Oh don’t you worry - we’ll all support biden and get rid of trump, and The Money will be perfectly happy with that.
It was during the primary that the Dems were duped - lining up behind a lackluster centrist who was behind in the primary - just to take down Sanders. Scaredy Cats, afraid of the ridiculous assertion that Sanders would not beat trump, gave away our future, all of our future to cower in what they were told was a safe place.
Sanders was never perfect, but this is not about perfect or otherwise – its about being duped by your party, being tricked into voting against your interest. And from where I’m standing the Dems have done that in Spades. The GOP voters never had an option for a candidate that was for them. The Dems did.
With all due respect, I think arguing that those who voted for Biden were necessarily “duped” and “tricked”, with the inherent implication that if those people were just smarter or more discerning they would have voted for Sanders like you, is a pretty patronizing argument that carries some ugly baggage.
ETA: This showed up a lot during February and March (and, frankly, I thought it was an ugly flaw in Sanders’ base), as Biden’s support from Black folks outpaced Sanders significantly and started to make a real difference in the primaries. And a lot of thoughtful stuff was written about why those kinds of arguments were more than a little off base.
For every person who preferred Biden’s politics, there were a dozen that were/are afraid of 4 more years of trump. There is no “implication” of “smarter” or “more discerning”. It was a difference between a candidate that promised “Nothing Would Change”, and a candidate that promised to work for you.
I think that what there has been a lot of is vilifying Sanders supporters, even tho they are doing exactly what they’ve been asked to do in voting for Biden. Which in my mind is just obfuscation to take your eyes off the fact they have tricked you into voting against your interest.
Well, yeah, that’s the implication that I was referring to.
Do you think it’s possible that Biden voters (or at least a majority of them) weren’t “tricked” into voting for him, but rather made a considered choice to do so given their own evaluation of their self-interest?
Given that the way Biden’s support materialized in a matter of a few days, after an orchestrated retirement of the rest of the centrist candidates - No. I think unless you want to ignore the series of events that was plain before our eyes, it was clear that there was an organized effort to scare as many people as possible into voting for Biden.
The US has a step towards with that with the ACA. The Trumputo administration is trying to use the US SCOTUS as a personal dustbin for the Trumputo’s loss in the current “war on obama” that the GOP is engaged in against US citizens.
But I have noticed that every piece of Biden PR has been spun repeatedly by some users I’m gonna call them the Lazy Suzans.
Interesting that you don’t have that same belief of agency in those that voted for the GOP candidates. Shall I infer that you believe Democratic voters are simply smarter or more discerning, more able to evaluate their self-interest than GOP voters?
I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I haven’t made any observations re: the agency of Republican voters in our conversation.
But to avoid hiding the ball: I don’t think that Republican voters were “tricked” or “duped” into voting for Donald Trump. I think his supporters understood what they were getting with him, and they voted in accordance with what they wanted.
The general consensus is that GOP voters are “persuaded” to vote against their own interest by the attachment of other issues that the GOP candidates really don’t care about - social conservatism as bait for economic plutocracy. For our purposes we’ll consider that the GOP voters are “tricked” into voting against their interest. This is not my theorem, but rather widely understood and repeated on these forums.
Without ascribing this directly to you, centrist democrats seem to want to have this argument both ways. They insist they were not similarly “tricked” into voting for Biden, yet accuse Sanders supports of elitism, all the while operating with certitude that their GOP brethren were foolishly coerced into voting against their interest.
If you don’t see the hypocrisy of this centrist democrat position there is no way I can make it more clear to you. Your series of arguments falls neatly within the model I’ve outlined.
Not be me, and I reject that particular received wisdom. As I said, I don’t believe Trump’s voters were tricked–they wanted what they were voting for, whether or not we agree with their own calculus.
What I do believe is that we often mistakenly assume our own rankings of others’ “self interests” are what those people would consider them to be, and then ascribe discrepancies between our list and their list as them “voting against their own interests” rather than examining our own assumptions of what they actually want.
Make no mistake, this isn’t apologia for those Trump voters, it’s a damning indictment. All the things that make Trump repugnant to me (and probably you) are, generally speaking, the exact things that his base want. That says terrible things about the roughly 35% of this country that constitute his core base, much worse than them being tricked.
I am not speaking to trumps voters - certainly not his right wing voters. Rather traditional republicans that we are hoping will now swing to biden.
Those right wing voters are getting exactly what they want - and that is not the focus of my discussion. I am talking about the republican voter that votes because they abhor abortion, and end up electing a candidate that screws them economically.
You are attempting to take the discussion into a totally different playground - this is not solely about trump and certainly not about his deplorable supporters. Its about people manipulated into voting for politicians that give lip service to hot-points, like abortion, or the “ability to defeat trump”, while enacting policies that harm or fail to support the voters they have made this hot-point appeal to.
Who is “we?” You’re ascribing a lot of positions to me that I not only haven’t taken, but don’t accept. I don’t give a shit about swinging votes, to be honest. I want to drive these fuckers from power with turning out the Democratic base.
But, I believe we’ve more than monopolized the conversation here, so I will bow out and offer the last word if you’d like. Take care.
I’ve made a point of saying I am not ascribing this to you. I am characterizing the behavior of centrist democrats, as well as republicans - not stereotypes I’ve invented, but well understood.
You question my assertion that democrats were “tricked” and you claim they had agency in their choices. And while you may not ascribe to the idea that GOP voters are “tricked” it is certainly a well understood democratic belief.
I am saying it is hypocrisy to claim Dems have agency in their choices, but GOP voters do not. I am saying it is hypocrisy to accuse me of believing Sanders supporters are “smarter” or more “discerning” , but excuse yourself from the same when believing the GOP voters lack agency.
Your reaction to that is to apply those comments to trump’s base, which is not this situation at all. The belief that GOP voters are tricked into voting against their interest is a long standing belief that predates the emergence of trump and his right wing base. That part of the discussion is just misdirection - has nothing to do with whether or not democrats were manipulated into supporting biden instead of voting for their interests via Sanders.
I don’t get why so many are still so shocked and surprised (and sore and resentful?) that more Democrats voted for Biden instead of Bernie in the primaries? Bernie, after all, is not a Democrat, and has never been elected or held office as a Democrat. He’s always run as an Independent in the Senate and his previous offices. The only time he’s ran on the Democrat ticket was during the presidential primary seasons for 2016 and 2020.
Bernie is clearly still more progressive than most Democrats are ready for. The primary voters made that quite clear. Granted, the party seems to be moving in the progressive direction (look how far Bernie got in the race), but the party clearly is not there yet in most states. His seeming early lead was an artifact of the demographics of some of the early primary states. Once many of the other states got in their say, he lost that lead. It’s pointless to keep throwing a tantrum that an outside candidate failed to switch parties and instantly have everyone in that party on-board with his ideals. Most Democrats are more comfortable with Biden’s policies and history than with Bernie’s. That’s all there is too it. Just be thankful that Bernie was able to get the Democrats to take his policy positions seriously, and even have other Democrats (including Biden) swing in that direction (we have yet to see if any of Bernie’s policy positions end up getting taken on as official Democratic Party positions at the convention)
Biden has been a Democrat a long time, and represents what most democrats want. Bernie is an outsider candidate who has never actually been elected as a Democrat, so it should not be surprising that Democratic primary voters feel more aligned with Biden than Bernie.
I think a large portion of the enthusiasm for Bernie has come not from Democrats, but from Independents, and the primary results reflect that.
(Disclaimer, I’m registered as an Independent myself, so could not vote in the Democratic primary in my state. I personally feel more aligned with Bernie’s policies, but that’s why I’ve never been registered as a Democrat.)
I beg your pardon, but I am none of those things. The whole discussion was predicated on my assertion that the Democrats are as guilty as the Republicans of manipulating their supporters to vote against their interest.
The only bias I will admit to in that assertion is that I consider Sanders to be the only candidate that was willing to work in our interest. I base that on Biden’s own promise to monied donors that “nothing would change” under his presidency. And I reject the notion that “not nearly as bad as trump” equals working for our interest.
Otherwise I don’t agree with your assertion that Sanders was not running as a Democrat. The Dems set the rules for running as a candidate in their party. If you are saying there is some other secret rules that truly make you a democrat candidate and Sanders did not meet those rules - like being a democrat his entire political career? If that is what you are saying well, I have to disagree. Sanders met their requirements - he was a democratic candidate.
And no - I don’t expect every democrat to honor that - clearly there are many that feel Sanders was not of the party and would not support him for that alone. But all this is beside the point - being that the DNC orchestrated the retirement of their other candidates and the unified endorsement of one of their centrist candidates, and washed that over the voters is a very calculated way. You might say, well that’s what campaigns are - yup, I get that and accept it.
What I don’t accept is the hypocrisy of throwing shade on the GOP for doing the same to their own voters. IF you want the party to stand out of the way and let people make their own choice, then try to live up to that in your own primary.
Honestly? I don’t know. I voted for Sanders (despite knowing the outcome of the primary) because I agree with much of his platform. I’m glad that he’s backed Biden while also seeking to influence the party platform as much as possible.
This is really what people do - Warren voters aren’t dupes, Sanders voters aren’t dupes, Castro, Biden, Buttigieg- even Williamson and Gabbard.
I’m so old I remember when Buttigieg had momentum and was going to win- when I said it was over and there was no way Sanders was going to lose given where he was at that time, when Biden couldn’t even raise money and was over, when it was all going to change when the Bloomberg billions were going to end the race. When Biden couldn’t possibly stand a chance against Trump. Seeing effective central planning from this race is apophenia- and proceeds from preconceptions instead of evidence.
I was shocked at Castro flaring out and how much misogyny was still here among progressives and how that tanked Warren.
You win by getting people to vote for you - if a candidate loses it’s not the voters fault for failing to appreciate them. That’s approaching incel levels of entitlement.
