Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/17/biden-projected-to-win-arizona.html
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“So let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Sen. Sanders, I hear you. I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do.”
Try fucking Medicare for All you Son of a bitch.
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DNC doesn’t get that. The messaging from the leadership and CNN/MSNBC is that we support Joe Biden, we will ask all to follow our lead. Because it worked so well in 2016. For them even Trump is better than Bernie Sanders, because it’s business as usual… you know… because socialism…
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Because of… what, low turnout? Arizona’s been voting by mail for weeks now. The number of EARLY votes this year exceeded the number of TOTAL votes from 2016.
Or, what, do you think the at-risk seniors who stayed home because of pandemic would have turned the tide for Bernie and overcome a 12-point deficit?
Please, paint a picture for us of how the primary should have been run, and how the results would be substantially better for Bernie if it’d been run that way.
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When it’s the election judges, yes.
Voter suppression isn’t okay just because it’s unintentional.
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I repeat, please tell us how the primary should have been run. It appears unlikely that there will be any safe time to do in-person voting before the convention. All the states that voted today had early voting by mail, so everyone had the opportunity to cast votes even if they didn’t want to go out in person, and record numbers chose to do so.
There’s no doubt that the situation sucks. But what’s the alternative? Cancel in-person voting entirely and extend the vote-by-mail period? It seems, um, unlikely that making people entirely unable to go to the polls would increase confidence in the democratic process.
Incidentally, the polling place where that photo was taken? It opened for voting an hour later.
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The latter definitely. The former would probably be prudent under these extraordinary circumstances, though I too am uncomfortable with it.
The point is to make sure everyone has an opportunity to vote in the primaries. Extending the vote-by-mail date is a good idea irrespective of whether or not you personally believe it would benefit Biden or Sanders. Instead the DNC is perpetrating this travesty…
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Our democracy really sucks sometimes.
No, it isn’t. Rob is posting provocative headlines, and this underlines the danger in doing that. But as I pointed out in that thread, the memo from the DNC just points out that there are deadlines in the nomination rules, indicates that those rules impose penalties for violating them, notes that the penalties are subject to review, and–the important part–tells local parties to prioritize people’s health and welfare.
The DNC is in an extremely difficult situation, like the rest of the country, and it is made more difficult by the fact that there are constitutional deadlines at play here. Making sure everybody who wants to vote has an opportunity is important, but so is settling on nominees for the races that will, y’know, determine whether the Constitutional Crisis in Chief starts a second term ten months from now, and whether Moscow Mitch keeps his stranglehold on the Senate.
The false narrative that the DNC is somehow pulling strings to manipulate the results of the primaries (1) will not help Bernie secure the nomination, but (2) will absolutely help Trump. Further it at our collective peril.
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I’m not unsympathetic to that. But the stakes are far to high to fail.
Extending the vote-by-mail deadline two weeks won’t throw the general election, and if someone argues it will then I seriously wonder about their real motives.
If you want to read that into my agreeing that the DNC should extend the vote-by-mail deadline a couple of weeks without taking away delegates, frankly I can’t help you because that’s not what I said. If you want to dismiss my concerns by pretending I did, I’m going to trust people to see through that.
As for what I actually do think of the DNC’s actions, they either extend the deadline or they don’t. Talk is cheap. Like most of us a lot of them are probably working from home. I’m sure they have time for a conference call. I choose to judge them on their substantive actions, not what they say they may or may not do upon review.
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If you do not vote for Biden this time around (especially in a swing state) you are nuts.
If you believe that Biden will fix anything of substance in the long term, you are nuts.
That’s about the best we got at this point. Clinton’s loss effectively proved nothing to the voters about the mismanagement of the Democratic Party under the Obama administration. They’re about to hand the keys over to a participant in the decline.
The Democrats are still more influenceable than the right wing fascists that have taken over. It’s not saying much, but for anybody that leans left it should be a consideration.
It is what it is. Get your protest gear ready, because whether Trump or Biden wins, the only thing that’s going to make a difference at this point is sustained protest against the system.
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Isn’t within the DNC’s power. Most primaries are controlled by and run through state election boards as a matter of state law. There’s the caucuses, and a handful of party run primaries. But most of those are behind us.
And most states don’t have vote by mail, except as absentee ballots.
You need states to take this up individually. They’re gonna have to pass laws, or change regulations.
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While I hope Sanders stays in the race in order to prove the power of progressives and keep pushing Biden to the left, I’m under no illusions that Uncle Joe won’t shift back to the neoliberal-lite DNC default the day after the general election, win or lose. If he wins, we’ll just see a Dem president trying to fit the square peg of 1992 policy into the round hole of post-2020 realities.
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I’m really curious what Sanders does at this point. Since campaigning is at a virtual standstill, it probably doesn’t hurt anything to remain in the race for a while longer, but I’m not sure what kind of fundraising is going on now to even make that limited role possible. I guess he remains on the ballot and “campaigns” in spirit?
And, I get the Biden dislike, believe me, but at least he’s making some noises about adopting some of the better platforms from Warren, et al. That’s at least…something?
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what the hell are you talking about!? The reason why Trump is taking this country apart, piece by piece, is because of the butt hurt people who didn’t bother go out and vote for Hillary. I am NOT a fan of hers, but I always knew what the stakes were. I like Bernie and am a communist myself (not a socialist - a communist), but I also know what is on the other side for the next four years if people don’t go out and vote. No one has EVER said in 2016 that Trump would be better than Bernie. Just no…
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You truly believe that there is no difference between Trump and Biden? Like, deep down, using all of your intellectual prowess, you believe that there is no difference between them?
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Easy, the best primary is one that never happened to begin with. The current one is set up like a perpetual motion machine generating advertising profits. How about a democratic election? Give me all the candidates, without their parties, and I will judge them all and vote for one, once. a democratic election is always better for a candidate who has a substantive message. People vote for biden because they are scared of trump, not because they love biden. The man has no substance. He waffles on votes, just like he’ll waffle in the white house if elected.
Fuck primaries. Fuck parties. Fuck RNC. Fuck DNC. Fuck delegates AND superdelegates. All y’all on Boing boing are cool. Peace I’m out.
p.s. AOC would be bernie’s running mate.
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I don’t think that’s what @generalcommrade is saying at all. I think s/he, rather, is saying that whichever of them wins, the only thing that will truly further progressive policy goals is sustained protest (because while Biden is sane and the obvious only choice if he’s up against Trump, he is not as far left as Bernie).
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AOC is constitutionally ineligible to become President before October 13, 2024, so no, she wouldn’t.
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