As Molly Ivins was wont to say, It’s okay to step on your dick occasionally, but you shouldn’t just *stand* there…
Any black person supporting @BernieSanders any longer, HAS to be out of their minds. pic.twitter.com/pV6tyAEEtS
— Leslie Wimes (@womenonthemove1) May 7, 2019
Bernie has wrapped up 53 endorsements. They're all GOP senators @burgessev reports in @politico https://t.co/A006GnAdEU #BernieSanders
— Jim Kessler (@ThirdWayKessler) May 7, 2019
And of course they’re baiting Dems nervous about the phantasm of ‘electability’, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong:
Republicans like their chances of keeping the Senate in 2020. But there’s one thing they think would all but seal the deal: Bernie Sanders as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Some GOP incumbents are practically cheering him on, confident there’s no way a self-described democratic socialist could win a general election against President Donald Trump and that he’d drag other Democrats on the ballot with him.
“It would be good for us to have a nominee like that,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who is up for reelection next year and sounded downright giddy about the prospect of Sanders representing Democrats at the top of the ticket.
Trump and the Senate GOP have explicitly designed their 2020 strategy around Sanders, beating the anti-socialism drum incessantly and attempting to tether every Democrat on the ballot to what they call a creep away from capitalism and toward collectivism…The strategy shows Republicans are much more comfortable talking about Sanders and tying other Democrats to his brand of socialism than they are in defending this year’s meager legislative agenda. But Republicans could be making the same mistake Democrats made four years ago, when Trump launched his presidential campaign and they began salivating over the prospect of a Senate sweep.
That misunderstanding of Trump’s appeal is now the subject of repeated examination by Democratic politicians and strategists…
It's a threat to the "heighten the contradictions" action squad, because the theory was this:
1. Trump wins
2. Trump discredits GOP rule
3. Bernie wins 2020 nomination, Dems become left partyIf Bernie isn't the nominee the Jenga tower falls down. https://t.co/ktpsgYphHM
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) May 7, 2019
rikyrah
Surprised that you didn’t link to his disastrous sit down with the NY Daily News. He was unprepared…again??
joel hanes
He’ll be out by the day after Super Tuesday at the latest.
In the mean time, I’m avoiding talking about him at all; we need as many of his followers as possible to vote for the Dem nominee, and internecine warfare and the circular firing squad do not advance that goal.
Baud
@joel hanes:
We tried that last time. It doesn’t work. And the only reason he would be out by Super Tuesday is because people aren’t being silent about him.
BlueDWarrior
I really would like his hardcore supporters learn that the name of the game is converting people to your side, not whining that the fact you aren’t in the lead at any given point is some kind of neo-liberal conspiracy.
Also stop assuming that your particular brand of “democratic socialism” is self-evidently superior.
JPL
@Baud: It seems that there are fewer trolls popping up to support him this time around. Maybe it’s just early, or maybe they were russian bots who have been eliminated.
BlueDWarrior
@rikyrah: the dangerous thing about him is his self-assuredness in his own rhetoric.
That your way is the one true way and others are just pretenders. That makes you a good ideologue and a terrible executive.
Baud
@JPL:
I think it would be worse if it were a two person race again.
NotMax
Don’t understand at all your dogged insistence on girantng him such frequent front page space, especially when there are so many other more relevant, more vital, more capable folks in the running. The MSM has the Wilmer beat tediously covered.
Blech to da max.
@joel hanes
This. Rehashing the same litany of Wilmer wailings/failings for the umpteenth time serves scant purpose.
NotMax
@NotMax
granting, not giranting
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
New Hampshire Poll — Monmouth Polling — May 7 (link)
Uncle Joe………36%
Wilmer………….18%
Mayor Pete……..9%
Warren……………8%
Kamala……………7%
Beto……………….2%
Booker……………2%
Amy………………..2%
Wilmer won this state with 60 percent of the vote – now his support has collapsed to 18 percent.
Ooof
joel hanes
@JPL:
Many who were bernie-curious or bernie-leaning last time around have learned from the experience.
But we don’t see them, because they’re not in our faces.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Yup.
Betty Cracker
Looks like early polling data is confirming anecdata several folks here, including me, shared about the Democrats we know who voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary; looks like they’ve moved on. I am disappointed that Warren isn’t getting a larger share of progressive Dem support in the early polls. But it’s May 2019. We’ll see how it shakes out next year.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
If this holds up and Wilmer loses badly in NH and Iowa (two homogeneous states he did well in last time), then I don’t see how he wins any state other than Vermont.
low-tech cyclist
And the Senate’s the real deal:
If the Dems win the Presidency and can’t win the Senate, (a) they’re screwed and can’t get as much as a Cabinet nomination through the Senate unless Mitch is feeling charitable, and (b) the people will still blame everything that goes wrong on the President’s party (us), and we don’t win back the Senate in 2022 either.
The focus on the Presidency right now is insane. The Dems would be better off to lose to Trump but take the Senate than the other way around.
low-tech cyclist
He’s a threat because if we win and fail to do anything meaningful about climate change, it’s an L in my book. What’s the point of winning an election if we lose the planet?
Whatever Biden wants to do about climate change (do we know?), he’s adamantly against killing the filibuster. And to be able to pass meaningful legislation of ANY sort, we’ve got to (a) win the Presidency, (b) win the Senate, and (c) kill the filibuster. If we don’t do (c), it’s 2010 all over again.
So fuck Biden. He’s a sweet guy, got a reassuring personality, people want to go back to when things were normal, and he represents that. But there’s no going back to pre-2015 normal. Time is running out.
Walker
@low-tech cyclist:
Irrelevant. Trump has set the precedent that you do not need confirmations. There are legislative set backs of not having the senate. But cabinet is less of an issue.
gene108
@Baud:
Bernie has his devotees. He’ll never hear enough negative commentary, with so many true believers to pep him up.
Now, if the money runs out…that’s a different story, with regards to staying in the
race…@low-tech cyclist:
I am not confident about flipping the Senate. In 2018, Democrats had to defend a bunch of seats in Republican friendly states, IN and ND, and try to win closely contested race in FL, with serious election fuckery.
In 2020, only Gardner and Collins are defending in Democratic friendly states. Collins has been around so long, like Manchin, she could hang on despite how her state has trended recently. Pretty much every other Republican is in a friendly state. Plus, we have to get used to the idea of the very real possibility Jones loses, in AL.
*****************************
On a personal note, I am finishing my first week on a new job. So far it I still mostly me getting oriented to the place. Knock on wood, I don’t screw up, when I actually have to get things done.
Qui-Gon Jinn
I Was Bernie’s Biggest Critic in 2016 – I’ve Changed My Mind
Bernie Sanders can beat Donald Trump – and it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to try to hobble his campaign
Republicans & Corporate media Are Convinced Trump Would Beat Bernie</strong
Yellowdog
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch Bernie doesn’t have to win a single state. Delegates are assigned proportionally. He just has to pass the 15% threshold in each state to stay nominally competitive and he looks like he may be able to do that. He will NOT stop out early, or possibly ever, if no one else has a majority of delegates
Cheryl Rofer
Good morning and thanks to everyone who contributed to the threads on the forced-birth legislation last night.
rikyrah
Our base is not their base. The base of the Democratic Party didn’t choose Bernie in 2016. And, they will not in 2020.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thanks for the discussion.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Qui-Gon Jinn:
Could you give us a source for that steaming pile of Sanders propaganda? That’s how we do things here, since it’s clear that you are going to be a long-term commenter and not just a drop-in troll.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack (phone): Peter Daou at The Nation.
zhena gogolia
I hardly ever look at video of Bernie. But when I do, I’m just why? Why? Why would anyone (especially a young person) think THAT is what they want? He almost makes Trump look youthful.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks.
Bobby Thomson
@Baud: THIS
Bobby Thomson
@Qui-Gon Jinn: so Daou is bought. Who gives a shit?
sherparick
@low-tech cyclist: Every Democratic candidate,but especially Biden and Sanders, should be asked what they are doing to help get a Democratic majority in the Senate and, if not, what they expect to get done beside holding the White House Easter Egg Hunt and turning on the Christmas Tree on the mall if McConnell controls the Senate. They won’t be able to appoint judges, they won’t have a cabinet, and they will be on austerity plus budget except for Defense and Homeland Security. There will not be immigration reform, there will not be tax reform and climate change legislation, there will not be student loan debt relief, there will not be much in the way of Arms Control and trade treaties (unless the Republican Donor Class tells Mitch to get on board one, and that means a trade treaties from Hell). Biden and Sanders both think “Ol Mitch won’t do that to me. We served with him in the Senate forever (counting Biden’s time as VP presiding over the Senate, Biden has known Mitch since Mitch McConnell was freshman Senator from Kentucky in 1985. Sanders has been in the Senate with Mitch now 18 years, since Bernie replaced Jim Jeffords in 2003). We are white guys after all, unlike Obama who was Black and Hillary who was (a slight look of disgust passes over their faces) a woman.” But of course Mitch will screw them both.
By the way, all these Republican Senators rooting for Sanders so they can run against “Democratic Socialism (Hell, even if all the other Democratic contenders get killed by lightening on the debate stage and John Delaney is nominated, a guy to the right of Ronald Reagan, they will call him a Democratic Socialist), I think this is an example of being high on their own supply. Only “Olds” like me associate “Socialism” = “Communism” = Russia and the Cold War. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, 30 years ago. Since then all anyone under 50 has seen is loot and pollute laissez-faire Capitalism run amuck that has established a new Gilded Age with epic inequality and an ongoing environmental catastrophe that that the leaders of Capitalism in the Republican Donor Class appear to be in complete denial about. I think Warren, and even Sanders, can make a lot of hay denouncing the Capitalism of loot, pollute, and abandon from Appalachia in the East to the Coast Ranges in the West.
I will make this last comment on a post, because although Elizabeth Warren is my favorite candidate, I certainly understand why Blacks, Hispanic-Americans, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, and women will vote for Biden, however imperfect he is. Much more than an old White guy like me, these groups understand that Trump and the Republican Party are a mortal threat to their rights as U.S. Citizens and at least the claim to at least the appearance of protection under the law. A Trump second term, particularly with a Right-wing Congress and Supreme Court will mean a “Second Redemption Era” and massive disenfranchisement and imprisonment and elections after 2024 will be pro forma, at least until the whole country collapses from environmental catastrophe and economic looting.
If you want to consider awfulness that we might be facing, check out this thread:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/05/things-fall-apart-2
FlipYrWhig
@Steeplejack (phone): Judging by the formatting this is one of the painfully dogged Berniacs from 2016. It’s not that GoBlue clown but I think it’s the other one who used to do the same thing with the bold and pimping links to friendly stories.
Eural Joiner
If you have the inclination check out the Daily Show’s take on Wilmer’s cable access clips from the 80’s – you may not be a fan of Sanders but damn it’s funny as hell :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oxfzabpTWY
Brachiator
@low-tech cyclist:
It’s not an either/or.
And it is unreasonable to suggest that simply concentrating on the Senate will make multiple wins magically inevitable.
And of course, re-electing Trump guarantees that addressing climate change goes nowhere.
low-tech cyclist
@Brachiator: It’s not entirely an either/or, but some of the candidates should be (or in Beto’s case should have been – I think he’s damaged goods now) Senate candidates instead. And the attention that’s being sucked up by the Presidential crowd undoubtedly means less money flowing to Dem Senate candidates, because people are hearing almost nothing about them.
So yes, simply concentrating more attention on the Senate would be helpful in increasing the likelihood of winning more races. (And I didn’t say anything about magical inevitability, fuckyouverymuch.)
Finally, the point of the either/or wasn’t to say that was the choice, but to illustrate why the Senate is the more important of the two objectives. And it’s important to make that point, given that winning the Presidency without winning the Senate is probably the most likely and quite possibly the most disastrous of the four possibilities.
gvg
@low-tech cyclist: I don’t think the Senate is more important. It is VERY important, and a lot of voters are discounting it, however the Presidency has a lot of power and we can’t have a Republican in there any more. A law abiding democrat will not be able to DO a lot we want without a Senate, but he/she won’t do a lot of destructive things, especially with trade and foreign relations, plus not directing a lot of bad things to happen. So suppose they can’t appoint ANY cabinet level appointees? It will devolve mostly to the next career level professional, assuming he/she doesn’t allow any hold overs. I would assume most of our candidates are too smart for that as these aren’t normal times and almost all of the Trump appointees have been doing illegal crap and need to go to jail not just leave.
It would be much better if we paid attention to both goals of course. Just don’t let your frustration blind you to the power of the Presidency.
Jack
Cheering for a Biden win is delusional for the same reason cheering for a Hillary win was delusional.
J R in WV
@Steeplejack (phone):
FTFY
Donna Hurst
Total aside from the article, but may I just say I miss, Miss, MISS Molly Ivins.