Only way Biden is going to win is by going on the offensive and I just don’t see it. Trump’s tax returns, cover ups, rape, ineptitude: the whole nine yards. This can’t be won by simply standing his ground. He has to launch a major offensive. It has to be sustained and devastating, similar to what Trump did to Obama and is still doing every chance he gets. Obama is Trump’s favorite punching bag. The offensive doesn’t have to be executed like Trump does, as in a bunch of playground stuff. But it does need to be forceful and sustained. While also making his own case to be prez. Good luck. Jill would be better at it than Joe.
I agree that identity politics alone is a shit reason to vote for any particular candidate. But, I’m talking to men these days who just don’t get that if Warren were a man, she’d likely be in the lead right now, and how that right there is symptomatic of a deep and disabling sexism in the U.S.
Being upset and angry that she did so poorly, despite being clearly the smartest person in the debates and having the widest-appeal mix of progressive and centrist policies, does not mean that one is solely, narrowly, stupidly focused on “identity politics.” And being accused of that is fucking insulting.
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I think its worth pointing out the Russian psyops from 2016 included Bernie Bro memes and rhetoric. It’s only logical to assume more of that content is being deployed for 2020. And media coverage is obviously trying to drive a wedge between progressives.
Has anyone seen video of actual people in 2020 talking this kind of trash? A few Google searches turned up mostly right wing news sources or Facebook “gotcha” pieces drawing from 2016.
My point is progressives have a lot to lose by letting the media make this “The Issue” for the movement. We have live coverage of Bernie and his staffers pushing back on these toxic ideologies.
What are some other steps they could be taking?
Polling doesn’t bear that out, AFAIK. You may certainly feel that Biden’s going to lose to Trump, but it’s extremely annoying to see all these Sanders fans who take it as an axiomatic truth that Bernie is going to crush Trump, and every other candidate will lose horribly.
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“Going on the offensive” was practically the definition of Biden pre-Obama. He’s been really muzzled this campaign compared to, say, 1988.
Whether he or his campaign people decide to let Joe be Joe in the general is still a question.
Check my predictions upthread.
In my opinion, any of the establishment candidates are certain to be clobbered. Bernie might have a slim chance, but it’s still an extreme longshot.
The GOP are going to rig the crap out of the redstate elections. Fascists are counting the votes.
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American universities are full of smart, articulate women like Warren, faculty who bust their asses for their departments, produce first-rate research, and go the extra mile for their students…who then give them crappy teaching evaluations. We kind of suck.
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He will have to. Trump has already said he is going all in on the Burisma/Hunter fake, and I am certain the ReThugs in the senate will back his play. If Biden sits in a defensive crouch for even a minute he will get crushed.
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Dear NYT: Stories about how the Reds wanted to turn Bernie back when I owned a white denim jacket DO NOT MEAN A FUCKING THING IN 2020
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Absolutely right. The only people that it is legitimate to attack for things they said or did when they were much younger, or prior to a substantial change in their political or life trajectory, are Warren, Harris, Buttigieg, and Biden.
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in the context of a larger piece about russian attempts to undermine american elections or politics in general - then it would make sense to look at this.
putting the focus on sanders, when nothing in his political history shows a pro-soviet, pro-russian agenda is straight up red scare don’t vote for this man.
and especially so when trump has provable ties, both through his properties and through his presidency - and when the intelligence community is still reporting that the russians would prefer a trump presidency
it leads people to the false impression of “both side ism” and seems to deliberately put the thumb on the scale for biden
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I agree, but there are things that each of those candidates were attacked for by some Sanders supporters that have exactly the same amount of weight as the Russia-Sanders connection - which is to say, none.
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(Don’t worry, the author acknowledges that, no, Biden is not Brezhnev)
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You first, Uncle Joe
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