Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Consistently wrong since 2002

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Bark louder, little dog.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Infrastructure week. at last.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Election Year Open Thread: Michigan, My Michigan

Election Year Open Thread: Michigan, My Michigan

by | 270 Comments

This post is in: 

I’m not saying it’s the lead on every news channel, but…

And here I didn’t think the snowbirds had returned to their summer homes at Traverse City’s world-renowned golf clubs!


(Michiganders: I *know* this is not the official state anthem, but the post-Civil-War theme seemed apropros!)

Reader Interactions

270Comments

  3. 3.

    lamh36

    Ya know, I’ll just say, even in the with the Kamala vs Joe busing thing when I was decidely meh on Dr. Jill, I gotta say those, once I got over being pissed, I remember that I tend to like her. She seems like her and Joe are really a team, and unlike with some spouses, it never seems like she has an agenda other than the one that she and Joe have together. She really seems like she and Joe are really partners. I get the feeling that if Joe’s health was not great or if like Bernie he’d had a heart attack or heart issues, I kind think Dr Jill would be like “Joe this ain’t it”, rather than you know who and his wie.

    Kinda like Forever FLOTUS and PBO.

    Ya know what I mean.

    Other political spouses…IDK

  4. 4.

    lamh36

    @NBCPolitics58m58 minutes ago

    More

    JUST IN: President Trump endorses former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville in US Senate runoff race in Alabama; Tuberville is facing former AG Sessions in the runoff, as Sessions tries to reclaim his old Senate seat, which he gave up to serve in the Trump admin.

    Even with all that azz kissing…KKKleebler Elf still can’t catch a break from Chump…LOL

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    wasn’t David Shuster the one who said the Clintons were “pimping” their daughter because Chelsea made campaign appearances?

  7. 7.

    Raoul

    Biden was never my first choice, but he was always above Sanders in my strange calculus.

    I just want us to move on to the general election, and highlighting all the horrible ways Trump-Pence are mishandling the coronavirus outbreak.

    Also, downballot. That’s the thing – winning US Senate seats, defending the House, and winning more state legislatures.

    That is all. Not too tall an order, is it?

  8. 8.

    dmsilev

    So, what does Sanders do next? I can see a few options:

    1. Drop out of the race in the next couple of days. Give a speech from Vermont tomorrow or day after and bring an end to it.
    2. Drop out of the race soon. After the debate on Sunday or after next week’s set of primaries
    3. Keep running, but pivot to purely attacking Trump and the Republicans
    4. Drag the house down around him, go all out poison-the-well against Biden.

    4 is obviously the option to be afraid of, a triumph of ego over common sense. Hopefully he goes with one of the other options.

  10. 10.

    Mary G

    Biden giving a sober, magnanimous speech right now, rather than spiking the football, which is the right tone given the background of the coronavirus and the foreground of needing to unify the party and reach out to Sanders voters. Worth watching: https://t.co/dbYVpQ8gSL— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) March 11, 2020

  12. 12.

    The Dangerman

    @dmsilev:

    Drag the house down around him, go all out poison-the-well against Biden.

    Someone needs to tell him that he will be in charge of only cleaning the restrooms if he goes for bringing it all down

    ETA: If the Dems can take the Senate it’s his choice; chair something or clean heads.

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman:

     

    @Mary G
    Excerpted from my most recent email to TCNJ dad and bro:

    …when you have time, take a look at the turnout numbers in most of these primaries.  The D turnout is just crazy-high.  That’s partially due to some R crossover for Sanders, true.  But most of it is the D base and especially infrequent D voters demonstrating that they really, REALLY want change in November.

    …right now there is nothing more powerful on the D side than the desire for unity, ties to the well-run/no-stress Obama years, and a bridge forward.  Biden’s a great figurehead, party unifier, and is more than willing to be the ‘bridge’ for a term while the next generation gets into place.

    My armchair punditry would also like to make the two additional points at no extra charge:
    – Biden’s stuttering and occasional rambles are already ‘priced in’ (EVERYONE knows, NO ONE cares) so best of luck making hay with that outside of the Fox Bubble
    and
    – thanks to the highly-deserved, thorough impeachment hearings and trial, both he and Hunter are well inoculated against trumpublican BS in that regard.

    So…I dunno.  I am genuinely not sure what the GOP will rally around as the COVID-Denier-In-Chief tweets his brains out for the next eight months, regions across the country take turns being in lockdown, and the stock market continues to take 2 dips down/1 dip up, but I’m pretty sure he’s toast.

    These are people who immediately pivoted to “Biden is senile” and “his VP will suck/be a total leftist” upon hearing that final nail going into the “brokered convention coffin” tonight.  But hope springs eternal!

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jeffro: I think what you’re also seeing is a lot of formerly lean R suburban independent voters, especially women, who broke for the more center left to moderate Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterms and are also turning out and voting for Biden because they want the President voted out in November.

  21. 21.

    Kent

    @Adam L Silverman:That was a good Biden speech.

    Speaking very much like the presumptive nominee and about bringing honor back to the White House.  That’s the way you beat Trump right there.

    This is the Biden that needs to show up to the debate and just pivot every single question to Trump and the general election and supporting other Democrats around the country.  Basically just ignore Bernie.  It will be a good look for Biden and make Bernie look petty as hell if he criticizes Biden.

  22. 22.

    lamh36

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Biden sure looks sharp to me.

    There goes another drop.

    And I already see Tapper et al trying to make some shit out of it…but Biden sounded pretty darn sharp to me

    Bernie Sanders NOT speaking tonight

    As someone pointed out…in Biden’s speech he was talking bout Bernie’s campaign in the past tense and reaching out to Bernie’s voters.  He was talking like Bernie had already dropped out…but the campaign is still going as far as we know

    Anyone think there’s already been some calls to the Biden camp?

  23. 23.

    mrmoshpotato

    Thank you Dan. I’ll be adopting and adapting this saying.

    To resurrect a favorite from the past, with what seems like a big loss in Michigan the odds of Sanders getting the nomination are slim to none, and slim just left town.— Dan Rather (@DanRather) March 11, 2020

  24. 24.

    hells littlest angel

    Sanders is looking VERY strong in North Dakota, Idaho, and other states the Democratic nominee will have no hope of winning.

  26. 26.

    Trollhattan

    Nicolle Wallace isn’t wrong, for whatever twisted reasons Trump only feared Biden and now,

    here’s Biden.

    Wilmer doesn’t matter after today, so it’s Boot Trump 24/7 ’til November.

    Did not see this coming.

  27. 27.

    Kent

    @hells littlest angel:Sanders is looking VERY strong in North Dakota, Idaho, and other states the Democratic nominee will have no hope of winning.

    Not surprising.   Only Democrats in a place like Idaho are Boise State students and the California ex-pats who have recently moved to tech jobs in Boise.

  28. 28.

    BC in Illinois

    My daughter took her four kids, ages 4-10, to vote today. Each of the kids got an “I Voted Today” sticker. (“And YOU get a sticker, and YOU get a sticker, and YOU get a sticker . . .)

    She showed the kids the sample ballot — 22 names on the Democratic ballot — and the 10 year old said, “there’s Bloomberg!”  My daughter texted me:

    “We talked about how we knew his name because he kept sending mail to our house. That, and grumpy parents saying, ‘look at all this!” means that people do learn your name.

    “If he was building a campaign for a decade from now, he’d have name recognition with the kids.”

    Bloomberg, 2028!

    [Bloomberg is now third in Missouri (1.56%), with 9,000 votes.]

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    No real surprises tonight. I think I will take a break from the primary related postings.

  34. 34.

    Anya

    I am convinced Bernie will suspend his campaign sometime this week. I am sending it to the universe.

  35. 35.

    The Dangerman

    @Trollhattan:

    …so it’s Boot Trump 24/7 ’til November.

    Most of Biden’s early commercials kicking Trump in the nuts were damn good (they still may be; I haven’t seen as many lately).

    How Trump argues dementia when he’s the one showing signs (and Hunter is just a yawner) … only thing about the next several weeks will be watching Trump flail away. Couldn’t happen to a not nicer asshole.

  37. 37.

    Miss Bianca

    @mrmoshpotato: You know, I never thought that was true, about revenge being a dish served cold – I always wanted mine piping hot – but this particular Avenger Pie is somehow very tasty at four years old.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kent:

    Only Democrats in a place like Idaho are Boise State students and the California ex-pats who have recently moved to tech jobs in Boise.

    And Carole King! Don’t erase Carole King

  39. 39.

    Kent

    @Anya:I am convinced Bernie will suspend his campaign sometime this week. I am sending it to the universe.

    Biden can suspend it for him by just pivoting to the General election and ignoring what Bernie is doing, running around trying to win in….[checks notes]

    Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio followed by Georgia?

    Bernie doesn’t stand a chance in any of those states.  No amount of Bernie barnstorming is going to get him close to winning any of those.

    Biden should just start campaigning as if it is the general and spend 100% of his time going after Trump.

  40. 40.

    lamh36

    BrianWilliams on @MSNBC: “coming up next we hear from more voices. one of those voices in Michael Flint…”

    Me:  NOPE

  46. 46.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @guachi: I have a fair number of relatives in Mississippi. Those nice white people might be pissed off enough now to vote for Joe Biden in November. Most of them would never vote for Bernie Sanders.

  48. 48.

    joel hanes

    Note to self:

    Remember how offensive the triumphalist gloating of the Trumpists was in Nov 2016.

    And the Bushies in 2004

    Don’t do it myself when my candidate wins.   It’s a bad look.

  49. 49.

    Ruckus

    Nicolle Wallace

    “Donald Trump got himself impeached so that tonight wouldn’t happen. Donald Trump got impeached so that he wouldn’t have to run against Joe Biden.”

    She could say this with a straight face? What the hell drugs does someone have to be on to make up this level of bullshit?

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    Biden was not my first choice, or my second choice, or even my third choice. I honestly thought he was old and tired and would drop out by December. But I am rapidly becoming reconciled to him as a candidate since he’s making all of the smart moves.

    Now he just needs to pick Harris as his VP and I will be completely content. I think the misogynists will be okay with it since he’ll be her “boss.” I think Doug and Dr. Jill would be a great team the way Dr. Jill and Michelle Obama were. 

  51. 51.

    hitchhiker

    I just spent an hour reading through those threads where Kay decided to leave this blog. It’s utterly shocking how much the landscape has shifted just since Feb 22nd, the night of the Nevada caucuses. Seventeen days ago.

    Kay was beside herself because Bloomberg appeared (in that brief window between NV and SC) to be skewing the primary toward himself by spending $4 million/day on his own campaign. He’d managed to hit about 15% in the SC polling, mostly at Biden’s expense. She was furious that people were refusing to take Bernie seriously even though he’d just crushed the NV caucuses, with broad support and with real strength among Hispanic voters.

    In that moment, it really looked like the spring might be spent watching Bloomberg and Bernie flail at one another right up until June. Mostly people were trying to reconcile themselves to that possibility, and confronting what they might do if it came to that. All of us — even Kay — were saying we’d vote against trump, period.

    A few days later Clyburn made his endorsement, and that was that.

    I only have two thoughts worth sharing. One is that as long as we have a money-driven election system, it’s pointless to talk about people trying to “buy elections.” Bernie has enjoyed phenomenal amounts of $$$, and he is not going to be the nominee. Bloomberg’s $$$ was welcomed with joy when he spent $80 million of it on 2018 congressional races, then scorned when he spent $500 million of it trying to make sure Bernie wasn’t the nominee, then welcomed again when he said he’d be funding Democrats from now through November. Neither of them, though, could buy an election.

    The other is that tonight’s results in MI (and WA, when we get them) show that we could have had a president HRC if white people weren’t so reluctant to imagine a woman with political power and success. It’s just crushingly stupid and frustrating.

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    She’s right, tho. Trump tried to gin something up over Burisma because he wanted to knock Joe out of the race, and that’s what got Trump impeached.

    I’d love to think that McConnell is having second thoughts about not letting Trump be removed from office, but he’s too fucking selfish to care. 

  54. 54.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman: A continuation of the 2018 suburbs-driven blue wave, sure.  With many of those folks being infrequent D voters who recognize the nature/unique threat of this maladministration.

    (short version: I agree with you…I just don’t think we are seeing nearly as many R->D ‘converts’ as we are seeing infrequent Ds recognize that now more than ever, they have to show up*)

    *young folks excepted, apparently.

  55. 55.

    Kent

    @Ruckus:

    Nicolle Wallace

    “Donald Trump got himself impeached so that tonight wouldn’t happen. Donald Trump got impeached so that he wouldn’t have to run against Joe Biden.”

    She could say this with a straight face? What the hell drugs does someone have to be on to make up this level of bullshit?

    Apparently Trump’s previous Chief of Staff John Kelly warned Trump directly that he was going to get himself impeached if he followed Rudy down the Ukraine rat hole.  Before the whole thing even started.

  56. 56.

    Barbara

    @hells littlest angel: Here is my obligatory harumph that Dems voting in red states have if anything more of a stake in who controls the federal levers of power than those of us living in states where government reflects our priorities.  North Dakota is one of the few remaining caucus states.

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    @hitchhiker:The other is that tonight’s results in MI (and WA, when we get them) show that we could have had a president HRC if white people weren’t so reluctant to imagine a woman with political power and success. It’s just crushingly stupid and frustrating.

    And if…

    • Russia wasn’t helping drive turnout down in key states via sophisticated social media campaigns, aided by GOP data
    • Comey
    • Bernie
    • 30 years of HRC sliming by the GOP
    • Fox
  60. 60.

    Kent

    @Mnemosyne:I’d love to think that McConnell is having second thoughts about not letting Trump be removed from office, but he’s too fucking selfish to care.

    After watching Pence take the stage these past few days it is pretty clear they were in a no-win situation.  Put a dud like Pence into the oval office for the next 6 months and the GOP is for sure going to crash and burn.  He inspires zero confidence.  He’s like an older Dan Quayle.

  63. 63.

    The Dangerman

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’d love to think that McConnell is having second thoughts about not letting Trump be removed from office…

    I can’t even begin to imagine the shitstorm we would be in if Trump was convicted, MAGAts went nuts, President Pence being as ineffectual as President as he is as VP, followed by this pandemic. It’s bad enough as it is, that might be worse….

  64. 64.

    Kent

    @mrmoshpotato: @Ruckus: What the fuck is Nicole Wallace talking about?

    She’s not wrong.  Trump knowingly committed a shitload of crimes to try to destroy Biden.  He was warned from the very beginning that going down that road was going to lead to his impeachment.  He did it anyway and went all-in on the day of the Mueller report hearing.

  66. 66.

    Barbara

    @chris: I don’t object to Sanders. I object to his evident desire to plant a pipe bomb in the middle of the party. You might really dislike the house you live in but if you burn it down you have no place to live. I just really hated the thought of being hectored and vilified for the next 4 years from both sides. It’s hard enough as it is.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    @joel hanes:

    You need to let women who voted for Hillary have at least a few hours of triumphalist gloating that Bernie was all hot air, just like we kept saying.

  68. 68.

    mrmoshpotato

    I kinda don’t want Wilmer to drop out – at least not until my Biden vote next week can slap him in the face, and Florida offers him a one-way trip to his beloved Cuba.

  69. 69.

    hitchhiker

    @chris:

    I also miss Kay, especially her OH-based observations.

    The thing about Bernie is that nobody on bj was saying they’d refuse to vote for him … but a number of us were, let’s say, more open than Kay thought was reasonable to the possibility of Bloomberg.

    My read was that she was just horrified at how easily the not-Sanders people among us could be persuaded to give Bloomberg the time of day.

    I’m so goddamn glad it didn’t come down to those two.

  70. 70.

    wjs

    Someone is going to have to do a welfare check on Michael Moore after he wraps up his hangdog segment on MSNBC.

    We should welcome whoever wants to be welcomed into the big tent and pivot to the general election as soon as possible. Biden has to raise money, build the infrastructure to win 270 electoral votes, and close the deal.

    I’m sorry, but the dead-enders have to wake up and realize this.

  71. 71.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Barbara: I keep hearing that Biden and his supporters need to reach out to the Bernistas, that we have to welcome them, etc. Not wrong, but how do you reach out to people who won’t take yes for an answer? It wasn’t Biden supporters who dragged AOC for saying Warren was funny on SNL. It wasn’t Biden supporters who came up with the snake thing. for Warren I don’t think a whole lot of Biden supporters were tweeting about “Mayo Pete”. I doubt many Biden supporters went after Lucy McBath for praising Mike Bloomberg (I don’t remember if she went so far as an endorsement).

    I’m not saying I’m not enjoying the fact that Michael Moore looks like he’s about to cry on my muted TeeVee, but it’s not like I’m going to join twitter to mock him. Probably.

  73. 73.

    anarchoRex

    Honest Question: Curious how the people here supporting Biden plan on appealing to the ~%70 of young voters who supported Benie.

  74. 74.

    Jean

    I must have missed the news about Kay leaving this blog.  Can someone briefly say why?  I always looked forward to her comments.

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @chris:

    Sorry, but you’re gonna need to let those of us who had to sit by and watch Bernie Fucking Sanders torpedo the 2016 DNC by sulking in his seat while his supporters booed civil rights legends like Elijah Cummings have our few moments of schadenfreude. We promise not to let it get out of control. Much.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:

    Not saying anyone is wrong here I’m just not seeing quite that he actually tried to get himself impeached. Sure he knew that turtle dick wouldn’t allow him to be convicted but I don’t see him attempt to bring on anything negative about himself. You know as much as anyone what a massive narcissist he is and what that means. Yes he’s a conniving piece of shit but any narcissist has limits to self depreciation and he falls into the narcissist deluxe category.

  77. 77.

    TS (the original)

    @wjs:

    Someone is going to have to do a welfare check on Michael Moore after he wraps up his hangdog segment on MSNBC.

    Indeed – now he’s complaining about people who wouldn’t say they would vote for Bernie – and Bernie’s people never ever said that about other candidates

    Bernie supporters seem way too like trump supporters. If you speak against the man – you are a bad person.

  79. 79.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mnemosyne: Might some of us dudes humbly request permission to gloat as well?

    ETA – we will gloat quietly as to not outshine our sisters’ joy.

    (Bad autoincorrect, bad!  Not “float”)

  83. 83.

    The Dangerman

    @anarchoRex:

    …appealing to the ~%70 of young voters who supported Benie.

    a) Biden

    b) Trump

    Choose one.

    ETA: One of those 2 will be the (new) President in 2012. No unicorns this year.

  84. 84.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    It depends on which young voters we’re talking about. Most of what young voters want (like universal healthcare) is already in the Democratic Party’s platform, so Biden will need to draw more attention to those things. I think that some kind of college debt relief and expanded public college would be a reasonable policy to pursue, along with childcare assistance and free kindergarten.

    There is going to be a certain percentage of Bernie supporters — mostly male, mostly white, mostly middle-class pretending to be “working class” — who will refuse any overtures whatsoever because they love Bernie himself, not his policies, and insisted on undermining anyone else who tried to run in the progressive lane. You will be able to identify them by their burning hatred of Elizabeth Warren. Those people can go fuck themselves with rusty chainsaws.

  86. 86.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:

    That is not the same as him actually trying to get himself impeached. He ignores pretty much any and all advice because the voices in his head – and I bet there are plenty of those, which all sound exactly like him, tell him what to do, while outside voices which don’t agree with him 100% get the boot pretty damn fast.

  87. 87.

    Anya

    I was supposed to go to bed but then I checked one tweet which led me to many more until I got lost down the rabbit hole of Rose Twitter.

    What is the deal with the “found” Bernie votes in Texas, and how is it that they don’t get Bernie’s lead in California is going to shrink as more votes are counted?

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Not wrong, but how do you reach out to people who won’t take yes for an answer?

    Yes, this. We already know that a vocal minority of Bernie’s supporters will accept nothing but Bernie, and would rather see Trump win than a non-Bernie Democrat.

    As stated above, I cordially invite those people to go fuck themselves with rusty chainsaws, because no policy concessions will ever make them happy anyway.

  89. 89.

    Kent

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    @Barbara: I keep hearing that Biden and his supporters need to reach out to the Bernistas, that we have to welcome them, etc. Not wrong, but how do you reach out to people who won’t take yes for an answer? It wasn’t Biden supporters who dragged AOC for saying Warren was funny on SNL. It wasn’t Biden supporters who came up with the snake thing. for Warren I don’t think a whole lot of Biden supporters were tweeting about “Mayo Pete”. I doubt many Biden supporters went after Lucy McBath for praising Mike Bloomberg (I don’t remember if she went so far as an endorsement).

    I’m not saying I’m not enjoying the fact that Michael Moore looks like he’s about to cry on my muted TeeVee, but it’s not like I’m going to join twitter to mock him. Probably.

    Easy peasy.   You just go on TV and invite all of the Sanders faithful to join your fight against Trump.  Say it again and again. We are reaching out to all of Sanders supports to join us in saving the country from Trump.

    You don’t have to promise them shit.  You don’t have to call them each on the phone.  You just be public about how you want their votes and support.   Nothing hard about that.

  91. 91.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36:

    black voters are the establishment. me too. @maison21
    i’m personally enjoying every cosplay hobo crocodile tear.

    “cosplay hobo”– the phrase I’ve been looking for to describe moore. Stolen.

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Memns and Kent can tell you that. I just disagree, that he actively tried to get himself impeached. I could see some actually making that math work in their head, he doesn’t have the skill and logic for that. Either that or he’s playing the long con. The longest con in the known universe. And he’s shown in his 73 yrs way too many times that he doesn’t have that level of brain power required to make any of the connections required, let alone all of them.

  93. 93.

    anarchoRex

    @The Dangerman: So no attempt then, cool. Isn’t this the strategy that apparently was never going to work for Bernie?

    @Mnemosyne: Well your first paragraph might help, assuming Biden has any interest in that strategy at all, which he hasn’t displayed so far. But your second paragraph isn’t going to help. I’m Hispanic, I live in a town that is 85% Hispanic, and the most hardcore Bernie people I know are Hispanic women. I may not be the caricature you’re making, but it doesn’t win you any points with me and others like me to shit on other people who support Bernie.

    @mrmoshpotato: yes?

  95. 95.

    chris

    @Mnemosyne: Don’t get me wrong, I’m also enjoying it because I watched 2016 too. What I didn’t like was the refusal to vote for the nominee. It just struck me as a very privileged and very wrong position to take.

    Looks like it won’t be a problem now and I’m happy about that.  Still pissed about Kamala and SPW tho ;-)

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    I think it’s more that he was so panicked at the prospect of having to run against Biden that he decided to take the risk of being impeached so he could try to manufacture the information he needed. And, sure, he didn’t get convicted, but now the Burisma angle is played out and he STILL has to run against Biden. He’s pretty fucked and I couldn’t be happier for him. ?

  98. 98.

    Kent

    @Ruckus:

    @Kent: That is not the same as him actually trying to get himself impeached. He ignores pretty much any and all advice because the voices in his head – and I bet there are plenty of those, which all sound exactly like him, tell him what to do, while outside voices which don’t agree with him 100% get the boot pretty damn fast.

    So you are just quibbling with the overly dramatic way that Nicole phrased it.  But in point of fact, he did knowingly commit multiple impeachable crimes to try to avoid seeing what we are seeing tonight.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:

    He’s like an older Dan Quayle.

    Older and dumber. Dan is no Rhodes scholar but he’s smarter than Mike Dense. WTF is the world coming to that you have got me to defend a fucking republican????

  100. 100.

    Kirk Spencer

    @anarchoRex: I’m not seeing 70% of young voters in the exit polls.

    I’m seeing almost 70% of young white males, but the number goes down for young non-white males and young white women (well, young women of all races).

    So my serious question is, why should anyone appease that particular narrow demographic?

  101. 101.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Anya:

    I was supposed to go to bed but then I checked one tweet which led me to many more until I got lost down the rabbit hole of Rose Twitter. 

    Do you normally enjoy going to bed angry and annoyed? ?

  103. 103.

    Elizabelle

    @Mnemosyne:   Bernie Sanders was convinced that a woman could not be elected President of the United States.

    And so he devoted considerable time and energy to preventing two much better-prepared and acceptable women from attaining that office.  In 2016 and 2020.

    Fuck him.  (Caveat:  He was right about income inequality.  But Elizabeth Warren has done far more serious work on that than he would ever be capable of.)

  105. 105.

    The Dangerman

    @anarchoRex:

    So no attempt then, cool.

    What, you want a bribe? Here’s the bribe. You don’t get another 4 years of Trump.

    Here’s another clue for the fucking clueless on how things work. It’s now the General and Biden is going to run to the Center, not offer bribes to the Left. End of story. So, you want Biden or Trump? Stealing from Kent, I think. Easy peasy.

  106. 106.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:

    I’m saying that he committed multiple impeachable crimes because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the world and above the law, while it is obvious that he neither knows the law nor does he give a damn. He’s the president and he thinks that gives him free rein to do whatever the fuck he wants.

  107. 107.

    Aziz, light!

    One warning for this November: ignore the polls! If they show Biden 20 points ahead, pretend the opposite is true. Overconfidence and complacency lost the 2016 election.

  108. 108.

    Anya

    @mrmoshpotato: No. It was an ill-advised move. This is why I can’t go to bed yet. I am just so annoyed and also sad that there are that many delusional/clueless people around.

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    Oh, I don’t think she’s saying that Trump deliberately tried to get himself impeached. I think she’s saying that he was willing to risk impeachment to try and damage Biden’s campaign, and he got caught.

  112. 112.

    randy khan

    @anarchoRex:

     

    Honest Question: Curious how the people here supporting Biden plan on appealing to the ~%70 of young voters who supported Benie.

    Well, first, they’re not that much of the electorate.  In Michigan, 18-24 year olds were 8% of the voters, while 28% were nonwhite.  Biden won the nonwhite voters handily.  If you had to pick which constituency to win, you’d go with nonwhite voters 100% of the time.  (You want to win both, of course, but one clearly is more important than the other.)

    Second, just because somebody has a preference for a candidate in the primary doesn’t mean that person won’t vote for someone else in the general election.  I wanted Warren; I will be voting for Biden in November if he’s the nominee.  So I think you have to be cautious about the premise that young voters won’t vote for Biden in the end.

    Third, despite the rhetoric from the Sanders campaign, and the general belief that Biden is some lame centrist, his actual platform – the stuff he’s campaigning on – is further to the left than any previous Democratic platform.  There’s certainly space between Biden and Sanders ideologically, but there’s a yawning chasm between Biden and Trump.

    Finally, unlike in 2016, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of irrational hate for Biden.  That will make it easier for him to get votes from people who didn’t support him in the primaries

    EDIT:  I see what you’re really saying is you want to know how he’s going to get *your* vote. About that, I have no clue because I don’t know what you want.  But I’m hoping you want Donald Trump out of office more than anything else.  I know I do.

  113. 113.

    Kent

    @Mnemosyne:

    Yes, this. We already know that a vocal minority of Bernie’s supporters will accept nothing but Bernie, and would rather see Trump win than a non-Bernie Democrat.

    As stated above, I cordially invite those people to go fuck themselves with rusty chainsaws, because no policy concessions will ever make them happy anyway.

    You just invite them all to join the crusade to save the country from Trump and move on.  Not something to belabor or lose sleep over.

    Biden can hold town halls with lots of young voters.  He can find plenty of new young voters.  This race will progress fast.  Worrying about Bernie dead-enders is pointless.

  117. 117.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Ruckus:

    I just disagree, that he actively tried to get himself impeached.

    Personally, I did not read the original tweet or anyone’s explanation of it as saying Trump actively tried to get himself impeached.  The intent of the tweet is that Trump was so afraid of facing Biden that he went to extreme lengths, knowing that those extreme lengths might as a side effect get him impeached.  That side effect happened.  He went through all that shit which he clearly found terrifying and miserable and is now facing the thing he was afraid of (Biden) anyway.

  119. 119.

    hells littlest angel

    @Miss Bianca: And Andrew Lloyd Kent Shoehorn Wooster Wocka-Wocka Clive Armpit Kent Kent Kent Omigod Mountbatten of the People’s Progressive Progressive People’s Party has a lock on fourth place.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    @hitchhiker:

    I have been so busy at work that I didn’t know that Kay had been attacked????

    she is one of my favorite posters.

    her rural Ohio insight was a viewpoint that was needed.

    Sigh????

  122. 122.

    anarchoRex

    @Anya: eh, that would be a generous interpretation. And, so, that’s it? He promises to make marijuana legal and all the young voters fall in line?

  123. 123.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    Well, suit yourself. The rest of us are going to keep moving forward. You don’t have to be happy about it, but it would be a dick move to try and get Trump elected just because your guy didn’t get the nomination.

  124. 124.

    Kent

    Honest Question: Curious how the people here supporting Biden plan on appealing to the ~%70 of young voters who supported Benie.

    Oh for Fuck’s sake.  Young people are not going to vote for Trump.

    We need to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  Those are old states.  We also would like to be competitive and maybe win in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona.  Those also are old states and also Biden states, not Bernie states.

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    @chris:

    I could have sucked it up to vote for Sanders IF his VP was anyone other than Tulsi Gabbard. That choice would have made it obvious that both Trump and Sanders were running on Putin’s behalf.

    Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about that possibility anymore. ?

    ETA: Also, I’m sending all of my mental energy towards VP Harris and Treasury Secretary Warren. Join me!

  126. 126.

    Mandalay

    @Ruckus:

    I’m just not seeing quite that he actually tried to get himself impeached

    Of course he didn’t. The notion is asinine, but Breitbart isn’t the only place with wacko posters.

  127. 127.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    anybody else figure the troll pretending to speak for “young voters” is over forty?

  128. 128.

    Kent

    Oh, and I hope the Bernie campaign keeps putting up an utterly incoherent Michael Moore as their surrogate.  Between him and Marianne Williams on NPR today I’d say the Sanders campaign is in good hands.

    Sheesh.  I’m reasonably smart and I had absolutely no clue as to what those two were trying to say.  It was like trying to read a Trump tweet.

  129. 129.

    anarchoRex

    • @Mnemosyne: This is shortsighted. Young voters may do the right thing and vote against Trump, but why would they have any interest in sticking with the party? Its easy to foresee a bunch of people voting against Trump and then me we supporting the Dems again. You’re not always going to be lucky enough to have Trump to run against. And the voters Biden is winning, being older, are by definition, not going to live through too many more elections. You need voters to take their place. If you don’t start cementing the youth vote now, while they’re still settling in their voting habits, you’ll lose them for life.
  133. 133.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:

    As I have been trying to say, I wouldn’t give too much consideration to his logical planning abilities, he just doesn’t work like that. If he could he’d be actually wealthy, rather than having to lie about it, have many multiple failures, and the business ability of a flat rock.

  134. 134.

    hells littlest angel

    @Mandalay:  I think someone is somehow reading “got himself impeached” as “deliberately tried to get himself impeached.” Wallace said the former, not the latter.

  136. 136.

    Kent

    @Ruckus:Not saying anyone is wrong here I’m just not seeing quite that he actually tried to get himself impeached.

    Let it go Ruckus.  It’s called hyperbole.

    Nicole Wallace didn’t actually mean that Trump wanted to get impeached.  And most viewers didn’t take it that way either.  She was just using hyperbole for dramatic effect.

  139. 139.

    piratedan

    @anarchoRex: hard to give a hand up to those who won’t help themselves and participate in the process… or maybe they can actually do something like read a web site for each candidate and… decide which best serves their interests… or even look at history and compare what the GOP and the Dems have done historically  for these voters over the last four decades before you start pissing about where your fucking pony is… or you can even recognize that your bannerman, in a wide open primary with the benefit of name recognition and a significantly  large warchest and organization couldn’t get them to show up

  140. 140.

    hitchhiker

    @rikyrah:

    She wasn’t attacked; she was angry at other commenters on a couple of threads for what she saw as an ugly, unsupportable willingness to give Bloomberg the time of day — at a time in the primary when Sanders had just demonstrated strength with voters in all 3 of the first primary states, but especially in NV.

    A few people pushed back, but mostly to say that anybody was better than trump. It made her mad, because she *really* was just Not. Having. Bloomberg. And especially not just to spite Sanders.

    All seems kind pointless given how it worked out.

  141. 141.

    moonbat

    @anarchoRex: Since you have taken it upon yourself to speak for the young ones, why don’t you tell us? What will it take if getting the current fascist president out of office is insufficient motivation?

  142. 142.

    piratedan

    @anarchoRex: hard to give a hand up to those who won’t help themselves and participate in the process… or maybe they can actually do something like read a web site for each candidate and… decide which best serves their interests… or even look at history and compare what the GOP and the Dems have done historically  for these voters over the last four decades before you start pissing about where your fucking pony is… or you can even recognize that your bannerman, in a wide open primary with the benefit of name recognition and a significantly  large warchest and organization couldn’t get them to show up

  143. 143.

    Anya

    @Ruckus: If you commit a crime don’t you get yourself in prison? I think it’s an expression to say that he committed a criminal act without any regard for ramifications.

  144. 144.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    I’m still waiting for you to explain what the youth vote wants other than BERNIE! You’ve already rejected universal healthcare, college debt relief, and marijuana legalization and denied that those are things the youth vote wants.

    So now it’s time to pony up. What do you actually WANT other than Bernie? Name three specific policies that have not yet been named here.

  145. 145.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @anarchoRex:

    I’m asking y’all to help me figure out how to appeal to young voters that won’t bother to come out for Biden

    no you’re not, you’re trolling like you’ve been doing since you first showed up here

    , but fuck me I guess.

    yup

  146. 146.

    Kent

    @anarchoRex:@Kent: you know they can just not vote right?

    Most young people are going to flock to the polls to vote against Trump.  You can count on it.  The Bernie dead-enders?  They are going to do whatever they are going to do whether or not Biden sucks their dicks on national TV.

    If Bernie wants to have any kind of future in the Senate, and wants to keep any of his seniority then he damn well better do every damn thing he can do to rally his troops behind the larger goal of defeating Trump.

  147. 147.

    Mnemosyne

    @hitchhiker:

    I missed the whole drama, but I hope she’ll come back now that it’s mostly settled and Bloomberg has been neutered as a threat.

  148. 148.

    Mandalay

    O/T: One of the few good things about the Trump presidency is that by the law of unintended consequences some right wing dirtbags have got their comeuppance.

    The latest example may be Jeff Sessions. He was fired and humiliated by Trump, but I suspect that he always consoled himself with the happy thought that he could just waltz back in to his old Senate seat. It’s looking increasingly unlikely…

    Trump endorses Sessions’ opponent in Alabama Senate primary

    President Donald Trump spurned Jeff Sessions and endorsed Tommy Tuberville in the Alabama Senate race Tuesday, an enormous blow to Trump’s former attorney general, whom he had excoriated for recusing from the Justice Department’s Russia investigation…

    …Tuberville’s finish in the top spot of the primary put him in strong position heading into the runoff, and a series of polls Tuesday showed Tuberville either leading or tied with Sessions. A poll from the independent firm Cygnal showed Tuberville ahead by 12 percentage points.

  149. 149.

    kindness

    There is hope for our side yet.  I don’t really fear the elections in November.  Trump won’t win.  What I fear is what Trump will do from election day to January 20th.  Shit is going to get really ugly.

  150. 150.

    lamh36

    So Tapper mentioned something someone else mentioned. Could the anti-HRC vote in 2016 for whatever reason made it seem like this the pro-Sanders movement was stronger than it actually is/was and with a candidate like Biden w/o the Clinton Derangement Syndrome that takes place is showing the cracks/flaws in the way of thinking

    Barack Obama had a movement.  Young voters actually came out for him.  Bernie Sanders “movement” of young voters is made of air.

    @samstein

    More

    I’m not asking this in a snarky or dismissive way. truly. But has anyone done a look back to see how much of Bernie’s 2016 primary vote was really just anti-Clinton in nature? Is there any good data on this. Curious if that explains some of what we see now.

    7:42 PM – 10 Mar 2020

  152. 152.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    He assumed he would get away with it, because he always assumes that. I think the point was more that Trump desperately tried to take down Biden before the primary began, and he failed so badly that he got himself impeached.

  153. 153.

    Kirk Spencer

    @anarchoRex: Overall, no, or at least not of the numbers I’ve found so far — I’m willing to correct if you can show otherwise. But with one exception the young non-white vote for Sanders even among males has usually been under 50%. The exception is Hispanic voters in Nevada. I’m seeing preliminary numbers that indicate that young Hispanic males (but not females) in Texas also went over 50% but I can’t find a confirmation of that data point.

    So I’m sticking to my question. Why should we, the rest of the democratic party, have to appease that narrow demographic? What is in it for us?

    Because based on what that demographic did in 2016 it’s a fool’s game to try.

  154. 154.

    Emma from FL

    @anarchoRex: Then  they will bring about their own destruction. If they have any illusions that Republicans will ever try to help them in any way and vote for them, they are fools. If they sit out the elections until a candidate matches them 100% they are bigger fools.

    Politics is a game of compromise. If you don’t play you don’t win.

  155. 155.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @Citizen Alan: I was delighted that Obama managed to carry Jeff Davis County.

    If only it had been just that little bit more!

    How is it looking for Mike Espy?

  156. 156.

    anarchoRex

     

    @moonbat:  ok, so once Trump is gone what’s going to be the cudgel to get young voters in line then? People supported Bernie because they liked his platform, and they believed that he would really try hard to get it passed. I would say that supporting a similarly progressive platform would help, but we both know Biden refuses to make any concessions to young progressives, so what am I supposed to say?

  157. 157.

    Kent

    @lamh36:So Tapper mentioned something someone else mentioned. Could the anti-HRC vote in 2016 for whatever reason made it seem like this the pro-Sanders movement was stronger than it actually is/was and with a candidate like Biden w/o the Clinton Derangement Syndrome that takes place is showing the cracks/flaws in the way of thinking

    John Cole made that exact same point in a much more eloquent and colorful way a few days ago on this blog.   He was talking about West Virginia.  But his point was that there is absolutely no groundswell of progressive politics in white working class West Virginia.  What there was was 30 years of anti-Hillary propaganda on FOX that seeped into the lizard brains of rural white folks so when it came time to vote in 2016, and after FOX had screamed about Hillary calling them “seplorables” 24/7 they went to the polls and voted against Hillary the first chance they could get.  It had nothing to do with  agreement with any kind of Sanders agenda.

    Of course the Sandernistas all interpreted that to meaning that he had a groundswell of support within the rural white working class.  Biden has proven that wrong.

  159. 159.

    CaseyL

    @anarchoRex: If they won’t bother to vote for Biden, and are happy with 4 more years of Trump, then they’re among the Unreachable and there is no point wasting resources on them.

    Hell, for all I know they might actually BE Trump supporters.  Cosplaying (as lamh36 put it so well) as “leftists” because it makes them popular, or gets them laid, or something.  There were a LOT of people like that in the hippie community and anti-war movement back in the 60s.

  160. 160.

    Kent

    @anarchoRex:@moonbat:  ok, so once Trump is gone what’s going to be the cudgel to get young voters in line then? People supported Bernie because they liked his platform, and they believed that he would really try hard to get it passed. I would say that supporting a similarly progressive platform would help, but we both know Biden refuses to make any concessions to young progressives, so what am I supposed to say?

    Biden is a transition figure.  There are scores of young charismatic Democrats all across the party from Buttigieg to AOC.  The party and progressive movement is in good hands.

    The Republicans?  They have…..[checks notes]  Elise Stefanik, the Trump spawn, and a tanned and rested Ted Cruz.

  161. 161.

    Miss Bianca

    @Barbara: Yeah, this. I would have voted for Bernie in the general if I’d had to – with the same nauseated reluctance I would choose to eat spoiled cat food, rather than tire rims and anthrax, if I were starving – but I was *not* looking forward to the prospect and yeah, I was vocal about it. I thought of Bernie as a fake Democrat and as far as I was concerned, no amount of singing Kumbaya for the sake of party unity was going to change my opinion about that.

    Just very relieved that Democrats overwhelmingly opted for an actual, y’know, *Democrat*.

  162. 162.

    anarchoRex

    Most of the answers here seem to be “but Trump.” You’re not going to be running against him next time. The older voters voting for Biden won’t be around for too many more elections either. If you don’t replace them with significant numbers of you get younger voters, where does that leave the Democratic party?

  163. 163.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    I think that WAY more of the 2016 Sanders supporters were acting out of misogyny than the MSM wanted to admit, because the MSM was doing the same thing.

    Also, I’ve seen a whole lot of people online who were enthusiastic Sanders primary voters in the spring of 2016 who were disillusioned with him by summer because of the nasty turn that his campaign had taken (the Nevada caucuses where they were booing every woman on stage, the DNC, etc).

    I think that he’s been shedding “normal” supporters for the last four years and it’s mostly a hard core of malcontents and dreamers who were still with him. Twitter has noticed a WHOLE lot of overlap in beliefs and tactics with the Gamergaters, and that seems right to me, too. Certainly not all of them, but enough bad apples to spoil the whole batch. 

  164. 164.

    moonbat

    @anarchoRex: I was passionate about wanting Warren to be the nominee and I’m not getting that. Period. But guess what? I’m voting for Biden, because, yes, I’m a grown up and I realize that if the Democratic nominee doesn’t win our democracy might be over as we know it.

    You’ve been given examples in this very thread of the policies that Biden has adopted that appeal to younger voters, but you have refused to respond as to why they are insufficient to motivate a Bernie supporter. So again, I ask you: What would do the trick?

  165. 165.

    Soprano2

    @Mnemosyne: Me too!!!  I could never forgive him for the way they all acted at the 2016 convention, and how grudging his support of Clinton was.  Even after there was no way he could beat her, he insisted on staying in the race because his ego wouldn’t let him drop out, thus weakening her. If Sanders cared about getting rid of Trump at all, he would concede tomorrow and pledge to start working with Biden to defeat Trump.  Knowing his ego, though, he’ll insist on staying in until the bitter end, pounding on Biden and doing Trump’s job for him all while insisting his losses are some kind of DNC plot to deprive him of his rightful coronation as the nominee.  Biden was not my first or second or third choice – I was a Warren supporter – but I am convinced that a Sanders candidacy would have meant a 40-state EC defeat, with losses in the Senate and House too. Does anyone think Steve Bullock would have gotten into the MT Senate race if he thought he’d have to answer questions about Sanders the Socialist every day?

  166. 166.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @Ruckus:  I don’t think Wallace was saying Trump played his games in Ukraine in the hope of being impeached. I think she meant his actions in Ukraine, done in the hope of undermining Biden, got him impeached.  Sort of like the guy trying to cook meth blows himself up.

  168. 168.

    lamh36

    @anarchoRex: Bernie appealed to young voters…ok then why hasn’t the youth voter turnout in the primary been better or at least equal to what he did in 2016?

    Because those young voters doing all they supporting online on social media, or a Bernie rally, and yet they don’t actually vote…and this is even in places where there is early voting, mail in voting,  absentee voting AND in person voting.  And even then the % of young voters is low.

    those old people, those “hey boomers”, those genX-ers (like me) actually translates the gung ho support to actual votin as well.

    So riddle me this…why aren’t young voters getting out and voting the numbers even close the numbers in the population, even when the candidate they say they love and who appeals to them is on the ballot?

  169. 169.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @anarchoRex: You guys don’t fucking vote anyway so why should anyone care about your concerns? Choosing to be invisible is a ridiculous strategy.

  170. 170.

    Mandalay

    @hells littlest angel:

    I think someone is somehow reading “got himself impeached” as “deliberately tried to get himself impeached.” Wallace said the former, not the latter.

    Well I just watched the video, and it’s pretty obvious to me that the impression Wallace is trying to convey is that Trump “deliberately tried to get himself impeached”.

    Now whether Wallace truly believes that nonsense, or she’s just being another raving pundit saying stupid shit in front of a camera for ratings, is another matter, but Brian Williams is looking at her like she’s lost her marbles.

    Either way, I’d trust Wallace and her opinions as far as I can throw them.

  171. 171.

    anarchoRex

    @moonbat: Biden doesn’t support marijuana legalization at the federal level! He wants to maintain the hands off policy under Obama. None of you have pointed to a progressive policy in line with Sanders or Warren’s platform that he supports. The party platform might include those, but Biden himself doesn’t.

  172. 172.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @Ruckus: It is the world when I find myself saying “Richard Fucking Nixon was so much better than this,” and then feeling sick to my stomach.

  174. 174.

    cokane

    Really awesome to see those turnout numbers in Michigan. And it’s not much of a competitive race either! Matchup polling shows Biden winning even in North Carolina, so things are looking good. Of course, it’s almost certain to be a close election.

  175. 175.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    Biden doesn’t reject those things, you moron. Those ARE Biden’s policies.

    This is how we know that you don’t really give a shit about policy — you never even bothered to find out what Biden’s policies actually are before you declared them all doubleplusungood.

  179. 179.

    moonbat

    @anarchoRex: The nominee has to support the platform. That’s what being in a political party means. So, you’re saying that it’s legalizing marijuana on the national level? Is that the issue the would bring the young ones to the polls?

  180. 180.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAH

     

    Bernie spent all week in Michigan attacking Biden on trade and Iraq, running negative ads, and he lost by atleat 15 points in a state he won 4 years ago.

  182. 182.

    Miss Bianca

    @rikyrah: Kay was not attacked. She took violent exception to the notion that some jackals – myself included, I will admit – were considering Bloomberg as an alternative to Bernie, if it came to that, and took herself off as a result. I was kind of shocked at her response, to be honest, and like everyone else I regret that she left, and wish she would come back.

  184. 184.

    lamh36

    @Yamiche5m5 minutes ago

    More

    People close to @BernieSanders tonight are acknowledging to me that tonight was a “tough night” but also say they and likely the senator believe there is still a “slim path” to winning the nomination. It seems the next time we hear from Bernie, he will be saying as much.

    @Yamiche1m1 minute ago

    More

    One source close to @BernieSanders said: Bernie “needs a game changer at debate or implosion by Biden which isn’t out of question. But bigger issue is can he get concessions on platform.” Note: Platform concessions became focus in 2016 when it was clear Clinton likely would win.

    Bernie’s got a choice in the next debate.  Go negative on Biden, damaging him for no other reason other than to try a hail mary pass of attack on the Dem party, even though the delegate math going forward does NOT look good for him. Or does he use the next debate to go after Trump and keep it issue oriented and not go on the attack against Biden…so that if the delegate math falls where it looks like it will, the path to unity can be paved by Bernie himself?
    I know what I think he should do, but past being prologue…I don’t trust that he’ll do the right thing

  185. 185.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    why are you all treating the sea lion as if s/he’s arguing in good faith? “anarcho” is right there in the nym, why take that shit seriously?

  187. 187.

    Kirk Spencer

    Anarchorex,

    So, pulling back on the sarcasm, here’s the thing that I don’t think you’re seeing.

    It’s all a marathon. You don’t get what you want instantly. You won’t get everything you want, ever.

    You grind for what you want. Sometimes things go right and you jump ahead, but for the  most part you grind for days and months and years and seem to get nowhere, only to realize things have changed while you weren’t looking.

    Biden is better than Trump. That’s this year’s fight. In four years YOUR fight is, “Who is better than Biden, and what do _I_ do to help that person be the nominee, then be the president?”

    If you’re not doing that, you aren’t grinding. You’re just sitting back and expecting things to drop in your lap, and it’s not going to happen.

    Don’t whine at me and ask what I’m going to give you. Push me with what you want and why it’s important enough for me to support you. Do the research, do the selling, do the push, do the grind.

    And if you do, it’ll happen eventually.

  188. 188.

    Martin

    Hate to point this out, but our infected/death trajectory is right on the model. It’s early, the numbers are still kinda small, so it could be wrong, but if it stays on model we’ll be at 100 fatalities by Friday, and cross 100 per day by next Thursday. I’m guessing we’ll be talking about rationing care by then.

    The committee investigations into the CDC fuckup is going to be brutal.

    On the other side of the country in Seattle, Chu and her flu study colleagues, unwilling to wait any longer, decided to begin running samples.

    A technician in the laboratory of Dr. Lea Starita who was testing samples soon got a hit.

    “I’m like, ‘Oh my God,’” Starita said. “I just took off running” to the office of the study’s program managers. “We got one,” she told them. “What do we do?”

    They decided the right thing to do was to inform local health officials.

    ADVERTISING

    The case was a teenager, in the same county where the first coronavirus case had surfaced, who had a flu swab just a few days before but had no travel history and no link to any known case.

    The state laboratory, finally able to begin testing, confirmed the result the next morning. The teenager, who had recovered from his illness, was located and informed just after he entered his school building. He was sent home and the school was later closed as a precaution.

    Later that day, the investigators and Seattle health officials gathered with representatives of the CDC and the FDA to discuss what happened. The message from the federal government was blunt. “What they said on that phone call very clearly was cease and desist to Helen Chu,” Lindquist remembered. “Stop testing.”

    Pelosi needs to keep the House running. They need to haul these fuckers in.

  189. 189.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36:

    But bigger issue is can he get concessions on platform.” Note: Platform concessions became focus in 2016 when it was clear Clinton likely would win.

    In 2016 he demanded Cornel West be put on the platform committee. A week after the convention, West endorsed Jill Stein.

  190. 190.

    moonbat

    @anarchoRex: Is Manchin president or a senator from a largely rural, conservative state?

    Look, it’s clear from this little exchange that you have no intention of arguing or proposing solutions in good faith so what’s the point of talking with you? Crossing your arms and demanding others guess what will satisfy you is the attitude of a two year old.

  191. 191.

    smike

    @CaseyL: “There were a LOT of people like that in the hippie community and anti-war movement back in the 60s.”

    That’s the damned truth. And for exactly the reasons you suggest.

  192. 192.

    anarchoRex

    @Mnemosyne: most estimates of his plan leave ~10 million people uninsured. Access to health insurance is not universal health insurance.

  193. 193.

    Miss Bianca

    @anarchoRex: Why the fuck is it our job to figure out some way to make it palatable to exercise the least possible amount of civic duty, voting for the *not evil candidate*? Jesus Chicken-Fried Christ, I’ve been voting ever since I was 18 for ALL KINDS of candidates who didn’t turn me on or make me want to have a beer with them or inspire me in any way, shape or form. If you and all these putative young voters don’t get that voting for POTUS isn’t some kind of goddamn beauty pageant or popularity contest, then maybe all y’all are too dumb to be voting at all.

  194. 194.

    Kent

    @anarchoRex: link me to Biden’s universal healthcare plan.

    You really have no understanding of how government works do you?  There is no health care plan by any Democratic or Republican candidate that isn’t guaranteed to be DOA when it hits Congress.  Neither Bernie’s nor Biden’s plans are worth the electrons it takes to display them on your screen.

    What matters is what Pelosi and Schumer can get through Congress in 2021 based on who they have in the House and Senate.  If they abandon the filibuster then Joe Manchin will likely be the deciding vote.  If not, then it will be Rand Paul.

    Anyone who knows anything about Congress can tell you that the SUREST way to make sure your presidential priorities are DOA is to send them up to Congress with your name on it.  If a President Sanders sent up some “take it or leave it” Medicare for All plan he would be painting the biggest target of all time on it and every Republican in the country would rally around harvesting a scalp and giving him a loss.  And they would succeed because Senators like Joe Manchin are not going to fall on a sword for a plan that they had no role in drafting and no input in.

    Pretty much everything in Bernie’s entire platform would be DOA if he won the presidency because he has no party in Congress to get any of it passed and has spent the past 4 years running against the “democratic establishment” not courting it.  He’d be the least effective president since Millard Fillmore.

    Obama understood this which is why he let Congress take the lead on the ACA and it didn’t actually take on the Obamacare label until after passage when Republicans were trying to smear it.  By keeping hands off at the White House level he made it easier for Democrats to get it passed.

  195. 195.

    MisterForkbeard

    @anarchoRex:

    but we both know Biden refuses to make any concessions to young progressives, so what am I supposed to say?

    This is basically bullshit and proves that you’re not arguing in good faith.

    I mean, Biden looks like he’s going for marijuana legalization. That’s a movement towards young progressives. Returning to high taxes on the rich. Doubling the capital gains rate. Free/heavily subsidized college. The list goes on and on, and that’s BEFORE Biden tries hard to bring progressives into his circle.

    So just fuck off. Biden is making big concessions and movements towards progressive polices that young people like. This is obvious and several people here have repeated it, and you continue to ignore them.

  196. 196.

    BBA

    Biden may be a handsy, senile, segregation apologist, but at least he’s not a goddamn Putinist.

    All aboard the No Malarkey Express.

  197. 197.

    lamh36

    Listen, I’m one of the most loyal voters Dem party has, so if Bernie somehow had pulled this out or did pull this out…sure I would have voted straight ticket here in Louisiana (any Dem here is better than the GOP), but believe you me, it ONLY because of the party, and NOT because I like Sanders.

    Nope.  Cause I still feel this way bout Bernie since 2016…

     

    @joeypic 3h3 hours ago

    More

    BS spent the past 5 years turning an entire generation of young people against the Democratic party, calling us the establishment, corporate whores, throwing $$ at HRC’s motorcade. I am elated he will never be president #ByeByeBernie

  199. 199.

    piratedan

    what I enjoy about Bernie trolls is how, just like with the GOP, they have no fucking agency what so ever… “we” have to reach out to them.  They don’t have to join with the majority to defeat the monster, we have to convince them, coerce them, give in to their demands or else they will not be swayed.

    Because the only people you fuck with are Dems, none of your bravado is ever seen camping out at GOP town halls, or protesting speeches by GOP politicians with the people who would just as soon shoot you, take your shit and never give it a second thought.  You know, the people actually attempting to find anyway to keep themselves in control for eternity and to hell with Democracy altogether…

    You know what… if putting asylum seekers in cages and separating families, committing treason, stacking the SCOTUS with GOP hacks, ruining our foreign policy and watching the ongoing crime spree isn’t enough for you.. then fuck you.  We’ll soldier the fuck on without you.

  200. 200.

    MisterForkbeard

    @moonbat: It’s not even that. Instead, he just claims that Biden ISN’T actually pursuing those things, against all evidence and clear facts to the contrary.

    He’s not here to debate or ask an honest question. He’s here to yell and shit-stir, the same exact way he was here after the NV primaries to gloat over everyone and proclaim Bernie the One True Savior.

  201. 201.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    On a happier note, I spent the day preparing meals with World Central Kitchen for the folks still stuck on the Grand Princess. (That’s the crew I worked with and no, I’m not in any of those photos – even with a hairnet, a facemask, and gloves, I’m still allergic to cameras.) Seeing people step up to feed their fellow humans in a scary situation full of unknowns is inspiring.

  202. 202.

    Calouste

    @Mandalay: Well, if Sessions can’t run for Senate, there will be only one thing left for him to do: write a memoir. With a bit of effort, it could be published early fall…

  203. 203.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    Citation, please. Not to Common Dreams or the Intercept or any other Sanders propaganda outlets, but to an actual newspaper.

  205. 205.

    anarchoRex

    @Kirk Spencer: your analogy is flawed. I agree change takes time and takes more than one fight. But politics is not a marathon, it is a relay. And the older generation doesn’t seem to care that much that there’s not going to be anyone to hand the baton off to. I’m trying to get more young people to vote, by supporting the candidate that has by far the most youth support. I volunteer, phone bank and canvass. Why do older voters assume younger ones will just get over it when you squash and bellitle our candidates?

  209. 209.

    anarchoRex

    @MisterForkbeard: the man says on video that he has no empathy for younger voters. Y’all can say whatever you want, but I’m listening to Biden and he doesn’t agree with you either.

  213. 213.

    Morzer

    So long, farewell, Bernie. There’s no path to the nomination for you – and without HRC for you to demonize there never was.

  214. 214.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    We have a surprising number of lurkers. I don’t mind putting on a show for them.

    I would wait for the troll to come back with an actual analysis of Biden’s healthcare plan from a reputable source, but I’m pretty sure it’ll never materialize when there are goalposts to be moved.

  216. 216.

    MisterForkbeard

    @dogwood: It IS. The sheer amount of whining, sea lioning and misrepresentation is kind of impressive, but mostly in the “wow, I didn’t know dogs could take a dump that big” variety.

    Surprising, but gross and it stinks up the whole place.

  217. 217.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Michael Moore is trending on twitter and it’s like 10:1 vicious mockery.

    Tonight, twitter is good.

    Riley/A Dog’s Life @adogslifeTO
    Michael Moore’s zip code voted for Joe Biden. So did Rashida Tlaib’s

  220. 220.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    Here’s the entirety of what you linked to. Note that (A) your fictitious “10 million” number does not appear anywhere in it and (B) NBC says that Sanders’ plan will also have similar gaps.

    Fact check: Does Biden’s health care plan cover everyone?

    “My plan does, will, cover everyone, number one,” Biden said, fending off attacks on his plan to overhaul America’s health care system.

    His claim is half true. While the Biden plan would provide coverage to millions who fell through the cracks in Obamacare, experts tell NBC News there’s still likely to be gaps due to affordability.

    Biden’s plan expands coverage by offering new subsidies to both higher income and lower income Americans who are currently ineligible for government aid to purchase insurance. But it’s likely some Americans will still choose to forgo coverage, even with premiums capped at 8.5 percent of their annual income. Additionally, while undocumented immigrants would be allowed to buy insurance for the first time through Biden’s plan, they would not be eligible for subsidies to help pay premiums.

    It’s worth noting that “Medicare for All,” Sen. Bernie Sanders’ plan, could also have similar coverage gaps with undocumented immigrants. Sanders says he wants to cover undocumented immigrants, but his bill leaves it to the Health and Human Services Secretary to determine who qualifies for coverage and to create rules preventing foreign nationals from traveling to the U.S. for government-sponsored care.

  221. 221.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mnemosyne: Seriously. The link he provided says that some people might choose to not have insurance under Biden’s plan. For example, undocumented immigrants wouldn’t get access to subsidies so their insurance would be comparatively expensive.

    It also goes on to say that Sanders’ plan will also have coverage gaps, especially for undocumented immigrants who will not be enrolled at all, though technically Bernie says he’d defer to HHS… who he’d appoint.

    Oh my, the goalposts are all the way in the parking lot now. Weird.

  222. 222.

    anarchoRex

    @Mnemosyne: So it’s not universal health insurance. Everyone now has access but don’t get it because of cost. That will still be an issue under Biden. If Bernie wins he’ll be in charge of the HHS, so yeah seems unlikely he’d direct them to not cover undocumented immigrants. Talk about moving goal posts. I asked you for Bidens universal plan. He doesn’t have one.

  223. 223.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    I have shocking news for you: if you tell a candidate that you won’t vote for him, he will shrug his shoulders and move on to someone more amenable. He’s not going to beg and plead for your vote. He’s just going to walk away.

    Black voters went for Biden because they know AND HE KNOWS that he is now indebted to them. He is going to sponsor and promote all kinds of programs and laws to help African Americans. That’s how it works — first you vote for the politician and THEN they work on your priorities. Sorry that no one has ever clued you into this before.

  224. 224.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    Still waiting for your “10 million” number that you cited so confidently.

    Also loving that you completely ignore that NBC points out that both candidates’ plans have exactly the same problem with coverage, but you do you. I’m sure your Personal Jesus will reward you … perhaps with a few rubles, eh?

  225. 225.

    gwangung

    @anarchoRex: But politics is not a marathon, it is a relay. And the older generation doesn’t seem to care that much that there’s not going to be anyone to hand the baton off to.

    What bullshit. You’re not even trying to think here.

    You’re getting it from all sides. You may want to stop and think why that may be occurring.

  226. 226.

    Mandalay

    @Miss Bianca: Maybe so. Sessions and Tuberville are already going after each other on twitter. Sessions is calling Tuberville “Florida Man” and “Florida Phony”.

    Perhaps there will be no meat left on either of them by the time the Republicans have selected their candidate.

  227. 227.

    dogwood

    I voted in the Idaho primary today.  It had been a caucus state forever, and the change was welcome.  Not surprised that Biden won.  People have a misconception about Democratic voters in deep red states like Idaho.  For some reason they think all the Democrats in red states are moderates.  There’s every type of Democrat in Idaho, but because we depend on Democratic governance at the federal level to protect us from state and local shenanigans, there’s a strong pragmatic streak that runs through the party.  In 2008, Idaho gave Obama his largest victory of the primary season, so Joe winning wasn’t surprising.

  228. 228.

    Eolirin

    Biden’s delegate lead has widened to 160. Might possibly shrink a little as North Dakota and WA come in, though WA seems like a dead heat.

  231. 231.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Martin: Can you tell us more about this model, or where we can look at it ourselves if possible?

    Clearly that’s alarming. :/

    @joel hanes:  I have very little against bakeries. :)

  232. 232.

    anarchoRex

    @Mnemosyne: oh it’s exactly the same problem? So under Biden people will go uninsured because they can’t afford it, and under Bernie he’s going to direct his own HHS to keep undocumented immigrants off of M4A in contradictoon of his own platform (sure), and those are exactly the same. You’re delusional.

  233. 233.

    Kirk Spencer

    @anarchoRex: You’re not listening.

    Why won’t we pass the baton in this relay? Because so far you haven’t stepped up the pace. Truth is that’s not unique to you, it’s typical of the 18-24 age group of vote after vote. You want it to be different? Show it – not just you, but your peers.

    Your feefees are hurt because I insulted Sanders? Should I ask what you said about Clinton? Would you like to review the history of what a lot of people said about her husband? Should I quote to you what Sanders said about both Clinton and Warren? Cry me a river about “squash and belittle”.

    The truth is Bernie Sanders is a terrible politician. He’s a great figurehead, has a lot of good concepts, but he’s demonstrated he has very close to zero idea how to implement them. Worse, he’s misogynistic and has the bland racism stereotypical of King’s white moderate. He’s combative and divisive. He’s so ineffective at leading that he is getting LESS of the vote than he did in 2016. He’s got /worse/ turnout for the “young” voter than he did back then.

    Again, the only group he’s consistently doing well with – as in above 60% in pretty much every state – is the white males 18-24 who bother to turn out. That’s not a coalition, and you don’t win elections without a coalition.

    You are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. And I have no more time for you – I have grinding to do.

  234. 234.

    dogwood

    @BBA: Home of the University of Idaho.  Someone upthread said Bernie would be big at Boise State.  That’s essentially a commuter college with a decent football team.

  235. 235.

    Mnemosyne

    @gwangung:

    Totally OT, but unless Covid-19 intervenes, we’re going to see East West Players’ production of “Assassins” in a few weeks.

  236. 236.

    Morzer

    @Kirk Spencer: Worth adding that women are the basis of the blue wave and the Democratic coalition – and they don’t seem too enamored of Bernie. You can’t win an election as a Democrat without them.

  238. 238.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    Still waiting for that mythical “10 million” number that you insist is real but can’t seem to produce. I have to log off now, so you have until tomorrow to find it. Smooches!

  241. 241.

    Mnemosyne

    @anarchoRex:

    There’s an estimated 327 million people living in America; 3 percent of the population is approximately 10 million. Estimates on the number of non-citizens vary and it’s unclear how Biden’s proposal would affect immigrant communities in practice, which could change these numbers. Still, Biden has said he wants to give everyone a chance to be covered.

    That’s it? That’s your citation? An on-the-fly fact check of one sentence in a debate?

    This is why you lose, son.

  242. 242.

    patroclus

    Well, I’ll be voting next week in Illinois and I’m still at least somewhat open to voting for Bernie given that my candidate (Klobuchar) dropped out.  What I particularly don’t like about his voting record and proposed policies are his record on guns, immigration and trade.  If he wants my vote, he needs to admit that his votes against NAFTA and his demagoguing the TPP were idiotic and wrong, that his votes to immunize gun manufacturers were ridiculous, his vote against the Brady bill was nonsensical and his myopia on immigration has vastly changed.  What is he going to do to get my vote?  How is he planning to appeal to me?  I’m a Democrat and like Democrats and those that appeal to Democrats – what’s his position on the Democratic party?  Is he one?  If he makes an effort, maybe I’ll consider it – he’s got one week to do it…

  244. 244.

    Eljai

    I like this:

    Sahil Kapur  @sahilkapur

    In an Instagram live chat, @AOC addresses the 2028 presidential speculation: “I’m not a person that aspires to a position, I aspire to a mission. We can’t swing from one savior to another. There’s a lot of savior-ism in politics … who’s gonna save us? And the answer is you.”

  246. 246.

    something fabulous

    @Kent: I STRONGLY disagree with this! I think Joe’s whole unity megilla only works if he shows respect for all the voters and all the votes, as he said in his speech tonight. Seeming to leap over these final states as though he doesn’t need them and their consideration, in place of whomever they might’ve voted for if the field hadn’t winnowed by then, would be a very bad and entitled look.

    Now, if you mean, don’t spend any energy on Bernie-bashing while he goes to each of these states, then with that part, I do agree.

  251. 251.

    FlipYrWhig

    I’m enjoying how quickly the BernieSphere went from YOU SHITFACES WILL ALL BE BENDING THE KNEE SOON ENOUGH GO HOME AND CRY to blubbering “but what nice things will you promise to do for me, it’s so important and I’m so scared.” It was about 10 days.

  256. 256.

    Sebastian

    @anarchoRex:

    Your only point is a squidink cloud of butthurt now that your misogynistic rapey scammer Russkie savior has reached the end of the plank and you no longer have a excuse to let your racist misogynistic freak flag fly.

    We are here to curbstomp Trump and his fascist mobster cabal. I dare you to step in the way, fuckface.

  257. 257.

    PJ

    @lamh36: Anybody who was following the primaries in 2016 could have told Tapper (or Sanders) this.  People have been pointing it out since early 2019 as well with regard to Sanders’ strategy.  In 2016, there was no real alternative to Hillary besides Sanders (sorry Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chaffee), so people who didn’t want to vote for Hillary had to vote for Sanders.  His support from people who liked him and wanted to see him be President was always about 15-20% (being generous here).  But there was so much anti-Hillary sentiment and general misogyny towards any female candidate in the media that it got glossed over.

  258. 258.

    Sebastian

    @PJ:

    Exactly. And Sanders provided the bros with plausible deniability to attack EVERY woman with viciousness.

  260. 260.

    Eolirin

    @anarchoRex: He’s already lost; the existing delegate gap is impossible for him to surmount given the states that are coming up and where he stands with them. He needed a big win in Michigan. He got a big loss instead. That’s game over.

  263. 263.

    Kathleen

    @hitchhiker: Kay was wrong about Bernie. She really thought someone waging war against popular Democrats was a candidate Democratic voters would embrace?

  264. 264.

    Sab

    @Kathleen: Kay wasn’t pro Bernie. Her kid is, and he is not a troll. Bernie bros online are horrible, but canvassing for Warren I met a lot of very nice ( but in my mind misguided) Bernie supporters who weren’t the online Bernie troll types.

    A lot of them are young, new voters. We shouldn’t be demonizing them as participating in the sins of their elders. Bernie’s campaign staff is full of Russian trolls and just general disruptors. The kids that like him are just naive political novices.

    I don’t care much about the feelings of forty year old misogynists.
    I do care about the feelings of 18 and 19 year old idealists.
    We shouldn’t be stomping on them. They are hurting. Bernie is done for. Let’s just gracefully move on and worry about Trump, not rehash 2016.

  265. 265.

    J R in WV

    @anarchoRex:

    Wow, why don’t you run for office?

    You are so persuasive and friendly, so on point,  so ready with facts!

    I’ll bet you’re always ready to help people who have real problems no matter how busy you are and no matter how inconvenient it is for you. Friendly and outgoing and helpful,  your community will. Jump in to work on your campaign!

    Or maybe you’re argumentative and irritating in real life just like you are here! No one is interested in using a “cudgel” to get young people interested in Biden or the Democratic party  — that isn’t how it works!

    Just go away, stop whining,  leave us alone!

  267. 267.

    PenAndKey

    Well, this thread certainly devolved quickly. Well done anarchoRex. Mission accomplished. If you’re not a troll I look forward to seeing you around in a month when I unpie you, because holy hell was the conversation that happened last night and early this morning a mess of moved goalposting and self-righteous concern trolling.

    A few thoughts: I know that at least a few of us here are “younger voters”. Me? I’m 35. Not the youngest bracket anymore, but still young enough that I qualify as a millennial. Warren was my first choice. Sanders might give a good rabble rousing speech and have a loud following online, but the proof is in the votes. The only reason he was ever in the lead this time around was because the actual Democratic field was fractured among too many highly qualified candidates.

    Quite frankly anarchoRex, if you need to be enticed to vote for Biden, at this point in time against this GOP maladministration, I’d question if you actually care about the race or not. You claim you do, but your rhetoric says otherwise. You’ve already rejected Biden as not caring about your issues. When others pointed to his stated policies and the Democratic party platform you dismissed them as bribe attempts. When they pointed to Trump your next dismissal was, to paraphrase, “sure Trump is bad, but what about after him?!?!”. You do all of this while claiming to represent young voters. You don’t. You represent a particular flavor of zealous online Sanders supporters. One that happens to fail, consistently, to actually vote.

    If you want to be a zealot have at it. If you’re expecting those of us who are more pragmatic and who actually want to win elections instead of posture to beg you for your support it ain’t gonna happen. You want to actually enact change and get an even more liberal candidate in? Vote. Convince your compatriots to vote. Until you do you’re a heckler at best, and a spoiler at worst. In short? Grow up. The rest of us have had to. If you can manage that I guess I’ll see you in a month. If not, no big loss.

  268. 268.

    anarchoRex

    @PenAndKey: I guarantee I’ve done more campaign volunteering and work in my life than you. I’m not worried about my vote in the election, I’ll be voting against Trump. But, as a fellow young, you must know plenty of people that don’t vote, because they feel like there’s not a point. You’re not concerned at all that the low turnout for our demographic is going to hurt us as more of the higher turnout older generation passes? For all your talk about being pragmatic and winning, what are you doing to expand the vote? I had a theory in supporting Bernie, I can admit now that it doesn’t seem to have worked. I’m looking for a new theory then, but no one here is offering one besides “but Trump.”

  270. 270.

    brantl

    @anarchoRex: Truth is, the only people who get stuck in their voting patterns are the ones that are stuck in every habit they have, AKA, republican’ts.

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