“Cold oatmeal” is a good analogy for Biden. He’s the bland mediocre option for people too worried that spicy jalapeno Sanders will be too hot and will Bern their tongues.
We’re at a point where progressives need to take risks or this country is going to continue it’s slide into right-wing extremism and authoritarianism, and all the Dem establishment can do is constantly rally behind the “safe” choice. The “middle ground” candidate. And all the while Repugs are pushing more extreme (and therefore exciting) options, and the Dems wonder why they keep getting their asses handed to them.
Not for Trumpian America. He and his minions are rubbing their tiny hands with proverbial glee. Destroying Biden is going to be so much easier than it would’ve been with Sanders.
Or… someone just did the math in how many would have to be running to divide the vote to paint a storyline. i.e. divide the vote so sanders win originally, have the moderates drop out and circle around Biden, finally have the last progressive drop out and not endorse anyone, boom storyline created in how we got to this point. i.e. it looks like Biden is winning, then Kamala, then Warren, then Bernie, O wow we’re back to Biden again how convenient.
I suspect for most it’s not excitement, so much as fear of Trump, and going for what seems like the safest bet to beat Trump. That on top of some lingering Obama aura. I’ve never met anyone who’s fired up or whatever for doddering, out of touch Uncle Joe on his own merits.
That’s my response tonight. I’ll vote for Uncle Joe if, as it seems to be trending, he’s the nominee. He clears the ultra-low bar of being better than Biff (and clears the slightly higher bar of being a better candidate than Hillary Clinton).
However, I also have: high confidence that this career gaffe machine will screw up during the general election; little confidence in his ability to GOTV with enough young voters to beat Il Douche; and no confidence that, if elected, he’ll be more inclined to address the problems facing the under-45 demographic than he will be to try to re-instate the economically and environmentally unsustainable past.
I’m too old to feign enthusiasm for him as a candidate, and (as far as his policies are concerned) I can’t pretend that the DNC establishment’s neoliberal-lite business as usual is as suited to the circumstances of the 2020s as it was to those of the 1990s.
Bush / Cheney were much worse for the country than Trump.
Trump is personally more of an a-hole, but Bush / Cheney miles worse in what they did.
Dead Americans and Dead Iraqi civilians due to a lie
Torture, Abu Ghraib, top officials like Rumsfeld micromanaging torture guidelines
Outsourcing energy policy to Exxon and others
Weaponized the no-fly list against political adversaries
Allied with charlatans and gangsters like Rove and DeLay to try to bring about a 'permanent Republican majority". When Texas state legislators tried to skip the state to avoid being dragged in to vote, DeLay got Homeland Security involved.
Etc.
Many factors involved in the voting, and there is no data to indicate that the results indicate a mandate for centrism. And in any event Biden is right of center on many issues.
Especially complicated is that with Trump - Biden, Trump will run to the left of Biden on some issues (trade, war, criminal justice reform) and will continue being able to position himself as outsider populist. He’s already started.
There has indeed been a major effort to whitewash the Bush years and Bush personally.
Bush also stacked the courts. Jury still out (pun intended) on Roberts / Alito vs Gorsuch / Kavanaugh
Bush pulled out of Kyoto, appointed foxes to guard our environmental henhouse across the board
Worse than Trump at tearing up the division of branches of government. For example: Bush ordered his former White House counsel, Harriet Miers, to defy a congressional subpoena and refuse to testify Thursday before a House panel investigating U.S. attorney firings. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19704513/ns/politics/t/bush-orders-miers-defy-house-subpoena/
Even regarding 911, Bush refused to testify under oath and demanded to testify jointly with Cheney.
Once again, nobody is arguing that W was a fucking terrible war criminal economy destroying president that did terrible things for the country and set us back in a major way.
There was a comment made about how Kerry failed to excite the voters and they stayed home. From a strictly 2004 perspective without the benefit of hindsight, (as in “Michael Moore gets booed off the stage of the Oscars for speaking out against the war” lack of hindsight) — the stakes are so much higher now then they were then.
And this is the last time I’m going to try to make this point.
Bush expanded presidential powers more than Trump. And as Cheney was more aggressive and powerful than Pence, with Bush / Cheney we got a promotion 'buy one despot get one free".
Regarding truth, here was a Bush official explaining their framework, while mocking the impotence of anyone outside their regime:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’”
