Bernie Sanders, here in Burlington alongside his wife Jane Sanders and his senior campaign staff, is staying in. pic.twitter.com/s4uZtWkCYY
— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) March 11, 2020
That was the least objectionable speech I’ve heard from Sanders this election cycle.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 11, 2020
It was just better than his 2016 version:
“Since you didn’t elect me mayor, I will burn down your stupid, corrupt village.”
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 11, 2020
Yes, I am a terrible terrible excuse for a human being (yet a proud Democrat). For those of you who share my weakness: Let. Us. Savor…
The Week Bernie Sanders Realized He Was Losing
On the road and inside a campaign struggling to reconcile reality with the emotions of a movement that Sanders ran himself, the way he wanted, but has simply fallen short: https://t.co/3M7BslFGAG
— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) March 11, 2020
… You could see it last week, when his motorcade arrived for a rally at the fairgrounds in Salt Lake City, and all they could do was watch as a seven-person field rapidly shrunk to a two-man race, with candidates flying in secret to line up behind Joe Biden in Dallas. As the news broke, a senior aide stood in the fairgrounds parking lot near a line of SUVs, visibly shaking with nerves.
You saw it back in his Washington headquarters, where staffers reassured themselves by digging back in, as if by muscle memory, to an old trench: “Did we really think they were going to let us have it?” they told one another. You saw it after Super Tuesday, a loss across 10 states, when some senior aides began to worry that Biden wouldn’t even show up to the next debate simply because he wouldn’t have to. And even as the campaign made a hard last play for Michigan, some aides said they could see “the writing on the wall” — and wondered if the boss did too.
Bernie Sanders promised a singular and unprecedented ability to bring young and working-class people into the political process, an antidote to the “same old, same old status quo,” a campaign of “energy and excitement.” But it was Joe Biden, not Bernie Sanders, who was expanding the electorate. It was Joe Biden who was turning nonvoters into new voters. Everyone knew who Bernie Sanders was. The other guy was just getting more votes — and how could he explain that?
A few days ago, when reporters asked in Phoenix, he couldn’t…
Interviews with nearly two dozen aides, allies, and progressive operatives over the last week reveal a campaign struggling to reconcile the reality of the delegate math with the emotions of an entire progressive movement that now rests on the shoulders of a man who has pursued his aims with a single-minded focus for more than 50 years, who built a vast and obsessive following from almost nothing in 2016, who doesn’t easily back down — even when he knows he’s lost.
“He was never able to expand his coalition,” said Mark Longabaugh, a top adviser who split with the campaign early last year over strategic disagreements with the candidate. “He just didn’t succeed at it.”…
Even as anxiety grew in Sanders’ Washington headquarters, the tight circle that travels around him mirrored the straightforward and laserlike focus of the candidate. Sanders is tough on his staff and prone to angry outbursts, but in pursuit of his “political revolution,” he is almost even-keeled — a temperament matched by his quiet campaign manager, Faiz Shakir. “He’s like Faiz,” communications director Mike Casca once told reporters. “He’s always at a 5 out of 10.”
But for many outside the senator’s small retinue of staff, the past week unfolded as if in slow motion, a muddle of frustration and sadness as they came to terms with what was happening.
On the road, Sanders and the senior aides around him pressed as if little around them had changed.
“The divide isn’t between the traveling staff and headquarters,” one progressive operative close to the operation said this week. “The divide is between reality and the candidate’s head.”…
… Sanders, a candidate rarely willing to budge, served as his own press secretary, digital director, pollster, advertiser, and campaign manager. The true inner circle around the senator is already exceptionally tight — limited to his wife and five or so staffers — and even smaller still is the group of aides on his 2020 payroll who are willing to tell him “no.”…
This article is…really something.
When @ewarren—Bernie’s closest ally—reached out a MONTH ago to start discussions about aligning, his campaign ignored hers.
But when Bernie’s campaign wanted him to go hard on Biden, he refused—because he “likes Joe.”https://t.co/pqGMseii21 pic.twitter.com/zs6ld82kgM
— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) March 11, 2020
WARREN: “We are responsible for the ppl who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening ugly dangerous things to other candidates.”
MADDOW: “Have u ever talked to Sen Sanders about that?”
WARREN: “I have”
MADDOW: “Wut was that convo like?”
WARREN: “It was short.”
— Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou (@misyrlena) March 6, 2020
Martin
You know it’s been an interesting 2 weeks when the topic of the Respite thread is Bernie.
Mary G
Nobody cares, Bernie. Falling in with the Russians/GOP “Biden has dementia” campaign was the last straw for real Democrats. Also pulling a Trump with his medical records.
Mart
On plane with dude behind me buggering and sneezing all over me. Fucker.
Jay
@Martin:
yurp.
I would have gone with ducks,……
chris
Wurst news ever!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mart: Shouldn’t any buggering be done in the lavatory? I believe that is how the mile high club works on a commercial flight. Less so on private planes of course.
mrmoshpotato
No you aren’t. You’re an actual Democrat who’s pissed at this ratfucking conman heart attack victim who most of the US couldn’t pick out of lineup in 2014.
Let’s sit together – virtually.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
To have been a fly on the wall during that conversation
Kent
I was a big time Warren supporter. I canvassed for her with my daughter. Before that I was a Kamala Harris supporter.
Yes, I’m disappointed. As is my daughter. But we will get over it, move on and get behind Biden. Like we have done every election since Carter v Reagan when I was in HS.
WTF is wrong with these Bernie people? Get the fuck over it and move on with your lives. And come November you will likely have a binary choice between Trump and Biden. Choose wisely. And think of others besides yourself.
Villago Delenda Est
Over the past four years, I have come to loathe Bernie Sanders. Not nearly to the extent I do Donald Trump, but let’s say Bernie is catching up. It has nothing to do with the policies Bernie advocates. It has to do with the man and his followers.
Anne Laurie
Thoughts & prayers. On the positive side, while he may give you a nasty cold, sneezing is not one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. And best case, he’s just a rude bastid with seasonal allergies… when I have to go out in public these days, I’ve taken to carrying a kleenex in one hand & a little bottle of hand sanitizer in the other, just so that others know I’m *not* trying to infect them.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Depends on how broadly you’re willing to interpret entry into the club.
HumboldtBlue
Wait, this is the “respite”? I have beer and some good bud and I even posted lovely capybaras below, that makes for a respite.
Bernie’s angst ain’t top priority at the moment.
Here’s Abuelita Angela from her rancho.
Enjitomatadas Desayuno De Mi Rancho A Tu Cocina
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Martin:
Yeah, I’m confused.
I think David Corn was the first person I saw say he was giving Joe a heads-up about what he would say on Sunday. Apparently Biden is one of the few people in DC Bernie actually likes.
Major Major Major Major
Respite, eh?
I saw a WaPo article about how Sanders has been telegraphing his next-Wednesday exit recently. His post-Tuesday speech outlined the softball questions he will lob at Biden on Sunday. Biden will, one presumes, have appropriate answers to them. The dance done, Sanders can drop out on Wednesday and say he forced important policy concessions (remains to be seen what those are).
Everybody likes Joe, he’s a peacemaker, it might even be fine!
Suzanne
So a lifelong friend of mine just posted on her FB page that her daughter is getting harassed and bullied at school. My friend is of German descent and her husband’s father is Chinese, so they have a Chinese surname. My friend and her daughter are both very WASP-looking, but the kid is being treated like crap. Another reason to close schools.
terry chay
@Kent: They were never going to vote for Biden. Heck! They couldn’t even be bothered to vote for Bernie against Biden. He didn’t bring anybody into the party. He cannibalized / co-opted the people Obama brought in in 2008 who are aging out—the ones who didn’t vote in 2016 are not voting again in 2020 as they didn’t form a habit to be politically engaged.
It’s now looking like the “white working class” voted against Hillary, not for Bernie. Biden took all those votes this time around with nary a peep of Bernie support from them. His strongest demo are young people IN COLLEGE (in a country where the majority don’t even go to college) and their turnout is anemic while overall primary turnout was challenging 2008 numbers. Heck Bernie is getting better numbers from Hispanics in states where he dumpstered $100+ million in outreach, than these white working class districts in Michigan and Missouri. Bernie lost EVERY SINGLE COUNTY in those states.
Who cares about non-voting ranters on social media? There is likely to be a mass of youth voters who are more focused on getting Trump out then getting Biden or Bernie in which is why youth turnout is so anemic. Do we even remember 2018?
Mnemosyne
Welp, I get to work at home tomorrow while my little slice of the Giant Evil Corporation decides how to handle those of us who are not immediately required right now. We’ll see how this goes.
Mnemosyne
@terry chay:
I saw someone on Twitter who was like, Of course they didn’t show up to vote for you, Bernie — you spent the past four years telling them that everything was rigged against you, so they didn’t see the point in voting.
terry chay
@Major Major Major Major: You keep trying to kick that football, Charlie Brown. :D
C Stars
@HumboldtBlue: Me too, kinda done with the Bernie schadenfreude. I honestly don’t know what my respite would be, though. I’m too amped up to watch the Abuelita, but I saved it for later
ETA Now I think I’m going to go in search of the capybaras. Maybe that’s what’ll help.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
on Feb 28, Gummo told whatever sub-sect of the cult that pays attention to him to buy stocks
JAFD
Well, when I was one of Gene McCarthy’s volunteers back in ’68, we said some pretty uncivil things about LBJ… Maybe I’ve learned better since… Seems like a really long half-century…
Give the young folk (and when you get to be my age you find the whole world is filled with young folk) a chance.
Jay
@terry chay:
saw a twitter thread that basically, everybody in the “Democratic Establishment” and “Progressive Establishment” started advising Wilmer, after the 2016 Primaries, to do outreach and build support amongst POC, Unions, etc, over and over, to build “The Movement” for 2020, ( and to dump the Toxic people),
and his answer was always the same, “Nope”.
Kent
Here in the US? WTF? I teach at a school that is about 10% Asian American. A mix, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, a few Japanese. Nothing like that happening here (Vancouver WA area)
Suzanne
@Kent: Yes, in the US… They live in north Phoenix.
OTOH, no one’s freaking out over Corona beer, because enough people here speak Spanish. That’s even the name of the local high school.
Kent
I just can’t wrap my mind around people who are so engaged in politics as to go to rallies, campaign for someone, follow them on the internet. But then simply not vote. I just can’t get my mind around that mentality. Something is seriously wrong with their sense of empathy.
Jay
@Kent:
https://crosscut.com/2020/03/coronavirus-fears-pacific-nw-lead-rise-anti-asian-racism
NotMax
@JAFD
Clean for Gene!
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
It never made much sense. You can’t win the nomination with 30% of the delegates while the Non-Bernie block accumulating 70% of the delegates
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Uday or Qusay?
Suzanne
@Kent: Is there any evidence that Bernie’s hardliners didn’t vote? His cult of personality is not that big compared to who voted for him in 2016; he needed more than just his Bros. I’d be willing to bet that the hardcore did vote, it’s just that the hardcore is not as big as it feels on the Twitters.
Major Major Major Major
So I live in midtown Manhattan. Two weeks ago people stopped eating at the nearby Panda Express. I’ve been working from home this week, and the streets have been emptier and emptier. Today, during what’s normally the lunch rush, it seemed like the whole neighborhood was deserted. (I was out buying groceries)
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
The Thin Black Duke
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Reality is a Harsh Mistress.
Kelly
The Nursing home 30 miles from me in Lebanon OR that had 2 COVID-19 cases yesterday has 8 today. OR Gov Kate Brown has ordered all k-12 closed March 16->30.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
As you’re right there, any museum closings yet? Dirty water* hot dog pushcarts scaled back? Circle Line operating normally?
*Not necessarily a critique on cleanliness, it’s slang.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s Eric Trump: “Buy high, sell low”.
Anne Laurie
They don’t think of ‘politics’ as it really is — what a wise person once called ‘The science of who eats, and who gets eaten’. To them, being a Bernie Booster is like being a Phish Head… you go to the cool gatherings, hang with your friends, buy the merch & do the recreationals. ‘Politics’, ugh, has nothing to do with their real lives. (And for the noisiest ones on twitter, this is quite literally true: the question of who’s in the Oval Office, much less the local government, has very little direct effect on Walter Bragman or Nathan Robinson or — Canadian — Jeet Heer.)
It’s possible the impending pandemic may actually shake some of these people out of their (literal) Hamptons bubble, but only if the servant class decamps in force, or if their favorite gentrified brewpubs & coffeehouses are shut down…
mdblanche
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Yes.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Neither can I honestly. In many areas, voting isn’t that hard. You can vote early or absentee by mail. Voters or potential voters with no significant barriers to voting don’t have much of an excuse
Ruckus
@Kent:
You sound like an actual democrat!
Which is the main problem I see about the entire subject, Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. He says so himself. He has two twitter accounts, one to run as a democrat and the other to be his independent self. His major supporters don’t act like democrats, they act like they are going to hold their breath till they pass out if they don’t get their way, IOW spoiled brats.
I’ve never gotten everything I wanted from any democratic politician. Thing is I never expect everything I want, because there are a lot of other desires in this party. That doesn’t mean I don’t want a lot, it just means I’m realistic about being a citizen in the US and that not everyone wants what I want, and we all get to be heard about what we want and how and why we should be there. A lot of what I want costs money from somebody or lots of somebodies. But there are lots of somebodies and a few somebodies who could pay quite a bit and practically never notice, if they weren’t worried about having more than whoever. And a lot of the stuff I want would make life better for all, employ more people and not actually be a burden. And I’m not alone in my desires and needs. Not even close to alone.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
….nudge nudge say no more Senator (Центральный федеральный округ)
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Edward Everett spoke for two hours at Gettysburg, Lincoln for two minutes.
Just sayin’.
Frankensteinbeck
If Sanders concedes anywhere close to graciously I will gain a great deal of respect for… Joe Biden. He will have gotten cooperation and built a coalition with one of the most self-absorbed, spitefully arrogant assholes on Capitol Hill. He will have done it by just being that god damn friendly and likable.
If, IF, the story is true and the concession happens, I will be agog and damned optimistic about the general election.
Mandalay
Trump has loved bragging about how the stock market has surged under his leadership, but sadly…
Kent
I’m not talking about voting in the primary. I’m talking about someone that politically engaged as to actually work in a progressive primary campaign and then be so sociopathic as to walk away and not vote in the general. Which is what everyone seems to think the Bernie dead-enders are going to do this year if they can’t have their “Tio Bernie”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Bernie probably thinks he’s better than Abraham Lincoln
Martin
@Suzanne: It’s not that Bernies supporters don’t vote. They do. It’s that Bernie’s supporters are 3x louder than anyone elses supporters so they seem 3x larger than they actually are. But when we count them up, it seems like only ⅓ showed up.
mrmoshpotato
@Frankensteinbeck: If Wilmer concedes, I’ll have to pick my jaw up off the floor.
If he graciously concedes, I’ll have to call 911 to be rushed to the ER to get my jaw reattached to my skull. “So your jaw just fell off of your head?” (nods and shrugs)
piratedan
filled out my ballot today for Joe… would have marked Warren or Harris if they had been in the race still, but things being what they are, I will vote for the actual Democrat. One additional reason, Biden surrounds himself with good people and he’s not just being supported by a left wing version of the echo chamber of the group actually in office.
Lets win the WH
Lets pad our House membership
Lets flip the Senate
Lets fix SCOTUS
and by all means, lets jail these criminal traitorous fucks
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
I was saying in one of the earlier threads today that several candidates (including Warren and Harris) started running before Bernie did and tried to run in that progressive space, but as soon as he started running, he sucked all of the air out of their campaigns because that space was “his” after 2016 and they were too afraid of alienating his followers to really challenge him on it. Not challenging him didn’t stop the nasty smears full of half-truths by his supporters, though. It was a no-win situation, as it often is with toxic narcissists.
smike
@Suzanne:
I’d like to be able to say, “I’m a graduate of Corona Beer High School.”
HumboldtBlue
Stephen Colbert was poignant tonight.
Morzer
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/status/1238178944131760129
opiejeanne
@Anne Laurie: Jeet Here annoys me. I followed him for a while because he was making the right noises about Trump, but then I noticed that he really has a poor understanding of how politics work in the US. And then he became obnoxious so I stopped following him. I only see him because some other people I follow like him, but I have no idea why. They’re actual Democrats, they’re not Bernie bros.
Fair Economist
@Morzer: I don’t know why she said that. There’s no way the numbers in Ohio could be anything like that. That’s about the upper range for the entire country in pessimistic forecasts.
opiejeanne
@Morzer: Yeesh! In Washington they were saying 1000 a couple of days ago, but someone else was saying it’s possibly 100,000 because it’s been here so long.
There’s a group of pneumonia deaths at that nursing home in Kirkland, I think they said 27 patients, who died earlier in February and late January, that they now suspect had the virus.
If this is correct and you add that to the 31 dead in the state that would indicate a much larger number of infected people. .
Morzer
@Fair Economist: I doubt she would have said it without some pretty strong evidence. Right now, the states and medical professionals are screaming for Trump to declare the coronavirus an emergency, which suggests alarming things about what they are seeing.
Calouste
The Australian minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, has been diagnosed with the corona virus. A week ago he was in Washington DC, meeting with, among others, Ivanka and Barr.
Combine that with CPAC and that Brazilian presidential aide that is infected, and it’s looking pretty unlikely that the shitgibbon will escape the corona virus. Or maybe someone around him already had it last week and they didn’t tell anyone.
Morzer
@Calouste: Are we sure that Plague Rat Donnie isn’t the coronavirus in semi-human form?
Morzer
Finally, some good news for John Mc… Cole:
https://twitter.com/lietzan/status/1237732700598878208
Chetan Murthy
@Morzer: SecondLife! SecondLife! SecondLife!
TS (the original)
Australia’s home affairs minister (who agrees with locking up asylum seekers and other issues that the US RW would agree with) has been diagnosed with coronavirus. He spent last week in the US & met with United States Attorney-General William Barr and US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka while in Washington DC.
No-one is immune, regardless of their claims to know it all.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton diagnosed with coronavirus
Morzer
@TS (the original): Dutton’s a really nasty piece of work. He’s the sort of guy who’d work for ICE for free, just because he enjoys abusing people of color.
Geminid
A Sanders fan on a site I call Common Screams: “I am beginning to think that we, as a nation, do not deserve Bernie Sanders.”
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Chetan Murthy: I liked the guy who suggested streaming on Twitch with Doom 2016 playing in the background. Although maybe I’d change that to A Plague Tale: Innocence.
Amir Khalid
@Geminid:
America certainly needs and deserves a better leader than Bernie.
satby
@Amir Khalid: Good evening Amir! I hope you’re doing well. How are things going on your part of the world?
TS (the original)
@Morzer: No argument from me. That he keeps getting elected says alot about the people who vote for him.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Well, SOME of it does. Unfortunately, there’s about 40 percent of America which says “We REALLY deserve to have someone who will try to kill us (indirectly), while telling us how wicked smaht we are, and certainly how much better we are than those ‘others.’ ”
[Side note: “Wicked smaht” is in a local (Boston area) dialect. Kind of like “I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd.” You probably already knew that.]
SFAW
@Morzer:
Are they like the Daleks? Or the Cybermen?
Geminid
@SFAW: “while telling us how wicked smaht we are, and certainly how much better we are than those ‘others.’ ” That street runs both ways.
SFAW
@Geminid:
Meaning … ?
Geminid
@SFAW: think about it.
SFAW
@Geminid:
Or — since your clever statement could be interpreted multiple ways — instead of playing games, you could just say what you meant.
Uncle Cosmo
I was “clean for Gene” as well, & let us remember (rather shamefacedly) we said as much or worse when, after McCarthy had done the hard work to show there was significant opposition to LBJ within his own party, Bobby Kennedy jumped into the race. Didn’t matter that Gene’s constituency was pretty much restricted to young, white & (over)educated, whereas RFK’s appeal was much broader & stood a decent chance of winning the day – he was an opportunist, a creep, a… We said a lot of things we came to regret after the night of the California primary…
I think most of us “learned better since.” Too many, unfortunately, learned only that it’s easy to say “share the wealth” when you have nothing to share. It’s completely natural for people to become more conservative as they age – in the literal sense of wanting to conserve what they’ve worked to acquire or develop. The problem is that what they want to keep is not always good in the context of the larger society.
In ’68 I was in the “not a dime’s worth of difference” camp (not that it mattered, too young to vote) up to mid-October, when I reluctantly concluded that whatever Hubert Humphrey’s faults, he was still a damsite better than Tricky Dick. But I have this Cassandra gene – I learn (or recognize) things faster than most folks & get crapped on (until they come around, when everyone forgets…). It took the rest of us another month to come around, & then it was too late. (IIUC received wisdom sez if the election had been a week later, Hubert would’ve won.)
The good-faith Sanders supporters will be very welcome if they come around in time to help save the friggin’ Republic
tam1MI
When Bernie’s people kept boasting about the “huge crowds” he attracted, I always thought it was the same crowd following him around the country like devoted Deadheads from back in the day.