I dunno. I’ve seen small footed clowns and large footed senators.
2 Likes
That take is so fresh and new it can remember voting for James G. Blaine
Quality history nerd slam.
6 Likes
She’s like a talented cold-reading “psychic” that someone goes to when they’re feeling the first symptoms of what they don’t know is cancer. She’s seen enough of other people with symptoms to know what’s going on with rough accuracy, but instead of saying “you need to see a trained and experienced physician ASAP” she just tells the person to keep coming to her for more readings to cure this mysterious malaise.
If she and most of the other bums-of-the-month and one-hit-wonders aren’t washed out of the race by year’s end we’re truly in trouble. The only candidates who should be in the race by that time, whatever we think of them, should be (in alphabetical order) Biden, Harris, Sanders, and Warren. The others are already wasting everyone’s time and resources in a battle against a determined enemy who wants to destroy the institutions of liberal democracy.
8 Likes
Excuse me, ded inside.
8 Likes
Thanks, I was already pretty depressed but this is the dog-shit icing on my cow-manure cake.
Time to chow down.
1 Like
This gif should be in the Unicorn Chaser thread!
3 Likes
Dems (at least, and not just those in the extreme left) believe we are undergoing that unfortunate state now and because of Trump… and would be to a much greater degree if he is re-elected. To the point, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of ‘I’m/they/we being fucked’ to get the vote out and in spite of what might happen under any Dem prez. When an anchor is tied to your leg and is pulling you down into the depths, you’d welcome the shark that tears into the rope. 2020 is seen now as a matter of survival.
1 Like
-
it’s sadly going to be grandpa Biden because minority voters have all the power, which is fine but they are choosing badly IMHO, we are basically going to find out what it’s like to have a president either pass-away (naturally) or go senile in office, Regan was pretty bad at the end but Biden will be worse and the cover-up will be worse
-
if we are going to be a country with only two viable parties because of the sheer money required to have a candidacy, then we have to let anyone and everyone who wants to run get into the primary but the parties have to set some exponentially growing standards to meet every quarter - you can’t allow candidates to continue with almost no staff, no presence in every single state and single digits across all the polls, they are wasting everyone’s time six months in
1 Like
Straw poll. Don’t read too much into it other than it is one data point on a long road of data points.
5 Likes
Democratic voters kinda suck too.
There’s several excellent candidates here to consider- any of whom would be light years better for the world than Donnie. And some of whom would be objectively good.
But we’ll whine and moan that they all suck for some reason. We’d fuck up a one car funeral procession. We’d fuck up a wet dream.
Hey Russia- back off - we’ll suppress our own damn vote.
11 Likes
I really don’t. Neither do you.
Barack Obama was an inexperienced, untested junior Senator from Illinois - until he was President.
Bill Clinton had more experience, but was an unknown outside of Arkansas - until he was President.
I’m usually a fan of Taibbi, but more in his expose work, not his political analysis. This write-up is cynical and ultimately meaningless. The only take-away I got from it was that the field needs to be narrowed down. Thanks, Captain Obvious.
11 Likes
I kind of think Cory Booker should be included, for now.
1 Like
ALSO, because hackery is as hackery does and I can’t let this go unsaid, what does it mean that Taibbi thinks it’s “glue-factory time” for a party that won the popular vote by millions in 2016? And that got more votes—way more votes—in the House and Senate in 2018?
I’m not turning a blind eye to the structural inequalities in the Electoral College and the Senate. I’m not saying Trump isn’t president and McConnell isn’t Majority Leader. I’m not saying the nominee shouldn’t have an electoral plan.
But I am saying that any pundit glossing over the fact that Democratic policies are more popular so that they can shake their fists at Democratic presidential candidates and shout “Just win, dammit!” is basically saying this: “You need to run so far to the right that it would make Joe Lieberman blush. You need to cash in the soul of the party and use the proceeds to buy every suburban Pittsburgh soccer mom a private school voucher. If 50%+1 of Ohio’s voters want you to sell Puerto Rico to Russia, then do svedanja, amigos. You need to win exactly the way Trump won, and if an agent of some shadowy foreign power starts hinting that he’d like to ‘discuss adoption’ with your campaign manager, then by God you take that meeting.”
Now, there are plenty of hacks saying exactly that. And if this were one of those times where moral cowardice seemed like a winning strategy, I wouldn’t be too hard on them. But Hunter Ess Fucking Thompson this ain’t.
5 Likes
Ultimately he’s talking about the party’s leadership and governance (rather than the candidates or their policies or adherence to basic ethics) being the source of the problems. Being one of the duopoly parties masks the fact that the Dem establishment is severely dysfunctional, cowardly, sclerotic, wishy-washy about core values, complacent, constantly behind the times, and tone-deaf to the needs of those it should be serving (in its case, non-millionaire humans). The debates and the primary circus and the personality-cult campaign tactics that Taibbi describes are predictable outcomes of that situation, as is a played-out relic like Biden as the party establishment’s putative “winner” in 2020.
In contrast, the GOP leadership has an apparatus that is constantly being refined (mostly to cheat, since that’s the only way they can win in more and more places), is ruthless (well beyond the usual limits of playing dirty), fosters new young talent (all those bitter HS debate club nerds), is clear about its awful core values (shameless, really), fights every race as if it’s a close one, tries to keep up with the times (if only to come up with denialist talking points), and very attentive to the needs of those it serves (ultra-wealthy people and slow AIs).
I don’t know if there’s any way to solve this problem for the Dems other than time and demographic change. At least in 2020 the party chair won’t be a shill for the payday loan and private prison industries who tries blatantly to favour one primary candidate, as was the case in 2016.
3 Likes
He’s consistently polling under 4%, behind a lot of the other dwarves you imply you’d exclude. He’s also not doing a lot in terms of shifting the discourse either way or offering anything truly innovative (or at least off-the-wall). The most productive thing he can do right now is have the courage to endorse one of the four I mentioned, negotiate his cabinet position, and get out of the bloody way; the same goes for the rest of the also-rans.
2 Likes
And he picked Joe Biden to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Twice. Was his judgment that bad?
I’ll refer you to the previous poster who pointed out that Uncle Joe was Obama’s mechanism for reassuring old people who get nervous when they hear rap music.
4 Likes
Biden had one job. To soothe the jittery nerves of right-leaning Dems who weren’t sure of this black guy running for president. Odds of Biden actually having to step into the role were small, despite Biden’s opinion that as VP he was in charge.
3 Likes
I’m especially pissed that among so many other drawbacks, Biden’s wandering hands and otherwise creepily salacious treatment of women is getting so little attention. 
6 Likes
It’s getting a lot more attention now than it did in 2008 and 2012.
