See, I disagree. I felt like before that, nobody worried about Trump because he was being painted like an evil comic book or movie villain and felt unreal. I felt like this was the point where a lot of people went “Oh, this is serious” and actually picked up the game against him on a more logical level. He NEEDED to be human. He NEEDED to be brought down to roughly the same level as the other candidates. And the best part is, he did such a horrible job that people noticed that he’s kind of a horrible person. It was just too late.
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If one ignores the hate crimes bill, the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare policies on trans health care, the transgender passport changes, visitation rights, repeal of DADT, lgbt elder initiatives, the first ever White House Transgender Policy Roundtables, trans student policy, not defending DOMA in court, OPM policy, HUD non discrimination in housing, VAWA and lgbt people, including lgbt rights in foreign affairs, and quite a few others- one can argue that the Dems under Obama were shit for lgbt people.
But he was the best President in history in lgbt rights - and certainly for trans people there’s no competition. And contrary to some impressions- both Clinton and Biden pushed those. Clinton at state made it possible for me to have ID that allowed me to get employment and travel. Biden obviously on saying trans rights are the civil rights issue of our time and pushing for marriage equality when Obama wasn’t ready to.
It’s never as simple as who’s my dream candidate. My life would be much better under either of them than what we have. Didn’t vote for her in the primary- but was wholeheartedly behind her in the general.
From that time the person who deserves the most criticism is Pelosi for not bringing ENDA up for a vote when the Dems controlled both houses and the vote count looked good. Choosing to go for nondiscrimination in the military instead of for all lgbt people. That means very likely no lgbt nondiscrimination legislation in my working life.
But again - those no big things were huge things for some of us and changed our lives greatly.
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Democrats (someday) will learn that they lose when they attack each other. Maybe another 4 years of Trump will teach them that lesson.
It will not be a fucking catastrophe if Biden is elected. If Trump is elected, it probably will be a catastrophe. They’ll be so many lizard people in the Judiciary, it will take 30+ years for them all to die off. Biden is not the enemy. These attacks on him are moronic.
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I’m sure there’s truth in that. The fact is that Jimmy Fallon didn’t get him elected. Fear and bigotry did.
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Yeah, Hillary really wanted to go and campaign in Wisconsin, but the right wing media kept letting the air out of her plane’s tires.
I voted for Biden to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. No regrets. I would vote for him in 2020 if the alternative was (and it will be) Trump.
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And let’s face it: if the Orange Occupant of Oval Office fell down dead from a stroke tonight, whoever the Republicans would run in 2020, Pence or any other, would be far worse than Biden at his worst.
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Eight years of W. didn’t teach us. Eight years of Trump will probably kill us, though.
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“Quick! To the archives!” (goes through files) “Ah! There 'tis.”
More and more I keep thinking of these 2 panels from a Jim Woodring comic:
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The entire point of a primary process is to find the best candidate for the job, the one who stands the best chance of defeating their opponent and enunciate what the party stands for. There is a not-insignificant portion of the party that feels – and has felt – unrepresented in the policy debate, and is heavily opposed to more of the same status-quo-friendly go-along-to-get-along nonsense that the establishment of the party represents. This is the point in time where it’s entirely appropriate for them to express their displeasure with the anointed successor.
Electing Biden would shift the disaster from “impending collapse of American representative democracy” to “ineffectual response to the impending climate disaster that will destabilize all of human civilization”. The latter will happen regardless of who wins if the choices are Trump or Biden. The only question is whether the government remains intact until we get there.
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I’d vote for a flaming sack of dog poop with a “D” scrawled on the side over Hair Twittler: the flaming sack of poop would do a better job. Biden? well, not my favorite candidate but not the worst. Pair him up with a good progressive veep and we could follow through with a 12-16 year stretch where things could move forward, back to the left and towards some fucking sanity (please).
Ask yourself this: if Joe Biden had run in 2016 and won would we be in the sh!t we are in now? No. Maybe not great progressive strides, but the ACA would be stronger, climate change would be addressed to some degree, the Iran nuke deal would be intact. AND we wouldn’t be ‘led’ by a Russian stooge like we are now.
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As someone who was there, I don’t recognize this history at all.
The 1968 Convention began a sharp turn to the left, and initiated reforms that gave us candidates like McGovern. Up until then nominations were engineered by back room deals including party bosses like Daley and union leaders like Jimmy Hoffa, this was a movement to end that, not to disenfranchise workers. The reforms were supported by the protesters in Grant park, who were led by coalition of antiwar groups (including the Yippiesand and MOBE), the SCLC, and the SDS, not billionaires.
\When Carter ran in 1976 he ran as a centrist outsider, so not a representative of DNC leanings. He wasn’t a New Democrat; in today’s language he might be labeled an “Austerity Democrat”, and Clinton’s DLC movement was a reaction to Carter’s loss, and an explicit attempt to not be like Carter.
When Biden ran in 1988 he ran well to the left of the DNC candidate (Gore) and in his fiery orations, unfortunately lifted from Labour leader Neil Kinnock, he argued rather forcefully for a worldview on which many of his critics on these BB threads would entirely agree.
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A sharp turn Left on racial issues. On economic and Labor it was a definite turn to the Right, Humphrey notwithstanding.
Eight years later the Party was absolutely celebrating its turn to the Right on economic and trade.
With respect, this is simply wrong. And HHH was the trigger for the reforms, not the result of them.
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Well, there is also the Cancer Moonshot, but maybe that was more of a thing that excited biomedical scientists (despite the questionable metaphor of the moonshot which unlike cancer, didn’t really need new science to tackle). Still not enough to make me a fan.
I still don’t get why Kamala Harris isn’t considered the shoe-in. We don’t need another old white man who will have some trouble winning %100 of the female vote (which any (D) should be able to slam-dunk) and who will have trouble winning over southern minorities.
Hillary Clinton couldn’t win 100% of the women’s vote. I’m absolutely sure that neither Harris nor Warren will be able to get 100% of woman voters either.
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The only way to assume Biden’s as good as nominated ~8 months before Iowa and the first primaries is to a) overlook John Connolly and b) not understand that Biden’s a bullshit artist with a shitty record who can’t control his bullshit.
And much as I (and every even half way decent human being) love the Onion, I really think their contribution to making Biden the front runner of the moment is less than minimal. But sure, proof I’m wrong would be welcome; unlike Biden, always willing to learn.
Can we not…
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Sure! Edited the post.
(I’m not a native English-speaker, so if there’s some unfortunate nuance I’m missing, apologies for that. It wasn’t intentional!)
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