More importantly the presidency is not the only !@#%^&*&^%$#@#% position up for election! Does nobody remember the good old Obama/Biden years when Mitch McConnell was the most powerful man in the world? There is no excuse for not going to the polls. If checking one extra box is a bridge to far, then I guess whatever, skip that one.
I’m going to go one step further: focus on voting for and supporting Democratic congressional candidates everywhere, even if you know that they will not win your district or state. Why?
Your vote is counted. Not once, not twice, but by every election committee, polling and lobbying firm in the country. Every individual vote is combed over for movement, demographics and likelihood, and that pushes policy, conversation and media narrative nationally.
You really never know. I can’t tell you how many times that Howard Dean’s every state strategy paid off in the weirdest ways when sure thing Republican candidates suddenly imploded.
Every vote and every dollar puts pressure on the Republicans and fascist media machine to invest in fighting it: investments that then have to be pulled from elsewhere.
Exactly. When fire departments around the U.S. became publicly funded professionals rather than the literal gangs that were funded by private insurance companies, nobody outlawed or banned private fire departments. Some organizations and individuals still have their own fire departments, just as some fantastically wealthy folks in the U.K. employ their own private doctors, but mostly they went away due to the lack of need.
How would a Warren VP give the senate to the Republicans? There’s no way we in MA would elect a Republican to replace her*. The worst we’d get would be a temporary Republican appointee from Baker until a special election, and depending on when Warren announced her resignation from the senate that could last no time at all.
Edit: Yes, I remember Scott Brown (unfortunately). 2020 is not 2010. Ed Markey is running for reelection this year and he has no serious Republican opposition; he’s being primaried by a young Kennedy who was a Warren protegé, and my guess is he would run for Warren’s seat and we’d get two good progressives running together instead of against each other. Martha Coakley is not going to be involved this time, and COVID conspiracy theorist Shiva is the best Republicans can offer.
A reminder: for over 20 years Republican activists have been shrieking about RINOs and whatever else the called “cuckservatives” before they came up with that title. They hated Bush and McCain and Boener and Mittens, etc. etc. with the mad passion of 1000 suns. But when it came time to vote, they all turned out and voted.
And now they have the candidate and party of their dreams.
Food for thought.
(And I only hate Biden with the passion of about 10-15 suns.)
Please stay in this fight with me. Let us go forward together. The struggle continues.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
Good humans like Bernie are all around us, we are in deep grief morning for what could have been, but the fight is still relevant to the cause, and I will fight on, knock me down, I will stand up again, and again.
Who would vote to set committees for the next session and then have incumbency. Obviously you guys aren’t opposed to voting for Republicans for the Senate. All Baker would have to do is find some underwear model willing to make vague noises about centrism.
And who, even amongst Democrats, would replace her in the Senate?
If the people of MA would never elect a Republican that how did Baker get the job?
Even a “temporary” appointee would solidify GOP control of the Senate at a time when the Senate is basically an extension of Trump’s mad quest for power.
If she announced her resignation from the senate in June the special election would have to be held within five months — i.e., before the November election. Right now Joe Kennedy is running against Markey in the September primary; they’re both progressive candidates so I’d be happy to see Kennedy run for Liz’s seat instead. There’s a slight chance we’d pull another Scott Brown, but this isn’t 2010; MA is very blue right now. And the VP is likely to be the presumptive Dem nominee in 2024.
Now it’s up to the Democrats in general to earn my vote. Will Biden put his time and effort toward truly bridging the gap between the (neo)liberals and progressives with new policy platforms? Will he or the Democrats address the accusations of Tara Reid in any serious manner? I’d personally like for Biden to step down due to the accusations and let someone else more qualified take the reins and become the official candidate. But we all know the DNC won’t do that.
Yeah, honestly, the Democrats are going to have to move mountains and come to terms with how shittily they’ve been governing, with the Clinton administration marking the most significant start of their decline into neoliberalism. Otherwise, I’m going to be looking for whatever down-ballot progressives I can vote for this fall, and ignore the Presidential election entirely. The people continuing to ask others to “Vote Blue No Matter Who” are off their fucking rocker.
2010 is not 2020. If you’re worried about us electing a Republican then you should be more worried about Markey’s reelection (you shouldn’t be). And Warren could set the timing of her announcement so a Baker appointee would not be in power in 2021.
We had the tea party - that didn’t work and we got Sarah Palin. Everyone made fun of that…
That lead to Trump - worse than all the above by a factor of 10. Without change - especially to the entire system and foundation of the gov’t to prevent this kind of shit in the future - the next lob up will be worse - and the fanatics will be even more doubled down.
Of course History in other countries show this also - The French Revolution didn’t exactly result in better times - I guess eventually, but it was a shit show to get there.
Look at other populist uprisings - the worst populist of course is easy to point at Hitler - but it always gets worse until things break - if change doesn’t happen.
Voting for the ‘status quo’ and a ‘return to civility’ is as idiotic as thinking ‘make America great again’ - just a longing for nostalgia that won’t help or fix the country.
(waves from MD) In a normal year we would’ve voted at the end of this month, but it’s been pushed back to June this year. But even if they hadn’t (and assuming the rest of current events stayed the same) we’d still have only Biden remaining. The ballots had already been set, though, and will presumably remain unchanged for the primary. (EDIT: Yep, as of yesterday, Bill Weld and Bloomberg, et al are both still on the ballot.) I intend to vote how I would’ve anyway. (What I didn’t remember, is that we vote for both a candidate and for delegates – which, I guess, means one could vote for Warren and then (for whatever reason) split the delegate votes among Warren’s, Sanders’ delegates.)
That’s in addition to the fact that, in my county, the primary is the election, where local offices are concerned.
2020 is not 2010. Markey is running for reelection this year and there’s no serious Republican opposition. If Liz retires we would most likely get a popular, progressive Kennedy who she’s been grooming for years running for her seat.
(waves from MD) In a normal year we would’ve voted at the end of this month, but it’s been pushed back to June this year. But even if they hadn’t (and assuming the rest of current events stayed the same) we’d still have only Biden remaining. The ballots had already been set, though, and will presumably remain unchanged for the primary. (EDIT: Yep, 