become, and remain billionaires.

That they can is all you can be sure of. You seem again to be convicting people  simply based on the possibility existing.

That is democracy. No law benefits only one person. Everyone is trying to make the playing field easier for them in a democracy. If they get laws changed the legal way, there is nothing wrong with that. We can always sack crooked politicians.

Like all democrats, you think the population is a bunch of morons just waiting to be swindled, so you must protect them.

If you think every rich person is necessarily corrupt, you ether don't know many, or you have bought into the mindset that being rich is evil. You are actually advocating penalizing people for being creative and industrious!

So there are no honest powerful people?