We are in a battle for the soul of this nation — and it's a battle we can't lose. So let's get back up, let's fight back, and let's win. pic.twitter.com/UHOyeHlAWy
— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) March 2, 2020
Bernie is likely to do well very very well in California. But Biden is now likely to get >=15% everywhere, and maybe a fair bit better than that (mid-20s or even low 30s). Warren also pretty likely to get >=15% with others dropping out. And Bloomberg has a shot at >=15%.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 2, 2020
Whether you supported Pete, Amy, Beto, or any other candidate in this race — know that there is a home for you in our campaign. I will do everything I can to earn your vote.
— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) March 3, 2020
Hey so remember how you guys went on and on and on about Pete's wealthy donors? Now use your powers of connecting the dots and match him dropping out with Biden's financial difficulties. https://t.co/YVAZKnsC0k
— Malarkey Delenda Est (@agraybee) March 2, 2020
This moment of decency and respect between @JoeBiden and @PeteButtigieg, with Joe Biden saying Pete Buttigieg reminds him of Beau is one that every American should watch. This is who @JoeBiden is. https://t.co/TFuAk12hv6
— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) March 3, 2020
I am proud to endorse @JoeBiden for President. (1/5)
— Tammy Duckworth (@TammyforIL) March 2, 2020
I’m supporting @JoeBiden because he will unite our party and country, restore dignity to the White House and rebuild trust in our government with decency, optimism and experience. (5/5)
— Tammy Duckworth (@TammyforIL) March 2, 2020
Biden's lane is that he's the three-dimension human being who's not a walking ball of rage and paranoia.
— Malarkey Delenda Est (@agraybee) March 2, 2020
I don't mean this as an insult to his campaign, I genuinely think people are tired of politicians like Trump and Bernie who seem to have no inner lives.
— Malarkey Delenda Est (@agraybee) March 2, 2020
Beto O'Rourke: "We need somebody who can reestablish the moral authority of the United States. We need somebody who will fight for democracy here and abroad, because democracy is under attack here and abroad. We need Joe Biden." https://t.co/JEMJiQn1ln pic.twitter.com/SikNRST8pc
— ABC News (@ABC) March 3, 2020
Oh no, they’re linking him to Obama, he’s toast now. https://t.co/8UPZ2s2ZIZ
— Malarkey Delenda Est (@agraybee) March 3, 2020
The Bernie crowd wants to snow you into thinking the Biden surge is some K street conspiracy when in reality he has barely advertised because his campaign is so underresourced.
What really happened is black voters gave Joe Biden the popular vote lead because they trust him https://t.co/GOKKYrWZkI
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) March 3, 2020
Mr. Mack
Didn’t get to early vote..so going today. I am fine with either Warren (actually prefer) and Biden. I’m in Tennessee…is there a strategic element I should consider?
clay
My wife and I were talking about this last night. (We vote in two weeks, I think.)
Biden is not a centrist. He is smack dab in the middle of the Democratic Party, but that is NOT the same as being a centrist.
What it does mean is that, as the Democratic Party has moved left over the past 15 years, Joe has moved right along with them. The Joe Biden of today is more to the left than the Joe Biden of 2008, who was more to the left of the Joe Biden of 1992.
But — and this is important — he’s not moving in a cynical or opportunist way. He’s moving because he’s genuinely evolving on a lot of these issues, just as the nation has. Was it cynical opportunism when he endorse gay marriage — the first nationally elected politician to do so? Was it cynical opportunism when he fought for the ACA? Remember: “This is a Big Fucking Deal.”
The speech he gave last night was a full-throated defense of Democratic core values. I am proud to have him as our party’s standard bearer, should things shake out that way.
Shalimar
@Mr. Mack: The 15%+ threshold to get delegates sucks, since your vote basically doesn’t count if enough people don’t agree with you. Other than that possible caveat, I would say vote for your favorite and let the process work itself out.
PJ
@Mr. Mack: Vote for who you think would be the best President. Warren is polling at 15% in TN (Biden at 34%) in the most recent Data for Progress poll, so your vote won’t be wasted.
MattF
And the ratfuckers are attempting to rev up a Biden Derangement Syndrome, but that just seems off-target. I’ll admit, though, that Clinton Derangement Syndrome was a mystery to me, so I’m not a reliable source here.
kindness
It happened again. I was reading Charles Pierce’s latest & looked at the comments on FB and the BernieBros are once again talking smack about anyone in the Democratic Party who doesn’t support Bernie. I don’t really understand this phenomenon. Are every one of these asshats Russian trolls? How can BernieBros not see they are tanking their own candidate and the Democratic Party’s chances of winning this election by acting out this way to people of the party (they are supposed to belong to).
With friends like this………
NotMax
Am thoroughly sick of Biden dragging his dead son into discussions as some kind of a reason to vote for him.
Omnes Omnibus
@PJ: Reposted from below: Don’t overthink things. Wash your hands. Vote for the person you think will be the best president. Don’t panic.
NotMax
@Mr. Mack
Yes. Vote for the person you prefer.
SATSQ.
Zelma
Biden was not my first choice, nor my second choice and maybe not even my third choice. But I’ll vote for him and I’m sending him as much money as I can afford. He’s a good man and will be a good president.
Does anyone remember that he was in charge of overseeing the recovery act funds? And do you recall that the only problem that the Republicans could gin up about their disbursement was the stupid Solandra bit? He understands how government works.
Shalimar
@NotMax: The dead son would have been the better Biden candidate this year if he had lived.
Leto
Open thread? Pennsylvania DMV can rot in hell. That is all.
Josie
@NotMax:
As the mother of a dead son, I would suggest to you that he is not doing it to get votes. His son is just as much on his mind as his living son, and he will want to speak of him often. You don’t forget people and cut them out of your thoughts and conversations because they are no longer living.
Bruce K
For a moment, that Rice endorsement threw me for a loop, until I realized I’d confused Susan Rice with Condoleeza Rice.
(Just checked to be sure I’ll be getting an absentee ballot from New York, which doesn’t vote until late April, by which time it may be all over but the screaming.)
Zelma
Biden was not my first choice, nor my second choice and maybe not even my third choice. But I’ll vote for him and I’m sending him as much money as I can afford. He’s a good man and will be a good president.
Does anyone remember that he was in charge of overseeing the recovery act funds? And do you recall that the only problem that the Republicans could gin up about their disbursement was the stupid Solandra bit? He understands how government works.
Kent
WA primary is still a week away and I’m holding onto my mail-in ballot a bit longer to see if Warren is still viable before voting. She is far and away my top choice but I’ll vote for Biden if not. The Seattle area seems all in for Bernie, at least based on reports from my brother who lives up there.
Zelma
I think that Beau is always on Biden’s mind. I don’t think it’s a reason to vote for him, but it is a reflection of the kind of person he is. He was a very good father in a very trying situation. Now think of his opponents. What kind of fathers were they? It matters.
Ohio Mom
The advice to “vote for who you think would be the best president/who you like best” isn’t that helpful to me.
I’m really voting against Trump and Bernie, and whoever can make that happen is acceptable to me (though I prefer it not be Bloomberg, broken glass).
Ohio doesn’t vote until St. Patrick’s Day so I am hanging loose until then, and envying those with even later primaries.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
just amazing to see African-American voters dismissed as lobbyists, cast as the enemies of “true progressives”, because they are not Of The Body. Again
Yes, hear, hear and hear again.
Mr. Mack
@PJ: Thanks for this. Since she is polling at 15%, I will vote for her…maybe give her a cushion?
KSinMA
@clay: This.
NotMax
@Josie
There’s a difference between acknowledging a tragedy and exploiting it. We may disagree about it but my opinion is he steps over the line. Again and again and again.
schrodingers_cat
@Mr. Mack: EW is too close to BS for my liking. A vote for EW could end up being a vote for BS. His glowering red visage and finger wagging and allergy to facts reminds me of the Orange angry person in the WH. My 2 cents since you asked.
catclub
This sounds a little like the “Adlai, every intelligent voter is for you…. Yes, But I need a majority.” In the sense that who says the US electorate does not prefer a walking ball of rage and paranoia?
Zelma
Sorry for the double post. Someday I will figure out how to delete a post. Or do anything else except hit the post button. My excuse is old age.
Joey Maloney
@NotMax: Maybe that didn’t sound as awful inside your head before it came out of your mouth…but holy shit, dude.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Hmph. The markets aren’t exactly thrilled over the Fed’s half point rate drop.
Next thing you know, they’ll be unimpressed by a new round of tax cuts for the hyperwealthy.
eclare
I voted for Biden here in Memphis.
MattF
@Zelma: Fintan O’Toole wrote about Biden in the NYRB, as ‘The Designated Mourner’. It’s behind a paywall, unfortunately, but here’s the first graf:
West of the Rockies
@clay:
Well said.
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: Yay! But did you vote in my Twitter poll?
Shana
I’ll be in and out all day going back and forth from my polling place – I’m the Dem precinct captain – but from my limited observation there are a lot of middle-aged and older women disappointed that Amy dropped out and AA voters who mostly voted for Biden. I’ve asked some folks who seemed approachable but not everyone. One cheerful Bloomberg voter who I suspect is really an R or was just kidding me. One woman who signed up for info who said she was a former R who couldn’t vote for Trump and couldn’t support a party that accepted and lauded him so she was done with voting R.
guachi
The less we see of Biden (if he’s the nominee) and the more we see of surrogates who represent the Democratic party the better.
I think that’s a way to win.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Across American electoral history, voters who happen to be of color have demonstrated some simple truths. By and large, they’ve been less interested in facilitating the revolution by standing in the vanguard of the proletariat; they seem to want to be allowed to participate fully in the economy and polity without having any great issues with the notion of markets and some notions of differing levels of success.
The True Progressives never could seem to grok that.
schrodingers_cat
BTW what happened to the pronouncements of voting like black women?
EW came 5th in South Carolina. So she is not the candidate of black women for sure. I see no path for her than a contested convention. I don’t see her winning the black vote in other states either.
eclare
@Zelma: Excellent point.
Captain C
@MattF: With Clinton, there was a quarter-century’s worth of hatred and (often spurious) persistent attacks baked in, not to mention deliberate conflation of her and her record with Bill. Biden’s big pop culture image is either kindly Uncle Joe, or Onion Joe the badass. I think it’ll be much harder to fuel Biden Derangement Syndrome, especially when the attackers are doing so on behalf of a (literally) demented, hateful con artist who’s trying to subvert the country into being his own wholly-owned subsidiary (and who is himself a wholly-owned subsidiary of some truly shady people).
schrodingers_cat
@Shana: Did they go for Biden or EW? Did they tell you.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat: I did!
Josie
@schrodingers_cat:
Voted for Biden in Texas and in your twitter poll.
clay
@guachi: Judging from the stage last night, EVERYONE is going to come out to campaign for Joe Biden.
Joe knows it, too. He was very effusive in praising the hard work others have done, and spoke at length about the need for all of us to work together to take America back.
Shana
@MattF: I was a youngish adult during the Clinton years and from what I could tell CDS was largely because he was the first Baby Boomer president and the Rs really hated that. They hated that some Greatest Generation pol didn’t keep those dirty hippies away from the presidency. And Hillary was a working woman who was proud of her career and didn’t behave like a typical Stepford political wife. For example, she didn’t even add Clinton to Rodman until Bill ran for President. And she had the temerity to write the health care bill. She wasn’t elected to anything, why was she involved? (I know, quaint now, but then the Rs have never been consistent).
Chyron HR
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s a good thing Bloomberg flamed out before last Saturday, thereby sparing you the embarrassment of declaring him an honorary black woman and accusing everyone who isn’t voting for him of being racist.
Kent
This might be a strange campaign if we wind up in some sort of quasi quarantine this summer with people avoiding large gatherings and the two campaigns mainly battling out on the airwaves and online. I would tend to think that helps the GOP as it is usually the Dems that go more into the big mass gatherings with Springsteen playing and lots of celebs. But then everything is weird this year and Trump thrives on his MAGA orgies.
We are completely off the fucking map this year with two (or 3) near 80 year old guys battling to take on the 73 year old senile cretin. The VP pick this year will be the most important in a century, perhaps ever.
Jeffro
@guachi: Totally agree. Get the whole Democratic Justice League out there, all the time, every day…and Joe maybe once or twice a week? That sounds about right. =)
Elizabelle
@Chyron HR: I know.
Ms. Cat earns her pie, every single day. Dumbass.
guachi
@clay: and that excites me. I think he’ll be great boost to every candidate everywhere. And all Obama has to do is walk on stage and wave.
Can you imagine the nominating speech Obama will give at the convention?
Poe Larity
Bloomberg’s rag says Coronavirus is going to end your marriages:
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: Some people said that and some didn’t. Those that said that, seem to me to mostly be holding to it.
I didn’t say that. I did think thought that I should pay attention and I am. It has made me more comfortable and less panicky about Biden than I would be otherwise.
Another factor I don’t think that vow took into account is that polls haven’t been great for specific states and we don’t have much proof of Black women’s voting choices yet, tho SC is helpful. If your state votes really early it would be hard to actually do that.
Amir Khalid
@schrodingers_cat:
EW is very very different from BS. She may be ideologically similar, but she has a far better chance of being an able and effective CEO for the federal government. She lacks BS’s sanctimony, his hypocrisy, his vanity, and as far as I can tell most of his blind spots. If your beef with her is that she wasn’t mean enough to him soon enough, that’s a tactical consideration. I know my vote doesn’t count in America; but for me, she is the best candidate for the POTUS job still standing.
guachi
Biden was failing because it was just him. Clyburn saved him.
Voting for Biden is as close to voting for generic Democrat a you can get. It’s bad when Biden was out there alone but it’s powerful when you can showcase the diversity.
PJ
@Mr. Mack: Also, some Buttigieg and Klobuchar voters will be voting for Warren, which is probably not accounted for in the polls.
Elizabelle
@Zelma:
That’s marvelous to know. A factoid to use at doors in the general, if Joe is the nominee. Will look up the particulars of that later.
Shana
@schrodingers_cat: I only asked a smattering since most people were heading to work after voting, but there seemed to be more of an Amy to Joe than Amy to Liz contingent. But again, really small sample.
PenAndKey
@Poe Larity: So sad. I married my best friend. I couldn’t imagine being married to someone I have so little in common with that something as minor as “spending more time with them” would end our marriage. That seems… horrible.
smintheus
Did Warren drop out of the race, or are we still pretending she doesn’t exist?
sdhays
@Captain C: Clinton was also lacking a certain appendage that Biden has. The misogyny vote was real. It fueled a lot of the deranged hatred directed at her over the last 30 years.
Hungry Joe
@kindness: I don’t understand the phenomenon of Bernie Bros trashing Dems, either, but I’m living it: Two of my family members do nothing but. Recently one of them FB posted that Warren is a corporatist warmonger with blood on her hands (because she voted for the budget, which includes funds for the Pentagon) and that “demented” Joe Biden is a DMC stooge, part of a plot to stage a coup at the convention and hand the nomination to Bloomberg. Every Dem candidate is either evil or stupid or both, but the Bros seem to hate Warren the most — after Hillary, that is, who “stole the ‘16 nomination from Bernie.”
Hillary might have been worse than Trump, they tell me, because by now she would have gotten us into a full-scale war. I wanna be sedated.
MisterForkbeard
@PenAndKey:
I think it’ll end some marriages across the spectrum. Marriages have issues when they run into unrelated stress (like finances) or change (like a large difference in behavior or habits), and this virus introduces both. :(
Sort of like how some marriages have trouble after retirement – the whole dynamic changes.
jeffreyw
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I’m interested in what various constituents within the party think and why, but I would never outsource my vote to any other person or group of people. It’s a daft notion, IMO.
Leto
@clay:
That’s something I see as a big difference between Biden/Warren and Sanders. Biden/Warren will praise local officials as people who helped bring change, who have championed Democratic principles, and people recognize that and appreciate it.
Sanders simply lambasts everyone. He’s never praising local officials. And people recognize that.
Amir Khalid
@Hungry Joe:
?? I’m not aware of any ties between Joe Biden and the hip-hop community.
Ella in New Mexico
Whatever happens today, I am extremely grateful to the Universe for at least one good thing that happened this week:
We won’t have to endure (or witness the discomfort of women and LGBTQ folks and people of color as they sit next to him at the table) Creepy Chris “Motor Mouth” Matthews in any of the TV commentary for the duration of this election.
Joey Maloney
@smintheus: Being a woman, she’s only 1-dimensional. Or don’t you remember your Flatland?
PJ
@MisterForkbeard: Well, with any luck, the coronavirus will carry off one or both spouses and they won’t have to deal with the stress from the possibility of seeing each other too much.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Poe Larity:
This isn’t wrong. As I told a friend yesterday: “We’re great when we are traveling together – we’re fun and at our best. As a couple at home or as individuals when we travel apart, we both suck because the differences get magnified.”
PenAndKey
That’s because, at his core, Biden is an actual Statesman who understands the important of coalition building. I’d pick him over Sanders for that alone
Fair enough. My wife and I have been together for fifteen years and married for twelve of them. That’s still not a huge span of time even if it is 150% longer than the average marriage in the US (and isn’t that saying something). Still, I can’t help but find it sad that people, even the rich who I’ll usually happily mock, would be in a relationship where actually spending time with their spouse was enough to want a divorce.
MisterForkbeard
@Hungry Joe: I have the benefit of knowing some very reasonable and educated Bernie supporters, as well as some of his really fervent supporters.
The first group thinks Democrats are failing because moderates can’t win elections (!) and blames all of 2016 on Hillary being ‘centrist’ – they also believe that the Ukraine scandal will tank Biden but that none of the potential Bernie issues will harm him. So they think ‘democrats’ are misguided and don’t understand the energy or future that Bernie brings.
The second groups thinks Democrats are the devil and are the main reason we can’t get things like M4A. They don’t really appear to have any understanding of how government actually works, or understand that not everyone is immediately on board the Bernie train. Nor do they understand that Bernie literally can’t get his signature polices implemented even with 100% Democratic support.
Ferry
So I’m going to put this out there but seeing people continuously dunk on Sanders supporters as vicious mean spirited people gets tiring. I’m of an age cohort that the Democratic party has failed badly, the Obama years may have been good ones for people with established lives and careers but I graduated out of college straight into the recession. The past decade plus has not seen many improvements for me and people my age.
To me and people like me Biden represents a continuation of policies that left my generation out in the cold. Wanting a change in the party that is represented by the Sanders/Warren wing makes sense when 8 years of milquetoast Democratic rule saw quality of life stagnate while we suffocate under debt and high housing costs.
Writing off anyone who supports a progressive agenda as Bernie Bros who just want to destroy the party is telling a whole generation of young Democrats “to sit down and shut up while the adults talk.” It’s insulting and speaks to a vast generational disconnect.
PJ
@Amir Khalid: Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, broke up Public Enemy, so that’s another strike against him.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: Its not the question of being mean to BS. I have just never warmed up to her personality or agenda. YMMV obviously
@Shana: I too am an Amy to Biden convert. I trust Biden and like him despite policy differences.
dww44
O/T but there’s this from the AJC this a.m.
Case Closed: No evidence of hacking alleged by Georgia Gov. Kemp:
Kent
I’ve been reading and listening to what I can on this topic. At the risk of ‘whitesplaining’ it seems to be there are several issues.
First, black voters (at least the older Southern type) value relationships much more than white voters. They look at who has been around, and especially, who has been working with their people like Clyburn because they understand that every bit of accomplishment and progress they have seen over the decades has been incremental and based on relationships and wide coalitions Lefty tilting at windmills accomplishes nothing in our political system.
Second, black folk seem to be justifiably suspicious of big new programs that tend to ALWAYS be horded by the white middle class to their detriment. Student loan forgiveness for example. I can’t think of a bigger example of white privilege to give hundreds of billions in loan forgiveness to middle class white folks who went to expensive private schools when across the country communities of color are still mired in poverty with crumbling schools.
Third, I think they recognize that Bernie’s exclusively economic argument misses the mark. For a whole lot of black folk, it isn’t the 1% who is holding them back, it’s the racist white foreman in the pickup truck with the MAGA sticker who promotes his buddies instead of them. It’s the racist cops who suck their kids into the criminal justice system while giving white kids a pass. It’s racist loan officers charging them more for mortgages. etc. etc. Economic answers for the white middle class don’t address the fundamental racism in this country. Something the Bernie campaign doesn’t seem to understand. Just getting to a level of equality (schooling, policing, health care, employment, etc.) with zero new programs would make a phenomenal difference in the lives of most people of color.
dnfree
Biden’s connection of Buttigieg to Beau, and his extended tribute to Beau, was touching, but it made me wonder how it feels to be Hunter Biden. The wonder kid and the f**k-up kid? For how long has that been the contrast?
The Dangerman
@Kent:
It’ll be interesting to see how much absentee ballots (just about everywhere, right?) and mail-in (only ones I can think of are reliably blue) effects things. Who knows how in person on election day is going to be impacted…
I would have preferred Warren, but if it’s Biden, I can’t be too unhappy. He and Barrack seemed to have a real chemistry and that will help on the campaign when BHO comes out.
The Bernie Bros that will sit on their hands can all take a flying leap for all I care.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Fair point and same here. That I am in agreement with them does make me sanguine because they are the backbone of the D party and they didn’t fall for the Orange misogynist like their a majority of white women did.
I just remembered seeing that line being repeated often here and on social media.
Amir Khalid
@PenAndKey:
That comment probably came out of Moss’ own experience of marriage — which, given he’s still in college, could well consist only of seeing his parents.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ferry: okay
Your generation stayed home in 2010 and gave Rs the House
You really wanna play this game?
snoey
There is apparently a fight for the soul of the Mass Republican party between Baker and the crazies.
Went to vote and there were people holding signs for state committee and Geoff Diehl* himself waving a Trump sign.
*Geoff is from a couple of towns over and was last seen oozing out from under SPW’s boots after the last Senate race.
geg6
Honestly? AOC can just go fuck herself. So sick of her and Bernie and their idiotic minions who have never done anything productive to actually help real working class people – the people of color and the women who have been the backbone of the party since before she was born. So sick of this attitude. So, so sick of it.
Elizabelle
For once, I got to participate in a national poll. Yesterday’s mail had a postcard from the Associated Press/NORC at U. Chicago; had a scratch off code so I could participate.
Struck me as really trying to gauge the level of support for Bernie (among other things). Took notes and will tell you more about it tonight.
Only question that made me pause: do I consider myself a liberal, moderate or conservative?
And I actually said “moderate”, and — happily — the follow up question allowed me to say that I leaned liberal as a moderate. Which is about right for Virginia.
I take issue with what is considered “moderate” or “centrist” WRT Democrats, because — issue by issue, the public is usually way more on board with what conventional wisdom wants to skew off as liberal — on healthcare, gun violence protection, economic issues.
With the FTF NY Times, “centrist” is clearly “conservative for the party.” (Hi, Joe Manchin.)
Anyway, it was a good poll, and happy to have finally taken part in a national one.
Lunched and coffeed up; heading out for GOTV after voting. It’s overcast and mild in central Virginia.
Go Joe and Elizabeth!
Old Dan and Little Ann
The vote from the wife’s AP Gov class.
Joe Biden (10)
Bernie Sanders (5)
Bloomberg (3)
Warren (2)
Gabbard (wtf) 1
Republican votes- Trump
9
Gin & Tonic
So I’ve been on vacation. Has there been much news in the last 10 days?
West of the Rockies
@Hungry Joe:
Well, those who revered Lyndon LaRouche really dug him. Weird.
schrodingers_cat
OT observation, BS is super popular on Twitter with young lefties all over the world. I have muted many Indian leftie accounts for their gushy hero worship of the magic socialist grandpa.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: What did she do now?
randy khan
I don’t know if this is new money or just that it was timed to hit very close to the Virginia primary, but I am getting a ton of Biden ads – I mean, an incredible number – on the ad-supported solitaire app I play on my phone. It’s really something.
Also, I had a Bernie fan post on Facebook last night about how the Bernie hordes will be just so mad if he doesn’t win that they’ll burn it all down. I restrained my impulse to write a reply about blackmail, since I was pretty sure he wouldn’t get the 2016 reference, but instead just pointed out that I had voted for 2nd, 3rd, or lesser choices in general elections repeatedly when the other party’s nominee was much worse and that I hoped everyone whose candidate wasn’t nominated would do the same.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Why don’t you stop using it to try to divide and “shame” people here?
Do you really think Juicers are going to vote against black women’s choice in the general? I sure as fuck do not.
Points for more pointing out how idiotic white women are. That would be the first thing I put in an ad for the Democratic party. Not.
But you be you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@geg6: I’d love to see if James Clyburn has reacted to Bernie and Emo Mike and AOC (!) declaring him a corporatist lobbyist unrepresentive stooge, but I’m guessing he’s too much of a long-term thinker to speak honestly in front of a camera
Bernie’s and his supporters’ stupidity would be easier to deal with if they all weren’t almost so compulsively obnoxious, from this thread to the moron Chris Hayes gave a third of his show over to last night, to no doubt Emo Mike getting at least one other segment to bleat, unchallenged, on MSNBC
Served
I don’t think someone who originally supported Amy gets to use this reasoning as a rhetorical bludgeon.
dww44
@Ferry: You make valid points, but I’ve a question or two since you are a Sanders supporter. How should it impact the Democratic party that Sanders will not declare himself a Democrat and at the same time seems to diss those of us who are? How viable do you think a Sanders administration will be in enacting programs and policies aimed at helping those like you?
Do you see Sanders supporters, yourself included, as being able to support Biden or ANY OTHER candidate for the nomination in the event that Sanders doesn’t win?
FWIW, from the get go, I’ve bemoaned the oldness of Bernie, Biden, and now Bloomberg. All would be in their 80’s during a first term. Who do you think Bernie would choose as his VP if he were to gain the nomination.? If he does win (somewhat mitigated by his running mate) I will vote for him, but, at this point, not with great enthusiasm.
catclub
@Ferry: makes sense when 8 years of milquetoast Democratic rule saw quality of life stagnate while we suffocate under debt and high housing costs.
yeah, it was milquetoast Democratic rule that saw Garland not get a vote in the Senate. Also, unemployment went down from 10% to 5%. (should have been faster, but that was milquetoast democratic rule electing Boehner Speaker of the the House.)
Yutsano
@guachi: “Let me tell you about my friend Joe…”
*cue 5 minutes of riotous applause
Patricia Kayden
Good to see that Biden is immune to Trump’s muckraking. Hope he does well tonight.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: Well, just so happens that I first met Mitchell Moss in elementary school, nearly 70 years ago. He’s a professor at NYU, not a student. I’d assume the quote about marriage is a little joke.
Kent
That is the 800 lb gorilla…(or elephant in the room if that is unintentionally racist). This campaign will take an entirely new phase if/when BHO starts campaigning for the Dem ticket in earnest and with the full fury and urgency that I expect of him. In a way the fact that he has basically stood on the sidelines for the past 3.5 years will only amplify his impact when he does roll out on the road and start filling up stadiums. If he had been doing the Trump thing and Tweeting up a shitstorm of nonsense then then impact would be less.
BHO is the Democrat’s best weapon. I think he would put out an effort for all the candidates, but the road show with Biden I think would be especially compelling. It will be an instant game changer.
Obama also has the ability to ramp up fundraising to a whole new level for the general election. That’s also going to be important. And there is no more compelling surrogate to go on TV.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: this person is a thirty-something college graduate who would be confused by the Schoolhouse Rock explanation on how government works. “But.. but Bernie Dumbledore will shout righteously and DESTROY Mitch McConnell!”
PenAndKey
@Ferry: “So I’m going to put this out there but seeing people continuously dunk on Sanders supporters as vicious mean spirited people gets tiring.”
I’m 35. I survived the recession by working as a grunt laborer in a furniture factory warehouse for ten years. The problem wasn’t Biden and the democrats of our childhood. It was the Republics ala Bush Jr and Cheney that botched the 9/11 response, tanked the economy, and failed to do anything to help the working class the whole time.
Compared to Bush the Obama years were a hell of a lot better, even if our entire generation is swamped with debt and barely keeping our heads up. When I was a kid I remember Gore praising the Venturestar initiative and things actually looked up. That all changed after the Supreme Court stole the election by awarding it to Junior, and we still haven’t recovered.
I’m not going to attack you, but when I see Sanders and his supporters trashing on actual Democrats it kinda ticks me off. They’ve been fighting against the GOP as long as we’ve been voting. They aren’t the problem. The GOP is, and that’s in large part because the entire party has descended into a cult of personality fueled by zealots and propaganda. As far as I’m concerned Sanders, with his inability to actually coalition build, is the same. The only difference is he’s attacking Democrats from the left instead of the right.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Have we seen any exit polling on how black women voted? The stuff I saw on CNN said that blacks as a whole voted for Biden in overwhelming numbers, but I haven’t seen it broken out by gender myself.
I do suspect that Biden did well among black women in SC, but I haven’t seen the numbers. Did I miss them?
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who is very suspicious of exit poll stories anyway…”)
Gin & Tonic
@dww44:
None of those are my preferred candidate, but I’d settle for the youngest male candidate remaining (Biden.)
schrodingers_cat
I never made that pronouncement myself.
I initially like Kamala Harris and Beto , was briefly intrigued by Amy K after she her excellent debate performance.
I also liked, Inslee, Booker and Benet before they dropped. I wasn’t committed to any candidate. And am going to vote for Biden after SC because he has emerged as the NO BS candidate.
low-tech cyclist
Damned good question. Gotta feel even worse to be second fiddle to a two-faced pol who’s spent his entire political life in a big hurry to be In The Room Where It Happens, and seems to be willing to say or do whatever it takes to get there.
Leto
@Ferry:
Considering how most of your generation has no fucking clue how government works, doesn’t understand that coalition building, doesn’t understand that a step forward represents progression, and in backing a candidate who isn’t Democrat, has fucking zero cred within POC community, and zero legislative accomplishments in over thirty years…
Yes, we’re telling you to sit the fuck down and shut up. Please explain why Warren, who has more experience getting shit passed in the past few years than Bernie (she established an entire federal agency before she was elected) , who has detailed plans on just about everything, and has the same progressive zeal but with a more realistic attitude/outlook isn’t your choice?
Betty Cracker
@Ferry:
I agree, for what it’s worth, and I am no spring chicken!
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
My bad. I saw “studies” in the sentence and assumed he was an undergraduate. I forgot that professors too study their subject.
Josie
@PenAndKey:
This
Chyron HR
@Ferry:
This may surprise you, but even “Boomers” can use twitter and see for ourselves exactly how vicious and mean spirited you guys are.
Served
The way a lot of posters get touchy when talking about the generational wreckage that Millennials and Gen Z are having to climb through is a good reminder of why “ok boomer” caught on so widely and quickly.
Ferry
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m trying to be civil and provide a perspective on why dismissing an entire cohort of young Democrats as deluded cultists for not supporting centrist candidates is insulting and demoralizing and in turn get blamed for the rise of white supremacists revanchism that claimed the house in 2010. You’re illustrating my point quite well.
It’s frustrating to have a Democratic establishment that continually tells us we can’t have nice things and maintains a status quo that isn’t good for us but also expects that we’ll turn out in droves to support establishment candidates.
schrodingers_cat
@Ferry: @Betty Cracker: There are two groups of BS supporters
BS supporters who support BS agenda but are loyal Ds
BS bros and sis who behave like they are in a cult and are willing to burn everything down if we don’t all bend the knee and accept him as our true savior.
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Your AOC quote does not support your claim about dismissing blacks as pro-establishment. Perhaps there is more of her statement that clarifies what otherwise seems to be an anti-AOC reflex? Please show your work.
smintheus
@Ferry: Nobody is telling any of Bernie’s supporters to shut up. Neither do I understand how or why you’d link Warren to the 2008 economic meltdown (which she had warned about to no avail) or to the Obama policies that you believe failed you (which she tried to make much more aggressive in helping ordinary Americans). The fact that you’re lashing out at Warren in an unreasonable fashion is all too characteristic of many of Sanders’ supporters.
You also don’t seem to realize that many other people have suffered from bad government policies, not just as a result of the 2008 debacle but for decades. I graduated into the worst of the Reagan recession, where unemployment in New England was worse than it was after 2008, and as a result my entire career was sidetracked into something I would never have planned to do. Your problems are far from unique. That doesn’t mean anybody should engage in magical thinking or start looking for a charismatic leader to take us all to a magical future. That’s what the assholes who elected Reagan were doing, and what the assholes who elected Bush were doing, and what the assholes who elected Trump were doing.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I caught of smidge of Hayes show where Lovett was spouting shit, then the woman Bra(?) started trashing Dems, and I was just out. Took all of about 90 secs. Lovett has had a huge misogynistic streak dating to right after the 16 election regarding HRC. Part of the reason I stopped listening to Pod Save America. It hasn’t changed.
Ella in New Mexico
@Patricia Kayden:
Read something the other day that Shokin sued and is essentially forcing Ukraine to open a Burisma/Hunter Biden investigation. That combined with Johnson, Grassley and Graham’s insistence on going through the motions of looking like they’re investigating this shit does worry me.
For me, It’s a case for voting for Liz Warren (if you are inclined already to support her over Biden or Sanders) in these upcoming primaries, so at least we have a genuine Democrat ready in the wings to either help him fight or take over should it ramp up pre-General.
PJ
@Ferry: Young people in this country have been screwed over for 40 years. Their economic prospects are, in general, worse off than their parents and grandparents. Access to health care and housing and decent wages is greatly diminished, while costs of higher education and health care and housing have skyrocketed. But to put all the blame on Democrats for that is ridiculous. “8 years of milquetoast Democratic rule” was actually only two years of Democratic rule, with a Democratic President and Congress, which began with an enormous recession and saw the passage of a massive stimulus bill and the Affordable Care Act, the first major expansion of health care in this country in over 40 years. After that, Republicans stonewalled Obama on everything. I understand your frustration, but it wasn’t Democrats who put those Republicans in office (well, Mike Bloomberg did, but that’s another story.)
No President, not even Bernie Sanders, can snap their fingers and get laws passed. They have to get them through Congress, and the fact is that this country is over-represented by rural areas that typically vote for Republicans, and when they don’t vote for Republicans, they vote for conservative Democrats. Those conservative Democrats are important, because they will vote for mainstream Democratic policies most of the time. The House seats flipped from Republicans in 2018 are the reason Trump was impeached and that we have a brake on all the shitty Republican legislation that would otherwise be passed under Trump.
If there is a Democrat in the White House in 2021 (still a big if), they will have to deal with Congress. How many laws has Bernie Sanders gotten passed in 30 years? (7, I believe, only one of which was substantive.) How many has Biden gotten passed? Dozens. How many has Warren gotten passed? Not many (there’s a great story about the hearing aid law she got passed), but she’s been sitting the entire time under a Republican controlled Senate. She did, however, set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The other thing you have to consider is how strong are the coattails of the candidate you are voting for. Who is going to get more Democrats elected in purple states? Mark Kelly, running for Senate in AZ this year, endorsed Biden the other day because he knows Sanders would be poison for his chances at winning.
Apologies if this comes across as condescending. As I put in a post the other day, I have been angry about the direction of this country for 40 years. Shit is fucked up and shit. But looking at things in a black and white way, and embracing someone like Sanders, who doesn’t listen to anyone and seems incapable of learning, and, above all, who in his rhetoric rejects Democrats and seems incapable of forming alliances, means embracing someone who will not accomplish any of his policy objectives, or, if he does, it will be completely in spite of himself and due to the work of others. Sanders can hold as many rallies as Trump does, and his rallies will change things as much as Trump’s do. His administration will fail, and he and his supporters will blame “the Democratic establishment” for it, just as he is blaming it now for his poor showing in South Carolina, when the reality is, in five years, he didn’t do the work to expand his support beyond his base.
catclub
Except for Michelle.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: I was wondering out loud just yesterday where you got off to. I hope you had a sweet and restful vaca.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker:
@ Ferry: I’ve not read your comment, and really need to head out, but it is entirely possible to support a lot of what Sanders espouses without thinking Sanders and his people are the ones who can get it through.
This is why I am voting Elizabeth in the primaries, and Joe or whoever our Democratic nominee is in the general.
I want the party to know that I believe in EWarren’s ideas and her ability to serve as POTUS.
Admire Bernie for getting the discussion of income inequality and its follow on effects out there. He is hardly the only person to bring that up. But it is his issue.
Which does not mean he is the person to formulate a coalition to get his ideas enacted, and successfully staff and lead a government.
And that is probably a bridge to discussion once the heat of the primaries is past.
Ksmiami
@Kent: just not being shot during a routine fucking traffic stop would be a great step forward. Essentially, equality under the law is something every Black American struggles with every effing day. That is first before economics because you can’t secure prosperity before your legal authority/self-determinism.
Leto
@Served: Gen X sitting at the kiddy table, alone and forgotten. The same shit affecting the yoots hit us first. Older generation unable to retire so staying in the work force longer, younger generation unable to move forward and finding most opportunities taken from them… Gen X right in the middle.
Just One More Canuck
@Amir Khalid:
Joe Biden shot Notorious BIG?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Served: the way thirty-five year-old adolescents insist that the “Sanders-Warren wing” can effect big bold change by shouting righteously while (at the very least) keeping Mitch McConnell in the Majority Leader’s office is a good reminder of why people who have a basic grasp of American politics and government don’t take “Our Revolution” and “Justice Democrats” seriously
Betty Cracker
@smintheus: But the commenter is NOT lashing out at Warren, at least in the comment to which you’ve replied:
Honest to Christ, y’all are proving his/her point…
Gin & Tonic
@Ferry:
Citation needed.
I’ve been here a while, and I read the general commentary as dismissing deluded cultists as deluded cultists. I, like other commenters here, have children your age, and see at first hand the difficulties they are facing. Blaming the Democratic Party or Democratic officeholders for those difficulties is, at best, ahistorical.
Jinchi
@Bruce K: 538 is giving 60% odds that nobody will have a majority of delegates, so there will likely still be at least 2 or 3 candidates with potential for you to choose from.
schrodingers_cat
I was not trying to use the vote like black women as a way to shame anyone but point out that winning the nomination without their support is impossible
Kamala Harris found that out too. SHe in my opinion was the best to take on the Orange One but she made the same mistakes that EW has made. Her embrace of M4A and relying on individual donations alone tanked her campaign before reaching a single primary.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ferry:
Next!
@topclimber:
Please go jump up Bernie’s ass
The Dangerman
@Leto:
Almost ditto, except I would change it to “grow the fuck up and get to work”. The “I want it all and I want it now” crowd, who will figuratively toss all their toys in the air and stomp their feet madly if they don’t get their way, is exhausting. They act like spoiled brats and then wonder why the “olds” treat them like spoiled brats.
Another Scott
@PJ:
8 years2 years– linky.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Served
@The Dangerman: “get off my lawn!” “yooths!” “those damn kids!” from the coalition builders. The anti-Bernie people on here are just as bad as the Bros on Twitter.
Bernie Derangement Syndrome is pandemic on this site.
topclimber
OK Anne, I get the relief that Joe has provided the moderate wing with a viable path, and Liz with a chance to stay influential. But I don’t expect someone with his name recognition, ties to the long-lamented Obama years, access to the Democratic Establishment for GOTV and money, is missing much because he has little cash on hand. I don’t think you made the argument, but rather folks you quoted. They most likely dumb or disingenuous.
One the other hand, there is this–Biden is just not convinced that the Republican Party is the ongoing disgrace that made the rise of our Presidential disgrace possible and will do it again if not smacked hard. Also, he shows again a knack for taking momentum and running with it into a rake. Probably won’t hurt him with today’s voting, but…
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw: Oh, my goodness, that was fun to watch.
All three times.
Subsole
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Black folks get it in the teeth just standing there. Why volunteer to be the vanguard when you’re already getting the vanguard treatment?
I like AOC, but I really don’t see her or Bernie or Susan or Walker or Jordan or Glenn picking up an AK and going to war.
Nina, on the other hand, might. She strikes me as at least a half-bubble off-plumb.
PJ
@Another Scott: You’re right, in the heat of a blog comment, I overlooked some important details.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Thanks. It was restful, up until the 2.5 hour delay on the first leg of the flight home, arriving in PHL about an hour after the second leg had left. But it was mechanical, so the airline vouchered a hotel room and meals, which wasn’t terrible.
WhatsMyNym
I don’t understand folks trying to make a connection between Warren and BS voters. I’ve seen no overlap up in here in WA. I sent my ballot in for Warren already and would have no problem voting for Biden (wish he was younger, much younger).
I would have voted Sanders only if he was the Dem nominee – then I would have gotten drunk and finished my application for Irish citizenship.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
My personal sweeping generalization is that DSA types are deluded cultists, which includes, realistically, AOC.
debbie
I’m back to being concerned. I saw Biden bumbling along on whatever Sunday talk show he was on. Jesus, can we do no better?
debbie
@Ferry:
I don’t write off the agenda, but I do reject the messenger.
Chief Oshkosh
@Amir Khalid: Or the defunct DeLorean Motor Company, for that matter.
Jinchi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You might want to back off the over generalizations. Ferrys generation might have stayed home, but yours voted for the Trump and the Republican majorities.
Emma from FL
@Hungry Joe: No, THEY need to be sedated.
PenAndKey
Sorry, but if you hear people asking Sanders for details on how he is going to get his aspirational rhetoric actually passed as “we can’t have nice things” I don’t know what to tell you. There are two major difference between Sanders and Warren: where Warren actually has detailed plans and a proven ability to work with others to accomplish her goals Sanders has… angry podium yelling.
And I hate to break it to you, but you and I have never known a point in our lives save for early childhood where “establishment Democrats” were in charge. The problem a large chunk of Sanders supporters have is they think thought experiments and angry yelling is all you need to run a government. It’s not, and it never has been. If we want to have any hope of undoing the shitshow that the GOP has caused we need to grow up and actually govern. Sanders has never shown he as the ability to do that.
Does he have some good ideas? Yes, on paper. Does he have an ability to actually run an administration and party to accomplish them? That’s the question, and our difference is the answer we each have for it. I don’t think he does, and I’ll be damned if I’m willing to be lectured by someone my own generation on how uncivil it is of us to point out that he’s all flash.
You want to help dig our generation out of the mess we’ve been given? Vote for Sanders in the primary, but no matter the result of that particular race vote for every single Democrat you can during the actual election. The only way we’re winning is to drive the GOP out of power, at all levels, for at least a generation
Well, if you wanted to put it more succinctly I guess that’s a way to do it ;)
Ferry
For what it’s worth Warren was actually my first choice and but her lack of traction which is almost certainly down to misogyny has left Sanders as the strategic choice for pushing a progressive agenda. If Biden is on the ticket in November I’ll gladly pull the lever for him.
I’m also well aware of the fact that you can’t magicly create and enact policy. Everyone knows that, and acting like anyone under 40 is an imbecile that can’t wrap their minds around that is insulting. Big policy promises on the campaign at least motivate people; Republicans have known this for years and use it to their advantage. People get excited for offers of free ponies, no one is going to get excited by an offer for a means tested tax credit for a pony.
Look at the hate you’re seeing for AOC in this thread, she’s young energetic and has a lot of appeal to younger voters. She’s also in an incredibly safe district so why shouldn’t she be progressive? The vitriol spewed at her is telling.
Another thing that I do think is being ignored and is something that you can do by executive fiat is foreign policy. Sanders non interventionist stance and willingness to end wars of adventure and shift defense funding to domestic use is extremely appealing.
VeniceRiley
@Ferry: Too bad berners didn’t deliver on their 2016 “I’d vote for a woman, just not that woman.” promises and accept Elizabeth Warren as a candidate.
I don’t care for AOC because she attacks good democrats on behalf of Our Revolution ™ … like Sharice Davids.
Ohio Mom
Old Dan @83: Your wife is probably too discrete to say so, but I am sure she knows her students well enough that she can identify who they voted for, even with a secret ballot.
I am also sure she will be not holding the Gabbard and Trump votes against the perpetrators come grading time. I would feel that I had spent a semester casting my pearls before such swine.
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat: My problem with the idea of “voting like black women” is, well, which black women? Ayanna Pressley? ABL? The really nice lady that I talked to yesterday for three hours while I flew to Detroit? Black evangelical women?
There was a great piece in the Guardian yesterday about how “the black vote” is my no means monolithic. And there’s some polling indicating that black people under 30 appear to prefer Sanders and that they’re more progressive than their elders just the way young white people are.
This is why I didn’t find Jim Clyburn’s remarks last week about “Americans don’t want free college, Americans don’t want don’t want free healthcare” to be supremely unhelpful. While young people don’t turn out in large proportions, party identification and voting behavior are set EARLY. Today’s young people are tomorrow’s middle-aged people. If we want to win elections not just now but in three elections from now, we need to cultivate future voters, and that means progressives.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Seconded. I wish your vote did count!
randy khan
@Ferry:
First, I recognize that there are normal Sanders supporters and crazy ones. I see both on my social media feeds. I always try to be clear that the crazy ones are the ones who give me issues, not the normal ones.
And while there’s no doubt that Sanders and Warren are to the left of Biden, what I always want to emphasize is that, fierce though people’s opinions are in the primary – which is fine! – and even if you think that the Obama years were not as good as they could have been – also fine, and true for too many people – once the primaries are done, the comparison is between who the Dems nominate and who the Republicans nominate, and that the gap there is enormous, much bigger than the gap between any of the real Dem candidates.
schrodingers_cat
@Suzanne: Black women as a group which we can only know after votes have been cast. Now we know after South Carolina.
MJS
@Ferry: We’re not dismissing you. You’re dismissing yourselves. You’re taking yourselves out of the game by backing someone who isn’t a Democrat. Who dragged the 2016 primary out well beyond necessary. Who did the bare minimum in supporting the Democratic nominee in 2016. Your candidate has had 4 years to build on his support. He hasn’t done that. He has lost support. But that can’t possibly be because the voters don’t want him. It must be because the “establishment” is against him. Bottom line – if you want more progressive policies in the future find a better candidate who is actually a Democrat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jinchi: my exact point is that the generational blame game is stupid
not as stupid as blaming Democrats for our current political crises.
according to the info provided, Ferry was in middle or high school when the kind of people s/he wants me to defer to– literally the same people in the inescapable person of Michael Moore– told me there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Gore and Bush, so I don’t have much patience for hearing that stupidity repeated twenty years, one Iraq War, one Katrina, one Great Recession, and one Donald Trump later.
randy khan
@Ferry:
For whatever it’s worth, I like AOC. As you say, she’s in a safe district and so she absolutely should be pushing for what she thinks are the best policies and the best candidates; and I think she’s pretty effective at that.
PJ
You might have noticed that Sanders is not so different from Trump in this regard (though I think Sanders would go about things more smartly). Trump has used the military and military funds for domestic purposes (building his wall), has done his best to diminish NATO, and it looks like he is going to declare victory in Afghanistan and pull our troops out.
JMG
Vote for the Democratic candidate you like best in the primary and then the Democratic candidate period in the general. This should not be as hard as we seem to making it.
smintheus
@Betty Cracker: You’re right, I misread that statement. But I misread it because as formulated it makes no sense. Nobody is accusing Warren’s supporters of being hostile toward other Democrats. Seems that Ferry wants to pretend that the legitimate criticisms of vituperative and divisive behavior of Sanders’ supporters can be cancelled out by linking him with Warren, who if anything has encouraged Democrats to unify.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
A very small majority of white women (53%). You paint with far too broad a brush. Unless you think that 47% of white women don’t matter. And I don’t think you do.
Immanentize
Is there something that is like being passive aggressive — but is the opposite, aggressive passive? It is the thing where someone comes out of the box saying something hyperbolic, sarcastic and insulting, but once they are called on it, they immediately give a long explanation about how they were just asking a question, or were trying to see what was up or some other such obvious nonsense?
It reminds me of when my cat plays what I call the “dominant cat game” where he will take a swipe at me (claws in), but when I tap his side, he rolls over and purrs.
PenAndKey
I’m pretty sure you just distilled my main political ethos. I’d add one more: we’re also the same generation where our first political memories were either A) the Clinton blowjob impeachment, B) the fallout of Columbine, C) Bush v Gore, or D) 9/11 (and before that, the saber rattling for war with China).
Anyone who can argue, with a straight face, that there’s no difference between the Democratic party and the GOP after that sort of timeline either isn’t paying attention or was never a supporter of Democratic policies to begin with.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: I was speaking statistically as a group. I am not discounting anyone.
IIRC Orange one lost both college educated white men and women.
Gravenstone
@Leto: Isn’t that rather an evergreen sentiment of DMVs basically everywhere?
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic:
I think that they feel kind of similar to how I feel when I tell Spawn A to clean up all the toys on the floor and they protest “I didn’t make that mess, [Spawn B] did!”. And I reply that I don’t really care who did it, because no matter who screwed it up, it’s a mess that needs cleaning up. Now.
I know that my Spawn is of the opinion that only Bernie or Warren even sees the mess on the floor, never mind knows how to clean it up. And the shoutiness that everyone here complains about is very appealing to him, because he feels like Bernie is shouting at others on his behalf.
Betty Cracker
@smintheus: I think Ferry’s point is that it’s wrong and counterproductive to lump everyone who supports a progressive agenda in with Bernie Bros, and this thread is proving that point, IMO. It’s definitely a thing on this blog, and I wish it wasn’t.
Leto
@The Dangerman: this reminds me of when my Airmen would bitch and moan about issue X. Our/my response would be: what are you doing to fix it? If it’s within your power to change it, stop bitching and change it. If it’s not, then gain the power to change it. For them that meant gaining rank. For the yoots it means building viable coalitions to help effect change. It’s a long term process and humans don’t fo long term that well.
Immanentize
@Ferry: My son is 18 and he has similar feelings as you. As he puts it, young people have lots of reasons to be angry. So very true.
But I don’t understand the Bernie love. His anger does not align with the righteous (rather than self-righteous) anger of young people today. It is exactly only what it is — attack the “establishment” (which seems to be everyone not on his team), offer policy prescriptions that he never talks about implementing and then explains that things will change because, no reasons.
My son agrees. He is not impressed at all with Bernie and would not vote for him. But my son wants things to actually improve rather than get some personal feelings from a loud yelp of impotent defiance.
FlyingToaster
@schrodingers_cat: However, Warren was the number two or three choice for damn near everyone but Berniestans.
I will be HAPPY to keep SPW in place, though I really, really want her to replace Chuck Shumer, and to have a Senate majority so that she can actually get shit done. But I don’t feel for one second that I wasted my vote, or my $.
Captain C
It should be pointed out to such people that they wouldn’t act that way if they didn’t think their privilege will protect them from a second Trump term.
jl
Voted for Warren.
I’ll contribute to and work for and vote for whoever is nominated, but I think even if miracle does not happen and her campaign makes a comeback, it will good that a candidate who represents a responsible and appealing progressive view gets to the convention with a respectable amount of support.
Zelma
@PJ:
Thank you for summing up the problem with the Sanders campaign and its message. The problem is not the Democratic Party. The problem is the Republican Party. Whether we like it or not, we have a two party system in this country and one of those parties has gone bat-shit crazy. It’s been going crazy since 1964 which is the year I became a Democrat.
The Democratic Party is the only potential instrument to change the country’s direction. And Bernie Sanders is not and never has been a Democrat. His attacks on the party and Democratic politicians are reason enough for me to oppose him. And the fact that having him as our presidential candidate will make keeping the House and taking the Senate more difficult is terrifying.
I live among Republicans and many of them are unhappy with Trump. They will vote for Biden; they will not vote for Bernie. For me, it’s that simple.
This is an existential crisis for American democracy. This country will not survive as a democracy if Trump is reelected. And there will be no progress unless the Republicans are defeated.
Captain C
He’s had a chance to do this for ACA repeal, the massive tax cut, Kavanaugh, and impeachment, at minimum. Crickets.
Emma from FL
@dnfree: You have the wrong descriptors. It’s the “dead” kid and the “live” kid. And you’re taking a very Republican view of Hunter Biden, aren’t you? But then, so many come around here spewing nastiness.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
I never took statistics, but if your flat conclusion is the result of statistics, then something is wrong with statistics. Complex situations need more finesse than simple black and white pronouncements.
topclimber
@Ferry: I am a small fry here and lack the crud cred of many of those who have dumped all over you, but do not despair. Many understand what you say much more than they can stomach the offhand contempt of those who ignore your thoughtful comment.
Was I the only one who noticed you talk about the Sanders/Warren wing of progressives? Am I the only one who remembers those who object to characterizing Dems as milquetoast are the same ones who blasted Obama for not putting all the banksters of 2008 into jail? Maybe we could revisit some of the adjectives there.
And blaming young voters for the debacle of 2010…really? Claiming AOC has done nothing for working people because she didn’t pass the Green New Deal in her first year and has had the temerity to push the party hard left…really?
You would think more of the old hippies on this site would give the youngs a break.
No, I am not the only one, here or in the wider world of moderate liberals. Hang in there! We will find a path together.
guachi
@Yutsano: Too long.
Just “Joe”. Cue 5 minutes of riotous applause.
C Stars
@Josie: Thank you for that. It needed to be said. It’s fine to keep people who have passed away close in your thoughts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the statement that Milquetoast Obama did nothing for eight years really is an unwitting class/privilege confession, isn’t it? only someone who has no idea what Medicaid is, has never had reason to think about it, could say that. Someone who has no idea how many people are employed, directly and indirectly, by the auto industry. Somebody whose class comforts protect them from the decisions made by the Roberts-Alito-Kavanaugh courts.
debbie
@FlyingToaster:
I like your idea of Warren replacing Schumer. “Watch me persist, Mitch!~”
artem1s
@NotMax:
I’m sick of the GOP using ridiculous litmus tests to attack every Dem that is currently at the top of polling. Biden has a legitimate reason, outside his actual love of his son, to keep the voters aware of how he is handling his grief. He was attacked for seeking grief counseling after losing members of his family in a tragic accident. He was probably the first elected official I can recall admitting to seeking counseling for any reason. I’m sick of people who act as if the GOP will forget it if he would just drop it. He’s smart enough to know the GOP will never, ever let the voters forget that manly men don’t have grief or need counseling. And he’s smart enough to keep them from turning it into a weapon. He’s doing fine.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker:
Ferry’s first post in this thread:
The way to address complaints about broad brushes is not to jump in with complaints that use a ten-foot-wide roller.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
I did — I voted for Biden. Dropped my ballot off last night.
Mr. Mnemo voted for Warren, but he’s been dying to vote for her ever since she was in that documentary about bankruptcy years ago, so I don’t begrudge his vote.
Jinchi
@VeniceRiley: Sanders voters turned out overwhelmingly for Clinton against Trump in 2016.
trnc
@dnfree:
I thought the same thing, but I also wonder if maybe Biden should maybe stop bringing up Beau at every event. I was extremely moved when he spoke about Beau back in 2012, but I think I’ve seen that 4 or 5 times this campaign, and it felt a little forced to me when he mentioned him during the Pete B endorsement. I assume it’s genuine, but it’s starting to sound a little weird to me.
ETA: Especially when there’s a distinct lack of mentions of Hunter.
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s not my thing. As can be said about you responding in a meaningful way to my post, and oh so many others.
Every village needs a fool. BJ thanks you for your service.
smintheus
@Betty Cracker: If that’s his real point, he could have stated it much more clearly and convincingly. What he leads with, however, is rejecting the idea that Sanders’ supporters can legitimately be criticized for senseless hostility toward other Democrats. He then shows that that criticism has validity by blaming the Democrats and only the Democrats for ‘milquetoast’ policies that were largely due to Republican obstructionism.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@topclimber:
as the one who objected to “milquetoast”, and someone with a basic, if layperson’s, understanding of how criminal prosecutions work– starting with the fact that presidents can’t actually order people seized and thrown in the dungeons– I can assure I have never joined in that particular Stoller-esque bleat. Though I am honestly quite surprised that you don’t.
Leto
@Gravenstone: it is. It doesn’t have to be that way but I find it striking that regardless of where you are/live, it’s a common constant.
C Stars
The number of po-faced Bernie fans in my FB feed right now who are desperately trying to wheedle Warren supporters into giving up their vote and going for Bernie instead is….So Depressing. The most depressing thing about it, actually, is that of all eight or so of them, only one is a woman. The rest are just men haranguing the women in their lives not to vote for the woman candidate. Because it might make things a little bit harder for the male candidate they prefer.
I appreciate Bernie supporters’ passion and enthusiasm and am trying to be buoyed by that when I consider his chances in the general election. . . but what a seriously terrible strategy: Insult the other candidate and all their supporters until you need their vote, and then put on a sad face and beg for it. Gah!
Anyway, if folks vote for Warren it eats into Biden’s share as much as Bernie’s, so I don’t see it as quite the zero-sum game they’re making it out to be.
Barbara
@Ferry: Anyone who resorts to blaming the establishment or low information voters and/or taking solace in having won working class voters after SC primary is at best tone deaf to racial awareness. AOC has generally been much smarter about these things and I hope this was just an isolated statement.
I have been voting my whole adult life out of step with my demographic cohort (on average) and trying to reverse massive disinvestment from education at all levels. I deplore burdensome levels of student debt. Do you deplore massively unequal funding of pre-college education that hits non-caucasian children particularly hard? How will Sanders’ funding of free college tuition help? Does that not strike you as a really serious and legitimate difference in priorities?
hitchhiker
@Ferry:
I do appreciate your POV and your ability to express it.
For the last several years I have been using all my powers of persuasion in every social interaction, online or IRL, to plead with young people to vote. You outnumber us geezers, but it’s a fact that 69% of old folks are going to show up in November and in these primaries.
We do this routinely, year in and year out. Young people don’t. You have the power to flip the entire House if you feel like it — to elect a member of your generation to every office, high and low, in the USA.
To waste a moment of election-commentary time on anything but getting out the vote of people under 35 is to abandon the power that’s right in front of you. It’s right there. Some of us are dying for you to step the fuck up and take over.
Immanentize
@topclimber: The path is coalition building. Like it or not, as B. Cracker often points out, there is only one party right now in which an energetic discussion of policy is happening — the Democratic party. And, like it or not, that means the rational Republicans, rather than those who lockstep (goose step?) to Trump’s every craziness, are now joining the Democratic party. Which means, whether you like it or not, the coalition is expanding in a more moderate direction.
If Bernie wins the nomination, I am certain almost all Democrats will vote for him in the election. But right now, there are many people who do not think that is a good result and will do what they can to make sure a candidate other than Sanders wins. Isn’t that Sanders’ strategy too? But to win, every candidate must expand their voting coalition within the Democratic party. Biden is doing that, Sadly to me, Warren has not. Sanders is not, either, so it is unlikely he will win the nomination.
Subsole
Well, put another vote on the board for Warren. All differences aside, and whoever wins, I am looking forward to voting that clan of orange-painted locusts out of the Oval this year.
Onward.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: maybe if some of that fire was directed in the appropriate direction, it would be taken more seriously. Instead it’s the “Democratic establishment” that’s the problem. It’s parroting the same shithead attacks that Sanders most fervent supporters lay out. If they’re looking to have a cogent discussion, that’s not the way to do it.
piratedan
for one, I find it sadly revealing that the dynamic of this thread has Dems at odds with other Dems as if other Dems were the sole source of our woe, blithely ignoring what took place under Bush and Shrub and even Reagan before them and think that when Obama and Clinton had their entire spate of 16 years more didn’t get done w/o even any understanding that while a President can do things to help, he (or she) would need to work out an accommodation with both aisles of the legislative branch and that the last time there was a Dem majority in the WH, and both aisles of Congress, SHIT really got done… healthcare got done, the rescuing of the economic bacon of the western world got done, the consumer protection bureau got done… sure maybe not everything got done, but as was pointed out upstairs in the thread, that window of opportunity only last 4 fucking months and in that timeframe Nancy Smash and Harry Reid implemented a whole boatload of policy to try and unfuck 8 years of 43.
and it gives a pass to the likes of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell as if they had no responsibility of stopping us in our legislative tracks during their time in power..
No one is denying the issues, perhaps some closer examination of the cause would be helpful
Immanentize
@C Stars: Grief is a very complicated thing and it might be that Biden is just not even able — without conscious effort — to stop himself from mentioning Beau.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne:
Husband kitteh had decided on Biden since the get go. He was like, I like him and trust him. I decided after SC to vote for him.
Yutsano
@debbie: Over the dead body of Patty Murray, who is currently number 4 in Senate leadership. :)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Immanentize:
I agree, but even if all Dems and consistently Dem-leaning independents vote for Sanders, I think that gets him to maybe 45, 47%? and he still needs to find that extra 4-5.1%
In Wisconsin.
gwangung
@Immanentize: Yup. Coalition building.
And like it or not, the Democratic party IS a coalition. One group is very progressive, pushing ideas that foment change. Another group is inherently more oriented to the status quo and seeks to keep things essentially centered on that.
But both are opposed to Republican ideas of wealth concentration and damage to the social safety net.
And both will have to learn to live with each other and that the two segments are both sizable and influential.
Hoodie
@Ferry: Glad to hear it. As for AOC, she is a bright talent and no problem with her pushing progressive ideas. In my experience, some ways of doing that are better than others. Characterizing people who are supporting Biden as some sort of establishment conspiracy is not one of them because it’s really not an idea, but rather an emotional response to frustration of your goals.
There is truth to the old maxim of respect your elders, but not so much because of any presumed wisdom on their part (although there is also some truth to that). The main advantage you have over them is that you haven’t yet made your own mistakes. Your elders are there to show you that people make a lot of mistakes, so be prepared for that. However, the one they didn’t make is raising you. Humility and hope.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: It is not my conclusion that’s what data says. If a random white women was chosen the probability that she voted for the current President is 53%.
An individual could either be in the 47% cohort of the 53% cohort. I am pretty certain that women (of any color/heritage/national origin) posting comments on Balloon Juice belong to the 47%.
Immanentize
@piratedan: That is all true. But I think the attacks on the “Democratic establishment” — Whatever the fuck that means day to day — happen and have power because it is the only place where anyone cares about such attacks. Attacking the Republican Establishment doesn’t get any rise from anyone — all Democrats agree with the cogent attacks and all the Republicans don’t give a shit for their feelings about Republicans.
At least in 1968, the White House and Congress were all in Democratic hands, so attacking the Democrats was at least attacking those in power. Now, attacking Democrats is a posture, not a play for change.
Raven Onthill
@Ferry: I wish there were a Sanders/Warren wing. There’s Sanders and Warren and there’s their supporters. And, yes, I am entirely sympathetic with younger people, who are about to be offered more of the same, if not worse.
Still better than Trump.
Biden. Biden is a beneficiary of the Mediocre White Guy Full Employment Act. Anita Hill. The incredibly punitive and racist Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. On his record, both women and African-Americans ought to be running screaming to other candidates, any other candidates, but it’s only a modest minority that pays attention to policy.
Still better than Trump.
The odds favor Biden; Trump’s popularity has a limit and in a reelection that counts. But I’m starting to have that 2016 feeling. You can’t count on winning an election on “Not as bad as the other guy.”
hitchhiker
@PenAndKey:
For me that list is the middle. Mine begins with the murder of JFK, followed by the Vietnam war & all three of my brothers in the military, followed by more murders, followed by Nixon and his band of thugs, followed by Reagan and the rush to punish poor people, followed by the Clarence Thomas debacle, and then, oh my. Bill and Hillary Clinton arrived at about the same time as Rush fucking Limbaugh.
In retrospect, trump is not an anomaly. He was the goal all along.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I can’t think of where I saw it now, but wasn’t there an argument a few months back that the 53% of white women stat is flawed? and even if it wasn’t I wonder how that number comes out if you look at non-evangelical (“evangelical”) white women
Gravenstone
@Kent: If Obama does take an active role on the campaign trail, rather than remain a behind the scenes force, can you imagine how Trump will respond? He will go absolutely ballistic that the man he appears to hate above all others and whose legacy he is trying to obliterate in every waking moment is actively working to ensure he does not gain re-election.
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat: Black women in CA are likely to vote significantly differently than black women in SC. There’s differences in urbanity, religiosity, age, etc.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
In the original post, that last tweet about her accusing every Democrat who isn’t a Berner of being a corporate whore or some sort of nefarious special interest out to kill any “progressive” outcomes. It’s infuriating. I’m a fucking liberal. I’ve been a liberal since I was a kid. I’ve been through all the fights for progress from the 1960s until today. She’s fucking clueless and insulting and I’m totally over it.
schrodingers_cat
@Suzanne: That is entirely possible. We will find out soon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Raven Onthill: I think Biden is the beneficiary of his being the rare Democratic top-line candidate who figured out that, twitter notwithstanding, the party and the broader electorate like “milquetoast” Obama better than they like “consistent” Sanders. Bloomberg, who whatever else you want to say about him isn’t stupid, figured that out. The penny seemed to have dropped for Warren a couple of days before the NV caucus, a year after she launched her campaign.
Do the blessed “younger people” know who Mark Kelly is? Cal Cunningham? Sara Gideon? Jaime Harrison? Do BYP know whom those people want to appear on a ticket with?
Immanentize
@geg6: Sorry, I’ve lost the narrative, but who is the “she” you are speaking of?
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good for you. As a fellow layperson, I can assure you that the Justice Department can try to prosecute cases. With all he had on his plate, I don’t think Obama told Holder to make it a priority.
I like you better in this reasonable mode. Will it last?
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Word.
Mnemosyne
@Ferry:
I graduated from college straight into the 1992 recession. Welcome to the club.
The difference between us is that I know that causing recessions is what the Republicans DO. They create the recession, leave the Democrats to do the clean-up, and then blame the Democrats for everything.
The really sly thing the Republicans do is that they tell young people like you that the people trying to clean up after them actually caused the problem, and you fall for it. I don’t blame you for that, because I was dumb and fell for it in 2000 when I should have known better, but that’s what Republicans do. They break shit and then blame the Democrats.
Here’s a thought: maybe try giving the Democrats power for more than two consecutive years and see if they can fix more stuff rather than shrugging your shoulders, deciding that it’s all worthless if they can’t fix everything that’s broken within 2 years, and putting the Republicans back in power so they can break even more stuff.
Chyron HR
@Jinchi:
10% voted for trump, another 15% voted third party or stayed home.
Uncle Cosmo
The most important since 1944, certainly – the consensus was that FDR was very unlikely to serve out his fourth term, & in fact died on day 82. (Counting from his first inaugural [4 Mar 1933], he was President for 4,422 days – 12 standard-length years and 42 days.) We kind of lucked out with Truman – nowhere near as racist as Jimmy Byrnes or as “woo-woo” as Henry Wallace, the two most likely alternatives.
I’ve been reading McCullough’s bio of Give-‘Em-Hell Harry & I see similar dynamics surrounding the Biden candidacy: steadying, calming, not taking any “malarkey” – “one of us.”
Chris Johnson
@VeniceRiley:
Dude I’m standing RIGHT HERE. I posted as Applejinx, maybe you remember how berner that was? I got over it and I am ride or die for Warren at this time, and so suspicious of Bernie that there are circumstances where I would leave the top of the ticket blank if he were on it.
Hoodie
@Raven Onthill: This is ironic, seeing as this is one of the few times the Democrats actually have a chance to successfully use that approach. Most of the time we have to grind out a bunch of wonky policy stuff and then sit back and wonder why we can’t beat some “likeable” lunkhead. Worked wonders for GWB, and could be a pretty good bet for Biden against Trump, as one nearly universal theme among all those who are not in the Trump cult is that he is a singular asshole.
MCA1
@catclub: Thank you.
I suppose it was milquetoast Democratic rule that brought about the Affordable Care Act, too.
Ferry seems thoughtful and well-meaning, but also seems unable to couch his/her thoughts about the Obama presidency in the context of either (i) following the Bush era and an economic disaster the likes of which the country hadn’t seen in 80 years, or (ii) the hardening radicalization of the Republican Party over the last quarter century leading to scorched Earth obstruction of everything down to post office naming. It’s that sort of naivete that leads to responses that can easily seem condescending and like we’re saying “Sit down, kid, you don’t know what you’re talking about” when they insist that Obama and the D Party are failures because they haven’t solved every problem the country now faces.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: Cherry-picked summary is cherry-picked, but since you generally seem like a reasonable and fair person, I’ll ask: do you think the overall tenor of the responses to Ferry’s comment was justified? If so, we’ll have to agree to disagree, I guess. I found it was ridiculous and over the top.
Suzanne
@MCA1: Is here some middle ground in between “failure” and “did absolutely everything I wanted” to be found? Because I love Obama and I worked my arse off for him, and I still think we need more progress.
My concern about Biden is just that he will provide a pause in the insanity when I feel like we need a moonshot. I mean, a pause in the insanity is good! Less insanity! But do I feel that he will get us where we need to be? Much less certain.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Black women in CA are likely to vote significantly differently than black women in SC. There’s differences in urbanity, religiosity, age, etc.
Not sure that I agree, and don’t know what you are basing this on.
In any event, I’m in California and am looking forward to getting CA and other Super Tuesday results.
ETA: One CNN exit poll story I looked at showed results by race, but not by race and gender. And even though there is a lot of interest in the black woman vote, few reporters take the trouble to go out and interview actual black women voters. Odd, but typical.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@geg6: thank you, the sea-lioning about all the “hate” for AOC (!) was gonna make my eyes roll out of my head. She’s obviously very smart, as her committee work has shown, but she also seems to be, for someone who isn’t stupid, rather insistently blinkered in her understanding of national politics. She often chooses to act like a clueless teenager.
@topclimber:
I can assure you that DOJ resources are limited, they would have been going against virtually unlimited defense resources, presenting complicated evidence to bored and resentful jurors, and I believe (again, IANAL) acquittals serve as precedents in future related prosecutions. As I recall, one of the reasons the odious Bob Menendez is a free man is because Bob McDonnell’s conviction was overturned. And (layman’s understanding) the reason trump pretended to be afraid Melania would find about his affairs was the John Edwards precedent.
When I respond to comments, I generally use the level of reason the comment deserves. “Show your work.” Go kiss Michael Moore’s ass.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I agree with you on this topic. The Bernie hate is so strong here that it has caused otherwise smart people to lose any sense of nuance and at times even the ability to read. It’s really unpleasant.
Hoodie
@Suzanne: Moonshots actually take a lot of planning and preparation, can’t just slap up a Saturn V and go for it. There will be progress, it will just have to come from people like EW and others in the Congress reasserting congressional authority. And gee, who would be a better president for accepting reassertion of congressional authority?
gwangung
Hell, no. I don’t think they were on the beam, but they didn’t deserve to be dumped on. (Disagreed with, yeah, but not dumped on).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
well put, I would only add that it’s not just the naivety, it’s the aggressively obnoxious naïveté (I put the accents in to fuck with autocorrect) that draws so much scorn
schrodingers_cat
@Hoodie: After the crazy of the last 3 years I need a breather. It took me months to get a good night’s sleep after the Orange Hater was elected. I had a major medical crisis in late 2016 and it took mid 2017 to recover from it. So yes just being able to breathe normally without being constantly dumped on by the President would be a welcome change.
gwangung
If I’m not mistaken, there was one court case (state level) decided in 2009 that was an acquital for a bank—and everyone thought it was a slam dunk.
Given that, yeah, I’m not surprised the DOJ didn’t pursue criminal charges.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
Actual voting in SC showed that African Americans under 30 split their votes 50/50 between Sanders and Biden, so I don’t think either campaign can realistically say they have a lock on that demographic.
Polls have been VERY odd this year. I don’t trust any of them so far.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: I have looked at the polls of the Super Tuesday states and there is a lot of volatility because there are a lot of undecideds. (upwards of 20% in some cases)
Suzanne
@Brachiator: Well, here’s a piece on one reason that I think that “the black vote” is not one monolithic thing.
West of the Rockies
@Ferry:
May I ask you to read/read again what Pen and Key said at #99?
I get your frustration. I’m 58, but my daughter is 18 and I worry for her. It will be a coalition that effectively addresses our challenges (climate, the cost of education, the unfair economic system).
Do you know what Proposition 13 in California was/is? My parents (born in ’29 and ’32) loved it because it kept their property taxes low. When I pointed out that their own four kids enjoyed no such benefit, they had little sympathy. I get feeling put upon by the previous generations. But its the Republican party that is the true impediment to progress and justice.
debbie
@geg6:
Bite the hand that feeds, ammirite?
debbie
@Immanentize:
AOC.
Hoodie
@schrodingers_cat: If I had my way, Obama would have served about 5 terms. It would’ve sucked for him, but great for me. 20 years of no drama and Republicans pulling their hair out.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
I dropped out of college into a wage freeze. Like my take home of $57.55 per week was ever going to get me anywhere.
Every generation is angry about something. As you say, people need to put aside their grievances and give Democrats the time it will take to get this crap straightened out.
Mnemosyne
@Chris Johnson:
Ah, so that was you?
I’m very glad that you were able to get your head straightened out. And I hope that you’re still doing well with your recovery. A friend of mine just got her 15 year chip and we are all very proud of her.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t think the people who said that are the same people who are for Warren.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Everyone has their buttons. One of mine is “establishment”. ;-) Another is strong criticisms that are not carefully directed (but rather are directed at (almost) the entire community).
It’s not a big deal to me, really. People commenting here have thick skins or they don’t stick around.
To be clear, I’m not the “tone police” here, and I’m glad we don’t have (and generally don’t need) one. I don’t like “mutual admiration societies” and I think it’s important that we be able to have arguments. But there are good ways to argue, and disingenuous ones. Jumping in with very broad criticisms using language that is so strongly rooted in “us vs them” (“establishment”) seems more of the latter to me.
Just my $0.02. YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Hoodie: I agree that Biden is the best chance that we have to make change and progress, based on how the voting is going so far. I just am not filled with confidence that even that best chance is a good chance.
I can understand why the YOOT are not really excited to get out and get on board this train, even though I don’t agree that that’s the best course of action.
Tom Q
You know, during the Clinton administration, the “moderates” were John Breaux and Bob Kerrey. To have Biden and Klobuchar, whose lifetime records are way left of those two, be slapped with the same label, tells me the fabled Overton window has moved substantially in that time, but that the press (and too many in the Sanders camp) insist on using the old labels to divide Dems more than they should.
If Biden becomes president, and Dems take the Senate (iffy but quite possible), how would you feel about all those bills passed in the House last year ($15 minimum wage, gun control measures, addressing climate change) all becoming law? I certainly wouldn’t see Biden vetoing them. And I’d think that would make for robust progressive progress. Would that, too, be dismissed as “milquetoast”? Because I have to say, tossing aside the ACA — something Dems have dreamed of in some form since the Truman days — as meaningless because it didn’t measure up to some hypothetical better system, seems a sign that people have irrational hopes and they’re blaming hard-working Dems for not delivering on the fantasy.
Which is my problem with Sanders: he conjures up a vision of utopia that is appealing — to most of us, I daresay — but doesn’t offer anything besides wishing for it as a plan for enacting it. When some of us are skeptical of his being successful, we’re accused of not wanting the thing he describes (or, in the case of elected officials, actively impeding its enactment). If he told me he was going to make us all fly, I’d snort in disbelief not because I wouldn’t like to fly, but because I know he wouldn’t be able to do it.
Beyond that, I think he’d be a terrible president. He has no people skills whatever. Maybe his worst moment, for me, was, a few weeks ago, proudly saying he doesn’t remember people’s birthdays. You know who I bet did? FDR; LBJ; Barack — presidents who got things done, by making people work together.
I definitely didn’t come into this season behind Joe Biden. I think Dems do better with young, vibrant candidates, and I was for Kamala, Beto, Booker, Castro serially, none of whom made the initial cut (Beto’s speech last night reminded me what good political oratory can do for a campaign). But in a Biden/Bernie face-off, I think it’s a no-brainer to go Biden. (And last night also gave me confidence that, though he’ll be the aged figurehead, his campaign and administration will make ample use of the coming generations.)
Chris Johnson
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, it was. I did a little apology tour :)
Part of the reason I was able to get my head straight was, both my parents died. I inherited a little money, enough to not be in a state of constant panic, to pay off my credit card, stuff like that. I became less vulnerable to panic-mongering propagandists.
Like a bunch of the people behind Bernie.
Off to vote for Warren, now. In Vermont. Cause I damned well want to, that’s why :
(and yeah: going to a meeting tonight. more than 25 years clean, staying that way :) )
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
I absolutely agree that the black vote is not a monolith. And the author of the piece is right about tons of points about black voters.
But there is nothing concrete in the article at all about black voter intent in California or anywhere else.
Sometimes Guardian writers are more insightful than domestic reporters. Other times they are clueless and have a “progressive” axe to grind.
Super Tuesday provides a chance to check all kinds of assumptions and earlier polling against actual voter choices. The one wild card may be votes made in advance for candidates who have dropped out.
The Lodger
@Shana: I think you meant Rodham, not Rodman.
Although Hillary and Dennis would be a couple with interesting visuals :)
Subsole
@Amir Khalid:
You.
Yes, you.
You’re fuckin’ awesome, dude. Keep that shit up.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: Urbanity, religiosity, and age (all noted by the author) are all salient factors in the way people vote, and since those are significant differences between the electorates of CA and SC, I am extrapolating that we’ll probably see some differences in the outcomes. If not differences in kind, then probably of degree.
Orange Is The New White
@Suzanne: They don’t vote anyway. Not in any numbers that are going to make a difference to this or any other national election.
Which is why I’m not dumping on the kid. I get the frustration – they’re right to be frustrated. But it doesn’t matter what the youngs are frustrated about, because most of that age cohort won’t vote. If they want to change anything, they can start with that.
Subsole
@Chris Johnson:
Congratulations on the anniversary.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
Most of the African Americans I know here in California are still quite religious, or at least are very involved in their churches for social and political reasons. One is a Catholic, but she’s WAY more politically conservative than the Protestants.
Mnemosyne
@Chris Johnson:
Congratulations on the anniversary and I’m glad you were able to get a little breathing room financially.
Suzanne
@Orange Is The New White: They may not vote when they’re kids, but they do start voting in greater number with each election. And there is significant political science research indicating that their party identification and voting habits start young. If we don’t bring them into the fold as much as we can, we will not survive as a party.
Also…. why are we being transactional with them? We should look out for their interests, even if they don’t vote. We left them the mess.
Chris Johnson
@Mnemosyne: Oh, it’s not a recent anniversary, that’ll be this Fall. And I mention the money thing because that was about the only way I could get away from an easily exploitable constant stark terror. My family was/is pretty weird. I could have died, over these many years, and they wouldn’t have been that deeply hurt, and when I outlived the folks I got a glimpse of what would’ve been more normal: having family connections, some backing, more of a support network I just never had.
The reason I mention it is, we keep getting people here (real or troll) who are hot to convince Democrats that ‘economic anxiety’ is pure dogwhistle, not real. That used to drive me mad, seeing it. Talk about invalidating.
Having escaped some of it for now (seeing an immediate downturn in my income as I run an internet business that is subject to economy crashes) I now have the luxury of being able to think without panic, hence my going all in for Warren. Wish more people were able to take my path.
Ruckus
@PJ:
I wonder if a lot of the younger generations don’t know how the government is supposed to function? Because it really hasn’t functioned well over the last 2 or 3 decades. Republicans have either been ramming through their agenda or roadblocking anything positive they can for at least that long. If I were a much younger person, I might think that way. Three years ago we had a barely functional federal government, today we don’t have close to one. How would youngsters know, what with their entire lives being during a time of such disfunction?
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
You can’t really extrapolate from just “differences.” The author of the Guardian piece itemizes differences without any suggestion of how they have determined voter preferences in the past. Since this is a Guardian piece, I suspect that the author is looking for Bernie supporters.
So, yeah, the vote could be different. I am curious to see what happens.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Right now, people are being taught that the government is the instrument of the president’s will. Oddly enough, this satisfies some conservatives and evangelicals, who believe that the government should reflect a specific and narrow social or religious vision of what the country should be.
We all have a lot of work to do to undo this nonsense.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I have not seen anything, apart from the CNN exit poll you mentioned.
And I really hope that any Super Tuesday exit polls are more nuanced.
One thing that I did find interesting was the breakdown of voters who had never attended college.
Biden and Sanders did equally well with white women who had never attended college; Sanders did much better with white men who had never attended college. Biden swept the board with black voters of all education levels.
The other presidential contenders were not a serious factor here.
Ruckus
@Ferry:
If Warren is your first choice, why are you not voting for her?
I have stated on this blog, in the last few days that we are chewing each other up for no reason. I’d bet a lot of BS support comes from a place of complete frustration, and that his lack of being a part of the democratic party is an attraction. What most/some of us are saying is that people with differences are all there is on the world and in government those differences have to be ironed out, not shouted to death. What has been going on for years, possibly your entire life, isn’t that. I’m not sure that can be fixed or made better, because nearly half the people are unwilling to actually have a democracy.
dm
That Biden commercial at the head of this post is very effective (for me, anyway).
It’s mostly rhetoric, I realize, but it’s positive rhetoric. “America was already great, and our best days are yet to come, but we have work to do to bring them about. But that’s okay, because we’ve always been up for a challenge.”
It’s a positive, optimistic message that I expect will play well with a lot of people, even the formerly Trump curious.
neldob
@Ferry: I want a progressive agenda too, and I like Bernie somewhat, though not when he says things like there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. But vote. Vote like the world depends on your generation because it does. Vote reliably Democratic and get involved a bit and you all can turn the Democrats into a powerhouse and I hope turn the Republican Party extinct, and as Democrats stay in power the country will eventually reflect our values. It’s not instantaneous and its not always sweet, but keep at it.
and always call out the Fox news lies. Silence is assent.
neldob
@Chris Johnson: Welcome back & congratulations.
PenAndKey
@Betty Cracker: As one of the younger jackels on the site I can understand how the sentiment of “sit down and listen, kid, because as bad as you think it is you have a lot to learn” is both annoying to hear and something many people my age need to hear. I’ve been politically minded since elementary school. As I’ve said before my first political memory was watching my fifth grade teacher awkwardly try to explain what a bj was when we were watching the news in class during the impeachment.
Since then I’ve watched the
ConfederacyGOP wage what is essentially a revanchist cold civil war against liberals and the US government. I watched the GOP tank my future, and I watched the Obama administration and Pelosi drag the nation back to some semblance of the right track only for McConnell and FOX to sabotage it and drag us right back down.So needless to say, when someone my age starts bemoaning how we’re all mean to Sanders, who demagogues with the best of them but has zero ability to build a coalition team that doesn’t fawn over him, it’s… annoying. I won’t attack Ferry because they don’t deserve to be attacked, but I’ll certainly tell them to sit down and listen to what Sander’s Democratic opposition has to say.
FFS, the guy is in the Democratic nomination primary and he’s bemoaning half of the party as “establishment”. He’s making no attempt to build bridges or build a coalition. His idea of the classic Democratic “big tent”, from all appearances, bears a striking resemblance to the left wing edition of a MAGA convention.
That? That’s a major problem, and having lived through Bush and Trump it’s one that puts a lot of Democrats on edge.
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well I had to leave for the real world but thanks for staying reasonable.
I don’t dispute that it would have been hard and perhaps quixotic to personally prosecute the worst of the banksters. One must have priorities. Obama had many.
On the other hand the more important precedent is that financial s—heads can bankrupt millions of people and fear no personal consequences thanks to the corporate veil. Their corporations pay a few billion here and there, then double their money on the next scam. At least make them soil their designer underwear while mulling the chance they might do time.
I do notice a personal quirk of yours to dwell upon various versions of anal contact for your big close. I make no judgment. Just sayin’. But if this is as nice as you get, most of us can deal with it.
And by all means, and with the due respect you deserve, show your work. Demand the same of me, anytime.
MCA1
@Suzanne: [Sorry for delayed response] Sure there is, and I’m right there with you in that middle ground. I loved President Obama but he was not infallible. In particular I wish he had, once it became clear there was no good faith on the part of his counterparts, filibustered about their obstruction 24/7 until the press was forced to acknowledge the asymmetrical polarization we suffer. And started moving the Overton Window on policy, since the GOP was determined to call everything he proposed communist and stop it from passage, anyway, instead of hoping forever that reasonability and shame would eventually bring them back round.
I think we’re in a pickle, politically speaking, right now, however.
On the one hand, late stage capitalism combined with 50+ years of growing civic apathy and a cultural elevation of material wealth to the point of it attaining status as virtue have led to structural economic, infrastructure and other problems that have left us with a Gini coefficient that’s about on a par with Angola’s and worse than those in India and Colombia. Our bridges are literally collapsing and we have one of the oldest airport systems in the developed world, but zero will to fix them. Bill and Melinda Gates are doing as much to help us deal with the Coronavirus as the federal gov’t, which is amazing on their part, but not a sign of a high functioning democracy. We need some significant changes to our laws (tax and otherwise) and our budgetary priorities and the way we engage with the world, or we’re at risk of continuing to slowly become an oligarchy (or seeing pitchforks). The growing inequities we’ve fostered are not sustainable. Bernie and Liz articulate this problem very well.
But on the other hand, we are in the middle of a significant reactionary backlash, born of fear of demographic change, that has produced a system in which one of our two major political parties is wholly unwilling or unable to uphold any of its commitments to constitutional governance or fair play. It is in thrall to a mobbed up infantilized buffoon, and fears the wrath of its worst elements. And that buffoon is rapidly burning through every global friendship and all the good will this nation spilled a lot of blood and treasure to build up over 75 years, so that we’re soon to be friendless unless you count authoritarians as friends. This is the end game of openly courting revanchist elements for 40 years. The inmates have taken over the asylum. Our press is not even close to up to the task of calling this what it is, woefully ref-worked and profit/click driven as it is. And structurally, we’re in a system of government that granted immensely disproportionate power to sparsely populated areas, while at the moment we’re continually urbanizing, and those unpopulated areas’ resentment towards the rest of the country has metastasized.
I don’t see, under those circumstances, any moonshot capability. I would love to see Warren’s agenda, for instance, get a good faith, thorough debate in Congress and then have whatever parts of it the populace likes enacted. But in this environment, and especially as long as Mitch McConnell wields any power, only a fool would think that a possibility.
For me, this coming election, as of three years ago, was about revenge and rubbing it in the faces of the idiots who gave us Trump and forcing them to come along on a more progressive path while repudiating their past choices. But as time has gone on and (a) it’s become clear how complete Needy Amin’s grip on the GOP has become and (b) how increasingly and incredibly dangerous he is to our democracy, this has become 100% and only about stopping the insanity for me. I see a conventional candidate who doesn’t have massive built-in negatives with 40% of the country as the only way to get a window of control of the Executive branch long enough to fix some of the damage Trump has done, and set us on a better path. Sanders (in addition to my fear that he would get absolutely crushed in a general election) has shown no propensity for unifying or coalition building even within his own party, and is seen as beyond the pale liberal by a significant portion of the rest of the country. His policy asks would be both dead on arrival and drags on every Democrat until 2024 when he lost re-election, risking a destabilizing pole-to-pole swing that would be terrible for the country.
Warren would probably make a really good president, and be pragmatic in her approach and policy. But having seen how the media and populace treated HRC, I don’t have faith that her cheerful wonkiness would work outside the Democratic mainstream. Everything would be trench warfare and the GOP would feel no qualms in othering her the same way they did Obama and Clinton, and there would be no media pushback on that. Her inability thus far to shine through the rest of the Dem field also speaks to her limitations as a pure politician, regardless of her talents as a legislator and administrator.
That leaves Joe at this point. It would take an extremely talented politician to earn a mandate to both clean up the mess and save democracy AND enact a progressive agenda in America circa 2020. That’s not Biden, and as solid as this field of Dem candidates was in the aggregate, no five tool players like Obama have emerged. So, personally, I’ll settle for quelling the existential crisis in our democratic system of government. That’s a necessary predicate to get better policy passed in the future, not the other way around.
MCA1
@MCA1: G-d that was wordy. Sorry. One last thought, though: the Democratic Party has moved significantly leftward since the Clinton years from a policy perspective. These things take time. Even Biden’s positions have evolved a great deal over that period. He’s not 1998 Joe Biden running for Pres.
MCA1
@topclimber: Third party with no skin in this game: the phrase “show your work” (a) is very popular with trolls (not accusing you of being one, but it elicits a Pavlovian response when used even by non-trolls), and (b) has an extremely condescending and smug tone to it, as though you don’t think the other party possibly could support their point to your satisfaction. It’s like arriving at the discussion wearing a t-shirt that says “80% chance I’m sea lioning you.” There are better ways to request more support for an argument on these here intertubes.