Iowa is a foreign country to me, and I don’t really understand the Democratic primary electorate very well, so I’m asking, can this sort of thing work? Are there boiling pools of resentment against hogwash that can be tapped to motivate pro-Biden caucus-goers?
Fired up and ready to go for the #NoMalarkey barnstorm! pic.twitter.com/4lpU7waqzh
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 30, 2019
Here’s a person who understands the Democratic electorate even less than I do:
Excerpt:
The state of the Democratic field reflects the weaknesses of the individual candidates, but it also reflects the heterogenous nature of the Democratic coalition, whose electorate has many more demographic divisions than the mostly white and middle-class and aging G.O.P., and therefore occasionally resembles the 19th-century Hapsburg empire in the challenge it poses to aspiring leaders.
Douthat’s take is wrong in that he attributes all divisions within the Democratic Party to identity politics while glossing over the male-dominated, enthno-nationalist bent of Republicans, who are the current champions of the most salient example of identity politics in America since forever. But he’s correct to describe Democrats as “heterogenous,” just not entirely for the reasons he thinks.
In comments in a recent morning thread, I argued that the GOP’s open embrace of demagoguery in service of oligarchy (mirroring Putin’s strategy) has resulted in an untenable situation. Only one of the two parties in a two-party system is interested in civil rights or sound governance. Good-faith policy debates about the size of government, taxation, human rights, etc., only take place in one party.
There’s your heterogeneity. And yes, it may pose a “branding” challenge when only one party feels an obligation to represent all Americans. I don’t know how we address that, but my feeling is either the Republican Party gets utterly obliterated and rises from the ashes (perhaps with some milquetoast nonentity like Marco Rubio bleating platitudes at its head) or everything simply falls apart.
Douthat again:
But for the kind of American who is mostly with the Democrats on economics but wary of progressivism’s zest for culture war, Sanders’s socialism might be strangely reassuring — as a signal of what he actually cares about, and what battles he might eschew for the sake of his anti-plutocratic goals. (At the very least he’s no more radical on an issue like abortion than a studied moderate like Mayor Pete.)
This is why, despite technically preferring a moderate like Biden or Amy Klobuchar, I keep coming back to the conservative’s case for Bernie — which rests on the perhaps-wrong but still attractive supposition that he’s the liberal most likely to spend all his time trying to tax the rich and leave cultural conservatives alone.
Douthat isn’t the only person who suspects Sanders doesn’t really give a shit about anything but economics, which has been and remains a huge obstacle to Sanders winning the Democratic Party nomination. Douthat either underestimates the opposition to Sanders’ democratic socialist approach from moderate Dems and/or — even more stupidly — believes a Sanders candidacy would peel off enough Rust Belt whites who voted for Trump to make up for the loss of those moderate Dems and other constituencies within the party (women, people of color) that would recoil from a Sanders candidacy. With the nuances shaded another way, the same might be true of Biden or anyone else.
IMO, the bottom line is this: Republicans broke the two-party system. We can’t fix it for them. Indeed, we’re struggling to keep the country afloat long enough for the Republican fever dream to break and the GOP or some other organization to rise, fill the vacuum and restore the two-party system. I’m not optimistic that will happen. The course of least resistance is this: things fall apart.
NotMax
There’s such a thing in candidacies (and in reportage) as over analyzing, slicing the metaphorical cake of the electorate so thin that all one is left with is crumbs.
Beyond micro managing, it becomes nano managing.
Chief Oshkosh
Joe is an old-style, glad-handing, bullshitter politician. The very few people I know who support him actually like him for that. I think it’s misplaced nostalgia. In reality, it’s papering over reality and it’s part of the reason we are where we are. Running on a statement of “No Malarkey” is a perfect example of this.
But, if that’s what win’s him the primary, greater fool me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think the “No Malarkey” stuff fits in with Biden’s brand and target demo of people who don’t like trump but find “politics” off-putting and just want to go back to not necessarily hearing (seeing) the president’s name every time they go to check the local weather and sports ball news.
Douthat. I can’t even get through the excerpts. But I also tried to read Maureen Dowd’s occasional “What my 80 year old, racist, fundie-Catholic brother thinks” column, and it too is mostly about abortion. And I think we have to fold transgender rights into the umbrella of “abortion” now. I don’t think Dowd’s brother mentioned it, and I don’t see it in the Douthat excerpts, but away from the NYT, the “religious liberty” types are just freaked the fuck out by transgender issues.
debbie
Anyone who takes anything from Douthat seriously deserves exactly what they get.
ETA: Give me a fucking break with this shit: “progressivism’s zest for culture war”! You want culture war, look to your own, jackass.
JMG
@Chief Oshkosh: Do not underestimate the appeal of a return to normalcy. Biden’s unspoken promise is “I’ll run the government just fine and you won’t have to pay attention to it.” In a nation raised to disdain “politics” that’s a strong message for many.
Baud
It is essentially the anti-Trump position, no?
Baud
@JMG:
I agree. It’s the risk of the Susan Sarandon approach to elections.
moonbat
There is no scenario in which the Republican Party rises from the ashes of its own destruction. And make no mistake, it must be completely repudiated if the nation is to survive. Mealy mouthers like Rubio are too tainted by their go-along to get-along stance on our current wanna-be dictator to ever be considered worthy of the public trust. I think the new two party system will arise from within the Democratic Party with moderates like Uncle Joe on one side and leftier folk on the other. How long that transformation will take is anybody’s guess. But It’s definitely a realignment I could live with.
Baud
The JOE brand on the bus isn’t well designed. I was wondering who JO was at first. The E is not apparent on a quick glance.
Xavier
“Douthat isn’t the only person who suspects Sanders doesn’t really give a shit about anything but economics”
Bernie probably believes, and I do too, that you don’t fix any of this if you don’t fix the economics.
debbie
@Baud:
Guarantee Biden’s supporters aren’t defining “normalcy” like we are. They want Beaver Cleaver to come back.
Baud
@moonbat: 56 years, 3 months, 22 days, at 6:45 pm EST.
Raoul
I went and read the whole column as soon as I saw the photo of the column title, and then probably the top 20 ‘reader pick’ responses, before coming back here to read the rest of the post, Betty.
“the bottom line is this: Republicans broke the two-party system. We can’t fix it for them.”
I had very much the same reaction. My brother and a few other relatives were here for Thanksgiving. They are all what once would have been called Liberal Republicans (yes there were such things!). Only his mother in law is old enough to have actually perhaps been one (I’m sure she’s functionally a Democrat now, living in suburban DC on the VA side).
We didn’t talk politics for very long. None of them voted for Trump. But they all were hand wringing about how the Dems were picking among the most liberal and leaving them out. I just didn’t want to get into the whole thing (I was cooking) but I thought then, too that decent moderate folks like my brother’s family – who just vote every two years and maybe very briefly decry the poor choices, well they aren’t going to fix what Newt, Mitch and a host of other scoundrels broke.
So, yes, sadly, I think things fall apart. Hopefully not to a level or full authoritarianism, or full Mad Max. But even with a Dem winning next November, the forces of chaos will likely rise for a time.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: Agreed.
ETA – “zest for culture war” LOL Can he be more ridiculous? Just the phrase alone…
Baud
@debbie:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/01/politics/joe-biden-black-voters-poll-of-the-week/index.html
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@debbie: Yes, I’m sure that black grandmother in So. Carolina is supporting Biden to return us to the 1950s and “Leave it to Beaver”, just like Trump promised. Give me a break.
moonbat
@Baud: Nice try. Check back in this space later to see if you were right.
Baud
@Raoul:
Barack Obama spent 8 years giving them a chance to be part of something bigger than their own tribe.
Lapassionara
@debbie: I’m thinking they want Obama back, and Biden is the current place holder for those feelings.
Baud
I wonder if #FuckThisBullshit would have been a better slogan for the BJ crowd.
StringOnAStick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As has been noted here, “abortion” is the word the R electorate used but what they really mean is “racism”. Is go one further and say that “abortion” is the word they use but it is a political/cultural signifier that encompasses all the stuff they don’t like, such as disapproval of gays and transgender people, of education/teachers unions, of any lifestyle that co!ors outside their idea of the proper, Christian lines, and of course being called out for their racism and for rooting around in other people’s vaginas. “Abortion” is the one thing their tribe is unified on, so that word covers everything else the tribe hates or disapproves of.
Raoul
ETA: @Raoul When I say ‘decry the choices’ I mean that back in ’15 my sister in law was struggling with the crap pile on the GOP side. That summer she was thinking maybe Ben Carson, but as I predicted he very soon after went kablooey with his nuttery.
I never asked, but I think she and my brother maybe voted 3rd party. They pretty consistently vote for the Dem for mayor of Houston, so they aren’t winger idiots. I think they would jump at the chance to have a moderate who tells them everything is going to be OK.
But everything is not going to be OK. Stuff is way too broken, and climate change is, IMO, going to be the wild card that I think screws us the hardest in the coming years. All the damage, losses and displacement will test the most functional nations. Our shitfest politics (via GOP and a facile, broken press) will not handle Florida going broke and broken, much less global resource wars.
debbie
@Lapassionara:
I understand they want Obama back; I do too. But Biden’s physical proximity to Obama doesn’t override the facts of his record (Anita Hill, banking, etc.).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@StringOnAStick: What you said. It’s the catch-all for all the things that gets trump’s base to vote for the Koch/Adelson agenda while thinking trump is on their side.
moonbat
I love how Douchehat attributes the zest for culture wars to the Democrats when Republicans would have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to run on if it were not for culture wars. Make your life better? Nope. Improve public services? Nope. Stop crashing the economy and ballooning the federal deficit? Nope. But we can by-God make sure that those transgender folks don’t use the same bathroom as you!
jeffreyw
@Baud:
It’s a nod to the potatoe kerfluffle. Vintage nostalgia and a messaging masterstroke.
TomatoQueen
“Douthat isn’t the only person who suspects Sanders doesn’t really give a shit about anything but economics”. Surely that should read, “I’m not the only person who suspects Sanders doesn’t really give a shit about anything but himself.”
NotMax
@Raoul
Overton window shopping.
Scout211
I grew up in Iowa. I left for California in 1976 and never looked back. (Thank goodness). Everything in the whole caucus process has changed since I left, and not for the better. My father was a regular (Republican) caucus member during my entire childhood and he loved it. But the process was very localized and the issues were reflective of each individual community. There was rarely (if any) national media coverage. Even that was localized. Caucusing reflected local politics and the local communities’ particular issues. IMO, the huge national media spotlight is missing those local issues and local community politics in their coverage, which are still in play (albeit to a lesser degree now). The media wants to make those local issues into broad national statements and they get the messages wrong. Or the very least, distorted.
lamh36
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Xavier: It’s impossible to fix the economic problems without fixing structural racism, sexism, etc either at the same time or first. I’m not willing to leave POC, LGBTQ, and female sisters behind while Sanders pursues economic Utopia. Hence my lack of support for Sanders.
Mike J
Everyone on twitter hates the malarkey slogan.
I’m sure they would have been thrilled had Joe rolled out a hip, millennial friendly slogan. “Don’t try pandering to us! Be who you are! ”
No malarkey is a Joe slogan. It’s not cool. He doesn’t have to be. It’s the presidency, not American Idol. (Or Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour or whatever the kids watch with their long hair and their yeahyeahyeah music.)
Raoul
@StringOnAStick: When I see things like that Ohio bill that would require doctors to attempt a medical procedure that doesn’t exist to ‘save’ an ectopic pregnancy, I realize how far down the Christianist, magical thinking path the GOP is going.
And the punishments for abortion murder as they call it harken back to the bad old days when crossing a state line to procure medical care was a crime.
Yes the bill is not ready for a floor vote. But it has quite a few sponsors and displays what level of religious absolutism, ultra-patriarchy and garbage ‘medical science’ Republicans will countenance.
The party is in thrall to absolute zealots, and has no mechanisms to contain the madness.
germy
Mike E
Do this, don’t Douthat!
germy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Raoul: PA would like to join the neighborhood crazy-stakes
Victoria Brownworth @VABVOX
FollowFollow @VABVOX
More
Stop this. Pennsylvania bill would require death certificates for fertilized eggs
(I’m still adapting to the new site. We’ll see how this looks)
Baud
@lamh36: Thanks for this. I saw a Slate headline about the staffer and was wondering what that was about.
germy
What convinced Bloomberg to enter the race?
Baud
@germy:
Ok, I think that Tweeter was trying to make fun of Biden, but I would enjoy seeing to that exchange.
Maybe I am too old.
oldgold
“Iowa is a foreign country to me.”
Iowa is not foreign to me. I get what is going on in Iowa. The Iowa electorate has dated the candidates, a few with some degree of seriousness, but to this point in the process has found no one to take home and introduce to their parents.
delk
Culture wars?
Shouldn’t Douthat be crying about Chik-fil-a selling out the Christians.
germy
@Baud:
Don’t let the Biden people design your campaign bus, or it’ll look like this:
BAU d
Mike J
@oldgold: One of those candidates has 1681 precinct captains and the next closest person has ~1200. The one with 1681 is going to win.
I have no idea which one that is.
StringOnAStick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have an idiot halfsister who never completed her first year of high school, got pregnant instead, had 4 more, one in jail for meth and prostitution, an ex husband in jail for sex with the foster kid, “worked” all her life to get a Redneck Retirement Rating (meaning a disability designation) but never succeeded and has been desperately poor her whole life. She’s a single issue voter: abortion. Not for an improved social safety net, which she would benefit from, but she’s always been one of the laziest, shiftiest, most manipulative but not smart enough to make it work for her people I’ve ever known.
I hear that she loves tRump and thinks all those sexual assault accusations are all lies from slutty women who “deserved it”; interesting logical inconsistency there: he didn’t do it and besides, they deserved it. One of the reasons we are looking at leaving this state for retirement is to get farther away from her and her clan of grifters.
NotMax
@delk
Chicken fried fake.
:)
Raoul
@Baud: And TBF, at least my sister in law, maybe brother as well, voted for Obama. As I said, they would be liberal Republicans if the GOP would have them.
Obama was, in many ways, really a liberal Republican. But we can’t seem to have honest conversations in very many spaces about what Obama’s technocratic, pro-big business but socially liberal view amounts to. I was happy to have him as potus as well.
But I was never among those disappointed on the left that he turned out to be too cautious or interested in bipartisanship (so poisoned by McConnell that it looked foolish).
Ramalama
@Mike J: Charles Pierce tweeted out something like, “What, ’23 Skiddoo’ was already taken?”
Can’t locate the tweet now but it’s memorable (to me at least)
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Well that’d definitely signify someone who’s going to hit the Russthuglicans in the snout instead of this “Well, glad that’s over. Let’s move on.” bullshit!
Baud
@oldgold: Iowans like having friends with benefits.
Miss Bianca
Random thoughts as the coffee kicks in:
Baud
@Raoul: We can’t have an honest conversation about a lot of things if we’re going to avoid getting distracted from the task of saving the country.
Raoul
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Minnesotans have sued to overturn a fetal tissue law here. My partner’s UU congregation joined the suit, arguing that requiring burial for fetal tissue imposes a religious requirement on a medial outcome.
The press so often misses that some faith communities are pro-choice. The abortion conflict is always portrayed as faith vs secular. But that isn’t correct (unless one accepts the RW view that religious liberals are apostate. Which I think many in the press unthinkingly do. Same with freedom to marry. And trans rights. Liberal churches and synagogues do support our queer fam. The press hardly sees it.).
Raoul
@Baud: That’s a depressingly interesting take. I think I sort of agree with you, though I would prefer that we could get to solutions via actual debate over the real issues, the consensus is that people vote based on feelings and tribalism. So we have to battle in that nasty headspace.
mrmoshpotato
@moonbat: Are you saying the wars on Christmas and Thanksgiving are made up bullshit? You watch your tongue! ?
Other MJS
Please don’t. Once was enough.
Mike in Pasadena
@Chief Oshkosh: Malarkey is an old guy’s word, like old farts in their 80’s or 90’s. Nobody had the temerity to tell Biden. My father used malarkey often. Were he still alive, he would be 98.
ThresherK
Just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of “Who cares what Chunky Reese Witherspoon thinks Dems ought to do?” We can’t fix the mess the R’s made of themselves.
Also, if you haven’t seen the real Reese Witherspoon in Judy, and you have any interest in the subject, or showbiz bios, go now.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ohio started down this road a couple years ago when the GOP tried to introduce a bill requiring burials for aborted fetuses. It had some momentum, but that momentum ended when an opposition group pointed out they would also need to ensure all miscarried fetuses (early- and late-term) would receive burials too.
schrodingers_cat
Some good news. The new state government of Maharashtra has stopped the clearing of the Aarey Forest outside Mumbai to construct a new shed for the Mumbai metro and has also dropped all charges against everyone protesting the cutting of the said trees.
Amir Khalid
Ross Douthat is clueless in general, but especially so in areas where he claims some expertise. I remember a book he wrote on modern Christianity, whose review in The NYT pasted Douthat for his ignorance about modern Christianity.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca:
With regard to ‘no more malarkey’…eh. I don’t mind it. Hopeful that a Joe zinger like “Non, verb, 9-11” comes out of his old piehole sooner rather than later, tho’. Just so all of us hand-wringers can feel like “he’s still got it!”’
yup, if I thought Uncle Joe still had the stuff to get through a modern, TV- and twitter-ized campaign, I’d be more than content to have him as the nominee, in no small part because I think that Joe Biden could both win and have broad coattails. I’m still willing to be convinced he can do it.
And I don’t really care if he talks about getting back to normal or any other old chestnuts, cause if the candidate doesn’t have coat tails and Mitch McConnell is still majority leader, all the plans and “getting it” and talk about fighting won’t mean much.
Mike in DC
If only there were a telegenic, competent woman of color in the race…I’m sure she’d be treated fairly.
Baud
@Mike in DC: Didn’t you read the sign? This is a No Malarkey zone.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I really don’t see how it ends otherwise for the Republicans, what they call for goes against core American values too much. Putin’s game works because it’s Russia and Russia history, the Russians idea of a good leader is Ivan the Terrible (my Russian friend pointed out Lenin deliberately grew his beard to look like Ivan the Terrible). Americans expect another George Washington, as much as they want to pretend he is, Trump isn’t that.
And before you say “what about Hitler?” cut that out; Germany was never a democracy before Hitler. German idea of the good leader was Fredrick the Great (that was no accident Hitler was a skinny little guy into art and not so much into women) Democracy was imposed on Germany after WWI by the allies for the publicly stated purpose of breaking up Germany because the Allies wanted the German states to succeed (and what happened after WWII?)
Scout211
@ThresherK:
Is Renee Zellweger the real Reese Witherspoon?
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: I’m going have to ask you to show your work on that one.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Spot on Matt.
StringOnAStick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Silverman wrote an excellent exposition recently on exactly this point; if we don’t win the Senate (and winning it is a huge stretch), then all the things every D presidential candidate is proposing hasn’t got a snowball’s chance. I’ve sent that link on to a few people who were getting too lost in the weeds or still have Bernie bumper stickers. The endless sub-tribal carping on our side feels…..enhanced by bots and I expect that to get worse. Eyes on the prize, people!
bemused senior
@Raoul: This. Anyone who read his book s in 2007/8 would realize that he was not a lefty. I voted for Edwards in the 2008 primary for this reason. (Yeah I know.) But the fact that the Dems are reality based, and thus disappoint the barely politically awake who expect today’s campaign policy arguments to immediately become national transformation a month after a presidential inauguration, is our downfall. The rethugs satisfy their base with cruelty, and their funders with tax cuts.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m sorry I won’t be participating in the caususes this year. In a year like this one, they’ll be fun.
Citizen Alan
@StringOnAStick:
I am increasingly drawn to the idea that the most strongly anti-abortion voters are simply people who subconsciously realize that they are absolutely shitty. And so, the thought of abortion terrifies them because it forces them to confront the fact that the world would probably be better off if they’d never been born.
ThresherK
@Scout211: So, I got those two mixed up? Ugh. No excuse.
I’ve had half my daily caffeine, ergo I can’t blame tiredness. And I saw Chicago and loved that, too, along with Witherspoon in Election and also Pleasantville.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m going to be kind of a dick here, but I’m going to state the anecdotal view of a lot of middle of the road (also frequent) Democratic voters and supporters I interact with on a routine basis, both black and white, straight and gay.
Nobody gives a fuck about your desired pronouns. If you express a preference, they’ll try to accommodate that on a personal basis. Conversely, if you’re going to go into screaming hysterics about cishetero white male privileged patriarchy if they fail to do so out of language custom, they’re going to look upon you as mentally damaged.
Most people’s space – white, black, female, straight and gay – isn’t nearly as woke as a sophomore gender studies seminar. World’s burning down, and y’all need to know this.
Brachiator
Yes! Yes! Yes! The United States is, and has always been a diverse nation. And yet Republicans and pundits like Douthat, here channeling Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, want to stupidly assert that domination by white nativists is the norm.
The irony is that since Newt Gingrich, the GOP has argued that they are the only legitimate political party, that only they represent True America. And yet they have discarded all their supposed principles and policies and settled for a naked assertion of power, and have put their faith in a man like Trump, who doesn’t know or give a shit about history, tradition, politics, economics or government.
BTW, I do not think that any of the Democratic contenders are weak, as Douthat asserts. But there does not seem to yet be the same enthusiasm for any of them, compared to the excitement that charismatic candidates like Obama or Hillary could generate. The one mild exception is the outsider Sanders, who still has a core of devoted believers. This is a challenge for the party when dealing with the negative showman energy that Trump generates, but all this can change as Democratic voters decide on a nominee.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@moonbat:
How long did the PRI predominate in Mexico? 70? 75?
I’ve been thinking that this is the model that the GOP is aiming for.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
My pronouns are thee/thou/thine. Please make a note.
JMG
I have posted on this topic before, but as someone born and raised in Delaware and still with family there, someone who voted for the first time in Biden’s first election, as goofy and corny as he is, when people meet him, they like him. He is the friendly cheery old Grandpa, and I can see why some voters like that contrast with Fox News Angry Grandpa Trump.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
I only have my observations, which I am sure are negligible.
When I referred to Beaver Cleaver, I was thinking about Biden’s outlook as being outdated and a thing of the past. I think relying on Biden’s 8 years of proximity to Obama as his qualification to be president rather than his lifetime record (as mentioned above) would be a mistake.
Lymie
@Chief Oshkosh: how about the slogan, “OK, Biden”?
Or, “no shenanigans “?
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Baud! 2020! thee/thou/thine
Jay Noble
@Miss Bianca: Warren Buffet is a democrat and has pulled Bill Gates to the left a bit.
Ruckus
@Chief Oshkosh:
Biden will win a portion of the primary.
Some like simple sloganeering and he has history. Boy does he have history.
But there are a lot of youngish folks who are looking forward, rather than at a roseish colored past. And they seem to be appalled at more than the very recent political past. As well there are only so many mid west diners for journalists and pundits to create a mime from and they don’t reflect the actual will of the voting public. I think our real problem is the amount of choice we have. Oh and that the rethuglicans only have one choice, who hasn’t really done much to sell himself to the vast majority and whose “policy choices” are clearly
screwingfucking every one but maybe a few thousand wealthy benefactors.Central Planning
@jeffreyw:
That’s also why I’m not in marketing/advertising.
johnnybuck
Down here in Georgia I am already seeing Trump Banners with “No more Bullshit” as the tag line, so unless Biden ups that to some thing like “Fuck Trump and Fuck you” Think he’s going to lose the message war//
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Baud: That’s borderline All Lives Matter dismissive, my friend. Pronouns can make a big difference to people, and preferences deserve to be respected.
West of the Rockies
My general thoughts on Iowa… I’m surprised Kamala decided to go all-in here. I’d have thought South Carolina would have been the more obvious choice.
I wish a super rural, conservative, white state did not have so much declarative power. You perform poorly there, your potentially kneecapped going forward.
Whoever is doing well gets shit upon. EW got the treatment. Now Pete gets it. Joe got it. Why must we always gut our own? I understand vetting. But vetting does NOT mean evisceration (ruining any potential great usefulness to the party going forward).
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: His lifetime record is what caused Obama to chose him as VP. Look at his overall ratings from Democratic groups rather than cherry picking. Does Anita Hill outweigh VAWA? My s-i-l would crawl through fire for him because of VAWA; she is a director of a women’s shelter and domestic violence/sexual assault nonprofit.
Chief Oshkosh
@Lymie: All perfectly acceptable to a portion of the electorate. And, given the order of the primaries, may result in a win for Cheery Uncle Joe.
sukabi
@Baud: there were a couple of things from yesterday that make me think Joe’s misplaced his basket of marbles…
https://twitter.com/kallllisti/status/1200940689149722630?s=20
And
https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1200927741161476096?s=20
WaterGirl
PSA: If you are a published author who hangs out at balloon juice, and you would like your work to be included in Our Authors list (in the footer at the bottom of the page) please submit your information on yesterday’s appropriately named thread. We apologize for this interruption in
your previously scheduled showthis thread.Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
In a way, you have happily refuted your own point. I agree that people are not necessarily “woke,” in the sense of actively championing positivity, inclusivity, whatever. But at our best we are pragmatically tolerant. You refer to middle of the road voters, black and white, gay and straight. And yet it was not too long ago that white was a very narrow band of folks, and black and gay views, whether centrist or otherwise, were never acknowledged or considered. But at least among Democratic voters, more people are visible and acknowledged. We have come a long way, and even take this progress for granted. And of course, this has generated the ugly counter reaction of the Trump GOP.
Still, we are doing better. We just have to keep on keeping on.
H.E.Wolf
Indeed. There are a lot of people who are working to increase the number of Democratic lawmakers in office, at both in-state and national levels.
I find it exhilarating that thousands of women of all ages – many of them women of color – are Democratic candidates for legislative office in 2020, along with some excellent male candidates.
This is where I’m focusing my time and volunteer energies in the months ahead. I want to help make the legislative blue wave in November 2018 look like a child splashing in a wading pool, when compared to November 2020’s results.
zhena gogolia
@Mike J:
I’d be happy with Joe, Kamala, Cory, Amy, Pete . . .
Anyone but Bernie or Tulsi.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@johnnybuck: It’s McCain’s “straight talk express” all over again! Wins the media, but not the election, if I recall…
Citizen Alan
@Jay Noble:
That is not the same thing as being on our side, though. At the moment, Bloomberg is technically a Democrat.
jeffreyw
I’m so old I know who Buster Brown is. Swell guy. Dog owner. Wore nice, comfy shoes.
zhena gogolia
@ThresherK:
RENEE ZELLWEGER!!!!!
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree with your sister that’s important. But it says something about Biden that all these years later, he still cannot bring himself to give Hill a genuine, heartfelt apology.
Brachiator
@West of the Rockies:
Huh? Harris is trying to echo Obama. Obama prevailed in Iowa in 2008. It made people sit up and take notice. Had he lost Iowa, a win in South Carolina could be dismissed or minimized.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
My only personal pronoun is a royal “We”. I shall be referred to by all others as “El Conquistador”, as I self identify as Spanish nobility, and also see myself as handsome as Antonio Banderas….
Honus
@Raoul: Democrats took over the Virginia General assembly this month. There have been 22 counties declare themselves “second amendment sanctuaries” since then in anticipation of gun control legislation. (The Roanoke times asked why nobody was as fired up to demand more money for rural schools)
Citizen Alan
@debbie:
I think he understands that doing so while actively running for President would most likely be viewed as craven by a lot of people. Or at least be painted that way by the GOP and their press lackeys.
johnnybuck
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: My point was that trump already went there, Malarkey looks weak. Go big or go home!
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: That’s pretty fucking far removed from your initial comment. If Biden is such a throwback, GOP-lite guy, why did Obama pick him?
leeleeFL
@Baud: Definitely a slogan I could get behind! I might even wear a button! Return to Normalcy just creeps me out, too Silent Cal.
Joe being the place-holder for Barack makes all the sense in the world, but he ain’t Barack. Not that Obama didn’t have some negatives to shed, but his all-around lack of scandal may not be matched in my lifetime, I think.
germy
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
Speaking just for me, I’m content to go whereever middle aged black women are willing to go. They’ve always supported the party and really are a bellweather for the middle. It occurs to me (again, anecdotally) that where they’re not willing to go us gigantic structural economic change or eternally prickly, whiny wokeness.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Warren and Sanders are old white people. And yet they represent “looking forward” to a lot of voters. Biden thinks he also is a bridge to the future. Compared to any Republican, he ain’t wrong.
I think that Biden should never have entered the race. And yet, he does have some support. We will just have to see how things develop.
zhena gogolia
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I think you need to get out more.
tobie
I don’t know Iowa at all but I will say that in rural Maryland Sanders is very popular with the left and the right for a variety of reasons, some the same and some different. Both left and right like that he rails against the machine. They like that he says that government is corrupt. They are grateful that he never brings up race since they feel like that’s unfair to them. Rightwingers also know that Sanders has no chance of winning so they afford to be generous toward him. If he were a real threat to Trump, they’d hate him. Ditto that for Yang and Gabbard, whom they’ve gotten to know along with Sanders on Joe Rogan’s podcast. This is what I learned over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Miss Bianca
@Jay Noble: Bill Gates still doesn’t agree his taxes should be raised, however – which is a concept Warren Buffet seems to grok at least, to his credit.
Kay
Lol. They should go to some Democratic events, interview some Democrats, that sort of thing. I don’t know- political reporting?
I just read the WaPo on politics. No one else seems to actually be in Iowa.
West of the Rockies
@Brachiator:
True, but wasn’t Barack already registering fairly well in Iowa at the time? Harris is at an inexplicable 3% or less there. She was way down when she made the declaration of going all-in.
I wish she could get a do-over. I think she could be a very good president. Still, as long as we don’t end up with BS or traitor Tulsi, I’m fine.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@zhena gogolia:
How dare you belittle my self-identification as a Banderas doppelgänger who happens to also be Spanish nobility! It’s so hurtful to my psyche and my sense of self!
I’ll call out a social media army to cancel you for your hate speech, see if I don’t!!
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Black folk are not a monolith. One of the long standing ironies of the Obama and post-Obama era is that reporters and commenters acknowledge the importance of the black vote without ever actually getting the opinions of black voters. They look at polls and then retreat into confirmation bias bubbles, substituting their own hopes and dreams instead of doing any actual journalism.
There is a huge difference between what people may want in terms of economic change and their views of wokeness, whiny or otherwise.
West of the Rockies
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Probably going to end up with old Joe then, for good or ill. I wonder what middle-aged Anita thinks of him.
Miss Bianca
@Honus: Sounds like what is happening in rural CO. My own county declared itself a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary County” because the state legislature was considering a red flag law. Along with a bunch of other rural counties here. We’ve come a long way, baby, but we need to come a lot longer.
moonbat
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: They can aim for it all they want, but their current model of “governance” is not sustainable. As many people above have observed, this nation is too diverse to support their delusion (observe the 2018 backlash and the more recent local/state elections). The fact they have yet to acknowledge that fact is proof of how out of touch with reality they are, but it doesn’t mean we have to share in their delusions.
Brachiator
@tobie:
Sanders is not and has never been my guy, but I think that rightwingers underestimate him.
Also, these goofballs hate whoever Trump tells them to hate. This actually is a weakness, because they easily ignore reality in order to stay on the Trump bandwagon.
Omnes Omnibus
@West of the Rockies: Harris is still my pick, but I am starting to think that not everyone sees the world the same as I do. Among my white, middle class family, Biden is the clear favorite. Besides him, I got one Warren and one Buttigieg – aside from my Harris.
Inventor
When I read the name “Douthat”, I pronounce it “doubt that” in my head.
And I always do.
Kay
Hell if I know, but “malarkey” seems to be more of what people actually like about Biden, so maybe they’re on the right track. He’s not combative! They are never, ever going to be able to turn this person into some kind of street fighter.
That was never his appeal. Will it work against the most mean-spirited and petty people on the face of the planet? I don’t know but it doesn’t matter. Biden is almost uniquely unsuited to a negative campaign. This is what you’re getting so we better hope it works.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
instead of the pundit shows following the same old format every Sunday and every night (invite politician or bureaucratic/industry/regime mouthpiece, ask poorly framed questions and let the scripted talking points spew forth like splooge in a bukkake video), Is like to se them invite average people who are being fucked over by a policy or stance to talk to the politician or mouthpiece, with the host only facilitating the points of the discussion here or there. It would humanize the victims of the regime.
Miss Bianca
@germy: Friend of mine posted a pic from the Warren rally in Chicago on FB. It was inspiring!
Then I have other FB friends who are wringing their hands over “Dems in Disarray” and suggesting ridiculous “fixes” to the perceived “electability” problem by proposing…wait for it…Bernie Sanders for POTUS and Michael Bloomberg for VP! Because nothing would say “electability” like a bill made of *those* two altekochers, am I right?
Brachiator
@West of the Rockies:
Yep. Obama increased his lead in opinion polls going into Iowa, from 28 percent to 32 percent. This is where Harris’ strategy falls apart. But if she could make any kind of strong showing, it would make a huge difference to her campaign.
glory b
@Ruckus: Maybe, but as Adam Silverman said, putting your hopes on young voters is a fool’s errand .
germy
@Miss Bianca:
What a ticket! They could debate EACH OTHER in the general election.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Im really disappointed that Harris hasn’t caught fire. My take is anybody but the olds and Tulsi, but our shitty media isn’t going to let that happen.
It feels like the entirety of my life is subject to the rule, idiot opinions and greed of boomers; and that history will end only when the last boomer snatches the last crumb of food from a starving child to put in the fridge “for a rainy day sometime in the future”.
West of the Rockies
@Inventor:
I go with the more juvenile Douche Hat.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
Saw it and enjoyed it. Hope you share your thoughts on it after you have seen it.
tobie
@Brachiator:
This is true. Their hate is fungible. I remember when they claimed to admire HRC in 2009 since this was a way of getting back at Obama. They liked Biden, too, until it became clear he would run for President and FOX started sounding the alarm. Trying to figure out whom to vote for based on who could appeal to FOX news watchers is a deeply flawed strategy. I can’t imagine any Dem strategist is taking advice from Douthat.
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I feel like their industry is getting more diverse so that might help. They’re really very conventional. Most of what people here attribute to ideology in the political press I think is just a very ordinary type of conventionality and an unwillingness to change their approach. It’s “conservative” in the most broad definition of the word.
They know Trump lies all the time. They just don’t have the tools to deal with that, and I confess I don’t either. You’re a lawyer. You know how difficult liars are to deal with. “You SIR are a LIAR” only works on tv. In real life they just continue to lie and a good bit of the time it works.
Miss Bianca
@germy: IKR?
Or, conversely, there’s this scenario: “Thank you, thank you, and I’d like to introduce my good friend Mike Bloomberg! Yeah, forget what I said about “millyunaires and billyunaires”…I’m one, he’s one, and let me tell you, he’s one of the good ones! What’s that? ‘Stop and frisk’? Well, that never happened to *me* when *I* lived in New Yawk, so I don’t see it as a problem! Now, on to our economic policies…!”
CaseyL
There’s a chance that nostalgia for normalcy would be a winning ticket next year. Nostalgia is something that happens when, to put not too fine a point on it, the present is unbearable and the future looks to be even worse. People, being people, can’t face that: so they look backward.
Look: this country is broken. The center isn’t just failing, it’s fallen into an abyss. Not only in the political sense of the word, but in the Yeatsian sense. We know that.
And we don’t have what it takes to fix. We just don’t. Even if we keep the House, take the Senate, and win the White House, there is too much that needs real fixing, from roads and bridges to healthcare delivery systems and education systems that bankrupt you if anything doesn’t go exactly as planned.
Not to mention, climate change is moving into an acute phase. Over the next 20 years, people will be on the move, trying to find places to live that won’t burn down, freeze over, blow away, or get washed away every year. People will be on the move, trying to find places to live that have drinkable water.
People know this, if only in their subconscious.
What Joe promises can’t be delivered. But he’s promising it anyway, because that’s what people want/need to hear. Nostalgia, for a time when there seemed to be a way to prosper, when the future didn’t look like an asteroid on an approach vector.
That, IMHO, is what people hear and why they support him.
Saying “Well, that ain’t gonna happen” is true. It ain’t. But the mass of voters can’t bear to even think that, much less hear it.
Miss Bianca
@CaseyL: I have nostalgia for the word “normality” myself. I know it ain’t never coming back, but whoever promised it would get my vote!
More seriously, good (if depressing) comment.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
Momentary movie segue – “Knives Out” is a lot of fun – Daniel Craig chews up the screen and the rest of the cast is fantastic. Great holiday whodunit.
Betty Cracker
@Lymie: “OK, Biden” is a GENIUS slogan, and if the campaign had a lick of sense, they’d repaint the dumb “No Malarkey” bus right now.
Kay
Biden does nothing for me but I will of course back him if he wins, and I think he might win just by attrition. I’ll be honest though- it’s pretty dispiriting. I worry it won’t be enough to get our voters out. I wish these fucking people voted on federal judges but the fact is they don’t.
I wish I had an example of when the Democratic base has rallied to STOP something rather than voting FOR something but I don’t, outside midterms. Trump’s an incumbent, he has half the political press either in his pocket or enthralled by his maverick daring-do and we have to once again pull together our fractious coalition and win nationally. I’m just not sure 30 year old mainstream Democratic policy-by-committee can do that and that’s all the centrists have- Biden, Mayor Pete and Klobachur- it’s all the same stuff. I hope it’s enough. I think if they’re honest they’re all counting on the anti-Trump energy to add oomph and maybe it will. It wasn’t enough for Kerry v Bush though and I can’t ignore that.
moonbat
Wow, what an inspiring thread! I don’t know whether to vote in the upcoming primaries or perform seppuku. Look, the past is dead and the future is uncertain but things are for sure NOT going to get better if we don’t do our dead level best to bend the outcome toward the good. The Beast has not made it to Bethlehem yet, people.
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Bolivia, where the “white” elite is angrily extirpating every trace of Evo Morales and his indigenous inclusive government, is perhaps another example.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
The fact that all of the other candidates seem to feel a need to take Harris down makes me wonder if their internal polling is saying something very different than public polling. ?
zhena gogolia
@moonbat:
It’s BJ.
I came from church all optimistic and believing in the good of humanity, and now . . . .
mrmoshpotato
@tobie:
Also could be that both Dump and Wilmer are “Burn it all down.” candidates.
Brachiator
@moonbat:
In many ways, I think this thread is actually positive, because Betty Cracker made excellent points about why people like Douthat are dead wrong about the Democrats. And the primaries are just about to get underway. Democrats have yet to choose and to rally around their candidate. The future is not written.
And in my version of the poem, we hunt the Beast down and drop it into a bottomless pit.
Jim
He should show his work. https://www.inquisitr.com/5586088/bernie-sanders-women-people-color/ which appears to have been the case for some time now https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/12/17/how-come-so-many-bernie-bros-are-women-and-people-color There’s likely far more trump voters ready to come back from the dark side than there are BSDS suffers ready to “recoil” from his candidacy with the consequent negative reactions of voting trump or staying home. Why is the opinion of an Asshat like that worth commenting on anyway other than to get that “recoil” (and “BS only cares about economics” as evidenced by?) stuff into the BJ’s bloodstream? We all know that a BS candidacy is gonna stick like a proverbial bone in the throats of BS-bashing BJers, no?
Origuy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: As you’re in Kentucky, don’t you want to be a Colonel?
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It’s now on my list. Thanks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I think that you are wrong about Biden being able be combative. He’s done it in the VP debates. Malarkey is combative; we all know he has self-censored and really intended us to hear the word bullshit. I do think you are correct that he can’t do negative. Combative and negative do not have to be the same.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@mrmoshpotato:
As I’ve said before, if it’s Trump vs Sanders next year, I expatriate. There is no good result possible.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim:
We all know that a BS candidacy is gonna stick like a proverbial bone in the throats of BS-bashing BJers, no?
vote Bernie to own the (neo) libs of the 10,000th-ranked political blog?
moonbat
@zhena gogolia: Is that anything like “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown”?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Origuy:
LOL – Oh, hell no. They’re pretty pathetic as an honorary group. Plus, they’d eagerly have me, and no organization that would have me is worthwhile.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s TOP 10,000th….
Just One More Canuck
@Baud:
shouldn’t that be “Prithee, make a note”?
moonbat
@Brachiator: I was referring more to the Comte de Monte Cristo and Casey L takes on the situation, not the original post. Though I do have a strong inclination toward a single candidate, I have no problem with the party as a whole not yet settling on one. That’s what primaries are for.
Personally, I think the rigors of a road campaign will tell on Uncle Joe pretty quick in the public eye and the issue will take care of itself. So I am not too worried about him being the eventual nominee. Same for Bernie. Same for Trump. This is a marathon, not a sprint and none of those guys are up for it.
NotMax
@jeffreyw
IMHO for someone of Biden’s vintage, it’s a billboard advertising he’s not all there.
Chief Oshkosh
The answer is in the question: Obama picked Biden because he is a throwback, GOP-lite guy. As the first AA nominee of a major party, he sure as shinola wasn’t going to pick anyone who would remotely appear non-establishment.
mrmoshpotato
@Miss Bianca:
??????????? If I ran for office, I’d be fucking electable, because I could be elected!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m rewatching the Ken Burns Vietnam series right now and am really taken by the imagery that Just passed: Nixon, damaged as we was as a person, was genuinely delighted dancing with his daughter at her wedding.
I can’t imagine Trump being like that.
Also, this was the episode with the VVAW throwing medals over the makeshift fence, so in honor of Raven, fuck LBJ.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
He picked Biden to reassure moderates.
Chyron HR
Nobody:
No-one at all:
Not a single person:
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: FucK YoUR PROnoUNS
Mnemosyne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Nixon had major psychological issues, but he was no narcissist.
Miss Bianca
@mrmoshpotato: You’d have to change your nym to Johnny Unbeatable for maximum electability! : )
debbie
@Kay:
Definitely dispiriting!
NotMax
For whatever it is worth, moderators for the December 19th debate announced.
opiejeanne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Just shut up with that Blame the Boomer bullshit
I haven’t snatched the crumbs from an orphan in weeks.
geg6
@Xavier:
Hahahaha, you are hilarious. Just like Bernie, you don’t give a damn about the social issues if you think socialist economics will have anything to do with solving them. You can tax millionaires all you want, you can socialize banks, you can provide free college and healthcare. It still won’t change the fact that, until women, people of color and LGBTQ have their rights fully codified in law and are treated equally under the law, then the economics won’t change for us no matter how much white men will benefit. Bernie doesn’t give a damn about any of those groups. Not. One. Single. Damn.
germy
@NotMax:
Tim Alberta is a National Review contributor. So he’ll be there to frame the debate in republican talking points.
I predict his first question will be: “how do you plan to pay for it?”
trollhattan
Small world, flawed world edition. Kiddo’s XC team lined up alongside a team from Saugus High at their race starting line yesterday, and in chatting learned that not only were they the site of CA’s latest school shooting, to further “sweeten the deal” the killer was on the XC team. Saugus girls persisted and were 3rd team, overall. I’ll guess that running provided a positive diversion for them, even though normal will never return.
Every parent’s nightmare, revisited weekly.
mrmoshpotato
@Origuy: LOL I watched that a few weeks ago.
Noah Brand
Douthat is an oddly fascinating figure to me. He got hired as Basically George Will But Less Old back during the Cheney administration, and he knows what his job is. Be the sensible intellectual conservative making the prudent, rational, affluent white case for Republican policies. Problem is, some terrible Jesuitical part of his brain is aware that there is no set of facts that supports those policies. There is no data he can point to, no model that he can construct, that will allow him to perform the basic function of his job. But if he just throws up his hands entirely and screams I’M SORRY BUT THE LIBERALS ARE RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING, he’ll lose that stupid job, and the NYT will hire Charlie Kirk or one of his little Nazi boy-band clones to fill the slot.
So he writes these exhausted, miserable columns about “Well, as a cultural conservative, speaking conservatively about the culture, I just need a drink and then several more drinks and then I just want to sleep forever or until Eisenhower’s back in office” and I find them fascinating. I don’t pity him exactly, but I enjoy watching him thrash around in the trap he’s built for himself.
mrmoshpotato
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yup. Horseshoe theory.
trollhattan
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Today’s Doonesbury has workers reconstructing Nixon’s WH wall. Shape of things to come.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t think he did do it in the debates. The whole debate wind up was how would he “handle” the debates. He handled the debates by being genial and likeable and informed. He knows a lot, which is a plus but this idea that he will “take the gloves off” and battle both ignores what he is and also ignores his strength and appeal. He’s at his absolute worst when he’s attacking the other candidates in the D field. He sound petulant and patronizing and most of the time he misses the point of what they’re actually criticizing.
Biden operates in the world with and thru relationships. It’s worked really well for him. He’s not oppositional. Trump will beat him up. The only question is if it matters. It may not. Hopefully people will be so sick of how nasty Trump and the Trump people are Biden’s brand of politics will prevail. He is never going to out-nasty Donald Trump and he shouldn’t try.
Citizen Alan
@Xavier:
I actually think Bernie (and you) are completely wrong about this. Obama could only have become President at a moment in history when the situation was dire enough for people to value competence and vision above skin color. “I guess I’ll vote for the n*****” and all that. Bernie fails to understand the extent to which racism is a luxury that most people can only indulge in when times are good.
WUT Monsters
@Raoul:
A good start to that honest conversation about Obama is to dispense with the Obama as a liberal Republican nonsense. You’re torturing party labels to put Obama in a pre-Southern Strategy Republican Party and ignoring 50 years of ideological sorting. This overestimates the willingness the pre-1960s Republicans to move towards liberal goals (Hint: some were most were precursors to the modern troglodytes) and ignores Obama’s actual record (left of center while governing to the center-left of his Democratic caucus). In the current primary, Obama would be to the right of Warren/Sanders and left of Biden/Buttigieg. AKA a Democrat.
A good second step would be to discuss what pro-business means in the context of Obama or the Democratic Party. He didn’t rip the throats of the capitalist pigs, but he did plenty of things to regulate of their worst impulses. He maybe could have done more, but characterizing him as a Republican style pro-business politician is a bit of a stretch, even in the context past GOP.
trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
Gates sounded whiny and defensive, and conjured up nonsense numbers of how much tax he’d be paying under the wealth tax. It was either an interesting tell or he was off-script and hadn’t thought it through.
His dad BTW is a strong supporter of the estate tax.
debbie
@geg6:
Seconded!
moonbat
@WUT Monsters: Here, here! THIS! Seconded! Etc., etc., etc.!
germy
NotMax
@germy
Have no familiarity with his output but will say a purely subjective immediate reaction from only reading that short bio is that when asked as a youngster what he wanted to be when he grew up he answered, “David Broder.”
mrmoshpotato
@Miss Bianca: Uncle Sam the Unbeatable Baseball-playing Apple Pie!
Kay
@trollhattan:
I read Bloombergs site and it is NOTABLE that there is an absence of tax increases. In fact, there’s another tax cut, this one to “the middle class”.
It is a continued mystery to me why Right wingers and centrists never have to explain where they get revenue. Only outlays are considered. How is Michael Bloomberg going to balance the budget without additional revenue? Trump blew right past it with just existing programs and services. All of these green eye shade accountants in media never ask about what comes in.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen Alan:
Good point! I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but the truly ugly American pogroms and uprisings happened when economic times were good and the rising tide actually was lifting all boats. There’s a reason the KKK had its highest national membership in the roaring ‘20s long before the stock market crashed.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Agree about Biden’s geniality being his super power, which is why I think he’s wholly unsuitable for what needs to be done to try to fix this mess AFTER the election, but it may be what appeals to an electorate that is fed up with nastiness.
trollhattan
@WUT Monsters:
Well put. Even with his initial slender congressional margins the Republican “stop him everywhere at all costs” strategy was in full swing at his inauguration. And recall the country and its economy were in freefall.
Stimulus Bill–a fraction of what was needed. Jobs Bill, stymied out of existence. ACA, passed by the narrowest of threads and under immediate assault. Tea Party astroturf goes into high gear and the efforts to erase presidential powers (until January 2016) go live.
Republican, my ass.
Baud
@NotMax: My God. Not even David Broder wanted to be David Broder when he grew up.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
He’s quite popular here and it’s a combination of geniality and TRUST which I think is under-valued in political markets- trust matters a lot. They think they won’t have to worry about him harming them. That’s not a really ambitious and inspiring thing, but can you blame them? They don’t want to get hurt. That’s reasonable.
Laura Koerber
i think that once you get outside the activist bubble that most dems are focused more on picking a winner than on anything else and that many of the issues that appear large in activist circles are not large anywhere else
Miss Bianca
@Noah Brand: You’re a lot more charitable in your assessment of him than I am, and funnier too!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WUT Monsters: thank you, I didn’t have the energy today.
trollhattan
@Kay:
So true. The “Debt Clock” seems only to appear when a Democrat is in the White House. Heaven forfend the Republicans be held accountable for their tax bill gift to eternal, unpayable national debt.
Kay
@trollhattan:
Trump is promising to cut the debt (on Right wing media, exclusively) if he’s re-elected. Since we know he doesn’t understand a fucking thing about anything, the far Right in the Republican Party will be doing the cutting. They may actually achieve their life-long dream of plundering Social Security. I swear to God if young people get screwed on that like they got screwed on everything else we may have an actual revolution.
Martin
@Lapassionara: Black voters are tremendously practical. You all are looking at a primary fight of which kind of health care can we get. Black voters see that a racist president means their likelihood of getting shot just for going through the day is measurably higher. How their healthcare gets paid for is a secondary concern at best. Who can beat Trump is priorities 1, 2, and 3 and if they think Biden is best positioned to beat Trump then that’s who they’ll back, and that’s pretty much all that matters. It’s on every other candidate to change that calculus to get black voter support.
Put another way, white voters have the privilege to shop for candidates. Black voters need Trump out, now.
opiejeanne
@Kay: I read that Trump’s proposed budget for 2020 includes some deep cuts to both social security and Medicare.
opiejeanne
@Martin: Well-put.
Baud
@Kay:
but after that, utopia.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Since he came up earlier, Trump’s debt solution sounds a lot like Nixon’s secret plan for peace in Vietnam. “Trust me.”
To test your theory we should monitor the use of “entitlements” in Republican talking points. It’s a short drive from Entitlement Street to Handout Avenue.
Major Major Major Major
For everybody confused by what he’s referring to when he talks about “democrats pushing culture war stuff”, it’s:
etc.
Betty Cracker
@Laura Koerber: You are 100% correct. But the problem is we need the activists on board or we continue the slide into authoritarianism, and because there’s just one party representing all poles of the debate, that’s a tall order.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan:
Well put. Even with his initial slender congressional margins the Republican “stop him everywhere at all costs” strategy was in full swing at his inauguration.
Not just Republicans. Before the inauguration, Evan Bayh tried to form an official “Blue Dog” caucus in the Senate to reassure Wall St. There was enough energy at the time for the blowback to scare them off, but he and Landrieu and Dorgan et al were still there to water down everything from Dodd-Franks to the ACA to the Stimulus.
If only Obama had shouted and done more performative anger, though…
Martin
I think she saw the Obama pattern. Obama wasn’t winning SC either until black voters saw he could win Iowa. That opened the floodgates. I mean, Iowa is a shitty first state because it’s so unrepresentative of the nation, but it’s very representative of non-Democratic voters – full of old white farmers and John Deere workers. If a Democrat can win there, they might be able to win the general.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Silly trollhatten, screaming about the national debt is for Russthuglicans when there’s a Democratic President.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: that was his health care plan, too. “Something terrific, we’re gonna take care of everybody, it’ll be easy, believe me.” I always thought that would make a good commercial for the Dems, but who knows. I haven’t conducted any focus groups.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud:
Same issue with the “u” on the Baud! bus. It reads “Bad!”
Now that I think about it, that works….
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Also hasn’t Harris been working SC for some time and is well liked there? She does not have the cash flow of some, EW for example. EW started way early and went all in to raise cash I think and it’s worked. KH has worked with local talent to build a following, and while it might not be as flashy as EW it is still a while to the primaries starting and she is ramping up while EW seems to be somewhat stalling out. I think EW went in too strong too early and that might cost her.
I’m a bit worried because KH is my #1 choice but she is out there winning friends and supporters daily and in ways that seem to be solid.
SWMBO
@debbie: Make it mandatory for insurance to cover it. They will fight tooth and nail to put a stop to this bullshit.
Cacti
This.
Our Republic is in mortal danger. We’re one bad election cycle away from everything we love about it possibly being gone forever. Winning in November is everything.
The internet left’s preferred candidates have done a piss poor job at reassuring anyone that they understand this. On the contrary, their chief focus has been to hold a circle jerk among the faithful about their wondrous plans to reinvent the country, whether a majority actually wants them to or not.
See: Medicare for all
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.” (Adults all around the country look at each other)
glory b
@Martin: This, this, this and THIS!!!
jonas
Is Douthat really saying that he’ll give us a wealth tax and M4A, or whatever, if we leave the homophobic wedding caterers and gun humpers alone? Somehow I don’t think he’s making that argument in…what’s the term? Oh, yes. Good faith.
glory b
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And pointing. Don’t forget pointing.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Harris and Warren announced their candidacies at, for all intents and purposes, the same time – Harris in late January, Warren in early February.
neldob
@Miss Bianca: This is half the reason I love this blog. Bless your merry heart.
karen marie
You kids realize that dedicating posts to Douthat only encourages him and the fucking NY Times, right?
I won’t even read the excerpts. There is nothing that shitfaced fuckweasel has to say that is of use or relevance to anyone.
J R in WV
Here is the content of an email I got early this morning from Planned Parenthood, one of our favorite organizations to support. This seems as important as election stuff, especially this far out from the first electoral activity.
Here’s that link to click to make a comment, in case the above link no longer works. Now, go, and do what needs to be done!
karen marie
@jonas: Douthat doesn’t have the power to do anything. I question whether he’s able to wipe his own ass.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@opiejeanne: there’s video footage of Lindsey Graham and Joni Ernst talking about how it’s time to get serious about entitlement cuts. I can only assume Dems are waiting to use this stuff on TV to avoid the “old news” trap. Or something.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Cacti:
“Free” College.
Wealth Tax.
Lapassionara
@Cacti: What you said.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Biden is the “safe” pick. We have too many choices, several of whom would not make good presidents and a couple would make not good at all presidents. We have a few who should be acceptable to most any democrat. And 2 or 3 who seem like they would make pretty damn good presidents. But Biden is the safety. And people are so scared, pissed, terrified by the republican party right now that safe seems like not a bad choice. But safe for many seems to mean we don’t make things worse, which is not horrible but we have gone so far down in such a short time that we need good, to climb back up the reality ladder. Joe is 77 yrs old. As someone in the same decade of life, I can unequivocally say, that is too fucking old. Yes we all age differently, and ageism is not “proper,” but he is still too fucking old.
Harris is my choice. Good policy concepts, good experience, not too old.
EW is my second choice. Good policy concepts, not bad experience, right at/over my age limit, we are 3 weeks apart in age. (She is aging better than I am that’s for sure and my docs say I look way younger-but not that I’m aging well)
Castro is my third choice. Good policy concepts, not really enough experience, but he does come across as a real choice, maybe next time.
Amy K is my fourth choice. Not bad policy concepts, some a bit off for me, just doesn’t for some reason rate as high as my first three, a can’t quite put my finger on it candidate.
I’m out. Will vote for them – better than shit for brains, but then I’d fulfill that category, as would several commenters here.
Raoul
I am not original in this thought, but I tend to believe that most of humanity knows this, subconsciously. And thus people are behaving more and more like rats in a massive sinking ship.
I don’t know how we move from competition to cooperation to try and solve this. I suspect we can’t, as a matter of many lifetimes of evolution not being able to be adapted/overcome in at best two generations (ie Xers and younger).
Miss Bianca
@J R in WV: Thanks, J R!
Ruckus
@NotMax:
About the same dates but completely different styles that made it look like a much longer timeframe.
EW hit the ground running and hasn’t stopped, she’s the energizer bunny of presidential politics, working crowds and doing it well.
KH started slower, working the state parties first, a more traditional campaign, more grass roots, build the power, the workers.
GOVCHRIS1988
Ok, can I just fucking say as a millennial myself (just turned 31 two months ago, so I guess I’m now old.) that I’m REALLY getting fucking sick of the pettiness of Sanders/Warren supporters who are mocking the whole, “No malarkey” bus. I mean, I’m not that fucking slow not to remember Vice President Biden using the phrase during the 2012 Vice Presidential Debate against Paul Ryan and how it became the twitter hashtag de jure for the rest of the primary. Do these folks keep forgetting that they are now backing either a candidate who is older who had a heart attack and thinks backing the Sandinistas as Mayor of a small town was a big achievement of the 80s or a slightly younger candidate that was a Republican in the 90s who tried to Rachel Dolezal her ass into Cherokee nation. I mean, seriously progressives, is that where you’re going? Playing ageism between multiple Diamond AARP users?
Look, at the end of the day, its about the votes. Who shows up. Throughout all of left wing twitter, I haven’t heard a goddamn thing about voter registration drives, when the primary/caucus dates are, the deadlines to register to vote in a primary and whether or not you have to be in a party to do so. Mock if you want to, but from what I’m looking at in these polls and who generally ends up voting overwhelmingly every primary, I’d have to say Joe’s the favorite to win the primaries. His voters will show up,vote, and go home and watch the results just like Hillary’s voters in 16 did, while Bernie/Warren voters keep trying to be twitter woke from home.
catclub
Michael Bloomberg is going to tell them that a lot. His experiment in non-participatory democracy will be interesting. I think his ads should be listing failures of Trump more prominently. In watching amuted version, you don’t get much disapproval of Trump. I would put statements like “Higher trader deficits than ever, under Trump losing trade wars.” “More coal miners out of work, special rules for coal barons, under Trump.”
evodevo
@debbie: Yes. This. The day you catch me listening to Russ Doubthat is the day you can consign me to the dementia clinic…
catclub
So go and give money to Andrew Tobias – treasurer of the Democratic party. Early money for voter registration.
Seanly
Not gonna read anything that liar & clueless conservative Douchehat says. Like all of the other NYFT columnists, he just trolls Democrats (not including Krugman). Nothing any of them say is meant to be of actual assistance to Democrats.
Chyron HR
@Cacti:
One would assume this is obvious, but you don’t actually get to play the “The Democrats must win in November or humanity is doomed” card and follow it up with “So you better nominate
BernieBiden or we’re staying home!”trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Because it’s essentially One Full Year until the election I’m still nearsighted WRT the polls, paying the most attention to California. It’s been odd seeing Biden pop into first place and seemingly dragging Sanders behind him, as he’s now stubbornly in second. Do we also suffer from “Get me the old guy” syndrome? If so, ugh.
Harris’ slide from first to fourth is perplexing, although the word around Sac is her campaign team is not good. That’s something only she can fix but it’s pretty late in the process for anything meaningful, given the talent base is spread thin among more than a dozen candidates, including three enormously rich guys.
Cacti
Could you point me to the part where I said we have to nominate Biden?
We need someone who can win. Period.
frosty
PA next, oh pretty please!
Kay
Malarkey, laughing and smiling, and, incidentally, actually knowing something about the budget so easily discrediting Ryan’s 20% tax cut proposal bullshit.
Ruckus
@catclub:
Do you really expect Bloomberg to jettison his seemingly life long beliefs in the power of money to make him a better person? His money comes from the financial industry, an industry that is all about moving money around to create more money, rather than any actual product. He’s in this race to save his and other billionaires stature and money. I don’t care why he says he’s running, he’s in it for one reason.
Juju
The thing that really irritates me about Douthat is that he gets paid a great deal to write that sort of flaming pile every week, with time off for holidays. He is the dictionary definition of mediocre, and the finest example of white male privilege. He is a waste of space and oxygen on planet earth as far as I’m concerned.
Xavier
@Citizen Alan: “racism is a luxury that most people can only indulge in when times are good”
Well.
Laura Koerber
@Betty Cracker: i think we need a team one black, one white. one male, one female. one “safe” one more exciting. a biden/Stacey abrams ticket, for example. so my question for each candidate is who are you going to pick for a vp?
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Biden is name recognition and that President Obama lingering scent. Those pictures of him, his car and President Obama said good guy, one of us. He’s the “safe” choice guy, the you know what you got guy, the old friend guy. the he won’t let us down guy. I’ve wondered from the moment President Obama announced him as his VP choice, why? The safe guy, the nice guy, the friend in the senate guy? Joe is not a bad guy in any regard, but he has faults that he didn’t have last time he ran or the time before that and what has he gained since then? He’s gotten older, and that’s obvious. He’s gotten more popular, that’s obvious. What has he gained as a politician, as a candidate? See my first sentence above.
I really don’t see anything else he brings to the table.
Harris. Now that’s a conundrum to me. I see a strong candidate with good history and great personality. Does she pick badly for election staff? Looks like that is possible. Have they done a shitty rollout? I don’t see that. So what is it that puts her in the position she’s in? I don’t know but then I’m not a popularity contest idealist. I want a leader and a thinker and a good person. A person who grasps now as well as a future, not one who just sees way down the road but sees the whole picture in front of them and realistically inspires people.
Mnemosyne
@Xavier:
Look at American history and tell me where the lie is in what he said.
Villago Delenda Est
Douchehat is called Douchehat for a reason.
The Dark Avenger
Ron Goulart predicted anti-abortion terrorists in one of his novel, let’s hope we was wrong about this.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1866974.After_Things_Fell_Apart
zhena gogolia
@moonbat:
Exactly!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ruckus: when she was asked about her support M4A, and if that meant she supported getting rid of private insurance, she said yes. Then she spent a couple of weeks walking that back. It looked a lot like she didn’t have a set course on what is the most important non-trump issue to Democrats. Then I think she lost the momentum to Warren, the one with a plan for everything. Who then stumbled on the exact same question
WereBear
I have long called the intersection between Southern Strategy Republicans and Theocracy-led Evangelicals an “unholy alliance” because it is ALL based on make-believe.
They are trying to enforce their fantasy world on the rest of us because they are fools and fakers, devious and desperate, and all too many regard that as a status quo they want to wish back into existence.
Things have gone too far. President Obama is smart enough to know we have to return to two-party which is a designed default but perhaps he did not want to give up his dream of avoiding national collapse.
But Republicans have left all sense, logic, even self-preservation behind. They are now Hitler in the bunker; knowing all is lost, and wanting to take the rest of us down with them.
However this works in political terms: that is where we are.
zhena gogolia
@Noah Brand:
Eisenhower’s too far left for him.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Very interesting Twitter thread from a political scientist that points out that the MSM tagged Harris as the loser from day 1 and they’re pissed that she refuses to roll over:
https://mobile.twitter.com/SistahScholar/status/1200982200042299392
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
And I’m with black voters on this, 100%.
Xavier
@Mnemosyne: From wikipedia on the Klan in the 1920s: “Most Klansmen were lower- to middle-class whites who were trying to protect their jobs and housing from the waves of newcomers to the industrial cities: immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, who were mostly Catholic or Jewish; and black and white migrants from the South.”
Matt McIrvin
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If only we throw the trans people under the bus, surely we’ll win this time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: It’s not just Black voters, it’all POC voters.
Mnemosyne
@The Dark Avenger:
Unless he wrote his novel in the 1970s, talking about anti-abortion terrorists isn’t prophecy, it’s history. Hell, there’s a TV miniseries out now about the time the FBI decided that an innocent security guard was the real terrorist rather than the anti-abortion asshole.
Mnemosyne
@Xavier:
Congratulations, you regurgitated a half-truth from Wikipedia: economically secure white folks got pissed that black, brown, and immigrant folks might get the same benefits that they did, so they lashed out violently.
Try reading the Wikipedia article about Rosewood and tell me again that it was all about the poor, economically oppressed whites struggling to throw off the yoke of the upper classes, who just happened to be black people who were slightly better off than they used to be, but still not nearly as well-off as the white people who murdered them and burned their town to the ground.
Feeling economically more secure makes American white people look around to see who might be coming up behind them that needs to be pushed back down again so they don’t become a threat.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: 100% right. Thanks for the correction.
Martin
We’ve had anti-abortion terrorists for 20 years now.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: I remember that whole saga–was particularly dismayed by the number of people out there who abetted and sheltered the real terrorist because they loved his habit of blowing up abortion clinics and lesbian bars. (Yes, he was anti-gay too, and was also associated with the white-supremacist Christian Identity movement, the “Aryans are the real Jews” folks–a real piece of work.)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Matt McIrvin:
Again, I don’t give a fuck about people’s pronouns. I hope each lives a long and fruitful life – just don’t go into screaming hysterics in presuming intentions when I default to routine grammar rules.
Also, don’t expect women to silently sit still while genetic males participate in women’s sports.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Matt McIrvin:
The Bush II DOJ didn’t hold capital punishment over Rudolph’s head in order to get those aiders and abettors identified.
I think that was intentional, and was related to protecting those wonderful hardworking heartland white Christians from justice.
germy
Why paper ballots are so important:
Matt McIrvin
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: NB, the movement you’re describing is heavily bankrolled and populated by nutjob conservatives pretending to be radical feminists. They’ve managed to sow mass confusion in the UK, fortunately not quite as much here since fewer actual feminists took the bait. Beware.
Zinsky
Can anyone under age 50 even define “malarkey”? And are they motivated by that zinger of a slogan, “No Malarkey”?
Biden is a tired, old touchy/gropey old codger who is about as exciting as oatmeal and Dentucreme! He needs to drop out of the race and take that ridiculous Hunter Biden/Burisma issue right off the table.
Tired old Joe needs to go!
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
As others have also stated, I think the MSM looked at Harris as a real threat. We elected a woman 3 yrs ago and our political system took that away. They MSM participated in screwing Hillary Clinton and that only worked by the skin of some Russian teeth. So they look at a strong woman as a major threat to their way of life, the monetary way of life. And she was, as is Harris. But so is Warren. However I think they see in Warren someone who is far enough left to have starbursts but has enough baggage to be a non entity. I don’t think she does or is but I do think Harris is actually a stronger candidate on the merits rather than the sales pitch. And I think that is what scares the status quo – the wealthy. And by that I don’t mean only the 600+ billionaires but those for whom money is the only thing, the destination, not the fuel for the voyage.
chopper
@Xavier:
it’s always time for
jelloracism.chopper
@Mnemosyne:
and feeling economically insecure makes white people look around for someone to blame. remember during the great recession, when white assholes everywhere blamed ‘black people getting mortgages!’ for the whole thing?
white people everywhere will always have plenty of capacity to be racist shitbags irrespective of their current lot in life. when they’re doing badly, there’s racism. when they’re doing well, there’s still lots of racism. it’s almost as if racism is just part of the baseline attitude of lots and lots of white people!
Sam
@moonbat: I disagree. The Republicans may become a permanent minority party but they have a constituency that won’t change its views and is supported by monied interests. Ethno authoritarians will not go away and will have representation in Congress and state houses.
Sam
@Ruckus: an informal survey in my house, mostly women, sees Harris as calculating and insincere. I am on the fence on that because at some level all candidates are calculating, but there is no enthusiasm. I liked Julian Castro so my sentiments don’t seem to be aligned with the party anyway.
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
TERF’s are now allied with full bore Nazi’s now.
funny how a 1:10,000 genetic hormone imballence makes one “male”, but the same sort of hormone imbalance on the ”other side”, doesn’t make one a “woman”. Funny how $200,000k, one plane crash, blue dyed water spilled everywhere and a penis at birth, allegedly makes one “male”, or a burnt forest, 3 dead, one pink explosion, other biological parts that may or may not remain attached for life, allegedly makes one “female”.
J R in WV
@karen marie:
We already know he can’t make love to a pretty woman if she used birth control and tells him about it; he admitted that in writing!
What a sad sack!!
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
I know, who’d’a thunk it, right? ?
And yet there are these idiot leftists who think that racism only exists when white people are feeling economically insecure and it will magically vanish if we just have a guaranteed minimum income and Medicare For All.
There is zero evidence for this in American history, but they cling to that belief with both hands.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
Bloombergmania is running wild in da street!
TriassicSands
Biden: All baloney; no malarkey!
The Dark Avenger
@Mnemosyne: It was written in the mid-70s. I know my shit.
The Dark Avenger
@Martin: and he wrote about the concept 40 years ago.
Xavier
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, racism is the baseline of a lot of people. But is there a way to fix racial or gender inequality without fixing economic inequality? Or how about just the hollowing out of the middle class which is leading to fascism? Or for that matter how to address climate change, health care costs, education policy, crapification of employment just to name a few issues without putting corporations under the control of the state, instead of the reverse?
And don’t give me that “but Wilmer won’t achieve any of that.” Neither will any other progressive candidate without a long hard struggle. And I guarantee you, win or lose, Democrat or Independent, Wilmer will go to his grave carrying on that fight.
moonbat
@Sam: Sorry to be replying on a dead thread. The monied interests will go where the power is. If the Republicans become a permanent minority, they will be a poor one.
ruemara
@Raoul: We can’t have an honest conversation about anything when it starts off with “Obama was a Liberal Republican”. Because that’s fucking dishonest.
@StringOnAStick: Good gawd. And unsurprising, sadly.
chopper
@Xavier:
i think you have it backwards.
ruemara
@Xavier: Oh, you’re a believer in Saint Grampa.
These people chose racism because their economic issues weren’t dire. The people who voted for HRC chose her because they had other more pressing issues. And Wilmer did nothing for me before he put his foot out to be president, and will do nothing for me until he goes to the grave.
Xavier
@chopper: I’ll think about that. Right now I’m inclined to wonder if the problem is inseparable, can the solution be?
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Xavier: “fight”??
Is that why he voted for Dump’s racist wall (senate vote 25 and 26)?
Is that why he voted to give the corporatist NRA blanket immunity for their weapons of mass destruction?
Bernie Sanders makes my skin crawl
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
Xavier
@ruemara: We could have a good faith argument about the structure of society and the role of economics. For example, you could argue that a certain candidate’s tactics were hindering achievement of a larger goal. I might not be convinced, but I’d accept that as a good faith argument. Or you could call me names and misrepresent my views. Your choice.
Xavier
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: I looked at (25). Sanders voted Yea along with 36 Democratic senators (I see 5 Democrat Nays, so either my counting or my arithmetic is wrong.) So I’m not sure what your point is there. Didn’t look at (26).
I haven’t settled on a preferred candidate yet, but I’m not expecting to find a purity pony.