Close; an agenda has Trump.
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That train is never late.
I’m a Black woman who isn’t at all thrilled with the Dem noms, but I’m not about to let “passable” be the enemy of good.
45 has to go, and then we hold the feet of everyone who comes afterwards to the fire to fix this fucked up excuse we have for a society.
Getting the Orange Fucker OUT is only the tip of the iceberg of work that needs to be done.
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I think a lot of them have gotten wise; more often than not they don’t include a business reply envelope anymore. It’s tapered off lately, but I’d frequently get poorly-targeted junk mail from groups to whom I’d never, ever consider donating my money. I used to just write “REMOVE” on whatever paperwork they sent that had my name and address on it, but now, sometimes there’s a toll-free number and I’ll just tell them to knock it off – that’s on their dime, in any case.
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Maybe it’s time to trot this one back out:
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In case anyone is unclear who the “Harris is a cop!” narrative serves, here are the guys selling the T-shirt:
Meanwhile, Joan Walsh at The Nation ponders whether Harris was “the most progressive woman on Biden’s so-called short list”. (tl;dr no, but it was “somewhat unfair” for her to be "tarred early in her presidential run as a ‘cop’ ")
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I get ya, and I sang the same song in 2016 over Clinton. This is survival though. As a lame duck, with no fear of the congress OR voters, imagine what he will do. Betsy and his other cronies are in key positions. The damage he could do is unthinkable.
This is the phase of his usual grifting process where the investors are in, everything is sealed. Now he can raid with impunity, pardon everyone under the sun, and get out. He can’t be allowed to do that.
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I feel I have to get this off of my chest: the one thing that really bugs me is that people talk about Senator Harris’ record as a prosecutor as if that is something set in stone, as if what she enforced back then was something she still wholeheartedly believes in.
And I just don’t buy it.
The biggest reason is that people change, evolve. Some grow calcified and entrenched in their positions, but others accept new ideas, and are willing to abandon past positions. It is one of the things I actually admire about Joe Biden, how he has changed his stances over time. Heck, one of the founding legends of Christianity was Saul becoming Paul!
Not really directed at you, Mike, but you reminded me of how hard some people have become in accepting that people change.
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That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it.
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Talking is fine, I just see too many people breaking out the pitchforks and torches over it. Or even grousing as if this were some grudge that can never be forgiven.
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Really, I’m a lot less concerned about the ticket alienating a small group of white brocialists who pout when they don’t get their way than I am about the much larger number of young people and PoC who (once again) won’t come to the polls because the Dems are (once again) offering an uninspiring, business-as-usual Third Way ticket.
It’s a lost opportunity, I wish it had been Sanders or Warren or Abrams or Duckworth somewhere on the ticket, but the choices have been made and we can’t change them now. All I can do is hold my nose when I fill out my ballot and hope for the best.
What I won’t be doing is getting into protracted debates with other privileged white men (American or otherwise) who are either falsely trying to portray Biden-Harris as the devil incarnate or who are disingenuously cheerleading them as forward-looking progressives – the most I’ll do is call BS on their positions and move on.
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If we’re not vigilant about this stuff, I’m not sure how we’re supposed to expect real change?
I think we should be honest about the shortcomings of this ticket, and vocal about putting pressure on them to make good on the promise to be a big tent party and to incorporate progressive policies into the platform.
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I agree, and they have been pushed a bit leftward. I don’t expect much change or follow-through on core progressive policies (esp. economic and military and policing) if they win, but like you I think we have to keep talking openly about their flaws and pushing the Dems away from their unsustainable neoliberal-lite and zentrum policies despite that.
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There is a tonal difference between saying “well, she once kicked a puppy in high school, so I am wary about her commitment to animal rights” (which you are trying to say) and the way some are saying “she kicked a puppy, that means she’s a cruel meanie who cannot be trusted with animal rights!”
It’s the latter I especially distrust, and suspect that it will be used by ratfuckers to demotivate. Their candidate is a toxic piece of shit, so they will be working overtime to bust out the whataboutism.
And yeah, honesty is good, it steels us, gets us ready, and helps us figure out how where and how to apply pressure to get the change we need. Just don’t lose hope just because the progress isn’t as far as we had hoped at first.
After all, Barack and Joe were once against gay marriage, as I recall. Let’s build on that as a sign that people can change for the better.
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Right. We have to push on those issues. It’s a constant struggle.
They’d find something, because the reality is that it’s not her record they disapprove of, it’s the fact that she’s a Black woman, they just can’t admit to that (either to others or maybe even themselves) because they see themselves as progressives. Same thing with Clinton, there was a lot of unexamined misogyny that drove some of the criticism from the left (as much as from the right). But there are things to be critical about.
And it was mostly the courts who did all the heavy lifting there. 
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True. It’s a measure of the Dem establishment’s shameful appeals to “centrist” bigots that two of their most prominent politicians had to be pressured into publicly endorsing something as innocuous as same-sex marriage in the 21st century. Unfortunately, we’ll have to keep up the pressure for the next decade or so on similar issues.
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They keep trying to win back the white voters they lost in the culture wars since the Reagan era. It’s a foolish strategy.
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And how similar are they to Trump?
I see you’ve at least partially answered that question. Under Trump there would be no post pandemic. Even under Clinton, who I’m by no means a fan of, we would already be post pandemic by now.
Biden and Harris are establishment politicians who will gradually fuck us over. Trump is a dangerous, vindictive, narcissistic idiot the likes of which we’ve never seen. Your call.
I don’t know about you, but if I were trapped in a burning high rise, I would jump out the fucken window to near certain death rather than stay in the burning building and definitely die. If you want to stay in the burning building and accept your fate, I respect that. What I absolutely don’t respect is your need to spread gasoline all over the place.
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There is no candidate who isn’t flawed.
I’m also a Bernie supporter. I have voted for him in the 2016 and 2020 primaries, but I voted for Hillary in the 2016 general election and have long ago accepted that I will have to vote for Biden/Harris in 2020. I’m okay with this. Not thrilled, but okay with it.
There is no “you”, and if there were, they would never admit it, because they think their candidate is the best, just like how we think Bernie is. I’m still pissed off by the Hillary stans, but they will never apologize. Not should they. Even if they did, I can’t make them like their candidate less simply because I do.
In this election, there aren’t Biden stans really. Just a small minority who preferred him, and everyone else who kind of just accepts that he’s the nominee.
She got a lot of hate, rightly and wrongly. I attribute this to her policies, her reluctance to campaign, and Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Even though I’m not a fan of her politically, I can’t really hate her for her policies, I can only disagree. I can imagine people who do hate her for her policies, but that is not mostly what I saw. Those people mostly voted Stein, and it was Clinton’s insufficient campaigning that failed to win them over. The rest were Derangement Syndrome.
So you’re right, there really isn’t Biden Derangement Syndrome, but if you’re implying that Clinton deserved it, she didn’t. She could have campaigned harder, yes. I’m not sure how Biden will campaign, but hopefully he’ll learn from her mistakes.
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This absolutely. Are they progressive? Hell no. But if this administration gets in, we at least get a seat at the table. Biden has tacked left recently, and I think Harris is more liberal than she is usually given credit for, based on her Senate voting record. I would love a more progressive ticket, but if we are to get anywhere, we start here.
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