It really isn’t 2016 anymore:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders endorsed Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy on Monday as he made a joint online appearance with the former vice president.
“I am asking all Americans, I’m asking every Democrat, I’m asking every independent, I’m asking a lot of Republicans to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse,” Sanders said.
“We’ve got to make Trump a one-term president,” Sanders added. “I will do all that I can to make that happen.”
Sanders dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination last week.
“We don’t have a choice, we’re going to have to come together,” Sanders said, “to work our way out of this crisis.”
I’ve had my moments of Bernie (and especially -bro) F&L. But credit to the man. He didn’t waste time on this go around, and he clearly understands what’s at stake.
The running commentary on the livestream he did (is doing?) with Biden was…predictable: the dead enders still hitting their marks (nothing Biden can say will ever be enough; nothing Sanders says is persuasive). But fuck’em*.
They’re irrelevant at this point.
This is what matters: Trump is killing Americans by word and deed, and will continue to do so until he’s carted out the Oval.
All hands on deck. It’s lead, follow or get the hell out of the way time. Kudos, sincerely, to Senator Bernie Sanders, for recognizing this urgency, and choosing to both lead and follow.
*Miss you still, e.f. goldman.
Image: Adolph von Menzel, Wellington and Blücher in the Battle of Waterloo, 1858
WereBear
We’re watching it now. So much unity. It’s great.
trollhattan
Frau Blücher? I don’t remember Wellington in “Young Frankenstein.”
Rallying around the candidate never seemed more important. Glad this is happening, and happening now and not after months more indecision.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Will the remaining primaries still be held? How doe this work?
Good for Bernie. Now to rustle the purity ponies.
Baud
I don’t think he deserves any more kudos than any other Dem politician who has endorsed Biden. I don’t want to reward him from making me have low expectations of him. But it’s a good thing, especially because his Bros were not letting up on the Biden attacks.
schrodingers_cat
Good for BS, I hope most of his followers follow the suit.
divF
I miss efg as well.
BC in Illinois
I just watched this.
Biden and Bernie staffers are already working together on six joint task-forces:
Economy, Health Care, Immigration, Climate Change, Criminal Justice, Education.
They should add Voting Rights.
(And then unite around Elizabeth Warren’s plans.)
Baud
@divF: Seconded.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Well said.
trollhattan
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):
I don’t know if there are any president-only primaries. Our June ballot had all sorts of races and even a couple propositions on it.
Fair Economist
Um, wow. Well, as always, you take every ally you can to fight fascism, and since Bernie’s main problem is that he hasn’t always been a good ally, this looks good! He’s far less obnoxious than a lot of NeverTrumpers we have to put up with.
I suspect Bernie knows as well as anybody that the limit on progressive reforms in 2021-22 is going to be the size of the Dem majority in Congress, and the better we unify the larger that will be.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): Some of those primaries include choosing candidates for offices other than the presidency, so those would have to be held. I don’t know what the requirements are for any that might be only presidential. I guess you have to choose delegates anyway?
germy
Mary G
Bravo both Bernie and Biden for recognizing the moment and being willing to adapt and change despite being really old white men.
cain
@BC in Illinois:
Yes, all that.
But also we need to fix the media, they have been running havoc over everything and media consolidation needs to stop and they need to be broken up. They have turned into right wing noise machines and it must end. (Sinclair especially, not sure about Fox News)
This virus is going to kill their viewership since it is all mis-information, they are going to have to do a course correction if they want to survive this year.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m spitefully imaging a drunken, weepy zoom between David Sirota, Briahna Grey and Michael Moore.
different-church-lady
The meltdown on Rose Twitter is gonna be a sight.
cain
@different-church-lady:
rose twitter?
ETA: never mind – democratic socialist twitter – yeah, they’ve been pretty emo.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
I long for the days when we can discuss monumental events, like telephone metadata.
AxelFoley
@Baud:
Baud speaks for me on this.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: We are going to see all their big hits in the fall campaign, just like we did in 2016.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Why can’t I look away from this? Why is my freude so damn schaden?
schrodingers_cat
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Or what a hero Snowden was and the saga Chelsea Manning.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
That said, I doubt the Wilmeristas are going to let up on Joe even if they are given time. I would be pleasantly surprised if they did, but maturity has not been their strong point so far.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
True. But now we can throw Bernie back in their faces without offending the “good” Bernie supporters.
different-church-lady
Please specifically ask your own campaign staff as well.
We need to hope so. A lot of them are clearly ready to go scorched earth with extreme prejudice, and we cannot assume they won’t do any real damage. We need to hit it square in the jaw and drop it early.
Brachiator
@Baud:
This alone is worth a great deal. Sanders himself kicked the leg out from under the whining Berniebros. Of course now they will have to insist that Biden must adopt all of Bernie’s positions.
But now it’s time to start working on getting out the vote. And in a post pandemic world, early voting and making election day a holiday should happen in all the states.
ETA: Also, where is Warren’s endorsement?
James E Powell
I’m going to say this once and then never again. If only he’d done this in 2016.
Okay. Done.
germy
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
Ahem. It is their Schade (misfortune) that brings you Freude (joy).
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@germy: Shorter: “why hasn’t Biden hired me”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
meanwhile, a first term House representative from a navy blue district is letting it be known that the candidate who won swing state primaries by a 2-1 margin and who puts key electoral college states back in play is not being sufficiently deferential to her feelings
every time I think she’s showing signs of maturity, she does something like this
Geoboy
An issue that hasn’t been raised yet, but which really needs attention, is that if Trump loses, the period inbetween the election and the inauguration is going to be an orgy of looting, appointment of hundreds of manifestly unfit judges, and destruction of property, records of crimes and institutions unlike anything in our history as a country. The Democratic Party needs to be prepared to get in there at 12:01 am on November 4th to prevent as much of this as possible and save the records that will enable prosecution, conviction, imprisonment and compensation for damages for the rest.
trollhattan
@germy:
That’s one pure pony right there.
different-church-lady
@germy:
OMFG, they’re all going with, “This was never about Bernie, this is about how evil the democratic establishment is, NEVER BIDEN!!!”
They’re all just admitting it was about hating democrats all along.
Jeffro
Joe Walsh(!) thanking Bernie(!!) on Twitter(!!!) for endorsing Joe Biden(!!!!) in early April(!!!!!) is, um, well that’s a LOT of exclamation points peeps ?
fight hard, never assume we have this in hand, but whew I’d rather be us than the trumpublicans
Kent
@AxelFoley: Me too. What the fuck else do we expect from Sanders? This would only be news if he refused.
Jeffro
@Geoboy: agreed. Need to put them on notice, publicly and repeatedly, that there WILL be prosecutions
Lapassionara
@germy: Why is it that her tweets always sound like they are essentially saying “you’re not the boss of me” just before the Oompa-Loompa’s carry her off?
sdhays
@Baud: You’re just bitter because he didn’t endorse you. Did your people even take his calls??
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: well, we can’t hold Bernie responsible for what
random emo nineteen year-olds on twitter(checks notes… oh) the person he hired to be his top media representative might saytrollhattan
@Jeffro:
It’s the Rocky Mountain Way.
Brachiator
@cain:
Broken up? Have you missed the increasingly rapid death of the newspaper and magazine industry over the past 15 years?
There is not much left to break up anymore.
I think that iHeart media is collapsing under the weight of previous bad deals.
But yeah, I would like to see something done about Sinclair.
I am not sure what can be done to Murdoch’s global empire.
WereBear
@Geoboy: Yes! Expect the worst. Because they will.
different-church-lady
These are the kinds of people we’re supposed to court and coddle:
trollhattan
@Lapassionara:
Now that there is funny! Oompa Loompas are everywhere with all this Easter candy in the house.
Elizabelle
To some extent, the Bernie Bros are a mirror image of Trump’s steadfast deplorables. So, they are something to work around and outvote. They will definitely try to poison the water. There are more of us, if we vote (and that’s we citizens; know Juicers vote enthusiastically).
I could not care less what Briana whatever thinks or tweets. She’s a deplorable; she can whinge all she wants.
We can move forward without the Bros. If we can make common ground with the more reachable ones, great. Do it.
Otherwise, fuck ’em. Why let them live in our heads? Enough other stuff going on. (Or not going on …)
dmsilev
@germy: A commenter over at LG&M found a tweet from some Bernie supporter pushing Briahna as a primary challenger for Warren’s Senate seat. That’d be kind of amusing to watch.
Amir Khalid
@Geoboy:
I’m not sure what can be done about that. The only way to strip sore-loser Trump of the power to really fuck things up for POTUS-elect Biden is impeachment. And I can’t see that happening in the three months between election day and inauguration.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think we can all agree that he’s just so dreamy.
MisterForkbeard
@cain: I’m reading the Twitter replies. they’re now saying that this was so hard for Bernie to do, and they’re proud of him and they wont vote for Biden anyway because real Americans just have it so hard right now.
No, it doesn’t make any sense. They’re who we thought they were.
JMG
Sanders did the right thing and should be praised for it. For all the crap Biden gets, much of it deserved, he certainly seems to excel at coalition building within his party.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: LOL! I wouldn’t want to be on that call, but I sure love the thought of it happening!
sdhays
@germy: Is this someone I should know?
piratedan
if nothing else, it helps establish distance between Sanders the candidate and those who consistently were the biggest offenders of allowing unity and comity on the Left to take place. I really had no issues with the ideas that Sanders was driving for, but Warren is the one who actually did the survey work to show how we might get there versus “something, something, Medicare 4 All”.
I am glad that this will finally expose those most histrionic members of Rose Twitter for what they are, and perhaps now that they can no longer “speak” for their preferred candidate, we can watch them spin and sputter or they can actually join the effort and stop treating the incremental good as the worst possible evil.
Elizabelle
Jane Mayer has a new article up in The New Yorker.
How Mitch McConnell Became Trump’s Enabler-in-Chief
The Senate Majority Leader’s refusal to rein in the President is looking riskier than ever.
MisterForkbeard
@germy: Oh look, she’s still a terrible fucking human being.
germy
@sdhays:
National Press Secretary for the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign?
L85NJGT
@MisterForkbeard:
GOP and Russian trolls?
Will any of our sea lions return?
mrmoshpotato
Nope. Fuck ’em. He could’ve done this in May 2016 when it was obvious that voters were going to continue beating him like a rented mule by voting for Hillary instead of someone most people hadn’t heard of in 2014 and only yelled about INCOME INEQUALITY!
It’s horseshit that he gets with the fucking program, reads the writing on the wall, etc now that Dump has gone from a potential threat to a very active, massively destructive force.
Could’ve nipped this in the bud years ago – and not had decades of a stolen Supreme Court seat and a blackout-drunk college rapist.
I guess I can take solace in Joe Biden having a cock between his legs. Oh wait, to hell with that.
sdhays
@germy: Please tell me you’re joking.
gene108
Read somewhere that Bernie doesn’t have animosity to Joe, because Joe was nice to him, when Bernie was an unknown junior Senator.
Says something about both men.
Emma from FL
So the boys played nice with other boys, but the girls all had cooties? Screw him. I’m not in the mood to cheer.
And if you think that the imbeciles will actually follow their leader, I have a bridge for sale. Over the Tacoma Narrows.
germy
MattF
Only IMO, but I think the NeverTrumpers who insist that this has to be a referendum on Trump have had an effect. I don’t trust Rick Wilson at all, but he’s been right.
Mike in NC
Better to have the Sanders people inside our tent, pissing out, than having them outside, pissing in.
germy
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Have you checked your email lately? :-)
Steeplejack (phone)
@different-church-lady:
That guy’s Twitter profile says he lives in England! Fuck him.
BruceFromOhio
@germy:
Utmost, yeah, hardly, BJG. I hope your respect kept its receipts, its been damaged on delivery.
Gaia I hate the twatters and what it hath wrought. Fiery bright burning stoopid at the speed of light, every fucking where.
Good for you, Senator Sanders. Please continue the conversations, in spite of your idiot supporters. I see you, Warren and Biden standing shoulder to shoulder and leading the way.
HRA
Google Justice Democrats for more information.
mrmoshpotato
@MisterForkbeard: “I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten for days.”
“I can make you a sandwich. Would you like turkey or ham?”
“I want a New York strip done medium rare and a couple of lobster tails.”
david
“They’re irrelevant at this point.”
LOL. The last time I read someone call their opposition “irrelevant” on this blog
was in late 2008/2009, when a certain Front Pager posted a long message calling
all Republicans and their sycophants “irrelevant”. It was quite the celebration.
And, then, two years later, the GOP took the house in a Red Tsunami.
Six years later, they took the Senate.
Eight years later, Trump.
And they never lost the Courts.
So be careful with that particular word, “irrelevant”.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thank you. Just checked, and I’d missed it.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Thanks.
Gin & Tonic
Nice shout-out to efg. IIRC, a year ago today (or maybe tomorrow) was his memorial.
MisterForkbeard
@L85NJGT: Our sea lions left?
mrmoshpotato
@Emma from FL: Does it still know how to dance?
different-church-lady
Loomis sums things up nicely:
The Moar You Know
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The woman is not an asset to the party. Quite the opposite. We need all hands on deck and she’s in makeup getting ready for her next presser.
She needs to be primaried out.
Miss Bianca
@sdhays:
Sadly, no.
whomever
Off topic, but what’s the painting at the top? I don’t recognize it…
Hungry Joe
News from the swing-state front — the reaction from my Bernie Bros relatives: Bernie made a mistake when he endorsed Hillary in ‘16, and he’s making a mistake now. We won’t vote for a rapist — who’s also a racist, warmongering, Wall Street puppet.
Unreachable. Let ‘em go, I say. Waste of time and psychic energy.
Kent
He KNEW that’s who she was when he hired her. Yet he still put her in charge. I know it’s water under the bridge at this point. But example 6593 as to why he was unfit for the presidency.
BruceFromOhio
@Emma from FL:
That was some kind of physics experiment! Aeroelasticity, harmonic coupling and resonance frequencies, oh my!
Kent
You were expecting different?
mrmoshpotato
@MisterForkbeard: Yup. All of our sea lions art art arted away.
Nora Lenderbee
@James E Powell:
Fuckem. Fuckem fuckem fuckem.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: her, Sirota, Nina Turner. Michael Moore and Cornel West aren’t on his payroll, but they’re probably his top non-paid surrogates. I like Chris Hayes but his failure to ever challenge Bernie, in what seems like their weekly one-on-ones, on the toxicity he cultivates is a real failing.
Miss Bianca
@different-church-lady: Goddammit, I *never* agree with Loomis! What the hell is he doing sounding all pragmatical and shit!
MisterForkbeard
@mrmoshpotato: “And if you don’t make me my strip steak and lobster tails you are the devil” is also a useful end to the story.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan:
Yes. RI holds a “Presidential preference” primary in April and a primary for State and local offices in September.
mrmoshpotato
@The Moar You Know: Yup. And fuck everyone else who booed Hillary too.
Kent
Really? Exactly what enduring thing have they built that will influence American life for the better?
mrmoshpotato
@Hungry Joe: So happy to be fighting fascists and wingnut lefties again! Feels like 2016!
germy
@whomever:
Image: Adolph von Menzel, Wellington and Blücher in the Battle of Waterloo, 1858
Brachiator
@Kent:
RE: News from the swing-state front — the reaction from my Bernie Bros relatives: Bernie made a mistake when he endorsed Hillary in ‘16, and he’s making a mistake now. We won’t vote for a rapist — who’s also a racist, warmongering, Wall Street puppet.
This may get ugly in unexpected ways. These fools probably don’t want to say this shit in public. I know some people who see what Trump is doing and have no patience for these people and their phony purity bullshit.
Elizabelle
@germy: Yeah, when I first peeked, I thought it was Appomattox but … earlier in the century.
Miss Bianca
@mrmoshpotato:
Hell, feels more like 1933 for some of us!
mrmoshpotato
@MisterForkbeard: “And a neoliberal corporate whore!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: I often describe myself as a bloodless pragmatist, and from that perspective I get what Schatz is saying and I agree. But I am so. fucking. sick of telling the precious children (like the 65 YO Michael Moore and the 70 YO Susan Sarandon) that they’re special and brilliant and they’ve changed the world.
For all the braying about “Medicare For All”, we’ll be very lucky to get Biden’s (admittedly too modest) proposals about Medicare expansion and a public option through the Senate. Pretty much where we were twelve years ago when Bernie’s biggest audience was Thom Hartmann’s listeners (AKA, 47 people and those like me who were too lazy to change the preset button on the car radio when Al Franken quit Air America– remember Air America?)
8 man shell
Maybe Warren will finally endorse Biden now, too.
Her dead-end supporters are annoying as any Bernie Bros, that’s for damn sure.
mrmoshpotato
@Miss Bianca: Point taken.
ETA – sorry, that sounded too dismissive. Didn’t mean it that way.
different-church-lady
@mrmoshpotato: Not happy about the second part at all.
Hungry Joe
@Kent: No, I was expecting that, exactly. But it’s still a gut punch. These are actually very smart, very nice people — they just followed some threads down a rabbit hole and ended up entangled, crazed. Unfathomable, but there it is. Or rather, there they are.
What’s especially odd, and dizzying, is that policy-wise we agree on just about everything; I’m easily as far left as they are. And yet, and yet …
8 man shell
@Brachiator:
Yeah, even if Biden did rape that one woman, Trump has raped far more.
Eyes on the prize, people!
Brachiator
@8 man shell:
Warren has supporters?
ETA: I voted for Warren in the California primary
jl
This is very good news. As for the social media haters, both for and against Sanders and Biden. Do we really know who a lot of them are? I’m sure some of them are US born and bred idiots, since they are public figures. But we do know Russia is going to try to throw the election. Sowing dissension in Democratic ranks is just as important as supporting his favorite in the WH, and favorites in the GOP.
Edit: so best approach to anonymous social media haters is ridicule and shunning, as people deem appropriate.
joel hanes
@germy:
Briahna Joy Gray and rose are now irrelevant.
Amplifying their voices only serves the “Dems in disarray” narrative.
For myself: good for Sen. Sanders, and may most of his supporters join us in saving the nation from the Republican vandals.
Elizabelle
Don’t take the bait, peeps.
Hit that pie filter. You too could be looking at sweet CatCake or PupCake or Duck.in.a.red.scarfCake. Will charm you and not kill any brain cells.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady: I’m not happy about either part! :)
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle: Spoilsport.
8 man shell
@Brachiator:
Yeah, she does. The sane ones (like me) have moved on to Biden. The less sane ones have busied themselves playing identity politics by alternatively agitating for a properly-costumed VP for Biden without doing diddly squat to support the Biden campaign or just carping about what might have been.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: Yeah. Mainly because I found myself erasing a response because … why get into it.
I do love those PetCakes.
Baud
@joel hanes:
Exactly. Everyone should remember how close Hillary came to overcoming everything and how much weaker the vichy left is now than they were in 2016, and then take a deep breadth and chill.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: Stupid calories in cheesecake.
Mmmmmm cheesecake.
Brachiator
@8 man shell:
My apologies. I mistook you for a serious commenter.
The Thin Black Duke
@8 man shell: Goodbye.
mvr
Except the quoted executive summary doesn’t really capture what it sounds like she said from the excerpt I saw. This didn’t sound so bad to me:
joel hanes
@different-church-lady:
These are the kinds of people we’re supposed to court and coddle:
Those are the kinds of people you’re supposed to ignore.
They’re like that one problem kid in a class of 32 fourth-graders who cannot understand social signals. If you pay attention to them, others do too: their opposition becomes the narrative, and they are rewarded.
Stop paying attention to their shenanigans, and suddenly they’re all alone. Same as pie-filtering a troll.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Is it a minute into Biden’s presidency?
Elizabelle
@mrmoshpotato: The cherry pie and the strawberry whipped cream cake look crazy good too.
8 man shell
@Brachiator:
No worries. There’s plenty of room for stragglers on the Biden train.
You can get this cool shirt on his website and hopefully it will be updated whenever Warren gets around to endorsing: https://store.joebiden.com/joe-beto-amy-pete-mike-cory-kamala-and-me-unisex-black-tee/
You can donate here: https://joebiden.com/
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator: Pupcake!
Baud
@mrmoshpotato: Worry about more important things, then.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: Mmmmmmmm.
joel hanes
@trollhattan:
It’s better than the way we had.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV218WhFA6g
The Thin Black Duke
@joel hanes: Ms. Gray hasn’t realized yet that her messiah has just tossed her and the rest of the gang underneath the bus because they’re not useful to him anymore. No, I’m not surprised that Bernie endorsed Biden because he sees which way the wind is blowing now and Bernie always does what’s best for Bernie.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Baud! 2020! it is!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mvr:
“but”, like “I just” is often an unconscious confession. Twitter Kaleesi wants bent knees.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Baud! 202
04!: The primarying.Kent
Warren supporters (like me) are actual Democrats. It was never a question. Not one of us is waiting for the bat signal from Warren to decide who to support.
different-church-lady
@joel hanes: This is a fine line: we can ignore tantrums and demands for attention, if that’s all they amount to. But this cycle we absolutely cannot ignore any real scorched-earth damage they attempt. Being swift-boated from the left can be just as bad as from the right.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mvr:
“I want to respect his win”. Another unconscious confession, to wit “I’m an asshole”
“he won because of his coalition building”. Um… yeah. Maybe make a note of that, learn from it?
and Biden actually did win because people don’t fucking want BernieCare.
Baud
@different-church-lady: Agree. Important caveat. Fight the slander, but there’s is no need to obsess over generalized grousing.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Joy Gray is showing every sign of being pro-active in kneecapping Biden. And she has the tools needed to push the bullshit up into the conventional wisdom. Do not underestimate the cable news’ addiction to putting on a freak show.
Kent
What makes me crazy and disgusted with the Bernie folks is that they simultaneously believe that:
(1) Incrementally shifting the Overton window to the left on policy conversations like health care is a MAJOR accomplishment, but
(2) Actual incremental legislative accomplishments like the ACA are a a sell-out.
I can’t fathom a world in which incremental leftward changes in the policy “conversation” are seen as greater accomplishments than actual permanent incremental leftward changes in policy. Yet that is the world that the Bernie-sphere has created.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As someone we know pointed out, she’s a first-term backbencher. Is her endorsement of anyone significant?
Chyron HR
@germy:
So she thinks Biden is senile, a rapist, and possibly dead, but she’ll support him if she thinks he’ll give her stuff?
Kent
If the election is going to be won or lost in the NY 14th District then it might be significant. Somehow I don’t think that is going to be the battleground in 2020.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: It’s a bit unfair. She has a following, and every vote helps.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
I, for one, would sport a “Bartenders for Biden” shirt.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: In the end, AOC will get with the program because besides being very intelligent, she’s also very ambitious. I don’t expect her to choose being irrelevant.
different-church-lady
@germy:
Concessions. Not “adopting liberal policies.” Not “working with the progressive wing.” Concessions.
Everything is conflict with these people.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke: I agree.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady:
Conflict that ends in their graciously (ETA: or not so graciously) accepting other people’s surrender, and that’s what I see in that AOC interview. I agree that she’s intelligent, but I sometimes wonder if she’s ever spoken to any House colleague who’s even a millimeter to her right. I’ve seen her be smart and impressive, most notably in hearings, but I stand by my assessment of remarkable immaturity for a thirty YO
Kent
Agreed. AOC torpedoing the election in the manner of say Susan Sarandon is not one of my worries. When the bandwagon starts up she will be on it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: I finished the last of my cheesecake on Sat. night, I haz a sad.
Brachiator
@Kent:
That’s why I indicated that I had voted for her. I have no interest in dissing her in any way. I was actually surprised that she did not do well in the primaries.
I kinda wish that she had endorsed Biden early on, but it is not a big deal.
The main thing is that the Democrats come together and defeat Trump.
Kent
Permanent change in this country starts and ends with Congress. AOC is in Congress, as is Bernie. They have as much or more agency to affect change as Biden does. In fact, arguably, Sanders has MORE power to push M4A forward as a Senator than he would have as a President. If he can’t convince the 60th Senator (probably Rand Paul) to vote for M4A as a Senator, what makes him think he can do so as a President?
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
I will drink to that!
cmorenc
@Geoboy:
This may turn out to be an angle the Trump Admin truly has to fear about the NSA and other career parts of the government Trump labels as the “deep state” – they probably have securely safe records about lots of areas where, if revealed, Trump & political-level officials would be exposed to prosecution. That may not include records on or prevent lots of the purely domestic-side looting, but the answer to the iconic question in the movie “Marathon Man” – “Is it safe” may turn out to be “NO!” for the Trump Admin post-office.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator:
Perfect!
The Thin Black Duke
AOC has to be very careful and not let what happened to Bernie happen to her. It’s easy to float inside a golden bubble lovingly constructed by your faithful disciples and listen to nothing but them singing your praises all day long, every day. A dealer never wants to get high on their own supply. Be a politician, not a Messiah.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cmorenc: I would love to see trump and many other people go to jail, but I think the likelihood of prosecutions, much less successful convictions, is pretty low.
Belafon
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): There are other candidates and offices on the primary ballots. The president one is just less relevant now. But we will have to replace the competition with GOTV.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
lol
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just to be clear as the thread moves downstream: the thing I quoted was from Joy Gray, not AOC.
AOC is a mixed bag, and most of what’s in there is probably good. Joy Gray is proving herself to be a very very dumb, vindictive, and corrosive person.
senyordave
Headline from “This Week”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t ready to endorse Joe Biden
From the story:
Ocasio-Cortez told The New York Times that it’s basically up to Biden to get a full-fledged endorsement from her, noting that she would like to see him commit more fully to a progressive agenda, rather than to simply hedge a little more to the left on certain issues.
I guess she’s banking on the great amount of leverage she has. I would guess that the number of people who won’t vote for Biden without an AOC endorsement is probably, at most, in double digits (and single digits outside of New York).
She really is pretty impressed with herself.
janesays
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): Yes, the primaries will still be held, in part because Biden hasn’t technically clinched the nomination yet – he’s still a few hundred delegates away from the number required to guarantee a majority. Also, delegates do have a say in how the party platform is put together, and I’m sure the people in states that haven’t voted yet probably want some representation in that matter.
Primaries still happen even when the nominee is already determined. The Democrats held primaries in 2012 (that nearly nobody participated in), even though it was known long before they even began that Obama would be the nominee.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Bummer.
I made shells and meat sauce last night. And garlic bread. :)
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid: c’mon…she’s far more than that…
mrmoshpotato
@Kent: But SPW with a bat signal would be awesome. Not for political messaging, just a bat signal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: right, AOC’s language isn’t as obnoxious as Gray’s , but the attitude is at least very similar, as is the odd electoral math they seem to share, that 30% of the Democratic Party must (and can) carry the day (and the Electrical College), because their hearts are pure
Another Scott
Good for Bernie, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
It IS just as bad, because from purity asshole left or fascist shitpile right, it means 4 more years of Putin’s Puppet the pussy-grabbing Soviet shitpile mobster conman and his shitpile crime syndicate.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hahaha, well put.
Tom Levenson
@whomever: It’s the moment at the Battle of Waterloo when the two allied commanders, the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshall Blücher meet as victors over Napoleon.
Subsole
@germy: Hasan’s schadenfreude should perhaps be tempered by the fact he spent a sizable chunk of effort and time stoking that resentment he is currently sneering at…
That said, I am pleasantly and cautiously surprised; people seem to be coming together.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: Madame wanted spaghetti, so we had spaghetti and garlic bread.
Raven Onthill
@James E Powell: “If only he’d done this in 2016.”
He did.
Kent
There are other candidates and issues on many of the primary ballots besides the Dem Nomination. They still need to move forward regardless. The WI Supreme Court seat was actually the driving factor in that primary last week, not the presidential race.
Subsole
@Geoboy: Seriously. Do we need to call some offices, send our reps letters?
I mean it when I say those whorehouse mop-buckets-that-walk like-people are going to sell state secrets. They might even give it away, just out of spite.
Raven Onthill
Me, writing to a Bernie or buster.
…and the person I wrote that to objected that it was a personal attack.
Raven Onthill
In the end, Sanders is loyal and sincerely hates fascism. I wish I could say the same about more elected officials.
Subsole
@Kent: They get paid for conversation. Not results.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Raven Onthill: too bad he didn’t hate it more 2016
Subsole
@8 man shell:
Hey.
Pull my finger.
Mnemosyne
As a certified Bernie Hater, I welcome him to the team and hope he can take some satisfaction in doing his part to beat Trump like a drum in November.
Now we get to see how many of his online supporters are real voters who just needed this permission and how many were ratfuckers hiding behind Bernie’s slogans.
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Since your name is all about being literal, maybe you want to repeat what she actually said.
1. She is supporting the Dem nominee. No caveats.
2. She feels Biden may wind up being uncomfortable with what progressives demand…but also that progressives may be uncomfortable too, because that’s what happens when you hammer out compromises on key points of difference.
3. She never talked to Biden– her bad. Ergo Biden never spoke to her. His bad. It is also bad when the record shows that a first time Rep is as big/small a person in reaching out as the 50-year veteran famed for his ability to work across the aisle.
4. She will think about a joint rally. Maybe Joe needs to pick up the phone and ask. Just common courtesy, neh?
5. Medicare at 60 is a step backward from what Hillary proposed. Perhaps not “literally” a near-insult, but come on. Let’s allow that she might be happier when the task force goes one better.
I tire of the many otherwise astute commentators here who disparage AOC. She is one of if not the top public figures among elected progressives. I understood the disdain when she backed the dread Wilmer, but maybe it is time to forget past grudges and look to the future.
janesays
I agree with the sentiment, but… where exactly is it that they’re supposed to get into at 12:01am on November 4th? The White House? Good luck with that.
The president-elect doesn’t immediately have access to the entire West Wing the day after the election, and Trump will in fact still be president for another 2.5 months after the election. There are going to be some unfortunate constraints during that lame duck period where Trump will still legally wield the power to obstruct an awful lot. It’s the whole, “we only have one president at a time” principle…