So grateful to have had @MauriceWFP with me at our Washington Square Park event. @WorkingFamilies has been on the front line of the fight for racial and economic justice, and I'm honored to have their support. We're going to build this grassroots movement together. pic.twitter.com/WMxCY62IZF
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) September 20, 2019
Tip O’Neill always warned candidates not to neglect the voters who could be assumed to be on their side: People like to be asked.
Elaine Godfrey, at the Atlantic:
In 2016, Bernie Sanders described the Working Families Party (WFP), a grassroots progressive organization, as “the closest thing there is” to his “vision of democratic socialism.” The group endorsed him in his primary race against Hillary Clinton, and it’s grown more powerful in the past three years, as it has sought to build a multiracial populist movement nationwide. But this time around, with Sanders taking another shot for the White House, the group is throwing its weight behind someone else: Elizabeth Warren. The group’s surprising decision could be an early indicator of how progressives—including those who backed Sanders in the past—are planning to organize and vote next year.
“The political conditions are different” in this election, Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the WFP, told me earlier this week, after the group announced that Warren defeated Sanders in a vote of WFP members and leadership, earning 61 percent compared to Sanders’s 36 percent. Unlike in 2016, there is more than one progressive candidate in the race to choose from, Mitchell said. Warren “has a track record of finding that nexus between visionary structural change and also the tools to operationalize it.”
Mitchell’s reasoning echoed the sentiments of other progressive voters I’ve spoken with recently. They have affection for Sanders and appreciate what he’s done for the movement, as roughly one dozen voters explained to me this week. But Warren, they argued, is proffering a kinder, gentler version of progressivism—one that is rooted in her experience, simple to understand, and compelling enough to attract a broad swath of voters.
“She’s everything Bernie is—but a bit more electable,” said Joe Piluso, a 71-year-old former Sanders supporter and former social-services worker living in San Diego…
For many of the voters I spoke with for this story, their preference for Warren boils down to one core conclusion: She’s likable. I heard the same thing in July at Netroots Nation, an annual convention for progressive activists, where the cardigan-wearing former public-school teacher was the clear 2020 favorite. “I really feel like she would throw herself in front of a bus for us,” one attendee told me at the time. “There’s nobody who’s more earnest.”Barbara Helmick, the director of programs at DC Vote, an organization advocating for Washington, D.C., statehood, told me this week that she feels a connection to Warren. “There’s a level of warmth and confidence and just such true passion that it really inspires me in a way that none of the other candidates do,” Helmick said. Sanders, by contrast, has developed a reputation as the prickly grandfather of the progressive movement, constantly finger-wagging and shouting himself hoarse. “He’s very strong and didactic and opinionated,” said Linda Day, a 78-year-old retiree from Houston. But while she supported Sanders in 2016, she now views him as a “polarizing figure.”…
For the WFP’s part, Warren’s candidacy has been a long time coming. Though the group endorsed Sanders in 2016, it only did so after an unsuccessful push to draft Warren into the race. “Warren has always been a dream candidate for progressives,” says Heather McGhee, the former president of the progressive think tank Demos. She views the WFP, with its wide-ranging network of grassroots activists, as a bellwether for the organizing base of the left. If she’s right, Sanders and his supporters could be faced with disappointing news this spring.
“I think Bernie is Moses,” said Day, the former Sanders supporter, with a chuckle. “He’s led progressives to the promised land, but I don’t see him crossing over and being president.”
Thank you to everyone who passed me a note in the selfie line in New York City—they mean the world to me. pic.twitter.com/adfH8In2lq
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) September 19, 2019
Senator Elizabeth Warren: "Yeah, I was there [on the selfie line] four hours, but I'll tell you what: so was the last guy in line." pic.twitter.com/YCs5xYV9vO
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) September 18, 2019
This is good and interesting. Though, for Warren, the more important constituency in her rise hasn't been converting ex Sanders supporters, but old Hillary supporters who were skeptical of progressive agenda just last cycle. A much bigger pothttps://t.co/G6G73Gede5
— Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) September 20, 2019
Read @danielmarans on how @ewarren out-politicked @BernieSanders to get the Working Families Party endorsement. https://t.co/9zfuZxllXI
— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) September 19, 2019
Amir Khalid
So Sanders was their second choice in 2016, after Elizabeth Warren who wasn’t running; and now that she is running, WFP is all like, “Bernie who?” Ouch.
laura
David Sirota’s next Gaurdian article’s gonna be a mean one.
RepubAnon
Plus, Elizabeth Warren is a Democrat, not an outsider who switches to Democrat purely to qualify for the primaries, then switches back. If you want to be involved with a political party, you should join that party.
MattF
Fact is that Warren is a better candidate than Sanders. Her appeal was muffled by the media circus, but it’s coming through now.
columbusqueen
So Warren actually has political skills & Wilmer doesn’t. Color me not surprised.
Frankensteinbeck
Okay, so, people making a decision with their gut who don’t actually know what their reasoning is. I think the Warren vs Sanders divide is separating out the actual leftists from the ratfuckers who only care about destroying the Democratic Party from within. I am happy with this. The reason I particularly hate Sanders is that he made it his mission to turn the former into the latter in 2016, and has been trying to do it for 2020. If Warren can show the young idealists that the Democratic Party is their friend and not the enemy who’s actually blocking all good things, I applaud her.
(This is an issue of strong sentiment for me, because every time I see a tweet about something horrible the Republicans have done, there is always a set of responders who immediately blame Democrats. It makes me want to punch someone, and I am rarely moved to anger.)
dlwchico
Warren seems like the only candidate who is running out of a sense of duty. I think she sees the office as a task, a job that needs to be done, a service performed for the American people.
Most of the rest seem, for the most part, people that want to be President, for one reason or another.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Because a great many people vote for affect, not policy. For most of the last six months, second-choice polls showed Sanders voters 2nd choice being Biden’s voters picked Sadners as their number two. Polls have showed some shift in that recently, I think
Aimai
Can’t believe Steadman thinks HRC voters were too conservative and needed to be persuaded to vote Warren. Bernie wasn’t rejected first time because he was too radical but because he wasn’t presidential.
trollhattan
@RepubAnon:
Yup. Sanders was a dash of needed spice in the ’16 campaign but doesn’t really have a purpose in ’20, beyond promoting his own brand. No doubt he’ll at some point claim the Dem primary is rigged for people who are in fact not Democrats, to which I would reply, “pity.”
dr. bloor
@Amir Khalid:
And predictably, the Bernistas are acting like Warren stole his birthright in a “rigged” process.
Frankensteinbeck
@Aimai:
HRC was the most liberal major party candidate in living memory. Sanders was to the left of her on a few economic issues, but not very far to the left, while she had him smoked on social issues. But hey, the ‘triangulating Clintons’ narrative was set, she didn’t scream about how rich people are evil, and reporting on her positions would be dull when there was an email server to imagine stories about. During primary and general election, hardly anyone seemed to know anything Hillary was running on.
Juice Box
It’s about time that we had a grandmother in charge.
ThresherK
OT: Man City leading Watford by (check cultural references) a touchdown in the 65th minute.
trollhattan
@Frankensteinbeck:
Also the most prepared. Was there an issue, any issue, she had not considered and crafted a position on?
I’d hear these Cletus safari interviews again and again when a reporter failed to challenge their interviewee on, “I haven’t heard a peep out of Hillary on X” when, in fact not only had she campaigned on it there would be an entire damn section of her website dedicated to X. It still infuriates me. Don’t do political field reporting if you’re not fully educated on the goddamn topic. Push back when people are lying or ill-informed. Or is that just toooo darn hard?
Aimai
Oh, look, the system remembers me! If I don’t have to reenter my info every time maybe I will go back to posting.
germy
germy
@Aimai: I always enjoy your comments.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: oh god, not just the Cletii, the “progressives” too. “What’s she going to for working people?” “Well, here’s her plan for expanding childcare/early education/family leave/health insurance…” “WALL STREET!”
Baud
Always nice to hear about progressives turning away from darkness.
Amir Khalid
@Aimai:
It remembers you for about half an hour; after that, your nym and email address disappear.
Baud
@Aimai:
It doesn’t stick, but the new site is coming soon.
MattF
@Frankensteinbeck: @trollhattan: Republicans were well aware they were dead meat if the election actually turned on policy or on what voters wanted. If you’re complaining that politics isn’t fair, you’re on your way to losing.
Baud
Not linking, but FYI.
opiejeanne
@Aimai: Good. You are too rarely here.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Oh God. “Concerns were raised.”
“Warren’s thuggish manipulation of activists raises questions”
“Does Warren believe anything?”
opiejeanne
@Baud: Is that the beginning of the “rigged” accusations from Wilmer’s fans?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: reminds me of this from the latest “Obama could have gotten a bigger stimulus if he really waaaahnted it“, which for some bizarre reason Fahrad Manjoo chose to write and the NYT chose to print
(Wells Fargo) trust-fund emo-boy Matty Stoller is an “anti-monopoly scholar”. It’s the Purity Pony version of “Historian Bill O’Reilly….” or “Constitutional scholar Patrick J Buchanan”
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Now I want to punch someone.
mrmoshpotato
@Frankensteinbeck:
Oh shit. A group? How many times has Chuck Todd cloned himself? (Totally right on that set of responders.)
debbie
Overlook that it came from you-know-where and listen to this half-hour podcast covering Warren’s Washington Square rally last week. I started listening with low expectations, but it’s got both excellent reporting and analysis and no judginess.
Rusty
@opiejeanne: Beginning? My Sanders obsessed in laws were screaming rigged within hours of the announcement. The WFP made clear that believe Warren can actually get something done. For me it boils down to when Warren sees a problem, she starts looking for a solution. With Sanders, he starts looking for someone to blame.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There’s a Dunning School for leftists.
Amir Khalid
@ThresherK:
It’s 8-0 now. Watfrd have been the big disappointment of the new season. People were really hoping they could fight their way into the group behind the top two.
Kathleen
@Frankensteinbeck: Everything you said. Warren is not my first choice but I would support her if she were the nominee (I would not vote for Bernie). Also, I am very grateful to her for hastening the demise of St. Slanders.
mrmoshpotato
@Frankensteinbeck:
Amen.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve been wondering how Manjoo made the jump from coverage of tech gadgets to essays on politics and economics.
mrmoshpotato
@ThresherK: Did they make the extra point? Did they go for two?
Kathleen
@Frankensteinbeck: And like Warren, she had published many policies.
JGabriel
Nancy Pelosi via NPR:
Actually, Rep. Pelosi, the Founders *did* anticipate that. They even provided a means in the Constitution to deal with such a president: Impeachment. It’s time for the House to do its Constitutional duty and impeach Donald Trump.
As Jon Favreau pointed out:
How well did trying not to upset Republican voters work out in 2016, when the Obama administration failed to warn American voters about Russian interference because Moscow Mitch threatened to complain about it?
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan:
Network CEOs were screaming, “Treat this like a reality TV show! The ad dollars are flowing in!”
Assholes.
Kathleen
@Baud: Working Families Party doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. FFS. Next I suspect The Cult will try to link Debbie Wasserman Schultz to the vote.
Gelfling 545
Bernie reminds me of the old school socialists standing on a street corner & shouting about the oppression of the workers without a hope in hell of actually doing anything about it. Ideology without policy. Warren, otoh, seems to actually have studied which policies are likely to relieve some of the oppression and have some direction on how to enact them.
mrmoshpotato
@MattF:
As they have been for 40 years. Hence the screaming about abortion since ~1979.
Eljai
@Aimai: Thank you. I really take issue with that Steadman comment. I was not and have never been skeptical of the progressive agenda.
Frankensteinbeck
@JGabriel:
And impeaching Trump in the House but he’s acquitted in the Senate will stop him from doing any of this how? Ultimately, a House impeachment is just another meaningless statement. It may be a statement you strongly support, but don’t ever frame it as if it’s needed to stop Trump. It won’t do jack shit to stop or even slow down Trump.
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
I think some publications assume that if you can write at all, you can write about anything. This is how Malcolm Gladwell, a magazine writer with no background whatsoever in the sciences he covers beyond the reporting he does on any given story, got to be regarded as a kind of authority on science.
Gelfling 545
@Juice Box: Nanas rule. Just saying.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
Might have been a safety, a.k.a. two-point own-goal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
japa21
I am sick and tired of people (including Warren) saying that Trump continues to break the law, abuse the Constitution and whatever because the House hasn’t had specifically designated impeachment hearings. Do they really think that would make him change his behavior? He knows the Senate won’t convict so he really wouldn’t care.
I am not against impeachment proceedings and I think they might be helpful in some ways, but let’s not pretend they would result in a chastened Trump.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: I think the tackle would’ve resulted in a red card.
Kattails
@Aimai: Agree wholeheartedly. However, don’t get your hopes up about the system remembering your nym. That’s why I’m glad I chose something fairly easy to type, and it does come up with my email after I’ve typed a few letters. It will generally hold the info for the duration of the thread.
@Frankensteinbeck: A couple of days ago a good friend mentioned that Bernie’s prior candidacy was helpful in “moving the party to the left”. He’s still buying into the idea that Clinton was too conservative. I corrected him and will continue to do so. It’s infuriating. He did vote for Hillary, but it’s that whole idea that bugs me, and the complete lack of focus by the media on the issues she was tackling.
germy
@Amir Khalid:
https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/
JGabriel
@Aimai:
Next time you see a blank nym or email, try double-clicking on the field – it brings up a drop down menu where you can select your nym & email, respectively. At least it works for me, on Firefox. I’m pretty sure it works on Chrome too. Can’t speak for other browsers, though.
I mention the browsers because, when you do it that way, it’s the browser that’s remembering your info, not the web-site.
mrmoshpotato
Just saw a commercial for Coors Light. It apparently “The official beer of Saturday morning.”
Ummm….
Ladyraxterinok
@Juice Box: Do I recall correctly that many Native American tribes in the North East during pre- and colonial times were governed by the grandmothers of the tribe?
And is there an important Hopi or Navajo deity known as Grand (god?)mother Spider?
JGabriel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sorry, I should have said they did an inadequate job of publicizing it.
Kelly
@japa21:
No I don’t think a impeachment inquiry would change Trump’s behavior. It wouldn’t even change Republican party behavior. It would slowly change the press coverage. It would slowly mobilize less engaged Democratic voters. It would mobilize cautious Dem politicians like my very own Rep Kurt Schrader.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: There appears to be something going on in Egypt…
A couple of weeks ago, trump walked into a meeting international leaders– must’ve been something connected to the G7– and called out to Sisi “There’s my favorite dictator”
mrmoshpotato
OT – the beatdown in Madison has begun. WIS 7 MICH 0
Kay
But who does Ukraine like?
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
When did Saturday morning appoint an official beer? Could this appointment affect my right to enjoy an alcohol-free Saturday morning? Why wasn’t I notified?
Chyron HR
@Kelly:
We can make the NYT stop being a dedicated mouthpiece for Republican propaganda with this one weird trick!
Frankensteinbeck
@Kelly:
Those are valid reasons to push impeachment. I don’t think it would significantly change press coverage. The press cover what they want, and after 24 hours of hearings turn out to be not that different from not-impeachment hearings, all we’ll get are misleadingly out of context sound bites. I do think the biggest danger of not having impeached yet is that it disappoints a lost of liberal Democratic voters. Of course, there’s also a large block of Democratic voters that, as alien as it seems to us, do not want impeachment. Under the circumstances I accept the validity of elected Democrats making their own cost/benefit calculations. My suspicion continues to be that the leadership thinks the best time to go through is during the campaign when they can blame McConnell before it all disappears down the ‘Democrats are weak’ memory hole. Because I guarantee you, if they impeach Trump now, in twelve months all anyone will remember is that Democrats are failures.
JAFD
An old man repeats himself here, and asks your pardon.
I was around for Eugene McCarthy’s campaigns in ’68 and ’72 – shook hands with him once.
The qualities needed to lead a ‘we few, we happy few’, ‘send the establishment a message’ campaign are uncommon, sometimes necessary, and may not include ‘plays well with others’. IMVHO both Sen. McCarthy and Sen. Sanders would have been better off taking the role of ‘elder stateman of the Democratic Party’ instead of running again, but…
If this were England, they probaby would have been ‘promoted’ to the House of Lords…
Leto
@Frankensteinbeck:
Agreed. She’s attracting the idealists and leaving the BURN IT ALL DOWN people with their shouty, finger wagging leader.
@dr. bloor: I’m seeing this narrative a good bit. Wilmer has always been plan B.
Ladyraxterinok
@mrmoshpotato: Anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality (in 04 election GOP in swing states put anti gay measures on the ballot to bring out the Evangelicals. Listening to local RW talk radio, I heard as the plan was plotted and carried out)
patrick II
@columbusqueen:
I am not surprised that Wilmer has few political skills. I am surprised at exactly how good a politician Warren has been — she has mad skills. Not just the personality, but the political plan and execution and details. She has thought this out in more detail than the others and has the personality to be the frontman. Or frontwoman as the case may be. Or frontperson.
Ohio Mom
@Ladyraxterinok: Um, considering everything about Warren’s misunderstood description of her ancestry, I’d leave out comparisons to anything Native American.
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: Well..another Coors Light commercial.. it’s also the official beer of not wearing a bra.
Oh, and they ask that you “Celebrate responsibility.”. LOL
SiubhanDuinne
@JGabriel:
Another thing that happened on October 7, 2016? The Access Hollywood tape dropped. The DHS/DNI statement was drowned and washed away in the tsunami.
ThresherK
@mrmoshpotato: As it turned out, 8-0 was the final, so the two-point convert was good. I can’t remember the last whitewashing in the Premier League like this.
Kelly
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes the reality of the Senate means impeachment is a PR exercise. A valid and important PR exercise. The Senate Republicans stonewalling could help them lose the Senate. I thought ignoring Garland would be a big deal and blow up in Mitch McConnell’s face so what do I know. Public memory is short so timing must be right.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m generally anti-book burning, but there’s a whole slew of authors from a certain cable channel that I wouldn’t mind using to toast s’mores.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Much as I despise individual members of the press (Ken Vogel deserves today’s rocket ride into the sun) and the lazy broderist culture they collectively create*, you can’t blame the press for the indifference of the lumpenmittel to the trump scandals. All the information is out there, in the Washington Post and Politico and the dread New York Times. MSNBC, even if they employ the grimacing contrari-trolls Stephanie Ruhle and Alex Witt, from 4 pm eastern is essentially 8 hours of “Impeach the Mother Fucker”, even Brian Williams. From the cheap self-dealing to obstruction of justice to the myriad examples of stunning incompetence. People didn’t care in the summer of 2016. They didn’t care when trump admitted to obstruction of justice on television in 2017. They didn’t care two months when Fredo admitted that he and trump top aides, including Trust-Fund Gilligan met with Russian officials promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. They didn’t care when trump stood on a stage with Vladimir Putin and said Putin was more trustworthy than the American intelligence community. They don’t care about Doonbeg and Turnberry and spending millions to pay for Secret Service golf carts. I’m seeing very little reaction to the fact that we’re sending active duty personnel back to KSA– not sure if that’s Pelosi’s fault, or Obama’s. I don’t know how to make them care–short of the ghost of George Romney coming in the night to kick Willard in the place where his balls used to be, or Margaret Chase Smith haunting Susan Collins to say keep my name outta your mouth, bitch– and I hope something finally happens, and the pennies finally drop. But in the meantime, it would be swell if we kept our fire concentrated on the real enemy, trump and his corrupted, cowardly party.
* well expressed here :
Ladyraxterinok
@JAFD: I was in CA fall 61 to summer 68.
Remember LBJ’s TV announcement he wouldn’t run for re-election–that was after MacCarthy won NH, right.
Was irritated at Robert because I felt he waited for a braver person to test the feasibility of running against LBJ.
Influenced by TAs, faculty, at al in grad school who seemed to feel Bobby was taking the positions he took in order to be seen as JFK’s anointed heir.
By the time Teddy challenged Carter in 80, I was scared like I think many were that Teddy running for president would just paint a glowing gigantic target on his back!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kelly: I agree, though I don’t think McConnell would even move the bill of impeachment (if that’s the right language) to the floor. He would essentially pocket veto it. But I think the worst of all possible outcomes is a defeated bill with (my half-informed guess at this point) about three dozen Dems voting against it. I think this is what Pelosi is trying to prevent. It’s not about her “courage”, its about the realities of the electorate and our wobbly majority.
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
Gasp! I don’t wear a bra. Are Coors moving in on everything I do?
Ladyraxterinok
@Ohio Mom: Whoops—hadn’t even thought of that!!
Leto
@JAFD:
As soon as he joins the party, he’ll be a junior member. My 23 year old son will have been a member of the party longer than him. Until then, he’s the elder statesman of the Shouty, McFingerWagging Party. He’s happy to stay there.
Kathleen
@Kelly: Narrator: It would not change press coverage. Only thing that will change that is when rethug big money players decide Trump has served his purpose. Even that will not cause media to report the real truth about rethug perfidy.
Ladyraxterinok
@SiubhanDuinne: Mole in DHS knew report coming out and helped drop access tape? Maybe? Which ultimately had zero effect on T cultists.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JAFD: I’d put Biden in that category too
Leto
@Amir Khalid: I can’t wait for them to promote drinking Coors and driving the riding lawn mower around…
Raoul
@trollhattan: I often think of Elizabeth Warren as a thug or behaving thuggishly.
BTW, I think she was the first of the top Dem candidates to say forcefully, vis Ukraine, that this was a high crime and should prompt rapid impeachment? (She’s been pro-I word for a while, of course, but she made the obvious, explicit).
Kelly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think the least bad impeachment outcome is a party line Senate vote which I find kinda scary.
Raoul
@debbie: I heard about 15 minutes of that episode of the Daily (runs on MPR so I heard it on the car radio), and while I can at times find Barbaro to be much too quick with the both-sides, I agree that the Warren rally convo was excellent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kelly: I could see Manchin (and maybe Jones) going with whatever Arlen Specter did with Clinton’s, if not worse (Specter cited some precedent in Scottish law, IIRC, to basically vote “Not it!” )
Frankensteinbeck
@Kelly:
Mostly I just think Democrats will get no credit for trying. The number of folks who will say ‘At least you made the moral vote’ will be tiny, because the big push is by people who think Democrats are magically responsible for everything, good and bad. Trump won’t be out of office, so Democrats must not have tried. Even the people who will be satisfied with the moral vote will stop caring quickly. It’s not about what Republicans think. It’s about what Democrats think, which isn’t what we want them to think.
sukabi
@mrmoshpotato:
Well if people would quit telling him to “go fuck yourself” maybe, just maybe there wouldn’t be a group.
scav
Failure to successfully impeach (which would be due to political infrastructure most likely) would more than likely be read as exoneration and de facto innocence y not only the cultists, but also the low-interest bulk of the electorate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
wait…. what….?
My god, do they need a public editor. Or five.
trollhattan
@Leto:
The only O’Reilly book I’ll agree to read must be titled “Killing Myself”
Rand Careaga
@Kathleen:
Here’s where we part company. I have grown to quite dislike the Sage of Burlington, but if he snags the Democratic nomination despite merely using the party affiliation as a flag of convenience, and although I think he’d make a poor president (at least by pre-2017 standards), I will nevertheless vote for him. Hell, I’d vote for Zombie Spiro Agnew over Trump if it came to that. And you? Third party protest vote? Principled abstention?
Sometimes I get the feeling that people aren’t taking our plight quite seriously.
mrmoshpotato
@Leto: Coors Light is the official beer of drinking and driving! (Why not go full stupid and illegal?)
Kelly
@Frankensteinbeck: Trump is at 42.2% approval on 538’s averages. After all this his core supports are still there. May be time for me to go for a walk in the beautiful fall sunshine.
Baud
@Rand Careaga:
Agree. Let’s not become the monsters we fight.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
I agree completely.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Rand Careaga: I hate his guts and liver and I think he’d be down-ticket poison even if he somehow managed to carry WI and MI, but I’d crawl over broken glass to vote for him.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Disagree with you there. He would relish slapping it down.
mrmoshpotato
@sukabi: Not sure that’s the reason Wilmer has so many online cultists.
zhena gogolia
@Frankensteinbeck:
Me too! And add IRL to Twitter. Why doesn’t anyone hold the Republican 2/3 of Congress to account for anything? It’s all Nancy Pelosi’s fault.
On the OP, I just hope she can win the general.
Baud
Sooner or later, Warren will have to deal with the Wilmer dead enders. I’m curious to see how she handles it.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
People who are loudest are often the most afraid to take on the right in a serious way.
sukabi
@mrmoshpotato: Wilmer’s cultists see in him what drumpfs cultists see in drumpf, they are both authoritarians at heart.
Eljai
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You bring up some very good points. I do feel the frustration of making people care. But I still blame the press. Yes, there’s a lot of negative coverage of Trump, but I feel that the press has failed to weave all of that coverage into a single narrative of corruption. It’s all too disjointed. How can anyone keep track? Brian Williams will discuss a scandal in serious tones, then shake his head and move on to the segment with a never-Trumper conservative who bitches about how inept the Democrats are and Steve Kornacki will weigh in on Trump’s re-election chances. I just want the press to cover Trump as if Hillary or any other Democrat was doing these things. What would that look like? The outrage meter would be set to 11 permanently. By now most every major newspaper would call on her to resign for the good of the country. There would one giant neon chyron on CNN all that time that screams “NATION IN CRISIS”. Nightly cable panels would discuss the grave danger facing us. Nobody, absolutely nobody, would care about her dwindling supporters. And no pundit would be questioning whether republicans are doing the right thing by moving forward with impeachment. But that’s just how I see it. YMMV
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sukabi: a lot of truth to that. Jon Fugelsang, who is not stupid but is extremely emotional (and more than a touch self-regarding) about politics once declared that Bernie would be a one-term president, but in that one term he would enact his agenda via executive order.
I don’t listen to his show as much as I used to, especially since they fired Frank Conniff, but he recently said he wished Bloomberg were in the Dem primary. I imagine the Bernie and Bloomberg caucus is tiny little subset.
debbie
@Raoul:
Yeah, Barbaro is clearly a dick (and wouldn’t it be nice if he didn’t always sound like he was reading from a script?), but I was impressed by the reporter’s awe at Warren’s process and impact on the audience. I think bringing up Triangle instead of whatever Trump outrage was a stroke of genius. We’re more than anti-Trump!
mrmoshpotato
@sukabi: I’ve always seen Wilmer as someone who’s promising the world, but no idea how he’d deliver on any of it.
Just Chuck
The thing I keep telling my bernie-or-bust brother (he voted for Stein) is “Warren is Bernie Sanders with a plan.”
(Not really but close enough for that conversation)
JAFD
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agreed.
Baud
@Just Chuck:
I can dream.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Don’t underestimate the power of <100,000 to screw 65 million+.
Rand Careaga
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I have employed this figure of speech in like context myself. And I suspect that wherever it lies within their power to do so, the Republicans will be providing broken glass in abundance next year.
James E Powell
@Frankensteinbeck:
According to the New York Times, she was running on her emails and the Clinton Foundation’s unprecedented corruption.
Seriously though for voters, I feel that if they didn’t know it was because they didn’t want to know. It isn’t that hard to find out what the candidates positions are. Every cycle the information is more detailed than ever and more available than ever.
mrmoshpotato
@Just Chuck: Did Dump win your state?
JAFD
@Rand Careaga: I would beg to differ here.
I was around for Nixon and Agnew. They were smart, had plan. Trump is not intellignet, has not much of plan or strategy. Not as fearful for this country now as I was then.
So yn contest between Trump and Zombie Spiro – Heck, I’d probably vote Socialist Workers ;-)
James E Powell
@mrmoshpotato:
I’m wondering why Michigan is rated 11th.
mrmoshpotato
@James E Powell: After Army and Middle Tennessee State scoring any points, so am I. Gonna watch NU-MSU. Go ‘Cats!
James E Powell
@germy:
If Warren wins the nomination, we won’t have to worry about Trump & his supporters calling her names, we will have to work against supposed liberals who are still in a tornado about her doing the DNA test. That will be the story the NYT will push and the rest of the press/media will follow.
Just Chuck
@mrmoshpotato: Nope, happy to say Colorado went for the good guys. I’ve tried reminding him of the realpolitik of our fucked up system forcing you to sometimes have to choose the lesser of two evils, but it won’t take.
Rand Careaga
@JAFD:
As was I. My first presidential vote was cast against that ticket.Nixon, I grant, was smart, shrewd; Agnew not so much. Anyway, keep in mind that I’d be voting for Zombie Agnew who, notwithstanding an undead’s typical diet of brains, is likely to be slower on the draw than the living man—although his tweets would still likely be more articulate than 54’s.
My point, which I trust you took, is that now isn’t the time for protest votes, or for “no difference* between the two parties” bullshit.
*To the extent I ever believed that, many decades ago, I thought that if the parties ever diverged it would be by means of the Democrats evolving along Scandinavian social-democratic lines. Instead it is the Republicans who have adopted a very different European model, nicht?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
oh man, Ken Vogel may be about to have an epic meltdown
Kevin M. Kruse @ KevinMKruse
“The break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate Hotel raises some troubling questions about just what it is that the Democrats are hiding there.”
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Perfect.
tybee
@Leto:
well, not that i’d know but holding a beer and driving the lawn mower leads to a flat beer pretty quickly.
instead you should find a convenient place to park the beer and swing by that spot every so often to be sure that the beer hasn’t spoiled or gotten too warm to drink.
or so i hear…
James E Powell
@Ladyraxterinok:
McCarthy didn’t win the NH primary, he just came close enough (49-42) to push Johnson out of the race. RFK delayed his announcement till after the NH primary because George McGovern convinced him not to divide the anti-war vote. And RFK was substantially to the left of JFK on many issues because both he and the political landscape had changed rather radically from 1960 to 1968.
laura
@Aimai: I’m so happy to see you here again. You bring a deep and thoughtful insight and perspective.
Off topic, is it just me, or is the core of the search for dirt, or ginning up Biden shadiness just birtherism 2.0?
The media framing gives me the jimmies.
trollhattan
@JAFD: @Rand Careaga:
You nattering nabobs of negativism!
Versus the dotard…choices, choices.
sukabi
@mrmoshpotato: what? You mean “Because I said so!” isn’t a plan?
Bernie reminds me of my departed Dad who was also a bit of an authoritarian.
Kelly
Kevin Kruse https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1175383026479616000
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: I loathe that guy.
mrmoshpotato
@sukabi: Point taken. Never looked at it from the authoritarian angle because I didn’t get past the crackpot angle. I saw Wilmer as a crackpot who just thought he was going to make things happen with his finger wagging.
“I will shake my finger at Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and say we need to raise taxes on the millionaires and billionaires!”
chopper
@Frankensteinbeck:
just because impeachment won’t remove trump from office doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. it means it’s a bad idea right now, because the issue will burn out before the election when it would be most effective. mcconnell will make sure that not only does the senate not vote to convict, but that it’ll be a big show exoneration; he’ll pull out all the stops, even if it means not letting a single dem senator speak. and then trump struts around, fox spends 24 hours a day calling it an “attempted coup” and the rest of the press shrugs their shoulders and goes mostly along with it.
or, next summer when the election season is in full swing and people are paying the most attention, the house really cranks up the investigations so it’s going on every single day. maybe it’s an impeachment inquiry in all but name, or maybe the house says “well we’re opening an inquiry but it’s gonna take a few months to really go through all the malfeasance here” and the ball never gets handed over to the senate before the election so mcconnell can’t ratfuck it.
either way, impeaching now is like firing all your ammo before the enemy is within range, because dammit they’re the enemy and you are morally bound to shoot at them.
problem is, that means slow-walking this stuff for the next 6 months which looks like we’re letting trump get away with it. the timing really fucking sucks.
PsiFighter37
Reading that Booker is saying he needs to raise $1.7mm or he will have trouble continuing. The number is a little too specific and sounds like something those stupid email requests for fundraising churns out. That said, I would be glad if he stepped aside at end of Q3 if he doesn’t hit his targets…for whatever reason, he’s not gaining traction, and I do not see that changing one bit over the next several months.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: *chef’s kiss*
James E Powell
@PsiFighter37:
I feel like Booker or Harris will only rise if somebody else falls.
It would not surprise me if either or both withdraws and endorses Warren before Thanksgiving.
chopper
@Leto:
she’s offering something that wilmer apparently has never heard of, and it’s optimism. worked great for obama. apparently lots of dems aren’t the super-cynical type.
mrmoshpotato
@tybee: GCPA – grass clippings pale ale :)
trollhattan
Just informed the kid her boyfriend, Mayor Pete is coming to town and she’s, how do they say? Chuffed. But she’s got a soccer match at the same time.
This will be interesting to watch.
Kelly
@chopper:
Uncle Cosmo
@Rand Careaga: Just FTR, many of Agnew’s speeches were written by William Safire, who while an SOB was somewhat literate. I’d imagine ZSA would find an equivalent to twit for him.
Take it from someone who lived in a jurisdiction where Spiro was the top executive official from the time he became Baltimore County Executive, that motherfucker was the luckiest goddamn sonofabitch in recorded history & totally undeserving of the luck. Every time he won an election it was due to disarray among Democrats. Every fucking time! When he died they should’ve dug the horseshoe out of his colon & sent it to the Smithsonian.
And when a Republican U.S. Attorney was about to nail his imbecile butt for taking bribes, what astonished the world was how small the amounts were. Not just bought, but bought cheap.
I stood about 20 feet from Agnew when he was County Executive opening our new library in March 1965. I could’ve changed history…
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I love, love, love how the NYTimes now speaks directly to named members of the Trump Administration, in public appearances.
Any Democrat is going to have to withstand this tactic, which is identical to how they handled the emails. If they take out Biden it’ll just be the next in line. It makes the choice between them less important for our voters. It’s Trump versus Any Democrat. Maybe that’s all it ever was.
trollhattan
@Uncle Cosmo:
Could’a hit him with an OED volume!
mrmoshpotato
@Uncle Cosmo:
So what you’re saying is Dems were actually in disarray in the 70’s? ?
JPL
@Kay: What was he doing on MSNBC?
ot but I saw your post down below about the cake and twinkle, twinkle little star and my first though was at least you were ordering a cake with the muffin man on it.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I love “Rudy” too. Ken’s man Rudy. He literally sounds like a GOP operative turned cable tv host.
The whistleblower has revealed a lot already and no one has even seen the complaint. I wonder if we’ll ever get that story.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF:
He wasn’t very good at the former so it was a natural promotion to the latter.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
Never punch, use a bat. Wood or aluminum, but wood has a better sound, a thump when it hits skull. Aluminum makes a ringing thonk. Not as satisfying.
Chyron HR
If Bernie drops low enough in the polls, will his worshipers start vowing to vote for Trump again before the primary has even begun?
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
During primary and general election, hardly anyone seemed to WANT TO know anything Hillary was running on.
fixed it for you.
Kay
@JPL:
Ha! I love the muffin man. I feel like that’s more obscure than Twinkle Twinkle so I would have given him a pass if he didn’t know that. I’m “co-hosting” a baby shower but it’s kind of a fraud. The other co-host is doing all the work. She came up with the theme. So far I have ordered a cake, in my pajamas.
Chyron HR
@Kelly:
Democrats didn’t impeach Bush when they took over congress in 2006, and they went on to win the next presidential election and expand their majorities in the house and senate.
Oh but that doesn’t constitute causation because shut up that’s why.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
Personally I think trump would use the democratic loss of the impeachment war to rally that extra 10-15% he’s lost to win reelection. He may still lose, but he might not. And we would lose, moscow’s
mbitch will make sure of that.Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
“Robillard
Read @danielmarans on how @ewarren out-politicked @BernieSanders to get the Working Families Party endorsement.
https://t.co/9zfuZxllXI?amp=1”
In 2015-16, there was a great piece on Yahoo News (no really) breaking down in detail how Hillary outpoliticked Sanders among Black Democrats in the South Carolina primary: some of it was missteps by the Sanders people, and some of it was that Hillary had been lobbying leaders there ever since 2008… a very good read.
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/how-hillary-clinton-won-the-battle-for-the-black-205650975.html
Kay
@JPL:
I don’t know why he was on but I NEVER watch it and I sadly did this one time and then this happens. Never again. I can’t bear these people. I maybe would have seen it anyway because that clip is all over the place, but I KNOW better than to watch! When will I learn. :)
Ruckus
@Leto:
That shit burning would be as toxic as reads. I wouldn’t put that flame anywhere near food or human flesh that I respected. Closed high temp furnace, don’t burn it, vaporize it.
Kathleen
@Rand Careaga: He is no better than Trump. He hasn’t accomplished anything of substance in his 30 years in Washington. He whines and blames everyone else for his problems. He hires horrible people. He’s a terrible leader/manager (sexual harassment in his staff in 2016 which was not proactively addressed, bungling payment of his staff in this campaign). He has no emotional intelligence or awareness, which are critical traits in a good leader. His record on immigration is abysmal. He has little if any support from African American women, who are core Democrats’ core constituents. He supported immigration bill that allowed militias to patrol the border. And that’s just for starters. I could not in good conscience vote for him.
ETA: And I do take our plight very seriously and am insulted that you think I don’t just because I don’t agree with you.
WaterGirl
@Aimai: I surely hope you will. I cannot imagine that the new site will not be up by Halloween, and hopefully sooner than that.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I learned a new word! I thought for sure that chuffed was going to mean something negative.
Kathleen
@Baud: Biting keyboard.
Baud
@Kathleen:
Sanders is awful, and hopefully he won’t be the nominee, but none of the things you mention about him at #158 justify the first sentence of # 158.
I am single-mindedly focused on unity against Trump in 2020. I don’t want to see decent people follow the 2016 Bro path.
Ruckus
@Baud:
moscow’s bitch would want to slap it down but he’d make 1000% sure he could do that before he would bring it to the floor for a vote. And if he had his caucus 100% in line, he’d be giggling like a child as he did it. And I’d bet that trump would sail to reelection. Because that would very, very possibly give trump a win, something very, very rare for him.
Nancy P. is absolutely right to say no to impeachment right up until the moment she knows that the senate vote gives trump no help at all in the reelection or that just the impeachment hearings in the house will damage him far beyond any help.
And I think that is exactly what she is doing.
Ruckus
@Eljai:
There are at least 2 of us seeing it the same way.
chopper
@Kelly:
pushing, yes. demanding impeachment happen today or pelosi is a coward sellout, maybe isn’t the way to push?
chopper
@Ruckus:
yup. you come at the king, you best not miss. and with impeachment you only get one shot.
Ruckus
@Just Chuck:
He’s not seeing it as the lessor of two evils.
He’s seeing his shining light and just evil.
A mind wasted is a terrible thing, but usually not something that you can have a comparative argument with. You want to change him you have to sell him on your idea, not try to make his idea worse than yours.
J R in WV
@Ladyraxterinok:
Yes, Spider Woman taught the Navajo about weaving, in the long-ago. In the Navajo National Park there is a giant towering rock spire where this is believed to have happened. You can only visit with a Navajo guide who is to maintain proper decorum and manage behavior in general.
Our guide was really pleasant, well educated, had a belt with many silver awards for rodeo wins, and a knife which would have been called a short sword in many cultures. With which he sliced an iced watermelon in a professional manner. No one would have messed up on his tour!
WaterGirl
@Just Chuck:
I am going to have to remember that.
A few weeks ago someone with a clipboard and a Bernie shirt approached me at the farmer’s market. When he said “Elizabeth Warren doesn’t have any plans to back up what she says.”
Me, with these words out of my mouth before I was even aware that I had formed the thought: You’ve got to be kidding me!
Ruckus
@PsiFighter37:
I’ll break it down.
Booker has some very good points. He’s very likable, he speaks/campaigns well and has pretty decent ideas/ideals.
He has three points that are against him for some people, now.
He’s a he.
He’s black.
He isn’t EW or KH
I think in a better/another time, he’d be a great candidate and a least a passible president.
mrmoshpotato
@Chyron HR: Well I was thinking about making lunch…
Ugh.
Ruckus
@Uncle Cosmo:
I thought that was what a lot of people like in a candidate – Cheap. And easy.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
In my indubitable way that comment would come out a bit different. Something along the concept of “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Have you lost your fucking mind?”
I guess I a bit too obvious that I’m not a BS admirer in any way, shape or form.
J R in WV
@Kelly:
The problem with this comparison is that it is apples and rocks. Clinton didn’t commit a slew of crimes. He lied about consensual sex with a woman who came on to him. After a six year investigation that cost millions of dollars, all the Republican Starr investigators could pin on Bil Clinton was a lie about sex, which in many people’s eyes was a gentlemanly attempts to protect his wife’s feelings.
Trump has committed dozens of crimes just since his election by the electoral collage. Real crimes involving corruption of the government. Illegal political orders to DOJ, stealing from foreign governments, from our own military! This comparison is like comparing a down comforter to sheets of old roofing tin behind the barn.
Topologically, yes, they are the same flat sheets of material… but which one would you prefer to sleep under? People hated the Clinton inquisition because it was distorted and unfair, obviously the Republicans attempting to punish Clinton for the crimes of Nixon. Trump? Not the same.
Kirk Spencer
@WaterGirl: Yes.
I kind of wonder if the whole “Warren has a plan for that” ridicule of a few months of that wasn’t an attempt to kill that whole side of the attacks on Hillary before they transitioned to Warren. The plans were there, but this candidate not only has them but everyone knows it. It’s a meme. It’s the unofficial slogan. It’s so much a point that detractors have to try and subvert it to attack her. (She has a plan to destroy the middle class, or sure she has a plan but it’s just one plan, or any of the other lines that pop up on a quick google search.)
I think even to the point where I think almost everyone’s response to your Bernie Burnout would be the same – bogglement at his utter ignorance and if speech is possible, “You have got to be f*ing kidding me.”
anarchoRex
I’ve been enjoying all the “Wilmer” bashing on this thread, especially the line about him wagging his fingers to get things done. So, I ask in earnest, what is it that the other candidates will do differently to pass their plans? How exactly does Warren plan to pass, say, a wealth tax? I like her plans, clearly y’all do to, but I don’t see much talk about the plan to pass the plans?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Aimai:
That is incorrect. He was rejected for both reasons. Half the party is moderate. Many of Warren’s policies (if she could get them implemented as is) concern me, because I am a moderate. However, I don’t object to her the way I object to Sanders, because she is smart and capable of working with people to get to a reasonable solution. So while she isn’t my first choice, I wouldn’t feel bad about voting for her. I think Sanders is the Trump of the left. If my choices were Sanders or Trump, it would be really, really hard to show up to the polls.