Maybe Biden should start getting behind Medicare for all and heal the clusterfuck that is US health care? Oh, I forgot, wealthy donors got in the way.
8 Likes
That seems like a winning strategy. Keep digging that hole - youāll find a way out.
16 Likes
The race is far from over; did anyone really expect Sanders to beat Biden in states like Mississippi and Missouri? Even Michigan: Sandersā victory there in 2016 was in part due to the fight between Michigan party and the national party.
Meanwhile, if Sanders was really the only hope for a NHS then we were doomed anyway, the President alone cannot make this happen. Whoever gets elected as President, Congress needs to be convinced that this is what the people want. Biden wonāt refuse to sign a M4A bill if it crosses his desk. The hard work was always yet to come.
8 Likes
There does seem to be a lot of entitled anger coming from Sanders fans. If black people arenāt voting for Bernie, it must be because they donāt know what they are doing; if Warren isnāt supporting Bernie, it must be because sheās not a real progressive. Itās always the fault of someone else, be it other candidates or the voters or the nebulous DNC evildoers.
8 Likes
There has always been a strain of this in the American left. Organizations in 60s were generally dominated by angry young white men, often from priveleged backgrounds, whose support for women and minorities wasā¦theoretical. For example, in 1970 Robin Morgan famously wrote an essay, Goodbye to All That, about the treatment of women in the Movement. Excerpts (but read the whole thing):
And thatās what I wanted to write aboutāthe friends, brothers, lovers in the counterfeit male-dominated Left. The good guys who think they know what Womenās Lib, as they so chummily call it, is all aboutāwho then proceed to degrade and destroy women by almost everything they say and do
Letās run it down. White males are most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today. Yet who is controlling the supposed revolution to change all that? White males (yes, yes, even with their pasty fingers back in black and brown pies again). It could just make one a bit uneasy.
Goodbye, goodbye. To hell with the simplistic notion that automatic freedom for womenāor nonwhite peoplesāwill come about zap! with the advent of a socialist revolution. Bullshit. Two evils pre-date capitalism and clearly have been able to survive and post-date socialism: sexism and racism.
7 Likes
Iām curious, can you expand a bit as to why Pete surging impacted your voting decision? It seems to me that that should be irrelevant when selecting your preferred candidate for the nomination, but perhaps you had some calculus in mind that Iām not considering. I do understand why many people voted for Biden over Sanders despite supporting the platform of Sanders, as there is some logic to the position that you donāt want to nominate someone you donāt think can win in the general (weāll leave aside the infuriating fact that that conclusion isnāt based on any actual evidence). But I donāt see the logic of supporting a surging candidate early on when there were many viable candidates in the race, and it sounds like you agreed more with Warren on policy.
4 Likes
Iām far from a Bernie or bust type, but I will need some convincing that Biden actually is leagues ahead of Trump. Iām going to have a very hard time getting over his enthusiastic support of the Iraq War, a blunder that cost the lives of between 100k and 1 million civilians and thousands of US soldiers. Trump has done a lot of heinous stuff that makes it impossible for me to vote for him, but he hasnāt caused anywhere near the amount of misery and suffering that Biden has. You could try to make the case that Trump is capable of worse, which maybe, but youāre asking people to accept a hypothetical that hasnāt manifested in 4 years over the concrete actions one man actually took.
The fact that Biden has the gall to lie to our faces about his Iraq record makes it that much of a harder pill to swallow. As I said, Iām not a fanatic, and I can be convinced, but there is going to have to be an argument put forth that there is actually some value in a Biden presidency beyond the restoration of decorum.
6 Likes
I wonder how this election is going to go down if there is a āno congregatingā rule brought in as a response to Corona-19. I presume that Trump will either declare a national emergency and stay in power, or else he will plough ahead regardless in the hope that his aging electoral base can be squeezed for their votes before the virus culls them.
2 Likes
And yet the same story, even when backed-up with evidence, has done nothing to harm Trump. 
1 Like
I agreeā¦ I think the best we can do is not feed into anything pushed by the GOP, even if we feel that it is true.
Okay, but how do you defend staying home or voting for a third party that you know isnāt going to win, both options helping the GOP to win again? Iām not arguing that Bidenās positions are better than Bernieās (I was a big Warren supporter), but how you defend not using your one vote to actually get Trump out of office?
3 Likes
I see no need to donate to Biden since it appears Bloomberg is more than willing to foot the bill. Oh well, hold the nose and check the box. I wonāt be going to any rally.
1 Like
Itās a sad state that so much emphasis is placed on the President in the US. There are hundreds of other politicians there, and every congressman should be challenged/primaried by a forward-looking progressive candidate. If the progressive wing is going to flex its muscle, that is where itās going to happen. Biden can only do so much in the face of a large and loud contingent in the House and Senate that will hold him accountable. They can force him to bend (and break) on a lot of issues, from healthcare to the environment.
People are burned time and again by placing too much faith/emphasis on one person. Actually, I think that is what has made the current administration so troubling - many Republicans have escaped scrutiny because Trump is such a lightning rod and people (falsely) believe that he is the one driving the agenda.
Thereās also something to be said for Biden maybe be able to shift. There is a huge focus on his record on race, war and abortion. There is no sugarcoating it - it has been bad. However, heās also the kind of person who is malleable. I canāt see him holding many of the same positions under the current political climate.
3 Likes
Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale.
The only three Democrats to win the White House since 1976 where telegenic politicians with charisma who ran as outsiders to the system. Obama at least pretended the grassroots was important.
Trump may be so bad that his foes will find a way to drag Joe across the finish line. With that accomplished, Americans can breathe a collective sigh of relief before we get back to work buying shit we donāt need, polluting the environment and obsessing about our own personal brand on instagram.
9 Likes
Well, this is a primary, and thus I assume its the parties that are responsible for finding locations, etc. rather than the government.
My funny story was of a Canadian Federal leadership convention in which the results for the media were stored in what we assume was a write-only FTP repository (we could write files to it, but we could not read the results files). So even in Canada party contests can have their problems.
1 Like
Iām inspired to post something at least not pessimistic. The numbers are such that Sanders is still not far behind. Biden will likely perform poorly in Sundayās debate. Iām not dreaming that his supporters will change their minds, but in numbers its still entirely possible for Sanders to win. Share this lucid account of Biden with those that would vote for him in the remaining primaries:
10 Likes
I will. Like I did for Gore. for Kerry. for HRC. I even voted for Dukakis in 4th grade classroom election.
But I fear moderates will just stay home. like they did all those times.
1 Like
The disastrous consequences of global warming will surpass the Iraq catastrophe in every respect including environmental destruction, species loss, wasted resources and human suffering.
However unpalatable, electing Biden provides the opportunity to toss a molotov cocktail in the direction of a politician that might actually flinch while it hurls in their direction.
1 Like
So far.
Do not underestimate how bad covid-19 is going to be in a country so poorly āmanagedā by an incompetent huckster.
13 Likes
Yes, Sanders can still win, but itās far from likely.
The proportionate nature of Democratic primaries means that in an one-to-one match (which the primary essentially is by now) you need to win by quite a lot to gain a significant advantage in delegates over the loser. And at the moment, itās Biden whoās winning by a lot, and Bernie falling further back. Every delegate Biden gains means Bernie has to win the remaining states that much harder, and at the moment the evidence does not suggest he can do it.
