You did that in your own post. You just assumed that they all just watch Fox news and jump at the word ‘socialism’. Then you say they’d have voted for Bernie if given the chance. Then why would they not vote for Warren?
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That’s a fair point–not everyone who voted for Trump (and that subset of folks who were Sanders supporters who voted for Trump) is an idiot. Some of them are very intelligent people who are also racist and/or hate Democrats with every fiber of their being and would do anything to spite them.
I’m being a little hyperbolic and silly, of course. But only a little. You’re right, of course, that votes are votes. But I think there are more votes to be had in inspiring progressives to come out and vote for good policy than there are in trying to win over/back people who voluntarily put this administration in office.
I also don’t know how much I buy it when anyone claims to have fallen for Trump’s act or been otherwise fooled. He didn’t fool anyone, he gave them exactly what they wanted. I think we ignore that at our peril.
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So the great BoingBoing is officially endorsing Elizabeth Warren? I hope so.
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But declared eunuchs must undergo, “The Test”
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Not that I want to keep arguing this, but no, I didn’t. From the get-go I was addressing people “who maybe don’t realize they actually agree with her.” Perhaps that’s too vague, but I meant folks who are really kind of apolitical but fall for easy answers when presented in a way that’s appealing. I was thinking of my dad, who was not alive for this last election, but I suspect might’ve gone for Trump’s jargon-- he was a registered Democrat all his life, but slowly got sucked into Fox News, in the same way he would get suckered by infomercials for crappy tools: a good sales pitch.
That’s all I’m saying. If Warren can present herself and her ideas better than Fox News can shit on her then it’s a win-win.
The Know-Nothing 27% won’t vote for her. If she (or any other nominee) is smart she’ll immediately write them off and focus on peeling off a fair number of conservatives and independents from the other 23% on the right. Combined with a strong youth-oriented GOTV campaign to kick out Dolt-45, and absent the usual incompetence from the DNC establishment she could make her margin on the popular vote. As long as she learned the lesson of Clinton’s 2016 screw-up in terms of the Electoral College she has a shot despite the folks on the right and movement conservatism’s Mighty Wurlitzer.
If this is the last chance for liberal democracy in America then I’d rather it be this way, win or lose. The time for smug and complacent Dem establishment campaigns banking on big-money donors, on Third-Way triangulation, and on rock-star charisma that’s far more the exception than the rule was over before 2016.
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Warren’s grasp on the details of policy make her an excellent senator. I also think she would be an excellent president, though sometimes being good with details can get in your way at that level: Carter was famous for it, and it might have contributed to his second term loss. Americans also historically don’t warm up to intellectual candidates, though there are notable exceptions (Obama of course was one). Warren reminds me a little of Adlai Stevenson II, the best president we never had.
Wonkiness is less important in a president, as long as your vision points you in the right direction and you surround yourself with the right people. JFK was a great example here: no intellectual himself, he surrounded himself with the best minds in the country (though they still got us mired in Vietnam).
If Warren gets the nomination the campaign will be painful, with relentless snidery from the other side. While that’s true for any of the candidates, the type of attack we’ve already seen on her you-know-what gaffe (and not just from the other side) is at a higher level, and pretty painful to watch. So far she doesn’t seem to be so great at snappy retorts, Obama’s superpower which probably gave him the 2008 election. That can be fixed with a good campaign staff and a careful choice of VP, probably more important choices for her than for any candidate since Nixon chose Ford.
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And the wings behind her head! Ideas just taking flight as she speaks!
Not sure she needs to really. Trump sure didn’t bother trying to figure out how to appeal to folks on the left. She just needs to rally the left and win over a decent chunk of the middle.
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The second half of that sentence is exactly what I’m driving at: there are people who I know, who self-identify as conservatives, who would be receptive to a lot of what she says (example: even Tucker Carlson has sometimes agreed with her.)
The sad thing about every American election is that 1.) so few people vote, and 2.) how partisan it is – Trump won primaries with only 30% of the GOP vote, and then all those “never Trump” people voted for him anyway in the general election. Can she peel some of them away from Trump, particularly if the right-wing echo chamber paints her as “dangerous for America”? (I can’t see how anyone could honestly see her as more dangerous than a guy who professes his love for Putin and Kim Jong-un, but I also can’t underestimate the stupidity of the American voter.)
Yes. She seems to shine in certain situations, but then seem awkward in others. I guess that’s true of anyone. I hate to stoop down to Trump’s level, but if he’s going to keep calling her “Pocahontas” then she should start calling him “Donny Diaper Rash”-- that would really get under his skin. Imagine dropping that on him during a live debate, he’d lose it.
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