Ryan Grim at The Intercept has an argument for why the Snake Lady should have endorsed Senator Sanders last Friday. He says Senator Warren should do it not to help Sanders, but for her own sake:
But Warren’s real power with Biden rests in what she’s capable of doing to him politically, and for him politically — not in the goodwill a nonendorsement of Sanders might generate with the Biden camp.
Warren’s longterm threat to Biden and the party establishment is only as strong as her ties to the progressive movement, and the same is true of an eventual endorsement of Biden. Her value in a general election to Biden is her ability to bring Biden the progressive vote and help him unite the disparate wings of the party. Clearly, then, Warren is more valuable to Biden as an eventual endorser if she can actually bring progressives with her, and the most effective way she can do that is if she has endorsed and campaigned for Sanders.
The same calculation was true in 2016. Warren’s endorsement of Clinton would have been more valuable to Clinton had Warren originally endorsed Sanders, and would have had more of a unifying effect than it ultimately did. Had Warren endorsed Sanders first, she’d likely have been able to bring more Sanders people with her when she switched to Clinton.
Wait a minute, what kind of hot garbage is this? Sanders himself campaigned for Clinton, as he and his supporters are quick to remind everyone. So, if Sanders couldn’t bring his own people when he endorsed and campaigned for Clinton, how could Warren have done so?
The error in Grim’s logic results from conflating progressives with Sanders supporters, a common enough mistake inside and outside the progressive movement. Maybe what he’s really trying to say to Warren is this: progressives belong to Sanders, so endorse him now, or lose your political power. It’s a stick clumsily disguised as a carrot, but it’s more subtle than a snake emoji.
Anyhoo, regardless of how the primary shakes out, I’m feeling more hopeful about the progressive movement in Democratic politics these days, over the long haul, anyway. The primary isn’t over, but Sanders hasn’t been able to generate turnout as advertised so far. Where turnout surged, it seemed mostly driven by anti-Sanders panic toward Biden.
If Sanders face-plants today and a week from today as is now expected, the Sanders era in progressive politics will be over. And even though I don’t despise Sanders like a lot of y’all do (he and Biden are both in my “meh” bucket, for different reasons), I’m so very fucking ready for the next chapter to begin.
It’s not healthy for a political faction to be so closely associated with an individual, even if that person is bathed in golden saintliness (which no politician is). So, I’m thinking ahead and wondering what the progressive movement will look like when Sanders is no longer the face of it.
I know Sanders’ younger supporters like AOC aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but she seems to get the necessity of coalition building — and in being a member of the Democratic Party. That’s good! And it shifts the dynamic in an important way.
AOC and her squad-mates are young, and they’ve made mistakes. But while they chafe against the party’s leaders sometimes, they don’t fundamentally define themselves in opposition to the party. That’s an important difference between them and Sanders.
In the progressive future, there will be “establishment” vs. “insurgent” candidates in primaries up and down the ticket, but that’s normal. These fights represent real differences in policies and approaches, and battling it out over those differences — within the party and in nondestructive ways — puts the “progress” in “progressive.”
It works, too. Sanders has a thin legislative record, as his detractors delight in pointing out, but the Democratic Party has moved to the left, despite our big tent being stuffed to the gills with GOP refugees who fled the crazy and have their own agendas.
People like Warren get that, and if Sanders had stayed on the sidelines and passed the torch to her, we might be looking at an ascendant era of progressive politics that much sooner. But it was not to be, partly due to Sanders’ success in branding himself as the face of progressive politics in America, for Ryan Grim and too many others.
Speaking for myself, but I know I’m not alone here: as depressing as it is that the quadrennial reality TV show called America’s Next President has sifted down to three old white men and will soon winnow down to two, that state isn’t sustainable, given the demographic and actuarial realities.
The next chapter in progressive politics (and center-left and conservadem politics too, for that matter) won’t be written exclusively by men who are more rooted in the 20th century than the 21st, and that changes things too.
Rather than establishing pluralities around personalities, maybe a more diverse coalition that includes people like Ayanna Pressley, Katie Porter and Ro Khanna can keep building consensus and getting things done within the party. And maybe their advocacy and achievements will fuel their rise through the ranks so that future contests will be focused more on policy and results and less on ideology and a single person. I hope so, anyway.
Elizabelle
Ssssssstupid argument.
I think Sanders’ sssssupporters are gonna be tres surprised to find out Warren’s supporters have a lot more in common with Kamala Harris’s voters, and even the dreaded esssssstablishment Joe Biden.
Anything so they don’t have to contemplate what might be coming down in Michigan today.
dmsilev
That’s also a big distinction, perhaps the biggest distinction between Warren and Sanders. And it’s probably why a large swath of her supporters are moving to Biden rather than to St. Bernie the Birdcatcher (remember The Bird? Sigh.).
JPL
Some of Sanders supporters align more with the asshole in chief than they do democrats. The misogyny oozes from their lips.
Felanius Kootea
I want Warren and other progressives to encourage rank and file Dems to read Nancy McLean’s “Democracy in Chains” so we have a better sense of what we’re fighting.
Facebones
Bernie is going to suffer massive defeats in the next two weeks and his campaign will be effectively over. He will continue on out of spite, but he will not be the nominee.
Warren is smart and can read polls. Why on earth would she tie herself to this anchor? She’s better off using her influence to get Biden to adopt her policies and push the platform leftward.
And yes, I have great hopes for AOC. She knows that she’s in the Democratic party and understands that coalitions are important. I have zero faith that the Cult of Bernie understands that. When AOC retweeted that video of Warren dancing at SNL with the comment ‘queen’ or ‘legend,’ the Bros were so infuriated. How dare she! She should be grovelling and telling her voters to crawl to us!!!!!
So of course I’m preparing myself for her getting called a neo-liberal shill in 2036 when the progressive tear themselves apart again and we nominate Evan Bayh Jr. or someone.
Princess
Right now, Grim is using NRA/Trump talking points to attack Joe for an encounter Joe had with some workers about his position on gun control so…
PenAndKey
Ideologically I line up pretty well with Warren and she was my preferred candidate, but while I’m definitely more liberal than Biden I have an even more important belief: “slogans are nice, but progress is better”. Sanders, quite simply, shouts a good game on the stump but he’s proven he’s incapable of running an organized and civil leadership. That lack of ability to coalition build and actually run the government is a deal breaker.
Calouste
Whenever I read about “Why doesn’t Warren endorse Bernie?”, what I really hear is “Why doesn’t that woman do as she is told?”
MattF
I think this argument is performative— Grim is declaring that he wants Sanders to be the one and only progressive icon. But it’s not so simple, progressive politics is always plagued by sects and splits. Demanding that everyone acknowledge Sanders’ superiority is not a way forward.
BGinCHI
This. Exactly.
Also spot on in the “conflating Bernie supporters with Progressives.”
burnspbesq
It’s looking increasingly like the sell-by date for Warren’s endorsement was yesterday.
That said, one can hope that Biden will finagle her onto the platform committee simply because it’s the right thing to do.
Spider-Dan
Seems to me that since Sanders is a dead man walking in the primary, Warren can accomplish more for progressivism by applying leverage to Biden for an endorsement to wrap this up. Given that she’s not going to be on the top line, Warren will be able to make a bigger impact in a real Biden Administration than in an imaginary Sanders Administration.
Baud
Thanks, Betty. Excellent post.
I think the problem with Bernie isn’t just Bernie. It’s a set of approaches and tactics with respect to politics that IMHO are on average ineffective and counterproductive. That existed before Bernie. It’ll be interesting to see if the younger generation goes in a different, hopefully more productive, direction.
catclub
I guess this is like eleventy dimensional chess, plus one! Knowing that Biden is going to win the nom, campaign for bernie to extend the campaign and infighting. Then endorse Biden.
hitchhiker
I for one am just grateful there are nice, smart men like Ryan out there who can help poor addled Elizabeth figure out what to do with herself.
Imagine the lack of self-awareness necessary to give her of all people unsolicited advice that just happens to align with your own objectives.
Brachiator
This is arrogantly delusional, pushing the false argument that the road to victory must go through Sanders. And as has been noted, Sanders’ was not entirely successful in bringing “his people” to Clinton.
Yep. Yep. Yep. The progressive movement isn’t very strong, even if they have good ideas, and has not been especially successful in translating their activism into political power. And progressives are not helped by continually focusing on a single individual who they expect to shake things up.
BTW, I am disappointed that Warren has not endorsed Biden already. There is no upside in her trying to appease Sanders supporters, or in throwing her support to Bernie. I would like to see her continue to build her own coalition, based on her own good policy positions, rather than to appear to bless Sanders’ empty proposals.
Redshift
Robert Reich, who I thought had more sense, was making the same argument last week, and I had the same reaction, “how can you believe she’d be able to bring Sanders supporters with her?” And though he was more subtle about it, he also was working from the assumption that progressive=Berner.
We don’t have a progressive movement. We have progressive activists (who have accomplished quite a bit in recent years), and we have a two-time presidential campaign.
Baud
Also, too, Sanders supporters simultaneously did and did not cause Clinton to lose a very close election.
Barbara
I just read a twitter thread recommended by Vox regarding the diminishing returns of nastiness in building coalitions, and many responses from Sanders supporters are in agreement (as I expected they would be), but others exhibit a lot of bouncing around inside the bubble.
Warren is probably the closest to Sanders ideologically of any of the candidates. Is it too much to ask Sanders supporters to reflect on why someone who agrees with you 90% of the time has chosen to remain neutral, if not opposed to your candidacy because of how poorly you treated her supporters?
And, as a woman, what I see is, no matter how just the policy or how well-meaning the messenger, the way a significant contingent of Sanders’ strongest supporters have behaved shows fundamental disrespect for women. After his revolution, to quote the Who, I fully expect to meet the new boss, same as the old boss — I will not be valued. Let me say that again: I will not be valued.
You can call me a sell out, you can call me an old hag, or whatever, but people want to be valued. So if you are sneering about “what’s more important, your fee fees or universal health care?” let me turn that around: what’s more important, M4A or an opportunity feel good by venting your spleen at people who are not 100% on your side?
When you are winning, this is your fucking choice to make.
schrodingers_cat
Tangential but related. My thoughts on BS and his cult.
There is a thin dividing line between progressivism and populism.Its not just BS’s supporters mean tweets, those tweets are a good demonstration of how they would have treated other Ds who were not a part of the Sanders cult. And yes BS’s anti-immigration votes affected me and many like me directly. I have no patience for him or the other members of his cult.
Rohan Khanna is an idiot who goes on Tucker Carlson to attack other Ds. He can go fuck himself.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, this, Biden is more likely to get progressive agenda items enacted from a need to get votes rather than Sanders with his “it’s my way, or the highway” mentality. Not to mention the if the Dems win the next four years are going to be mostly fixing the messes Trump created with his poo flinging. The example people should be considering is Jerry Brown, Brown by being competent after two successive GOP incompetents opened the door to a lot of progressive stuff in California.
balconesfault
As I’ve said repeatedly to my more leftist friends over the last few years – and especially this year …
In 2016, Bernie’s candidacy pushed Hillary to run on arguably the most progressive platform EVER for a major party candidate. But that wasn’t enough for many of them – they still attacked Hillary right up to November and beyond that year. This shows they weren’t so much focused on agenda, as personality.
Second, had Hillary won, there would have been numerous seats at the table for progressive leaders, as well as a Federal Judiciary pushed in the direction of being amenable to progressive legislation in the future, rather than oppositional to it. But again – when this is discussed, many Bernie supporters always bring the discussion back to personality.
This really isn’t about ideals, folks. It’s a personality cult.
Kylroy
I’m realizing that I can’t stand Sanders supporters because they’re not Democrats and they’re not democrats.
sdhays
I think Biden is our nominee because Sanders wouldn’t pass the torch. I think if he had stayed out, Biden would have felt less pressure to enter, and even if he had ultimately entered, he wouldn’t have seen the rapid consolidation around his candidacy. If you’re unhappy about Biden, Bernie bears a lot of responsibility for this result.
Baud
The dilemma for progressives who are not Sanders supporters is this: The more Sanders people hold out and play hard to get, the more likely it is that the party will need to fashion a majority with non-progressive voters. Sanders supports will see that as validation that the party is hopelessly corrupt, but it also means further retreat from even incremental progress.
Zzyzx
The new thing the Sanders’ twitter/facebook crowd I’ve been seeing has been an argument along the lines of, “Yes, we’re assholes, but Biden is wrong. Get the fuck over it and support us, jerks!”
One of my biggest issues with the Sanders’ group is their inability to take constructive criticism and learn from it. Nothing like doubling down when being told that their attitude is driving away potential supporters to prove me wrong.
Aardvark Cheeselog
The Dunning-Kruger is strong with them.
Brachiator
@Redshift:
Reich has an interesting YouTube channel dealing with political and economic issues. But he has also been a strong Sanders supporter, and has been ramping up his efforts in the light of Bernie’s primary defeats.
Baud
God I hope Michigan Dems do the right thing tonight.
robmassing
Stupid question: Isn’t it totally weird and stupid to endorse one candidate and then a little while later endorse the other one? What am I missing here?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Progressives and this includes blog favorite EW have been tone deaf to the concerns of the people who are affected most by the 3 years of the Orange One. Immigrants and black people. That’s why I chose to vote for Biden.
If it were not for the Civil Rights Movement someone born in India like me would have found it almost impossible to become a citizen. I take my cue from the CBC not “progressives” who talk a good game but rarely back it up with legislative action.
MJS
Let me make sure I understand this – Warren should have first endorsed Bernie, then Clinton, in 2016, and now should endorse Bernie and then, presumably, Biden. Doesn’t the value of someone’s endorsement decrease significantly on the second issuance? “Well, seeing as how Warren either can’t make up her mind, or goes in whichever direction the wind is blowing, I guess I’ll vote for whoever she tells me to” has to be the mindset of an incredibly small bloc of voters.
Frankensteinbeck
I agree (Hell, I’ve been repeating) that the whole progressives vs moderates framing is bullshit. Sanders does not represent progressives. He specifically represents the class warfare angry ‘eat the rich’ faction. No other candidate reflects the anger they feel. People with progressive goals who do not see the world as an us vs. them war against the rich prefer Warren, and in general are far more inclined to build coalitions and be practical.
Baud
@robmassing:
No, people endorse in the primary and then again in the general election. Happens all the time.
balconesfault
I believe a Warren endorsement wouldn’t have much electoral impact.
Why? Because the most definitional aspect of Warren backers, I think – is that they made up their own mind based on what they read/heard/saw – and not based on what someone else was telling them to think.
As such – I suspect 99.9% of Warren supporters already knew the moment she dropped out whether they’d then end up supporting Biden or Sanders – and Warren telling them to go one way or the other would be irrelevant to their choice … although it would make her look worse in their eyes if she chose the “wrong one”.
So why stick her neck out? For example – is there ONE person here who supported Warren who would make their decision between Biden and Sanders based on her endorsement?
I was … and I wouldn’t.
Orange Is The New White
This is exactly the kind of “split the party” bullshit I’d expect from the Intercept, favorite propaganda outlet of both Glen Greenwald and V.V. Putin.
Are we going to be treated soon to the breathless hot takes from Fox as to what progressives or the Democratic party should be doing? They have plenty of suggestions, as you might imagine. They really seem to be on board for Sanders, for some reason.
Facebones
@Baud: Yep. Especially when you get nitwits like Matt Breunig telling people that elections are “turn-based” so you can just not vote.
Why do you think politicians cater to the elderly? BECAUSE THEY VOTE IN EVERY ELECTION! This is why “they’re coming for your social security & medicare” always works as a scare tactic.
If you don’t vote, politicians aren’t going to waste time and resources on you.
Fair Economist
@burnspbesq: I suspect Warren hasn’t endorsed Biden yet because she wanted more policy concessions than he was willing to give.
I will wishfully hope the intent is to roll out her endorsement in the near future as a coup de grace.
catclub
IF Bernie suffers massive defeats in the next two weeks, his campaign will be effectively over. Will He continue on out of spite, even though he has no path to be the nominee?
FTFY
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I haven’t looked at EW’s immigration policies. Her AA policies were rated highly, I thought. Her big problem (like Pete’s) was the absence of a long-standing relationship with those communities (understandable since she’s still pretty new to politics).
Kent
I’m a progressive and tend to believe in most (but not all) of the ideas in the Sanders campaign.
However I also believe that he is a total charlatan and has an utterly incoherent theory of political change. Just this very morning I heard a Sanders speech on NPR in which he was saying. “We can have these things (medicare for all) if we have the COURAGE to do them.” Um, no. Political change has nothing to do with your personal courage. It has to do with reaching 218/60/1/5 and without 218 in the House, 60 in the Senate, 1 president, and 5 justices you will not achieve anything no matter how much courage you have or how much you wave your finger.
How do you get to 218/60/1/5? By building a political party. Sanders is basically a party of one, and has done more to tear down the Democratic party than build it up. His revolution is basically about tearing down the Democratic Party with the eventual aim of rebuilding it in his image. But the only part they know how to do is the tear-down part, not the build-up part. And at the rate they are going it will be two generations until they get to the point that they can begin to pass some of they things they say they want. Of course that is something they never tell their young supporters.
So it is possible to be a progressive and not only oppose Sanders, but also believe he is the worst thing for the progressive movement in a generation.
Chyron HR
I like that the Inturdcept can’t even conceive of the idea that that registered Democrat Elizabeth Warren might not want to be a threat to the Democratic party and it’s nominee.
azlib
I suspect Biden will bring in a lot of fresh (and progressive) faces into his administration. The Dems are after all a coalition party which brings with it lots of infighting within the tent. Hopefully, Biden can manage that coalition successfully.
While I am pretty much aligned with Bernie’s policies, I really hate his no prisoners style of politics. He and some of his supporters do not seem to realize the Democratic Party is a big racuous tent and it takes a skillset he does not have to bring the factions together. While I am not thrilled with Biden for a number of reasons, I think he is much better at coalition building.
Matt McIrvin
I think that if I were voting in a primary now, with Warren out, I’d vote for Sanders, because he’s got most of the agenda I want to see, and Biden just doesn’t.
But I can’t stand Bernie’s cult. For the short period when it looked like he might squeak through with the nomination, I was looking forward to liberals colonizing the movement and maybe steering it in a better direction. Maybe it’d have worked, I don’t know.
As it is, I won’t be too crushed if Biden gets the nomination, just because this kind of thing is more or less the historical norm I remember from my whole life: the liberal-wing candidate I support early on usually doesn’t get the nomination (the great exception was… Barack Obama). Of course, the “electable” candidate who does often loses the general election, so it’s not necessarily a good sign. But I do think that while the Bernie leftists hate Biden, he’s not going to get the level of low-info-regular-Joe hate that Hillary Clinton did, for unfortunate reasons we all know.
marv
I resisted as I long as I could, but the relentless pressure from the Democratic Establishment, here in Michigan, finally broke me today where a few minutes ago, I voted for Biden. My first choice would have been EW. I’ve had my finger pretty much exactly on the pulse of my home state for quite some time now and if you want an insider’s point of view, taking into account also the last 5000 years of human history, my sense is a well-qualified moderate male politician with a fake scandal (Ukraine) hanging over his head will do better here this year against Bernie than a well-qualified female politician with a fake scandal (e-mails) hanging over her head did four years ago.
balconesfault
@catclub: I suspect Bernie will continue to run as long as he can talk in front of massive crowds of adoring fans at rallies.
And sadly, if it takes it to keep their attention – he’ll be increasingly ramping up his criticisms of Biden and demonization of the “establishment Dems” – because for his followers that’s as sweet for them to hear as “build the wall” is for MAGAites.
Kent
Pretty liberal. She was accused of favoring open borders. It wasn’t something she focused on but she was probably similar to Julian Castro in decriminalizing most of immigration.
MisterForkbeard
@balconesfault: I think you’re mostly correct here. Mostly.
A lot of them had specific preferences, but I’ve spoken to more than one that felt intensely badgered by Sanders and his supporters (not reached out to – badgered and attacked) over their support for Warren even when they’re otherwise predisposed to some of his policies.
His campaign is actively driving away potential supporters. I think we’re also seeing that a bit with the ‘dementia’ bullshit as well – this legit offends a bunch of people.
NotMax
Getting down to the nub –
It’s Warren’s purview to bring Warren supporters along with her.
it’s Sanders’ purview to bring Sanders supporters along with him.
catclub
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: by being competent (and having 2/3rds majorities in the state house and senate) after two successive GOP incompetents opened the door to a lot of progressive stuff in California.
This is the basic technique Lyndon Johnson used to push through progressive legislation.
Hildebrand
Repeating from an earlier thread:
Just got back from voting (Michigan). My precinct usually has a pretty strong early morning rush – the poll-workers said it has been slow today. You have to declare a party in the primary, so it will be interesting to see if that squelches the party-crossing shenanigans in any measurable way (not sure if any of the MAGA types could stomach making the check next to the Democratic Party – even for this).
The only other question on our ballot is whether or not we will extend a millage for the Detroit Institute of Arts. My guess is that the DIA question and the primary will turn out a pretty solid Democratic electorate – and of those voters, at least in Wayne County (Detroit), it will be a very Biden heavy group.
Anecdotally – I haven’t heard anyone in my 100% African American congregation on the East Side of Detroit even hint about voting for Bernie (even if some of the younger folks were talking about it earlier this year, they changed course after South Carolina). As one member told me, ‘I just want the crazy to stop.
CaseyL
Washington State’s mail-in ballots are due today.
Sanders’ increasingly awful flailing has convinced me to vote for Biden rather than vote quixotically for Warren.
I anticipate that a Biden Administration would hire quite a few young, forward-looking people (I hate the term “progressive” as it has for me become ineradicably associated with the Purity Brigade) and I look forward to that with great hope and interest.
joel hanes
@Barbara:
the way a significant contingent of Sanders’ strongest supporters have behaved shows fundamental disrespect for women.
and blacks
and pretty much anyone who doesn’t board their train of Revolution on time
But “disrespect” is too mild to express their relationship with the Democratic Party. Which they seek to lead.
Brachiator
@balconesfault:
My future support of Warren depends in part on who she decides to endorse. Political leaders, by definition, have to stick their necks out.
Barbara
@Frankensteinbeck: The problem with burning down the house is that you end up without any place to live.
Only slightly OT, did anyone else see that yesterday, France upended Uber by ruling that under its business model, drivers are not “self-employed” but work as employees?
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: For all the problems we notice Bernie has getting black votes, Warren was doing even worse, and I say that as a Warren supporter. She never did crack the trust that Biden’s built (which I think is not just about perceived electability–for all of the terrible things Biden was involved with in the past, just the fact that he served as VP under a black President for eight years with nothing short of full enthusiasm and camaraderie counts for a lot).
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I’ve seen Khanna on TV a few times where he seemed thoughtful and measured, but you’re right, going on the Tucker Carlson White Power Hour is the mark of an idiot.
HinTN
@Brachiator:
The fallacy in this is that endorsers typically are seeking a position in a future administration and I don’t think SPW is seeking such a position. She ran to champion her ideas. Now get greatest ability to realize her ideas is through her Setatorial power.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am sure her policies are great. But I am trying to explain the lack of emotional connection that I felt towards her.
Kent
Exactly. Warren is smart enough to know that all the action and all the veto points in any future progressive proposals will be in the Senate not the White House. Biden will sign any legislation that comes out of a Democratic Congress. That’s pretty much 100% guaranteed. She doesn’t have to do a damn thing to convince Biden of anything. That is the ridiculous nonsense they are selling. She has to convince Rand Paul if we still have the filibuster, or perhaps Manchin or Doug Jones if we don’t.
Biden is also smart enough to know that any progressive legislation in the Senate that comes stamped as the signature proposal of any Democratic president is going to be DOA in the Senate because it will have a giant target on it and the GOP will do everything they can do to harvest a scalp and give the president a loss. If Sanders was in the White House those efforts would ramp up to white hot levels. Obama knew this which is why he let Congress take the lead on health care. Sanders doesn’t know or care. A Joe Manchin is unlikely to fall on his sword to support a White House proposal in which he had no role in drafting and no ability to provide input on.
I trust Biden to work behind the scenes to push stuff forward in Congress without getting his fingerprints all over it too much. That is how actually achieve change.
Marcopolo
@Baud:So here’s Warren’s plan for immigration. I’m thinking that S_C has never read it. Or paid much heed to the attention that Warren paid to looking at how the federal government could better help out people of color. It’s certainly more than our remaining two candidates have. While S_C claims Warren is tone deaf on these issues, as someone familiar with Warren’s positions it seems much more likely that S_C is tone deaf to Warren & her thoughts and outreach to these communities. But then all of us have blind spots, right? Sigh.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: What if she thinks they both suck? I kind of hope she stays neutral. She’ll support the nominee wholeheartedly, which is all she’s obligated to do in my book.
Kent
Her appeal was always more to the rational rather than emotional. That works with people like me who are hyper-rational. Not so much for those who need to be “inspired”
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: There are many Indians who seem to think that they are white. But they seem not to notice that white supremacists don’t agree with that assessment.
balconesfault
@CaseyL: I’m with you on Progressive.
I used to label myself as Progressive (even when right wing trolls tried to tie it back to horribly regressive social policies of the first half of the 20th century that bore that label).
But hell – I though that the ACA was very progressive. It was weird finding out that using tax money to add millions of working poor to the lists of the insured was reactionary.
HinTN
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Bingo
Plus having folks in power in lower office who understood that it’s hard work to make the sausage and change the recipe.
Kent
@Betty Cracker:@Brachiator: What if she thinks they both suck? I kind of hope she stays neutral. She’ll support the nominee wholeheartedly, which is all she’s obligated to do in my book.
There is nothing wrong with her letting things play out and then support the nominee, whether the suck or don’t suck. Not everyone needs to be a presidential “kingmaker” or even wants to be. There is nothing wrong with her saying “I will wholeheartedly support whoever the Democratic voters choose.”
schrodingers_cat
@Kent: I am pretty rational too. Her answer to everything had an economic rationale. I disagree with that formulation.
Brachiator
@HinTN:
RE: I am disappointed that Warren has not endorsed Biden already.
Warren’s future success depends on a strong, effective Democratic Party taking over the Congress. Warren cannot implement any of her ideas, no matter how good they might be, in a political vacuum.
Hildebrand
@Betty Cracker: Warren, like Obama, knows that party unity will matter more down the road than any endorsement now. She, like Obama, has a better sense of mid and long term vision. Too many folks have fallen under the 24-hour news cycle spell – you don’t have to win the day, you have to win the election.
balconesfault
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve seen FB postings which said exactly the same.
Biden was a white guy who never tried to undercut or overshadow a black boss with far less years of experience. Instead he was a reliable wingman who always put supporting Obama at the top of his agenda.
That meant a LOT to the black community.
Another Scott
This is about the most perfect example of begging the question that I’ve seen in a long time.
“(I really want Warren to support Bernie because his campaign is imploding and he needs her delegates NOW NOW NOW to change the narrative.) Here are the reasons why Warren must support Bernie so for her own sake. QED.”
Cheers,
Scott.
ThresherK
Warren G. Harding was nobody’s idea of a sage, but his statement was pretty wise.
I wonder if Bernie gets it?
(There are several varieties of this quote around, but they really don’t vary except at the very edges.)
balconesfault
@Brachiator: OK – but you didn’t say that you’d change who you support based on Warren’s opinion.
Marcopolo
@schrodingers_cat: Jeebus, own your words. Your comment said:
Don’t switch out the goal posts. AFAK from your posts over the past half year you just don’t like Warren. That’s fine, we’re all entitled to our opinions, but you shouldn’t disparage candidates by making false claims.
ThresherK
You’re a bit late to the nomenclature party. From what some folks call me (not in this space), I was a neoliberal, and (without moving) the insult hurled at me from the lefter-than-mes is now liberal.
Soon they’ll run out of words.
PS Is your nym a Metalocalypse reference?
TomatoQueen
@Calouste: THIS, elebenty bazillion times.
Brachiator
@Kent:
They don’t equally suck. I think that Sanders is a fraud, an empty suit. Biden was never my top choice, but he is better than Bernie in every way possible.
Sanders is not a Democrat, and has not budged an inch from his idiotic view that the Democratic Party is the enemy of progressives. I expect political leaders to lead. And if Warren can help tip the scales in favor of Biden, I am all for it.
I totally reject the idea that Warren or other former candidates should just sit back and say, “Gosh, I don’t know. Whatever the people decide is all right with me.”
Also, I note that Warren’s impact on the election was unexpectedly weak. Part of this is that some people claim that they still don’t know her or what she represents.
She cannot simply hide behind her ideas. She needs to take a stand for her party.
Also, after all the bullshit Sanders threw at her, he surely deserves a kick in the ass.
Frankensteinbeck
@Matt McIrvin:
I wonder about this. I am in no way competent to assess the desires and motivations of voters of color, of any stripe. It has occurred to me that Obama’s election revealed that a wide swathe of white people can be generous to black sidekicks, but absolutely lose their shit when a black person is in charge, and that trait lay hidden in wait for the event. It would seem like blacks must be very familiar with that behavior and maybe they appreciate that Joe had no problem whatsoever with a black man as his direct boss.
I am, hopefully like always, interested in correction or confirmation from the people actually living with it.
moonbat
@Marcopolo: Thank you! The Root endorsed EW’s policies and specifically commented on how each one had the concerns of people of color integrated into it. S-C is trying to rewrite history for some reason.
Brachiator
@balconesfault:
To be clear, I don’t think this is important.
I also noted that Warren does not seem to have a particularly large base. But if this kind of thing is important, Warren might influence other people who are not Warren supporters.
Again, the main thing is that I would like to see Warren and others unite behind Biden. And even here, if people magically turn out and support Bernie, then that’s how things go. And if he somehow became the nominee, I would expect for the Democratic Party leaders to support him.
Marcopolo
@Betty Cracker:I think this nails it. My guess is she endorses when Biden has the majority of delegates. It is what she did in 2016. She talked throughout her campaign about the need to broaden the base, that that is how elections are won. I’m pretty sure she looks at Sanders and thinks nope, he could care less about reaching out to others, that is not gonna work. On the other hand, she probably looks at Biden and thinks he’s too insulated from the concerns of regular folks. Perhaps the biggest surprise during the campaign was she never went after Biden in a debate over the 2005 bankruptcy bill he crafted. This piece does a pretty good job of explaining their two decade long disagreement over it–worth a read.
Geminid
@Barbara: I think a big obstacle to the progressives is an unwillingness by some progressives, not all by any means, to try and understand the point of view of people who do not think like them. Progressive Punch gives my Senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner ratings of “F.” (Doug Jones (AL) also gets an F) I think I’d have to search hard to find a Virginia Democrat who rated them less than “B.” The people who do these ratings are very sure they know how people should think. Tim Kaine has a very good idea of how people actually do think.
low-tech cyclist
Ditto! And I get so tired of all the “why haven’t all you Warren supporters lined up behind Bernie already?” crap on Twitter.
Because of the filibuster, dolts! Warren made it clear that the Dems can’t accomplish jack shit until it’s gone. Bernie wants to keep it around. So he can agree with Warren up and down his agenda, and it doesn’t matter because he will enact exactly NONE of it.
(Biden won’t enact his agenda either, which means their mutual love of the filibuster collapses their ideological differences to essentially zero differences in new laws. So why does it matter who I’m for? I’ll vote blue in November, but I just wish neither of these guys had gotten to the Democratic finals here.)
randy khan
To the extent this theory makes any sense at all (which it doesn’t), you do kind of have to ask why Warren’s endorsement is somehow going to influence more Sanders supporters than an endorsement from Sanders.
But I also feel like there’s an underlying premise here that needs, at least, unpacking: That the only progressives in the party are the ones who support Sanders (and maybe Warren at the margins).
I think this is wrong. First, I think it’s wrong because there are a fair number of Sanders supporters who don’t read to me as progressives, or certainly not as progressive across the boad. Second, I think it’s wrong because individual progressives can prioritize different issues in a campaign – I might think gun control is more important than free college, or that women’s rights and civil rights generally are more important than M4A (which I realize would result in certain very online Bernistas attacking me on Twitter by saying that I literally want people to die) – and that might make me like other candidates more than Sanders. In fact, as a group, the Dem candidates this year were to the left of the Dem candidates in 2016, and significantly to the left of the Dem candidates in 2012, so to a fair extent you can say that nearly all of them are progressives by recent definitions of the term.
glory b
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yes, AOC flirted with this momentarily, saying she wasn’t paying her party (monetary) dues , might leave the party, become an independent and use the money to donate to her selected primary candidates instead. However, it looks like she thought better of it, or someone convinced her of the error of her ways.
By the way, she was to have funded someone who was going to primary Hakeem Jefferies, but that was before his impressive turn during the impeachment hearings.
There was a time when relatively young people could make mistakes, not advertise them on social media, and reverse themselves without leaving a trail. The good old days…
Ella in New Mexico
@Betty Cracker:
I keep reading absurd posts from pro-Sanders folks (here and elsewhere) that rationalize backwards (if that’s a concept?) why everyone should choose Sanders over Biden because of the Eleventy-Dimension Chess Game and it’s beginning to feel like when I’m watching grieving family members at the bedside of their terminal loved one on life support who haven’t accepted that there is nothing left that can be done to save them and are stuck in the Bargaining Stage, demanding the docs do this supplement or experimental treatment or surgery they read about at Mercola.com that’s sure to get 97 year-old G-ma with heart, kidney and lung failure to just snap right back to her previous self.
TBH, I think she knows she has way more influence right now than any of the other former candidates who are endorsing. I think she is pulling an Obama style “I’m not gonna get involved and get blamed later for fucking with the election until it’s clearly inevitable for one or the other “.
My odds are 50-50 she waits at least until all the March voting wraps up.
Barbara
@Geminid: This was basically David Leonhardt’s point, in his column yesterday. As someone who has lived in Virginia, it was a hard slog to get to the point where Medicaid was expanded, abortion was destigmatized as a health care service, and so on. It’s been incremental, sometimes painfully slow. I don’t want it to be slow, but I don’t see that Sanders or anyone else is waving a magic wand around
ETA: Link to Leonhardt
schrodingers_cat
@Marcopolo: I don’t hate Warren. I had her signs in my front yard when she was running for senator. I only speak for myself. And I was not enamored by her Presidential campaign.
I was trying to analyze why she performed so dismally in South Carolina. She was 5th. Clearly though her plans were great at some level she didn’t connect with people whose votes she needed.
Baud summarized it well
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: I have said it before, but my theory is that her M4A felt like pandering to Sanders supporters, who stuck with Sanders, while spooking moderates looking for a home, so she ended up appealing to a rather narrow slice of the electorate. I don’t think it was failure to connect, I think it was a failure to understand what she was signaling when she put her full support behind M4A. She had risen steadily in the polls prior to that point.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: Either way, her political instincts let her down.
WhatsMyNym
@glory b:
And that would be the Hakeem Jefferies who was rated “A” by ProgressivePunch.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: I also think that many who have been affected the most by the Orange One’s policies and rhetoric have limited appetite for the whole scale structural change she was proposing. I just want respite from the hate for starters.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: Agreed. Sanders is basically running the same campaign that he did in 2016. In a lot of ways, the moment has passed. M4A (or a less comprehensive public option alternative) had a much better chance of being enacted with Clinton as president. People who make the better the enemy of the best often end up with nothing, a lesson that minority communities tend to have internalized pretty well. A certain personality type seems to be disproportionately drawn to messianic candidates who embody a message of “no compromise.”
eemom
@schrodingers_cat:
JHC, Pete’s problem was a far cry from “absence of a long standing relationship” with black communities. It was affirmatively fucking over those communities in South Bend and perpetuating racism on the police force.
The Root’s Michael Harriot wrote an exhaustively researched piece on the latter, and he also (a couple of weeks ago before everybody dropped out) authored the comparative matrix on where each of the candidates stood with respect to issues of concern to Black voters that some have alluded to above, in which Warren came out first and Biden second.
Joey Maloney
@Matt McIrvin:
I recall reading somewhere that Biden’s condition when he was offered VP was “I want to be the last guy in the room”. I imagine Obama’s response: “You’ll be the second-to-last guy in the room. I’m the last guy. And once the last guy in the room makes the call he expects your support.” The fact that Biden accepted those terms and followed through says a lot about him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Barbara: yeah, when I heard her say she was trying to hit a “lane” between Biden and Sanders, I was a bit baffled. On the biggest non-trump issues, she was from my perspective hard to distinguish from Bernie.
I think it was Maria Teresa Kumar who said on MSNBC that some study or analysis shows that the “median Democrat”, whatever the hell that means, is an Obama voter. I think the best proof of that is the 2018 election. Biden is the only major primary candidate who got that. I’ve been wondering lately how much dialogue Warren had with Nancy Pelosi, who has a rare grasp on the national party and the electorate as a whole.
Zelma
I’m probably just reiterating what others have already said, but my dislike of Bernie and his Bros is almost visceral. When he appears on my TV screen, I want to turn it off. I don’t, because I feel I have to listen to what he is saying. And I don’t like what he is implying: that the Democratic Party is a barrier to progressive policies, that Democrats like me are somehow the enemy.
I’m pretty far left when it comes to my preferred policies. But I’m also quite aware of the limitations imposed by our political system. Obamacare was pretty much as far as we could go with healthcare reform in 2009. Just shoring it up and returning it to its status under Obama will be hard enough. Including a public option would be a huge step in the right direction.
Medicare for All sounds great but it’s a pipe dream. And “courage” will not get M4A. That will require political skill, which is sadly lacking in Bernie and his cohorts.
BTW, when Trump comes on my TV screen, I do turn it off.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not neutral when it comes to Sanders, and I would like it if Warren is not neutral either.
As I noted in another comment, Biden and Sanders don’t suck equally.
I voted for Warren in the California primary because I thought she stood a chance, even though she was not my first choice. Had I known how poorly she would place in the Super Tuesday voting, I would have easily voted for Biden.
Ruckus
@balconesfault:
This right here. If the BS supporters were interested in the ideals they wouldn’t be so adamantly opposed to Warren.
Sure they might think BS could make more progress but they would listen to her, maybe even try to steal her ideas. They don’t come close to that.
schrodingers_cat
@eemom: I was quoting Baud. Baud was talking about Pete. I don’t know enough about Pete’s problems with black people to comment. He was never my candidate.
I am not just talking about policies but the failure of EW to go beyond her base of which Balloon Juice commenters and FPers are a good representation.
She was A+ on policy but that was not enough for many.
L85NJGT
Sanders is a rural state populist (his day job) with a veneer of Anarcho-communism (his national campaign).
I don’t believe that distills into some simple left-right dichotomy. The former is a ghost of what it once was, due to the mechanization of farm labor. The latter is libertarian cult of personality of the sort that once deified Ron Paul.
His replacement in Vermont won’t be either.
I’m getting some sense that Gen-Xers really mean themselves when the use “progressive” in Democratic online circles, and are frustrated they don’t have the demographic voting punch to put someone of their age grouping in the White House.
Betty Cracker
@WhatsMyNym: Haven’t ever seen any proof that AOC plotted against Jeffries, just anonymously sourced gossip from The Hill and/or Politico. Maybe she did! But there’s no evidence of it as far as I know. She’s not perfect, but AOC is a shrewd politician, and her instincts have been better since she got rid of her rabble-rouser chief of staff.
Marcopolo
@schrodingers_cat:You really just like to twist words around don’t you. I said you don’t like Warren, not that you hate her. Look, I don’t like Biden per se (at the start of the primary process he was definitely not in my top 7-8) but I will be putting a sign in my yard for him (and giving money & knocking doors) because of the alternative. Putting a yard sign up for Warren when the alternative is a Republican is great but doesn’t necessarily show you “like” them. It is okay not to like a candidate, but once again, don’t create some caricature of them to justify it. That’s what I see you doing with Warren.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Well, that just means YOU have a strong opinion on their relative merits. Maybe Warren doesn’t.
rp
@Brachiator: Thank you. The idea that Biden and Sanders equally suck is banana pants. Biden is far from my first choice, but he’s infinitely better than Sanders.
schrodingers_cat
@Marcopolo:I have been accused of hating Warren more than once on this blog. I have no personal animus against her at all.
I like Warren as my senator. If she gets a primary challenger which is likely with her 3rd place showing here in MA I will be in her corner.
Marcopolo
Actually, I think they do suck equally in different ways.
However, I have told my friends in MO that if they don’t like either of them they should vote for Biden because 1) Sanders electability argument that he’d bring all these new voters out ain’t happening; 2) Biden doesn’t have some of the negative issues that HRC had (like dealing with misogyny & 30 years of crap thrown at her) and as a result is doing better against Sanders in certain demos than HRC did (WWC voters for example) than she did; 3) that means Biden will be the nominee; 4) Sanders 2016 history indicates he will probably stay in and run a grievance campaign even when he can’t win; so 5) knock him out as soon as possible and try to make him irrelevant.
I would so love to be surprised by Sanders saying a few weeks from now, “I can see I no longer have a clear path to the nomination so I am suspending my campaign & urge all my supporters to get behind Joe Biden.” Yeah, and pigs can fly, right?
jc
I may be wrong, but if Warren endorses Sanders, and Biden becomes president, she may not get a lot of support when she comes to Biden to re-constitute the Consumer Protection bureau.
Geminid
@WhatsMyNym: The “primary Hakeem Jeffries” story lasted a day. In late November 2018 the House Democrats had a contest for Caucus Chairman, and Jeffries beat Barbara Lee by ten votes. Lee is a hero to many on the left, and AOC supported her. There were rumors that Lee had been unfairly maligned, and two “sources close to AOC” told Laura Barron-Lopez of Politico of a plan to primary Jeffries, said they even had a candidate lined up. The two sources were almost certainly chief of staff Charkrabarti and press secretary Corbin. The quotes sounded just like Trent, a very pissy guy. Anyway, the next day AOC and Trent angrily denounced the story, but as Politico pointed out, did not actually deny it. When asked about the primary threat, Jeffries commented, “Democracy is beautiful thing…. Spread the love. That’s the Brooklyn Way.” A very smart man, who has nothing to fear from a primary challenge.
different-church-lady
@Calouste: What I hear is “Why can’t Bernie make friends?”
Nelle
@balconesfault: when someone asked Warren how she would react if someone else got her proposals and policies through, she immediately and enthusiastically exclaimed, “Fabulous!” If Bernie was more about progressive policies than his own ego, he would have quit the race after his heart attack and sent his followers to A healthier Warren. For me, that was a tell. I’m tired of hearing that I’m regressive, not progressive, if not supporting Bernie.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: HRC had an answer to that. When she talks we should all listen she speaks the truth.
Kent
Pete (and Amy Klobuchar) also had that instinctive midwestern Democratic tendency to pander to some mythical ‘heartland values’ bullshit. They both have to much Evan Bayh in them and speak as if there is some wisdom to be had from the “common sense” midwestern farmer sitting on a tractor. When most black folks know that it was those white guys sitting on tractors who’s “common sense” is what gave us Trump.
I think black folks can sniff out that sort of bullshit pandering in a nanosecond, and aren’t amused by it.
different-church-lady
@jc: Warren is smart enough to know that if she endorses Sanders it’s going to be a green-light for undermiming Biden’s foundation going into the general exactly the same way he undermined Clinton’s.
glory b
@Betty Cracker: If she thinks they both equally suck, she wasn’t anywhere near as smart as I thought she was.
Only one candidate’s supporters bullied her supporters to the point of fear, and it wasn’t Biden’s. I’d think that she’d have more regard to all of those folks who stood in those selfie lines, etc., than to have the appearance that all of that didn’t matter. I think a Bernie endorsement would show disregard of what her people went through.
Just One More Canuck
@Baud:
Schrodinger’s Candidate?
Kent
@glory b: They don’t equally suck. Warren is smart enough to know that all the action is going to be in the Senate and that Biden is going to sign anything they can get out of the Senate on any progressive agenda item. Whereas Sanders would likely insert himself into the process in unhelpful ways that would make passage less likely.
Feathers
@Nelle: A wise person once said that there is no end to the good you can do in the world as long as you are willing to let someone else take the credit.
Betty Cracker
@glory b: I think DCL has it right in #115, but who knows?
glory b
@Betty Cracker: I agree.
dogwood
AOC has been very effective at carving out a place for herself as a celebrity politician. If she weren’t exceptionally attractive it might not have worked out so well. I remember that after winning her primary in 2018 and receiving so much attention, she immediately headed out to Kansas with Bernie to campaign for Sharice Davids’ opponent. When that didn’t work out so well, her COS called Davids a racist enabler over her vote on a border funding bill. He got fired, but singling out Davids among the Democrats who voted for the bill was telling. I am much more impressed with new members like Katie Porter and Lauren Underwood who won long-held Republican seats and are unabashedly liberal stalwarts without engaging in celebrity culture.
Geminid
I think after the dust of 2020 settles, E. Warren will tell her story. I can wait to hear it.
RobertDSC-Work
I love the imagery of Warren as the Snake Lady.
Fuck Sanders and his moronic cult.
Nelle
@Marcopolo: A key indicator on immigration is that Castro, with the best immigration platform, immediately gravitated to Warren, says the woman with a Castro t-shirt at home.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Well, yeah. I can only explain what I would like to see Warren do. I can also say that I think that her NOT endorsing Biden now is a political miscalculation.
I do not see the value in her sitting back and saying nothing. It is not a matter that both Biden and Sanders may suck, it is that I don’t see any value in implying any endorsement of Sanders. Even if somehow he eventually becomes the nominee. His manifest hostility to the existence of the Democratic Party merits push back.
That said, I will be interested in seeing what she eventually does, and what her reasoning might be, should she care to share it.
Brachiator
@dogwood:
AOC was singled out and targeted on social media by right wing turds who wrongly believed that they could intimidate her because she was a young woman of color. Instead she showed that she was adept at fighting back.
And yes, she is pretty, photogenic, whatever, but I don’t think that she really sought out being a celebrity, but also did not shrink back.
I note that many conservative critics still presume that she could not know anything, even when they have been corrected by her and others.
Uncle Cosmo
Did you notice that I bolded, italicized & painted red most of your statement? That’s how crucial an insight it is IMO!
I could offer yinz some insight into some of the factors that aided & abetted the 30+-year-long vilification of Hillary Rodham Clinton to the point where arguably the most qualified Presidential candidate in a century lost to a racist buffoon. I could tell you why large parts of the middle & working classes wanted nothing to do with Warren’s planorrheic platform. I grew up with & around these folks; I knocked on their doors for my candidates (& had a few slammed in my face); I still see them regularly. (I just helped bury one of them – Trump supporter dead in his middle 50s of a massive heart attack – basically a decent guy outside of politics.)
You wouldn’t like it at all; some of you would call me a misogynist, a bigot, a fascist, a hatemonger, a non-Democrat. Some of you would pie me. Go ahead & shoot the messenger. (Homemade lemon meringue or coconut cream, SVP.)
But until & unless we grit our collective teeth & put ourselves into the shoes of our opponents & try to understand why they oppose us – & suppress for the moment any kneejerk responses like “But that’s crazy!” – we will never know if they can be reached & how. I firmly believe there are a lot of mostly decent people who for the moment are on the other side of the fence. I am not willing to leave them with nowhere else to go by ridiculing them, dismissing their viewpoints, sticking a label on their foreheads & walking away. Neither should all of you be.
Betty Cracker
@Uncle Cosmo:
And yet you do just that, quite frequently, right here on this blog, don’t you? I’m not tone-policing — you do you, man. Just pointing out the apparent contradiction.
Geminid
@Uncle Cosmo: Yeah I want to understand conservatives as more than two dimensional stereotypes since none of us are two dimensional. But that would be a real stretch for the kind of progressives I was criticizing. They have no interest in even understanding Democrats and independents. But as I said, some but by no means all. Katie Porter, Sherrod Brown, and Katie Porter, for example, and many progressives on this forum have their feet on the ground. They will do infinitely more for progressive causes than, for instance, the airheads at Jerkobin Magazine.
Califlander
Just ask the Corbynistas.
burnspbesq
@dogwood:
care to guess who Katie Porter says was her favorite professor at Harvard Law?
Dmbeaster
@Barbara:
This, at least for me. I was a Warren supporter and still voted for her in the California primary. But she wrecked herself with the M4A posturing. What made it obvious was that the “I have a plan” brand had no plan to pay for it. It looked awful, and undermined the brand itself.
Rand Careaga
@jc:
Really, why would you think that? Do you suppose that Biden would not favor putting the CFPB back together on its merits, and would have to be talked into it, or that he is disposed to be vindictive, and would withhold his support for a public good out of spite.
Neither seems plausible to me. If you have something else that supports your reasoning, I’d be interested to learn it.
different-church-lady
Also: one should assume anything that appears in The Intercept does not come from a place of honest intent.
something fabulous
An old friend I hadn’t heard from in a long time plopped a “Biden is the same mistake as Clinton but worse!” screed on my FB wall last night, out of the blue, warning that “today the real election begins.” Was flabbergasted and also irked. He’s always been way left anarchist-ish, so not surprised really, but the I’m going to sit the general out vibe was so strong, felt compelled to reply; also didn’t just want that sitting on my page, nor to remove it without comment. Here’s my reply, was rather pleased with it. Think I have been wanting to post some version of same here if I could get over tendency to lurk, as was pretty well-cooked in my brain before typing it out:
“Dear [Longtime Friend]: I’ve been living in California for many years now: I voted last week. My preferred candidate has suspended her campaign since then. If you want to post a passionate affirmative case for whom you’d like to vote FOR, and why, please do be my guest.
However.
I have absolutely no interest in any conversations at this point which are only the negative case against another option. If, as seems most likely now, we are down to one of these two dudes against Trump, it is our task, our duty, to make sure that whichever one it is, succeeds. I honestly do not care how uniquely horrible anyone thinks either of these two remaining people are– and I’m sure you can imagine the strong and vitriolic negative case I’m incessantly also hearing against Sanders, in all its full detail.
Please do, vote with all your heart for your remaining preference. Try to encourage others to do the same. But I need to know that you will if needed when the time comes, still vote for the person who is left, as I will do. It’s a real shame the last two left standing seem so polarizing to so many. But again: I don’t care. There is simply no case that *either* of these guys will be worse than a re-election. Four more years of this is what will happen if we don’t all step beyond our clear and reasonable and deeply-held preferences, if we have to, when we have to.
We can’t afford otherwise.
With Love,
[something fab]
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Arnold and who else. Arnold became Governator after Gray Davis(who had been Chairman Jerry’s COS) was recalled. We did have 16 years of GOP Governors before that.
Betty Cracker
@something fabulous: Excellent reply! I hope he takes it to heart.
tam1MI
If by “perpetuating racism” you mean firing a black police chief who got caught red-handed breaking the law, I’d hardly call that disqualifying. Pete really had no choice there. The last thing we need in this country are MORE lawless cops.
eemom
@tam1MI:
I suggest you read Harriot’s piece.
LongHairedWeirdo
I confess, right now, I consider a statement to the effect that Warren should endorse Sanders as a GOP-based meme. The GOP benefits from a long, drawn out nomination fight, and with bad blood possibly reducing voter enthusiasm.
Right now, the best way to sow bad blood is to keep screaming that Sanders is being robbed, and that people should show more support, not for his ideas, and not for progressive action overall, but for Bernie Sanders to be the nominee.
Now, earlier, I mentioned that if Sanders wins the nomination outright, I’m no longer worrying about his electability because he would have had to win over lots of Democratic constituencies. Today, I don’t feel he can even pull that off, so I think it’s time to generally gather behind Biden – which is *not* to say that you shouldn’t vote your heart, if your heart belongs to Sanders, just, remember that the odds are you’ll *probably* be casting a vote for Biden, or casting a vote to help elect Trump.
(Yes, I know, it sucks that we have a two party, first-past-the–post voting system; nevertheless, *in* that system, you have to vote for the Democratic nominee, if you feel you must avoid the toxic Republican nominee. And if you think “not a dime’s worth of difference between them”, can I offer you a coloring book and a 64 box of Crayolas to keep you busy until after election day? Or maybe some finger paints! Play-Doh?)
(Hey! Is Trump the Play-Donic ideal of a Republican candidate? Or would that be Play-Dohnic?)
brantl
@Baud: Despite the fact that this existed before Bernie, he still wears it like a hair shirt.
something fabulous
@Betty Cracker: Thanks! Funnily enough, no response whatsoever. One is fearfully surprised. :)
I might bump it up to a post in its own right on my page, tho! The snipe wars are raging apace. Am hating to see how this is all… devolving.
And thank you for this post, and sounding off this way in general, with such clarity– has been very helpful to see I am not alone!
eachother
I must have missed why if it is negative that Warren is being given the snake bad. Until the garden of Eden story; denial of knowledge or immortality in apple form and vilification of Eve’s assets, the snake former was feminine for its attributes. Associated with the moon and its cycles. Shedding its skin is an enviable metaphoric super power. Spiritually, environmentally, awesome to be snake.
The “modern” flaws, associating it with the male phallus and releasing it into the Everglades notwithstanding.
Topclimber
@schrodingers_cat: Thread is so dead but no there will be no primary challenge except maybe from you.
Topclimber
@Brachiator: Thread dead but think long game. Once Bernie fizzles the leading spokesperson for progressive ideas is Warren. That will be true for all of presumptive President Biden’s tenure. She plays a long game and hopefully lives long enough to make it work.
anarchoRex
@Topclimber: nah, the leading spokesperson is probably AOC. Warren’s too wishy-washy. A smart exercise of power would be to endorse now, whichever of the two. She prevaricated in 2016, and got nothing for it. Sander’s supporters shunned her, and Hillary voters did not reward her for her Johny come lately endorsement.
This is a-historical, but it Warren had ran in 2016 she’d probably be the presumptive nominee now.
brantl
@Uncle Cosmo:planorrheic, what the hell does that mean? Dictionary.com, thesaurus.com and Webster’s dictionary don’t define that word.