"Bernie Sanders was, as far as I can see, our last shot at reversing the trend from within the current system"
If anything, Bernie Sanders was our first, worst shot at structural economic change. In fact, every candidate on stage during those Democratic debates was running far, far to the economic left of Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore or either Clinton. With some historical perspective, you might see that the tides have turned in favor of the types of changes you are calling for, not against as so many people seem to pretend.
There's truth here, but - and this is getting into subjective territory - it's my belief that none of the other candidates came by those platforms through conviction. I think they measured what voters wanted to hear, measured what kind of brand they could sell for themselves, found the intersection, and constructed a campaign around it.
Now, that doesn't completely invalidate the point! There's a genuine "economy" of votes around "I take a stance for X, you give me votes, I continue to take that stance, you continue to give me votes", which can function even in the midst of cynicism. But it's much less reliable or efficient when that's the case; when the politician, as a person, doesn't base their platform in their genuine beliefs. In fact I think the prevalence of this mentality is one of the major causes of our current situation.
There's almost nobody left among our politicians who has any real conviction. I think John McCain did. And call me naive, but I believe Bernie Sanders is authentic when he's talking about these topics. He's been doing so since the seventies. Career-politicians who do nothing but appease voters might do an okay job at running the show, but they will never truly change the system that got them elected.
In practice, none of them would actually have implemented it, except the only one with a history of going against party and lobby. Barack Obama ran far to the left of Barack Obama, but ended up compromising with Republicans for some absurd reason as he held both the house and senate, to the degree where he passed Mitt Romney's proposal while dragging his feet.
None of them except for Bernie Sanders was willing to recognize the system as fundamentally broken. Biden and Clinton and indubitably their Democrat sosies would openly profess to the elite that nothing would change.
"none of them would actually have implemented it, except the only one with a history of going against party and lobby"
Why would the person with few allies and hostile relations with various power players be the one who could "actually" implement anything? Barack Obama had a senate majority that Bernie would have killed for in his hypothetical first term, but Obama still couldn't get his own party to even consider a public option. Things have changed compared to them, but not so much that any 51-seat senate majority could pass anything close to what Bernie calls for. It's beyond unrealistic to pretend otherwise.
Because the presidency is vastly more powerful than what you think. Obama could have pulled an FDR, or a Trump, and shifted the party very hard, but didn't. It's quite simple: you go to your opponent, you tell him that if he doesn't follow the whip you will use your vast reach to get him primaried, threaten to modify the rules of the DNC, hell, drum up support for a general strike. Threaten to slash the military budget, threaten to cancel a defence program, or to stop shale oil subsidies, play politics. But for some reason, from FDR onwards, no one plays politics except to concede towards the right. Literally no one in power. The platform of the Democratic Party has become "Let's be Republican-lite in order to win those elusive moderate independent" that for some reason seem to shift more and more towards the right for every single election cycle for the last 40 years, almost as if they were illusory or weren't as ideologically unmovable as asserted.
And it's total bullshit that the Democratic Party wouldn't consider a public option. The Republican Party was considering a public option.
You're saying that even with a Senate majority, Obama couldn't get his own party to consider public option, while also arguing that through candidates that are "far to the left" of Obama (except Bernie Sanders apparently), we can achieve the kind of structural economic change that people who support Bernie Sanders want. Seems a bit contradictory to me.
Did Trump have to compromise with the left wing of the Republican Party? Did Biden have to compromise with the left wing of the Democratic Party? No, because of the implicit threat of being primaried, or for the party to be shifted. Which Obama did not even threaten, but all others presidents did (towards the right).
He also openly compomised in the name of "bipartisanship" multiple times despite it being uneeded.
The only thing that comes close to a left wing part of the Republican Party is Sue Collins, who is always very sorry and disappointed but eventually toes the party line.
Compared to Trump, roughly half of the Republican party is to his left by varying magnitudes. Obamacare, for example, was originally a Republican proposal.
But yes, the entire Republican party line eventually toes the party line. Same for the Democratic party, as long as the party line strengthens the class interests of the elite.
I didn't believe even Sanders would do that. That's why I supported Gabbard. She wasn't as strong on the economics, but I actually believed she would try to rein in the military-industrial complex, which is an indisputable blight upon humanity and which Sanders never discusses.
If anything, Bernie Sanders was our first, worst shot at structural economic change. In fact, every candidate on stage during those Democratic debates was running far, far to the economic left of Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore or either Clinton. With some historical perspective, you might see that the tides have turned in favor of the types of changes you are calling for, not against as so many people seem to pretend.