Governors issuing executive orders under a state of emergency to adopt vote-by-mail?
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I just want to like who I am voting for, and that never seems to happen. āNot as bad as the other guyā does not kindle the flame of love-of-democracy in my heart.
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I guess that would require a functioning postal service. Maybe a job for the army; especially in the āQuarantined Zonesā, or Blue States as they are otherwise known.
āYeah, we had to burn all the postal votes from these mainly Democrat areas, due to the Virus.ā
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However, Biden is running out of Republican-dominated states like Alabama and Mississippi to drive his advantage.
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First off, Vote By Mail is somewhat a misnomer. You can drop your ballot in the mail, but you can also drop it off at a library, town/city hall, school, county offices, in big, secure drop boxes.
Second, the votes are controlled by the state, usually the Secretary of Stateās office. The federal government doesnāt get involved. They just get a communication from the state about who won and how many votes. Anyone (including representatives of the federal government) who tries to burn ballots can and will be treated like a terrorist by local authorities.
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BidenBoomers are already lining Bernie up for Bidenās loss to Trump.
That is depressing.
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Perhaps you may be skipping a few steps ahead.
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that will be an important strategy in the general, but for now thereās really no reason for people to not vote for whichever candidate best represents their values. half of states still havenāt had a chance to vote, and they deserve to.
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If thatās the case, what does that say about the strength of Sanders this time around, considering that heās generally driving lower turnout than he did in 2016?
I think the Chris Matthews analogy is great here: āYou have the greatest army in the world, how can it be over and Churchill was told itās overā. This is akin to the Sovietās standing back while they watch Poland get massacred by the Nazis. Weāve just seen the Democratic establishment just about stomp out progressivism.
Itās more important to destroy the Democratic Party than to beat Trump. Trumpās presidency has been terrible, but the decades long betrayal of the poor by the Democratic Party has caused far more harm, and will continue to in the future if it isnāt stopped. We need an actual peopleās party or our future is fucked, and not just for the next 4 years.
This is a tough pill to swallow, because American leftists are the victim of an abusive relationship with the DNC, so tend to see them as villain but also savior. This disordered attachment leads to a lot of contradictory and complex emotions when itās suggested that the abuser is the main problem.
The DNC knows everyone hates it, which is why theyāre leaning so hard on the āit would be worse without usā rhetoric. The only way out is a clean break. While that might be worse in the short-term, there is no hope for a future long-term that doesnāt involve making a break. The reflexes of āitās not so bad right nowā or āmaybe, but letās wait until a better time to bring it upā are understandable, but we have to overcome these abuse-conditioned responses if we want to survive.
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that Biden is in the throes of dementia is not well-supported
go listen to him in a spontaneous, non-planned, non-talking-point conversation with anyone
he is a tired old man way past retirement
not that Bernie is such a prize either, but Biden is clearly worse for wear
Reagan entered the presidency much like Biden, by the end everyone was covering for his craziness, they wonāt get away with it in the modern era
even worse, there is no way in heck he will be fit for a re-election campaign in four years, you think he is going to mentally survive battling the senate? look at how grey Obama got, both Biden and Sanders wonāt make it, they arenāt going to take endless āexecutive timeā and golf-days like the current idiocrasy
I guess we all have our priorities based on what we are willing to accept, and you are more willing to accept another 4 years of Trump than you are 4 years of Biden. I simply cannot disagree with you more, and the chasm between our individual understanding of what another 4 years of Trump means is so great that Iām not sure what to say.
ETA:
I say this as someone for whom Biden was far from the first choice, BUT, at this point do you think itās possible that what weāre seeing is reflecting a simple reality that more Democratic voters are willing to come out and vote for Biden than they are for Sanders?
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This is not rational reasoning. Sanders is under attack from the establishment party that he is running under. Their suppression of his candidacy has no bearing on his ability to beat trump.
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Do you believe thereās evidence that the party is doing more to āsuppressā his candidacy now than they did in 2016? Back then the primary delegate allocation rules, role of superdelegates, debate schedule, early and overwhelming endorsements of Clinton from party insiders, etc really was stacked against him in a significant way that was much more apparent than anything in this cycle, at least to my eyes. Why, specifically, do you think heās driving lower turnout in this cycle than the last one?
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Evidence, as in something Iād have to dig up and offer into the light? No - I am reacting to everything in front of our faces. Every single Democratic candidate but Warren has pitched in against Sanders. And itās working. That has no bearing on how he would do against trump. The statement was: Biden is beating Sandes, therefore Biden will do better against trump than Sanders. Iām just saying that is faulty reasoning.
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Sure - its always been that way. Sanders has been counting on bringing out youth who have refused to vote before. Sanders had to give them hope their vote would matter. Democrats only had to destroy that hope, and its worked like a charm.
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Thatās no different than in 2016. In fact, in 2016 the party establishment came out even stronger and earlier on the side of Clinton. So for whatever reason it really does appear to me like the public just seems less enthusiastic about Biden this time around, and you canāt blame that sad fact just on party shenanigans. I donāt take any joy in that, as I definitely prefer Sanders to Biden.
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Itās not really ā4 years of Bidenā thatās the problem, itās failing to make a break with the DNC. Biden being president would obviously be less bad than Trump being president, but worse than both of those things is the American left continuing to align with the DNC (reluctantly) rather than pursuing our actual political goals. Itās not until the left clearly and openly declares itself to be in opposition to the DNC that meaningful progress will ever be made.
Panic is in the air these days, and I think a lot of people have been feeling panicked for the last 4 years about Trump. I hate to add to this climate, but the reality is weāre not panicked enough. We should have been freaking out far before Trump, about far bigger problems. Climate change and wealth inequality are fundamentally destroying our society and peopleās lives worldwide, at a scale far exceeding even the worst Trump could accomplish. From this perspective, the significance of 4 years of Trump does seem muted compared to the consequences weāre facing if we donāt dramatically change political life in our country.
Even if Biden gets in office, itās not going to be OK - and the degree to which itās not going to be OK should prompt us all to give sober thought about whatās really needed for us to have a shot at a future. Itās bigger than candidates, this is about confronting the structures of power. The longer we delay this confrontation, the less our chances of getting out alive.
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I wonder why you think it is silly. I donāt have any first hand intelligence (ha!) but it makes sense that the goal of the Russian state would be to create doubt and chaos, and the existing story that Sanders is being screwed over by the establishment dems makes his campaign attractive. Having him do better/stay relevant longer AND having the party freaking out that he might win AND having the story out that there that he has Russian connections, is perfect.
Isnāt Putin known to fund both the anti-Putin demonstrators and the anti-anti demonstrators?
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