Bernie Sanders is dropping out of the race.
Meanwhile, Paul Broun is running for the senate.
How to try to win election by stoking fear amid the COVID-19 crisis:
Former Georgia Rep. Paul Broun who is running to return to Congress just released an ad warning that “in uncertain times like these,” it’s important to protect yourself against “looting hordes from Atlanta” pic.twitter.com/bqS4rePrmP
— Marcus Baram (@mbaram) April 7, 2020
This country is so fucked.
When that’s me convinced ,do you get a free gun to fondle if you vote for him ?
John Prine died of c19 :(
Bend over America! However wins, we lose!
“[L]ooting hordes from Atlanta”… Is that supposed to be a dog-whistle? ‘Cause I’m on a different continent and I’m pretty sure I just heard someone shout “n****rs”.
Might as well dump all the bad news in one place.
There are wildfires around Chernobyl. Vegetation has been absorbing radiation and protecting the surrounding land for years. But now that it’s on fire, that radiation is being released into the atmosphere.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7jga7/chernobl-fire-radiation
If the Biden loses against the Trump, what will happen if the useless party (D) gets a senate majority over the criminal party (R) ?
It is not hard to find other issues where Dump and Pince have veered into illegality. Impeach…no the uselessocrats do not have the stamina to do that.
I’m pretty sure those “looting hordes” in Atlanta are the ones who’s taxes keep the rest of the state functioning. Who are the looters now?
So we can enjoy another four years with Donald the Clown.
Rapist versus rapist.
Fuck the democratic party, they are a waste.
It never ceases to amaze me how many blithering idiots there are in the world. Genuinely, I cannot understand why large numbers of people, when presented with a choice between Joe Biden and Bernard Sanders, would choose anything but the latter. It’s the same with Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. The latter is obviously and plainly the far superior choice – someone who is genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of all wants to make the world a better place. And yet, it would seem, more people choose the worse candidate than the better. Even leaving aside the far more worrying ones who would choose a Donald Trump or a Nigel Farrage over either of them.
I mean, I expect one or two people fall for the obvious lies and mud-slinging in the corporate media, but I find it genuinely difficult to see how anyone with half a brain could think otherwise. What is wrong with such large swathes of humanity?
#10 My conclusion is that most people are genuinely uninterested in the welfare of ithers
Smart move by Broun using the tried and tested guns + racism angle.
Joerg, #11
Or in the welfare of their own children.
Bernie was a terrible candidate for a great president.
Methinks Trump is going to win a second term. Biden is about the most uninspiring and boring candidate the democratic party could have dredged up from their recesses. Many people will not bother to vote at all, because they will feel rightfully betrayed by the democratic party. But trump cultists will all show up and vote no matter how many Trump kills with his bumbling incompetence..
It is rare for me but I’d like to try, with great effort, to look at the bright side: Now more than ever the elections seems a foregone conclusion, so noone has to worry about polls and whatnot anymore. Come on, everyone, give three hearty Huzzurghs!*
The video left me … somewhat blank. It’s “Only in Amercia” dialled to 11, except we’ve been running on that setting for too long to even notice anymore. All I can think is that if all conservative politicians took to roaming the countryside with rifles, they would on the whole be doing a lot less damage than they are lurching through the halls of power. I’d feel sorry for the people and animals that come across them, though. Then again, should two conservatives meet… well, maybe that’s a tad too dark.
*It’s the “huzzah” for people who are sick of it all. Just remember to (re)hydrate afterwards.
Biden does not inspire his own supporters. But the DNC donor class pushed him as the one to topple Sanders, because the DNC has, since the 1970s, fought progressive voices harder than they fight or will ever fight the GOP. For all the lip-service to progressivism that came out of people like Warren and Yang, they were at the end of the day comfortable licking the boots of the corporate-aligned Democratic establishment.
And, honestly, to absolute hell with Joe Biden and the DNC for pushing, throughout this pandemic, that primaries continue to go on in-person while also actively helping state-level election officials to shut down the number of polling locations. Not just in Wisconsin yesterday, but in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois a few weeks ago too. I know Joe just did an about-face on that a few hours ago, but only after he benefited substantially by basically demanding his supporters (i.e. elderly people) risk contracting or spreading covid-19. They put the lives of people at risk because they don’t care about people, but about power. Sanders told his supporters to stay home, and is now falling on his sword to keep people from needlessly exposing themselves to a deadly virus.
They would rather you die than let a progressive win. Come November, I’ll vote progressive downballot, but I am not participating in the dumpster fire that is the presidential election. Candidates need to earn my vote, and “lesser of two evils” doesn’t cut it.
For those who actually care about the well being of people in the US, I would remind them that there are 3 branches of government. Regardless of your feelings about the Presidential nominee, taking control of the Senate puts Dems in a position to stop Darth Cheeto from completely taking over the judiciary and appointing more unqualified shills. It may also pull Biden to the left, result in a better deal for people who aren’t billionaires and get competent people in positions where they can make things better.
Despair is no one’s ally.
Well, obliviously, we need gunz to pretekt uz from commie socializim viruseseseses!
Personally, I say that we dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Intransitive@5, please be careful with your key words, or you may inadvertently summon They of Text Walls and Dubious Citations…
@Dunc #4
An integral part of fascist culture in the US involves fantasizing about scenarios where the murder of their neighbors and other community members is justified. It’s usually about others plotting to hurt them in some way. What constitutes “harm” is at times a very low bar, maybe not much more than expressing disagreement while they feel stressed in a crisis.
You’re correct. There is a sliding scale, the less someone is similar to themselves the more of a threat they appear. So if you’re a POC or a “foreigner” you’d be higher on the threat scale than, lets say, a neighbor of the same race. Religion and dividing lines between city and rural dwellers comes into the mix too. Among other things.
Honestly, I’m glad Bernie dropped out. I know PZ doesn’t pay attention to prediction websites, but the writing has been on the wall since early March, and that fact just didn’t get much attention because we were preoccupied with other events. I had already mourned his candidacy weeks ago, and was getting increasingly agitated at the thought that Bernie would try to stick it through the entire primary like in 2016, obliging voters to endanger themselves at the polls. But Bernie is not doing that, so many respect points for that.
10 Cartomancer.
Given Farage’s election record not many folk have chosen him Or any of his party over anyone else.
I’m not voting for Biden, who as many have stated, doesn’t even inspire his own supporters.
I’m voting for a card board cutout painted blue that someone wrote Biden on with a crayon.
And, against the current fails at everything and kills some of us president.
Bush killed millions of 401(K) plans with his Great Recession, one of which was mine.
Obama, to my surprise, resurrected it.
Trump has once again, killed millions of 401(K) plans, one of which was again, mine.
As a Boomer, I’m running out of either time or resurrections here.
Dunc: at first I heard “oh no the CDC is coming for my toilet paper stash!”
But then I remembered life in the US and understood.
Marcus @2
I hope they don’t bury him in the cold cold ground, but cut him up and pass him all around instead in accordance with his wishes.
I just listened to that song a couple of weeks ago.
@10 Have you seen this demented old fart ? Sometimes i wish i had been born somewhere ,but all the decent Counties are far too cold .
All this talk about Biden not inspiring his own supporters, but neither did Sanders. So what now?
22 Siggy:
Plenty of other years, the forgone conclusion ended up being wrong by May, so that’s really not a good reason. If not for the pandemic, Bernie would have stayed in. His numbers may have been much higher without him telling people to stay home, as well.
@27,
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the mating dance of the Working Class Tory on display quite that clearly. They are a fascinating breed…
Selfishness, stupidity, apathy. Of course, there has been a prolonged ruling class campaign to promote these characteristics, but that doesn’t mean those who have succumbed to them should be excused.
Sanders lost, so him dropping out is very good news.
davidc1@27,
Clap for Boris? Does he need that on top of Covid-19?
[Note for non-Brits: in the UK “the clap” is slang for gonorrhea.]
ORigel@32
Sanders did not lose, the race was lost for him by the DNC by rigging the game.
-I still hope that a senate dominated by a new majority of the corporate shill party (D) will have the courage to impeach the president and veep of the criminal party (R).
Since both Dump and the Pence are involved with the mishandling of the coronavirus response, they would both be vulnerable to impeachment. Just dig deep enough, they are too clumsy to cover up properly.
I just watched “Ring of Fire” at Youtube.
Apparently FEMA is showing up and impounding critical supplies just as they have been delivered to hospitals.
And the hospitals do not even get their money back.
This is even happening in states that are in critical condition.
There is no way this can stand up to legal scrutiny.
He didn’t drop out.
He’s suspended his campaign.
He’s just not putting any money into further ads or promoting himself. You can still vote for him in the primaries as a show of force to the DNC about which direction we want the party to move.
@34
The DNC did not rig shit. You do Sander’s supporters a great disservice by spreading unfounded conspiracy theories. He lost because he had the stupid strategy of appealing to his 30% base due to the centrist voterbase being split from having way too many centrists candidates in the primary. This is a well documented fact confirmed by many in his camp. He and his team lacked the foresight to see that that split wont last, and so he failed to build any kind of coalition and burned the bridges on the only one he did have (The Warren one). At the end of the day leftists are not very good at understanding how campaigns work. That 30% voted less this time around for him too.
No rigging necessary and these conspiracy theorists make Sander’s supporters look stupid and immature. And while I’m here, they didn’t rig it the first either. He lost, straight up. Obama won his primary despite being an outsider and the DNC heavily pushing Hillary, so there is no excuse.
Oh and another thing, this whole belief in primary rigging (and it is a belief) undermines leftistism. Because it gets people thinking that they cannot actually change anything. Its out of their control, when its definitely not. It promotes defeatism. Provides an excuse for leftists to not vote, and not get involved in politics, and not actually try anything.
Again I have to add this article:
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2018/07/27/if-deng-xiaoping-could-capture-chinas-communist-party-you-can-capture-the-democratic-party/
If Deng Xiaoping could do what he did, and that’s with an establishment who not only rigs the system but murders, beats, and incarcerate reformers en large, then we could too. Believing in conspiracy theories does not help the cause, and even it it was true (its not) then its still shouldn’t stop us.
As a dirty foreigner, I do not get to vote in American elections. That being said, if I could vote, I would take Biden over Trump any day of the week. Biden sucks, he is too old and not progressive enough and is backed by a corrupt democratic system. I get it. While I understand the appeal of Bernie and the enthusiasm of his followers, I do not believe that he ever had a realistic chance of being elected and am glad that he dropped out sooner rather than later. He did the right and noble thing. But please don’t let your disappointment blind you to the real menace. Trump cannot be elected in again. We don’t want a repeat of 2016, which partially resulted from apathy by Bernie supporters taking the ball and going home. If Trump does get reelected, it will signal to the rest of the world that the American system of government is so completely fucked that you are beyond all hope and will ensure China’s dominance in the 21st Century. The Republicans will only further screw your country (and the rest of the world) by robbing the tax payers blind and setting in stone their version of 1984. I know losing Bernie hurts, but please don’t be blinded, throw in the towel and let the brainwashed masses rule the day. Choose the lesser of two evils. Please.
@37
First of all sorry for multiple posts, I don’t mean to spam but often do because I forget to add things or want to comment to new comments.
To post 37 from Rowan Vet-Tech
I wish Sander’s supporters voted still en force to push the DNC to the left. I really wish they did do a show of force. That’s dream come true for me. In other threads I mentioned that Bernie should have dropped out long ago, but didn’t consider voting for him anyways as a show of force. I only considered the show of force being done in the general. So I’m now on the Sander’s shouldn’t drop train, but only if they actually do the voting. The more hes on there, the more divisive everyone gets and harms the General. But if they successfully vote and demonstrate that there’s an actually consistent voting pool there to be relied upon then at least it will be worth it.
But I gotta be honest with myself, I have little faith in Sandernistas voting. They would have already. And most of what I see are defeatists (and I realize I’m being a little defeatist myself) who would rather spread conspiracies and delve into harmful and useless revolutionary fantasies.
And while I’m on this rant just so that I don’t post another comment, it annoys me to see leftists view democrats as a monolith. They are not. We could have won over many of them, but we didn’t care too. Because we use patronizing language and lefter than thou rhetoric which convinces no one. This last part not directed @37 of course I’m just talking in general.
@38: I agree,
@34: There were changes in the rules from 2016, but those changes were largely at there request of the Sanders campaign. I wouldn’t even call that rigging, that’s just what happens; rules get adjusted regularly.
Firstly, I advise everyone to vote for Biden and every Democrat down ballot.
Despair is a teacher. Run from it, and you’ll learn nothing. Embrace it, and it’ll either kill you or learn you.
Things really are that bad. Pretending everything is relatively okay, that all that’s gone wrong can be fixed the usual way, that everything can return to normal is a delusion. You might as well trust that Jesus is going to descend from the clouds and wash everything bad away with his magic blood.
I say again: vote for Biden, and straight-ticket Democrat down ballot. Then, get ready, because it’s all going to burn down. This little hiccup with Covid-19 is nothing compared to what’s coming. The crops will continue to fail, year after year. The seas will continue to rise. It will get hotter. The icecaps will melt. The plagues will keep coming, and we’ll be no more prepared for the next one.
Biden has neither the wit nor the will to do anything substantial about any of that, and neither does the gaggle of fools that make up the vast majority of the legislature. We’re all doomed if we rely on them. Our future has been sold for short-term profits, and we will all die if we keep pretending otherwise. So will most everything else on this planet.
The reason we vote Democrat is that things will fall apart a little slower on their watch, and that gives us time to do what we would should have started doing decades ago: fighting for survival, and I do mean fighting. Our options at this point are to allow corporations and the ultra-rich to turn this planet into another Venus in their mindless pursuit of wealth, or to do away with corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
So by all means, despair. Then push on through despair and into madness, because it’s time to think the unthinkable. Humanity, and indeed all the life on this Earth, depends upon it. The lesser evil, indeed.
A little odd that in America people arm themselves not to fight against the ruling classes, but to kill other workers, peasants, and the poor, people of their own class.
But they do armed themselves against the ruling class. It’s just that most of them are arming themselves against a Marxist etc. ruling class that only exists in their paranoid imagination, waiting to do things it’s never going to do.
Disclosure here, also a dirty foreigner, an Australian. I also implore progressives to vote for that rapey, corrupt, warmongering arsehole Biden-why? Because the alternative is worse, and not just for your country.
Yes, I agree Sanders was shafted by the DNC-twice. Sure he made some daft tactical errors but they were never going to let him win.
Yes, I think Biden is reprehensible.
Yes, the situation is horrible and despairing is a rational response.
Yes, I agree that the DNC is a corporate, authoritarian cesspit that our own Australian Labor Party is rushing to emulate – including the tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory come election time.
But Trump and the GOP are actively making things worse than a corporate Democrat administration ever could for the entire planet so, if you can, if it’s safe vote while you can because this isn’t a vote for the best option, it’s the vote for the least worst option but in this case the least worst option. The fate of your country and the world literally depends on it!
Dunc @ #4
Yes. Atlanta is city dominated by blacks. Over 50% of the population of Atlanta is black, which is down from the early 90s when it was nearly 70% black. In the Southern view, blacks are by nature a “looting horde.” When Nixon spoke of restoring “law and order” in 1968 he was dog-whistling about civil unrest in the black community. It’s arguable that the reason for the 2nd Amendment is so Southern state militias could hunt down and kill escaped slaves.
I believe that if Paul Broun was in Canada he would be having a nice little visit from the local SWAT team, followed by a week in hospital for a psychiatric examination.
Maybe it will take another 4 years of Trump for Dems to figure out that the lesser of two evils is not a good campaign strategy.
Well, that’s it for me. I’m staying home in November. I not only refuse to vote for Biden, but anybody who would run on the same ticket with him must be a hack. There’s no longer a party worth voting for, except possibly the Greens who will lose. Great job, Biden supporters like logicalcat here — you can see why the Democratic Party has been bleeding voter registrations for decades now when even their loyalists are jerks like that.
@#5, Intransitive:
Yeah, that’s been a worry for years, what with the Red Forest where nothing rots and nothing grows. It was really only a matter of time, and — like the original disaster — the radioactive material is going to blow west over Europe.
Oh, but hey, we should built more nuclear plants! Right now! They’ll do better this time!
I think pollsters are making a mistake when they ask people how enthusiastic they are to vote for Biden.
What they should be asking is how enthusiastic are you to vote that cheeto-faced shitgibbon out of office.
I’m not a great fan of Biden but I would crawl a mile, chin deep in feces, to vote that murdering kakistocrat out of office and on the road to the prison he deserves.
@46
Jeez, with allies like Mick who needs enemies.
The whole “vote Biden because hes the lesser of two evils” is as dumb and toxic as the idiots who do not want to vote for Biden at all. Your not voting for the lesser evil. You are voting to preserve democracy. The whole “voting lesser evil” argument whether made to promote “vote blue no matter who” or to promote the defeatist uselessness of purity politics is a reductionist strawman.
People are complicated. Biden is old, with out dated values but also a human being who can be reasoned with (unlike Trump). That makes him good. Is he as good as Bernie? No. But you didn’t vote for him. No one voted for him. Because his campaign sucked. So you got a choice between someone flawed but otherwise well liked by anyone who isn’t us, whose last administration gave us gay marriage the repealing of don’t ask don’t tell and health insurance to millions of Americans. Obama care is the reason why anything if even thinking about M4A as a possibility in the first place. All of these things are good. Voting for him is ultimately a good thing.
Or we can let win a man whose incompetence is killing people as we speak. Who is a fascist. Who has rape allegations from actual multiple credible sources. Whose mere existence pushes the country more to the Right defeating any amount of good that can happen.
That’s the problem with purity politics. It infects even left leaning people who will vote Biden. They swallowed this ‘lesser evil’ crap so much that they fail to see the good that can come around from voting Biden. There will never be a race without a lesser evil, using this line of reasoning. FDR was fucking racist. LBJ was fucking racist. Each one did a lot of good for the country despite their very real flaws. Sander’s didn’t win. So? Sanders is not leftism, he’s just a part of it. And I’m pretty sure if Sanders had the same amount of vitriol as Biden gets that you can dig up something of his past to show that he too, is a complicated man with many flaws. Hell I can name one right now: Sanders cares more about his mythos, than he cares about helping the country. He surrounds himself with sycophants who hold bad and stupid ideas, all designed to prop up his cult. The blasted 30% strategy he had. Also he voted for the crimes act and then lied about it, lied some more when he got caught. Oops that’s two things. How about the times he voted for military intervention in the middle east? Oh no, not Iraq and Afghanistan, but he did with others. With Kosovo, and Bosnia. If I use the lesser of two evils rhetoric, I lose sight of the good he did. I lose sight of how Sanders tried to get us out of Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan. I could find more flaws if I wanted too. That’s how toxic this is.
@49
Maybe it will take another 4 years of Trump for leftists to get off their ass, take campaigns seriously, and win a primary for once. Stop viewing dems as a monolith, and start realizing that Sanders not winning is on us, not them. Lesser of two evils? If Sanders couldn’t even win the primary then what good is he? We could talk all this shit about how Biden is terrible, but at the end of the day if Sander’s is not winning, what good is he? He’s there to make you feel good, that’s what.
TLDR: Fuck lesser of two evils bullshit ass virtue signaling. A vote for Biden is a vote for good, period.
@The Vicar.
Calling me a Biden supporter is disingenuous, which is normal for you. I voted Sanders. But for the general my support goes to the candidate that can do the most good. And that’s Biden, no matter what your dumb ass may believe. Them the facts.
Curious, if you were alive during LBJ, would you have supported the “lesser of two evils” who gave us brown people the right to vote? Lets see how much of a hypocrite you are.
@vicar – no more nuclear power plants will be built – they’ve been priced out the same as coal. At this point, what we need to do is stand up to the oil lobbyists. Most of new power in this country is renewables – we just have to keep the oil companies form crippling the trend. There are very few Blue dog Democrats left – it’s in the House and the Senate that who we elect really matters.
Your decision not to vote is a vote for Trump, why don’t you go out and buy a nice MAGA hat and a Confederate flag.
Also Purity politics gave us Bush thanks to people not voting for Gore cause “lesser of two evils”. Congrats on your two Middle East wars purity losers.
logicalcat – honestly, with supporters like you, I have even less reason to support Biden. You are acting exactly like the DNC establishment accused “Bernie Bros” of being.
Besides, your entire shtick – beneath all the pretentious gloating and factually incorrect statements (way to win people over to the cause!) – isn’t actually support for Biden; it’s just opposition to Trump. And that’s all it can be because deep down, Biden really can only rise as high as being the lesser of two evils and not actually a good candidate. I’m willing to bet you don’t know a thing about Biden. Seriously, pick a topic and tell us what Biden’s specific policy on that topic is, and how it substantively differs from (a) Sanders’ and (b) Trump’s.
What you call purity the rest of us call values or morals. It’s not actually a strength that yours are so flexible that you’re willing to compromise on every single one of them just so your team can win, and it’s not a weakness of anyone else’s that theirs are inflexible enough that they actually feel the need to vote for candidates instead of merely against candidates.
I’m not voting a rapist. Period. If you can, just because that rapist is on your team, then shame on you.
@ logicalcat, #52
I think I’m most moved by his respect for women. When he was told his behavior was creepy and made them uncomfortable, he
apologized and stopped doing itissued a not-pology and kept right on sniffin’ them womenfolk. His long-and-storied prochoice history is definitely a plus. He was anti-choice for a while, but as soon as that became a non-starter for a Democrat he “evolved.” Well, at least he (probably) hasn’t raped as many women as Trump, so he’s got that going for him.He’s far less racist, too. He certainly loves people. By “people” I mean predatory lending corporations and usurers. And, sure, he spits in the faces of progressives and young people, but it’s not like they’re people who matter. That Joe Biden is a real good egg.
Just because you can set someone up against the worst human being imaginable and say that that someone is the clear choice doesn’t make them a good, decent, or even fair choice. He’s a piss-poor excuse for a candidate who just happens to have the fortune to be up against a complete and irredeemable sack of incompetent shit.
And he’ll still probably lose because it turns out that a lot of those people he told to fuck off were just the group he needs to bring out, and all those progressive ideas he’s trashed were just thing to motivate them.
The fact that he’s the lesser evil is literally all he has going for him. He better lean into it, because it’s his only chance. Other than, you know, actually promising to do something good and making it look like he means it, but I don’t see that ever happening. He’s promising to return us to the environment that gave us Donald Trump, and that’s exactly what we’ll get in 4-8 years in the unlikely event Biden wins. Trump, or someone worse, because Biden offers us next-to nothing.
The ACA is a piece of shit that made it harder for something like M4A to get passed by further entrenching the mass-murdering insurance industry in our legal system. The idea that it was a ‘framework to build on’ was a huge steaming pile. It was a gift to the insurance industry, period.
When you have disease-ridden ticks crawling all over you, you don’t direct them to your richest veins and knit them little sweaters. You pull them off and throw the little fuckers screaming into the nearest fire.
The last administration bent over backwards to make the parasites happy. How many of the people dying during this pandemic are dying because of insurance company fuckery? We’ll never know because, like ticks, insurance companies are good at hiding the damage they’re doing until it’s too late. One thing is certain, however: a lot of the shortages we’re facing can be laid at their feet just as much as they can at Trump’s.
You want to talk purity politics? Okay. How’s this: We let Trump take office, because we were too concerned about remaining “pure” to prevent it.
It’s not because we didn’t vote against him. We voted against him to the tune of 3 million more votes for Clinton than for Trump. It’s because we pretended we were powerless to stop it beyond voting against him.
We know he stole the election. We know he’s broken countless laws in service to stealing the next one. We know his allies in the Senate have already rendered our democracy an empty façade.
We knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what kind of man Trump is, and we let him in anyway. There’s your godsdamned “purity politics-” pretending that, as long as we personally aren’t spilling blood, our hands are clean and our consciences blameless.
We knew, and we let him in. We all own a piece of every preventable death under Trump.
I’ll vote for Biden, but I’m not going to pretend it’s good or noble. It’s literally the least I can do, because I don’t think I have it in myself to be a better person.
logical cat.
Uh, purity politics would be me urging people to vote so’s to be politically “pure”, voting for a tactical compromise is precisely the opposite of that.
I am urging people to vote for Biden but I’m not declaring facts to be non facts in order to do so. Tara Reade raised credible allegations of sexual assault against Biden and she wasn’t the only one. Joe Biden actively and enthusiastically advocated for a war started on false pretences that saw two middle eastern nations thrown into bloody chaos and led to the rise of ISIS. Recently Joe Biden has been sorely lacking in any sort of leadership when it comes to the recent COVID-19 outbreak which any competent opposition politician would latch onto like a pitbull given America’s governing parties utterly shambolic response. Acknowledging the existence of these issues isn’t “political purity” if that term has any meaning at all.
One of the things that opponents of Sanders have always stated is that Sanders loyalists comprise a powerful enough bloc to have spoiled Clinton’s 2016 election campaign. This is not a demographic you’re going to win over by trying to convince them that the problematic aspects of Sanders campaign aren’t real.
Typo, Biden’s campaign aren’t real. Apologies.
@Rowan Vet-tech #37
To my understanding, this is true of the vast majority of candidates who are said to have “dropped out”. There’s a legal distinction between dropping out and suspending a campaign, and the latter is favored.
It’s great for people to continue to vote for Sanders, or any of the others you liked. Just do it by mail, and please also vote in your local elections.
@57: Yeah, Hillary got 3m more votes than Chump, just not in the right places. If all those sour-grapers in Wisconsin, Michigan and Penn. hadn’t stayed home pouting, she would have gotten the electoral votes she needed. So, in truth, the whiners who sat home sucking their thumbs are the ones responsible for Il Duce’s rise to power. It’s easy to sit at home and take pot-shots at others and then say, “See, I toldya”. (I’m not referring to you, Vucodlak). Not voting, when you know what Trump is, and how existentially dangerous he is, regardless of how you feel about Biden, is an act of monumental selfishness, immaturity and cowardice worthy of Trump himself.
The ACA isn’t perfect by any stretch, but it did allow millions of people to get health insurance. If the ACA was such a boon to the insurance companies, why did so many pull out of the exchanges?
If you don’t like Biden don’t stay home. Go vote for the down ticket candidates. We also need to flip the senate and keep the house.
Oh please. I’m not a bot. I read the comments of many threads here on a variety of topics.
Then you are to be congratulated on your excellent impression of one.
Since four years have not done so – if anything, they seems to have had the opposite effect, why would four more?
I see a parallel between those arguing that electing Biden would be as bad or worse than re-electing Trump, because it would (so it is claimed) entrench the right-wing establishment in the party and lead to someone even worse than Trump in 2024, and those saying we should let everyone get Covid-19 to avoid a “second wave” in the autumn. In both cases, highly predictable results (in one case, that Trump and the Republicans will use a second term to further entrench the far right in the judiciary, increase voter suppression, outlaw abortion, etc.; that hundreds of thousands if not millions would die and many more suffer permanent injury in the other) are discounted because of far less predictable longer-term outcomes – which are nevertheless predicted with great confidence. It’s really a very simple point, that the further you look into the future (within a certain domain of discourse), the less predictable the results of any policy or event are likely to be, but the Self-Righteous Brothers here, just like the mostly right-wing “herd immunity” crowd, seem unable to grasp it.
I wonder if there’ll even still be elections after four more years of Trump. Trump is being offered a crown and he will not refuse it.
Yep. You got exactly one chance. You fuck it up, it’s over. But I see people are already finding their excuses why 4 more years of Trump is the better alternative. The kids in the cages didn’t do it, the hundred of thousands of Corona deaths won’t do it.
So nice to see ‘progressives’ play virtue signalling by calling out Broun, and at the same time calling large swathes of African-American voters blithering idiots who are unconcerned about the welfare of their children.
Well done illustrating just why they didn’t want to vote for your particular flavour of White Saviour.
And instead you vote for the fucking rapist with a long history of racist crap, who will be turned inside out. Literally every minority group except old black people fucking hate him, especially, and this is important, hispanics.
This election is lost, both for the dems and for decency period, no matter who wins.
Captain Jeep-Eep:
So, you don’t care who wins. All the same to you, nothing to be done.
And therefore, you counsel despair. Doom and gloom.
No, I council for local organization and mutual support.
The dems are intent on being worthless? Let them, and support people in the real world.
You know, I kind of wonder at the tenacity of the “burn it all down, they’re all the same” crowd when one side is trying to advocate for the counsel of the experts and mitigate the crisis, while the other is literally advocating policies that will get people killed. Sticking to their position regardless of the facts is, I suppose, impressive in a way.
Which one? The orange rapist, or the rapist who was in favor of an inoculation that would destroy back kids dopamine receptors to fight drugs?
If you believe biden, you’re a fucking moron.
CJP#74, Prima facie evidence of ARIDS#73 point. Making what you say irrelevant.
Well, at least Corona will finally end US world domination, or better said the US total fuck up when it comes to the response, so the rest of the world will not be hit as hard by 4+ years of Trump.
False. Last Thursday, just days before the Wisconsin primary, Biden was still telling the press that in-person voting there was safe. (Daily Beast)
Ironic. (See above)
Giliell, I wish I shared your optimism, but even if the US were reduced to having the GDP of Haiti, we’d still be Haiti with nukes.
CR, not sure if you knew this, but there are other Dems out there besides Joe Biden. You should check it out!
I would feel better if any other Democrat were the presidential nominee. It makes no difference which one it is. Just pick a random name out of a hat, and repeat your “blue no matter who” mantra a few times.
So nice to see Captain Jeep-Eep drop the mask of progressiveness in @70 and start ranking the races, with blacks at the bottom. Proving my point: if your post-mortem of Bernie’s loss comes down to “Stupid n****** wouldn’t vote for him”, you should stop, take a deep breath, and look in the mirror.
Or go vote Trump, which is what CJE is doing effectively anyway.
@81
“old black people” =/= all black people. Sanders overwhelmingly won the support of young black people. Ironic that your mask seems to be slipping off, since you’re ignoring the existence of a much larger segment of black people to focus on the minority of that minority who happen to support the same person you support. Kinda like Biden.
But what do I know? I’m just a dumb Latino, and we mostly voted for Sanders because Biden completely erased us too from the discussion. Take your oppression Olympics bullshit somewhere else. It’s incoherent.
Erm, who’s playing oppression Olympics here? Me, pointing out some very questionable assumptions in literal statements here on this blog, or you trying to silence me with “Boohoo you’re the real racist!”? (A reactionary tactic if there ever was one, but hey!)
It is undeniable, given the huge amount of votes from non-white voters going Biden’s way, that simply saying “Well, his electorate was stupid” is, to say it nicely, bad optics.
That says nothing about Biden’s views, nor about relative worth of minorities. If you try reading that into it, you are arguing in bad faith.
So yes, you’re dumb. Not because you’re a latino, but because you’re a Bernie Bro refusing to do an honest introspection just why he lost.
CR, maybe check out that Constitution thing, too. You’ll find that there are 3 branches of the government, and that one of them has this body called “the Senate”, which confirms nominees by the President for the third, which is called “the Judiciary”. Gee maybe we should look into taking control of that Senate thingy. You know, I mean, if we’re actually interested in making things better or real people.
mvdwege demonstrates that dems only give a shit about minorities when they’re a convenient stick… granted, given that Biden helped start the camps Trump split kids in, we already knew this.
Let’s do it honestly. A huge amount of Biden’s support came from older white voters, quite a bit from wealthier suburbs. Exit polls indicate that whites were a majority in most states, and Mississippi was the only state where whites were outnumbered by a large margin (there, they were only 28%).
The older voters (of any race) who overwhelmingly voted for Biden are an especially large demographic. They also have an easier time with turnout for obvious reasons: because they’re more likely to have higher-status jobs, they’re retired, etc.
I wasn’t saying “you’re the real racist.” If anything, I was accusing you of ageism. But yes, you’re definitely playing the oppression Olympics here. Biden did not win a lot of support from non-white people relative to the support Sanders won from non-white people. The only non-white demographic Biden won over Sanders was “old + black” which I need to remind is not “all black.” And, shit, he didn’t even win that consistently. Biden won over Southern Old Black people. Contrary to the belief you’re expressing, old black people do not represent all black people, and old black people do not represent all minorities. But thank you for also doing the same goddamned thing Biden is doing and erasing Latino people and Asian people from consideration. That’s not racist at all. Taking us for granted, as you’re doing, as the DNC has been doing since the Republicans adopted the Southern Strategy, is what’s going to hand Trump the election. But don’t worry, I know you’ll still find a way to blame progressives for it. Centrists who fear progressives more than conservatives always do.
(now I’m accusing you of engaging in racist rhetoric; do keep up)
Building on this point…. Biden’s wins in Southern states will lead nowhere in the general election. He may get more support there among Democrats, but they’re nonetheless heavily outnumbered by Republicans. (And, of course, we don’t use the popular vote, so their votes will have no effect at the national level either. Those states, by the way, haven’t been helping us change that.) The Democrats simply will not flip the South, so it just makes no sense as a strategy for the Dems themselves to pursue a Southern Strategy. It is fitting for a candidate like Biden, however, who once claimed (incorrectly) that Delaware was supportive of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Because he’s a fucking racist.
In addition to that, older voters tend to be more conservative. We’re not going to change this any time soon either. Trump (and other Republicans campaigning for other positions) will probably win with that group too. In a few decades, the younger voters today (who don’t support Biden) will make up that demographic, and that’s when we may get to tell a different story.
Think this way: if it was the german election of 1933 (without the nazi terror and corruption in the process…) wich is the best option?
Adolf Hitler or Alfred Hugenberg? Unfortunately, Otto Wels retired from the elections…
Is the same thing in the american election of 2020:
Donald Trump or Joe Biden? With Bernie Sanders out of the election…
@fernando:
Yes, why compare him to the people from the DVP, DSP, Zentrum or BVP when you can compare him straight to the guy from the DNVP. (And Joe Biden isn’t even what one calls a conservadem …)
@ fernando, #89
I’m so glad they finally voted that Hitler guy out of office. He was really the worst.
vucodlak,
Well, voting Hitler out would have probably been a better outcome than destroying 2/3 of Europe and killing 60 million people in a war had it been an option.
It is an option in the US for now.
@logicalcat
Clarify for me. Are you specifically calling out the “lesser of two evils” language? Because I’m still going to be shaming the shameworthy.
I don’t find “evil” particularly useful and I’m leaving room for the Democrats to buy my enthusiasm with addressing the places where Biden and Trump share flaws.
I intend to shame the country, Rs, Ds, Trump, and Biden where appropriate.
@ a_ray_in_dilbert_space, #92
And if Biden loses?* Will all the people pompously comparing this election to that one actually treat the situation with the appropriate gravity? Or will they sit at home and pout about how those evil Bernie-bros spoiled everything?
We can’t claim we don’t know the consequences, this time. So what’s it going to be?
*He actually does have a small chance of winning now that Trump is finally faced with a crisis he can’t easily spin, or use to his advantage.
Vucodlak,
Oh, I think that many people realized how serious the situation was not long after 1933–why else would you see the beginnings of the mass migration out of Germany. The question is what to do. Humans are extremely adaptable. Look how having a demented, malignant narcissist as President has been normalized in just 3 years.
I suspect what you will see in 2021 if Darth Cheeto is re-elected is a mass wave of early retirements of senior civil servants, perhaps an uptick in emigration.
That’s presumably why you’re telling people they need to vote for one of the demented, malignant narcissists rather than the other. Because it’s been normalized.
On another note, we don’t actually have the option in the US to vote Hitler out of office this time, since he’s still dead.
Bernie Sanders on Colbert:
“Biden is a decent man who’ve Ive known for a long time, and now its time to see if we can push him more towards progressive ideas. He wont adopt my entire platform, but we can push him to parts of it.”
Paraphrased for brevity of course. I wish other Sanders supporters were as reasonable as the man they pretend to care about. Many are, but the louder dumber among us is ruining things.
@Vucodlak
I’m pretty sure Trump is going to win. He is fumbling this pandemic, but still has high approval ratings among his base of voters, and they vote more consistently than ours do. He is a “war time president”. That’s never good when it comes to getting rid of the man in charge.
I predict that when Biden loses there will be a lot of blame on the berniebros, and I will be among them laying that blame. This doesn’t absolve any stupid decisions Biden’s campaign would have done, but at the end of the day Sander’s had substantively less voter turn out this time so I expect even less of them to show up to vote in the general. The berniebros simply don’t care. My problem as someone who is among the Bernieites as a supporter myself, I see them as mostly talk. They don’t really care about democracy (some have flat out even said so) and they don’t even care about Sanders themselves. Unfortunately their ‘talk’ serves as additional branch of propaganda which aids the Right and Trump. So I cannot ignore them.
My main issue is that a lot of the more well meaning Bernie supporters lack self reflection, while projecting it onto ‘the establishment’. When Clinton lost, sure a lot of her supporters were making excuses. This is wrong, as she made very real mistakes. But I have yet to see a Bernie supporter admit wrong doing with their mistakes. Not one. At least Hillary Clinton admitted that she made huge mistakes (while also not dismissing the very real Russian propaganda campaign, many of which were disseminated by Sander’s camp with no apologies and they continue to do so).
@Brony
Yes, I am calling out the lesser of two evils language. I think they are reductionist straw man fallacies. This doesn’t mean you cannot shame the shame worthy. It means that we over-focus. We over-focus like a motherfucker. To the point where we have so called leftists call Biden a fascist, when he clearly is not. That’s the ultimate conclusion of this rhetoric. With Biden there is a lot there to criticize, as I’m sure you can, but there is also a lot of good that can come of it. Even Bernie Sanders admits it. We focus to much on the fact that he is “lesser evil” and we don’t focus on the fact that between Trump and Biden, Biden would do the most good. Biden can be reasoned. We build a strong left organization and put the pressure. I’m fond of comparing the situation with how MLK convinced an out and about racist to pass civil rights legislation. Because MLK saw the good in LBJ. He didn’t over focus on the fact that his racism made him the “lesser of two evils”. Over-focusing on that breeds defeatist attitudes and terrible rhetoric that does not change anything.
And I feel this way even when the people using the “lesser of two evils” argument are on my side. Whenever I see someone say “I’m voting for the lesser of two evils because its the right thing to do cuz Trump is worse” I cringe inside. Its undermining their own point, if at least a little. Feel the same way whenever I see someone say “I’m holding my nose and voting Biden”. You undermine your own point, and makes you look snooty.
Its not even true (hence fallacious). A vote for Biden is not a vote for lesser evil. Its a vote for a “decent man” in Bernie’s own words, and most importantly its a vote against an out and about fascist who is currently getting fellow Americans killed through incompetence. This is not a vote against evil and lesser evil. This coming general is a vote between decent versus fascist. I choose decent.
A vote for Biden is a vote for good. All purity politics ever gave us is failure (Gore v Bush, Clinton v Trump, and both Sander’s primaries).
This shit is hilarious. The Berners on this thread are raging against the (largely minority) folk WHO JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND THE GLORY OF BERNIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111!!!!!!!!!!!
Case in point, CR calling him a malignant narcissist when he’s not. Because when you use that kind of rhetoric you fail to see the difference between a decent man with very real flaws, and a fucking fascist with no redeeming qualities. Just like the fool who called Biden a fascist (not CR, dont remember who it was) when you use this line of reasoning you blur everything to the right of you as being exactly the same when its not.
Right wingers do the same thing. Anyone to the left of them is an unabashed commie whose dangerous to this nation. Except they vote while doing so.
@98
Yea the largely minority voter base who is apparently “selfish and in ties with the elites” lol. They could have easily won them over as they are in worse economic position than many of these so called supporters, but instead they choose to alienate them and use inflammatory rhetoric which reminds us of Trumps white male rage.
Sorry for multi post, I will leave now.
Demented, malignant narcissist. Quotes from the “decent man w/ flaws,” for those who want it.
Asking the “not voting for Biden” crowd “why?” is like asking a baby why it threw the toys out of its pram. The answers make about the same sense. Selfish, whiny little prats.
That’s it CR, hold onto that ideological and political purity, because a flawed man could never be the source of anything good (cough, cough, LBJ…cough, cough FDR…). And certainly we’d never expect you to pollute your consciousness with anything so impure as an actual idea of how the political process works.
it has been many many decades that the conflict of the cold war was one of capitalism vs communism, in that conflict any distinction between socialism and communism were blurred further what was the state of the government in Russia was labeled communism and therefore socialism and the enemy. capitalism was painted as the great wealth creator and savior of humanity with the ideal of a completely free market the supreme goal. Any idea that deviated from that image was declared an enemy. The real conflict is much older and one of the earliest struggles to have any success was the revolution of 1776 it is the struggle for liberty against tyranny and the right of people to determine for themselves how things should be organized.
That struggle is not yet completed.
That is the backdrop for the 2020 election campaign,. Did Sanders get a fair shake in the press? Was he equated with a communist and compared with those in Venezuela. He did remarkably better than conventional wisdom would have predicted, but he was fighting against a long history much longer the HRC had to contend with he had little chance really of winning the election however. His proposals while really moderate had been poisoned years ago by fear and lies.
The struggle to depict him and his campaign as racist is a clear example there is so much smoke and innuendo to obscure any real details.
What is the goal? no struggle of this kind ends with one battle or has one strategy, when conditions change you change strategies to match the conditions or you f’n die here and now.
<blockquote> Giliell, I wish I shared your optimism, but even if the US were reduced to having the GDP of Haiti, we’d still be Haiti with nukes.</blockquote>
well if you look at the current situation as an indication of how that would workout in practice My guess would be that little of that armament would be operational anyway.
after the supper rich have gathered up all the money they will not be interested in spending a lot of it keeping those very expensive high-tech weaponry in operational condition, the the majority of the people wont have any extra to tax away, there is little now. The republican party has morphed from the no spend and no tax party to the party of spend and no tax party, which can not be continued for very long.
uncle frogy
Why did the blockquote come out like that?
uncle frogy
unclefrogy, somehow you used the <code> tag.
ARIDS:
You’ll never know which votes I’m casting in November. That’s how this “political process” works. But if that’s what matters to you, I’m sorry to inform you that voting is definitely not happening in this thread at the moment.
If you expect me to start lying for Biden, I want nothing to do with that process. Find somebody else for that job.
If you think Biden can only win the election with the left’s support, then someday he should probably start to think about meeting with the party leadership to possibly discuss the topic of doing something about it. Or he can do whatever the fuck he wants. It’s totally up to him.
@ logicalcat
We over-focus? You think some people are over-focusing. There’s a conflict here.
I’m not judging until I see the putative fascist features for myself.
You’re welcome to talk about the good parts of Biden but you’re also putting pressure on people to avoid criticism. I’m a critic by nature, the country itself is socially broken. I’m probably not going going to be saying much that’s positive about Biden. Not saying anything isn’t an option.
I’m not going to measure Biden and Trump together every time I point to a problem with Biden. The best I can do is tell you I’m already working on dealing with Trump supporters who might suddenly become interested issues like sexual harassment and assault.
If Biden can be reasoned with he will respond to social shaming. He should be a politician by now right?
I am one of those “hold my nose and vote” people. You are free to ask me what I mean by that instead of comparing me with the other thing. It’s a non-literalism. Basically I get to express my disgust at what I’m implicitly supporting. I think it’s a duty actually.
I don’t believe there’s enough in-group criticism in society so I role-model it. It’s political behavior and I’m not a D.
Good to see he has some criteria. After all, you can’t go round handing out dangerous weapons to just anyone. You have to be over 17 to be eligible for his gun. so that should filter out any psychopaths.
This cognitive dissonance keeps amusing me:
Even assuming that this is the only minority he won over, calling them collectively “blithering idiots” and “not caring for their children” is, yes, racist.
The complete lack of introspection from the Bros is…not surprising. Progressives in the US and abroad have been pointing out that Bernie’s class reductionism and ‘no identity politics’ was giving cover to some questionable ideas (even if that was not the intent of the campaign). Now that he’s lost, in their emotional distress on that loss, we see, right here some Bros go all-in on that.
Your attacks on Biden are not the only thing making you Trump-adjacent.
Rob, #102
Because they think voting is solely about the individual voter’s ego. And if people don’t vote, somehow they’ve selected “none of the above”.
They also act like if Biden wins, that is the only staff change that happens and no other officials get replaced. I don’t think anyone can seriously say Biden’s picks will be like Pence, Barr, Carson, and fucking Betsy Devos.
mvdwege, #110
I didn’t mean to say minorities who vote for Biden over Bernie don’t care for the welfare of their children. I meant that about the part of cartomancer’s post where they refer to people who vote for Trump over the Democrat candidate. I should have quoted that part, so the misunderstanding is my fault.
I all I can hear from dem loyalists – beyond their descent into being equal dogbrains as their ostensible enemy – is that they’re trying to deny, with great gusto, but little coherence that, through procedural fuckery and the media, the dems have already lost the 2020 election… and that they’re trying to deny to themselves that, after playing ‘one rapist, two rapist, red rapist, blue rapist’, let alone the drug warrior crap or the fact that Biden is a large part of why american millennial are screwed, as well as helping crapshat the supreme court, that they fundamentally deserve what they will get.
No one else will, but Biden and his inane fanboys shall.
Captain Jeep-Eep, #113
Biden will most likely lose by popular vote to Trump. I don’t want Biden to be POTUS. I don’t want Trump to be POTUS even more. That’s the sole reason I will vote for Biden. What a loyalist and fanboy I am!
Your choice on what you’re going to do on election day will also lead to either Trump or Biden being in office, so stop acting like you’re doing anything different.
It’s clear that you also think both Trump and Biden are bad choices for president. So the question is what are you doing to keep either of them from being in the White House in 2021. This should be good. I’ll wait.
That option has been taken away, and now either we choose to accelerate the death of the dems by rewarding them for installing a rapist, or think beyond short-termism and consider what the repubs would unleash against the man in 2024.
Last I checked, “None of the above” was not on the ballot in any of the 50 states or the territories. Not voting is voting for the incumbent. Period.
If you find Biden so repellent, then at least concentrate on getting a Senate that will blunt the worst coming from whoever resides at 1600 Penn. Ave. Concentrate on getting an acceptable candidate in place as VP, because I am not convinced that a 77-year old man can do this job without it killing him, and if Biden does get elected, he will almost assuredly be a one-term President.
Look at something outside your own navel.
Wow! It’s 4th November already? Who knew, except Captain Jeep-Eep?
Seriously, anyone who thinks they know the result of the election now is a complete numpty. Even in an average year that would generally be the case this far out, but right now (although the Captain clearly hasn’t noticed) the USA is in the middle of a pandemic, and tipping into a huge recession, with some 16 million unemployment claims in the last three weeks. No-one knows how things will look next month, let alone 6 months from now. Of course there will be procedural fuckery and the media will allow itself to be played by Trump. But to claim to know that he will win at this point is either stupid or dishonest – or, indeed, both.
Local organization and mutual support. Yes, great things, go for it. But “people in the real world” are hugely affected by who rules them. If this pandemic hasn’t taught you that, you are indeed unteachable.
His numbers are worse then Clintons at this point, and he’s been faddling elections for years. He’s also in the crosshairs of two scandals.
And yes, they’re affected by people who rule them, but the good option is now off the damn table, so work with what you’ve got.
CJE: “so work with what you’ve got.”
I’ma let this just hang there and waft its delicious irony all over the place.
You want to vote for one of the fuckers that made the situation, trash for brains, and then will throw a tantrum at the people who tried to prevent it when most folks see two different rapists, and tell them both to get bent, letting the incumbent get back in.
You and yours deserve Trump, the rest of us don’t, but the Bidenites have inflicted him on us.
CJE (shorter): “Waaaaa-aaaaaa-aaaaaaah!!!”
Captain Jeep-Eep, #121
I’m trying to make sense of this and it seems to be implying that you see yourself as someone who tried to prevent Biden and Trump. And we will throw a tantrum at you when Trump wins (even though you’re the one throwing tantrums at us)? And that somehow us voting for Biden in November is going to make Trump win? Have a minute to collect your thoughts before posting.
Biden’s loser policies, and his long record of being on the wrong side of history about practically everything, will help Trump win. Acting like we’re all just supposed to be blind to what Biden represents will not convince many people that they should vote for him, because they’re not blind to it and don’t want to be. Insulting/shaming/disregarding those who don’t like him is also not a strong tactic — you’re asking for their fucking votes.
You could spend this time telling people in the remaining primaries why they should vote for Sanders, to maximize his leverage. We should push Biden as far as possible into doing the right things, if he can pull of a win in the election, in terms of both his policies and those he would appoint into positions of power. (Since everybody fucking knows he’s not going to be much of a leader himself.)
If you spent your time like that, instead of hectoring other potential voters, then it would actually look like you want to strengthen this obviously pathetic candidate in order to defeat Trump. If you don’t, then I do think you’re a part of the problem. Maybe he can be moved…. He definitely seems like an empty suit to me, so fill it up with a candidate who might be worth the support of most people in this country. If those on the left don’t, those on the right will continue to do so.
In any case, the whole fucking idea of the election can’t just boil down to defeating Trump, with no strings attached, no effort to make the Dems stand firm on anything substantial that most actually care about. So, dispense with all of the bullshit apologetics on behalf of Biden. It’s not my responsibility to try to persuade people that just a little more fascism wouldn’t be too much fascism. And I can think of a million better things to do with my time than to suggest that those who resist it are just whining.
We need to be relentless, right now, about making strong demands of Biden, not licking his boots. The election will happen when it happens, which is not right now. If you want to talk about the “lesser evil,” then you should think about which things are less evil, that you can do right now while all this plays out, and which things are more evil. Then do the less evil shit, or else you can’t even say you stand for that.
Saad @112: Understood. I was wondering already if the brain-virus had gotten to you too :)
So consider that part of my attack rescinded. Not aimed at you.
Jared Kushner is apparently directing FEMA to confiscate medical equipment en route to hospitals -even hospitals in regions who suffer shortages- and then diverting them to hospitals in red battleground states.
If you want an analogy for the election in November and why you need to go out and vote for Biden, see Youtube where Herbert the Pervert (Family Guy) comes to save Chris from octagonarian nazi war criminal Lt. Slechtnacht in a (very slow) battle.
Herbert is not a good guy. He is a fucking paedo. But if he loses the battle Chris and Peter will be murdered. So the slogan for November should be “Save Chris and Peter! Root for the Pervert, not the Nazi!
To Biden supporters, I say this with the luxury and privilege of being an outsider that even if my comments regarding Biden’s record and character were wrong, your problem isn’t even if they’re true. Your problem is, how are you going to convince the not insubstantial bloc of Sanders supporters to vote for Biden?
Me saying he’s the least worst option is, I’ll admit a terrible campaign slogan but your responses-to say that people with these views are immature and obsessed with purity aren’t going to raise much enthusiasm either. The problem other Democrat’s have with Sander’s supporters is that they are electorally powerful. You can’t blame them for spoiling Clinton’s chances without acknowledging otherwise.
I know this, calling people out for being immature, obsessed with purity and enabling Trump might feel good, there’s an element of truth to it but it won’t convince people who believe that Sander’s policies were good or Bernie’s character is bad to change their views. So, how will you do it? How do you propose Joe Biden and his supporters win over Sander’s supporters? Because you know full well if that doesn’t happen a repeat of 2016 is likely!
mickll:
How will you do it?
(Also, why do you seek to put the onus on those you exhort? One person, one vote)
You shouldn’t put the onus on politicians to do better campaigns? Really? Recall, I did say “Joe Biden and his supporters.” I put the onus on Joe Biden because it’s his campaign to lose, not mine.
I’ve given my pitch, was told it wasn’t helpful. I honestly don’t have a better one.
A return to “normalcy” would be better but not because it looks good from where I stand. From a global perspective it still looks like dragging other countries into your wars and accelerating global heating. Domestically it still leaves your poor without health coverage and your rich with disproportionate power-including protection from prosecution and judgement. One is less worse than the other is all I’ve got.
If it’s in your interests to convince the block of voters who were evidently powerful enough to deny Clinton the presidency, I’d be happy to see how you plan to go about doing it. The best I have is that Biden is less worse than Trump, and that’s not optimal.
mickll:
Ahem. You specifically wrote “To Biden supporters, I say this with the luxury and privilege of being an outsider” in your preamble.
Well, there’s your answer. All you can do is advocacy, and voting. All anyone can do.
Meanwhile, polling suggests that strong enthusiasm for Biden over Trump is just 24%, strong ethusiasm for Trump over Biden is 53%. Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-consolidates-support-trails-badly-enthusiasm-poll/story?id=69812092
Good luck, you’re gonna need it!
mickll, cherrypicking? Anyone can do that.
e.g. CNN found that Biden leads Trump 53% to 42% among registered voters nationwide.