Bernie/Biden task force presents suggestions
- Thread starter dreng3
- Start date
Historically, it's only a good potential basis if the President gets shot during his term. Very few VP's have gone on to become President, and half of those who did are frontloaded among the Founding Fathers.
Which presidents were vice presidents? - Periodic Presidents
How many of our presidents served as vice president first? Check out our article (written with History First) to learn about this path to White House.
periodicpresidents.com
It's as I said: the VP is largely a do-nothing office. It has, by default, fewer powers than basically any Cabinet position. The only power and experience a VP has in the executive, is what the President doles out for them. Cheney was among the most influential VP's of all time, because he was a substantial power player in Republican and corporate politics, and W. gave him a lot of reign. Several VP's have been entirely shut out of executive affairs; a famous example of one particular instance is that FDR never informed Truman of the atomic weapons program, even on his deathbed. That a VP pick influences votes is well-established, but it's just about the epitome of style over substance.
If you think Biden's VP pick has a shot of becoming President, you are either banking on Biden being shot, or Biden becoming incapacitated through medical issues. If you believe that that is imminent, yes, that would be a good reason to elect Biden. But as I postulated earlier in this very thread, if Democrat leadership believed that that would be imminent, they would rather sacrifice whatever share of the progressive vote that pick would gain them in favor of a loyalist who will toe the main anti-progressive line of the party.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 14,850
- 3,719
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
I didn't say that, I just said it's more likely to happen under Trump. And indeed, very ardently do I believe the consolidation, vertical integration, opacity, and unaccountability of the contemporary mass media represents the single biggest threat to the country. More than COVID, more than the economic crisis, more than climate change. So long as the country's means and forums for mass communication lie within the ownership of approximately half a dozen aggressively anti-competitive for-profit corporations, that don't actually compete and are accountable to no one but shareholders (and they all have the same institutional shareholders), no substantive progress on public policy can or will occur.
Frankly, I'm an OG "no war but class war" socialist who views intersectionality and identity politics as a divisive and destructive force among the left, that exists of, by, and for predominantly white, bourgeois, liberals. I used to run in those circles and got the fuck out before Occupy, I know the game and whose interests it ultimately serves. It's not historically disadvantaged and oppressed demographics, you can be goddamned sure of that when woke capital is the buzzword of the decade. It's a Trojan horse and a vehicle for dividing and conquering the left, by destroying class consciousness, which is precisely why it has been actively embraced by capital.
Don't mistake that as a lack of consideration for POC or LGBTQ rights and welfare. I just see through the bullshit and recognize the left's empathy and eagerness to elevate historically disadvantaged voices being weaponized against it. And I'm not going to settle for performance and token, proven purpose-built-to-fail, policy that solves for neither the effects nor causes of social, economic, or political oppression.
Okay, but think of it in terms of who became candidate? Let's look at postwar, because I'm skeptical of the value of going too far back:
Richard Nixon (Eisenhower), Hubert Humphrey (Johnson), Walter Mondale (Carter), George H.W. Bush (Reagan), Al Gore (Clinton), Joe Biden (Obama). That's 6/13 not including Pence, who hasn't had an opportunity to run for president. 8/13 if we include Johnson and and Ford, although they had incumbency due to presidential mishap. It is therefore potentially a very significant potential springboard, and an opportunity to build public notice and party support. Plus, of course, the chance of taking the presidency if something goes wrong with the nearly 80-year-old Biden before his term ends.
And the commonality is most of those failed to be elected. Nixon, as a matter of fact, didn't win the presidency until a 2nd go around 8 years later, after much of the Republican party had collapsed and following some canny and morally bankrupt undermining of Johnson's term. He had also remained as one of the Republican Party's leaders throughout the 60;s, even out of office. That's a lot of mitigating factors that do not apply to Biden, or any other random VP in the list. H.W. Bush managed to get in after Reagan, and then became the only president in what is now around a 40 year time span who only managed to keep the seat for a single term.
If anything, your point goes to why the VP pick is a non-point: they fail to get elected. Frankly, Biden wouldn't have had a chance this go around either if the DNC didn't pull the rug out from Bernie's feet and this year overall hadn't been such a dumpster fire. If you wanna hang on to this argument, then you are asking if people would be more inclined to vote Biden if he picked a progressive VP whose odds of ascending to the presidency lowered by being picked.
It's tempting to seek comfort where we can in a time of duress, but I will state again: VP picks are matters of public perception in the lead up to an election, they are not indicative whatsoever of policy or the pick's place in American power dynamics. Elections are always majority charade and circuses, and the VP pick is firmly in that part of the cycle. If what people care about are policy proposals and direction, the VP is a nothingburger. It will act as how I've said it'll act: as a wind vane showing the DNC's confidence in Biden's health.
Then, for the most part, you aren't going to be taken seriously in politics because you're fundamentally not interested in the primary cleavages in US politics going back to the founding, particularly on race.
That's the fundamental flaw a "class-consciousness" progressive miss or refuse to see: race and minority issues drive voters a lot more than economics or even inequality, and this goes back a lot farther than the 1980s or even the southern strategy in the 1970s. There have been two major realignments of the parties in the history of the US and both fundamentally centered on the question of race, first on whether black people could be considered full humans pre-US-Civil War (when the Democratic-Republicans and Whig parties shuffled and became the Republican and Democratic Parties) and the second following the Civil Rights act when "Dixiecrat" democrats initially fled the Democratic party following LBJ's successful legislative push (eventually shifting to the Republican party as it adopted the race-baiting southern strategy), which has led to the current status of the parties with the Democrats largely supporting addressing minority issues (which expanded into LGBTQ+ issues more forcefully in the early 2000s, though efforts go back to before Stonewall) and Republicans largely trying to maintain the majoritarian status quo with little intervention into the issues that more directly impact those groups disproportionately.
And if you want to be successful politically as a movement, you have to feel like you're actually responsive to what the voters (and primary voters in particular) are looking for. The most successful politicians don't tell voters to come to them, they go to the voters and try to address their most immediate fears. This is one of the reasons why Biden and Clinton succeeded where Sanders failed: the voters wanted what they were selling, with Clinton effectively selling herself as the person who could further advance the progress of the Obama years and Biden as the "get us back to normal" as his message. It's also why Trump won his nomination when every other GOP candidate lost: he, whether by coincidence or intentionally, realized that the average GOP base voter, hyped up on Fox News and Talk Radio, wanted a loudmouth who was as anti-immigrant as they were primed to be.
If socialists want to be successful, they need to actually address what people say is the problem and not tell them "actually, your problem is XYZ" (which is almost always what I hear from self-described socialists) because that tells them they're not interested in what the voter has to say. That's partially what this task force is about: to address the issues that the Sander's base, which made up enough of a chunk of the party to have a voice, but not enough to make a decision. Biden with the assistance of Sanders is going to them to try and see if he can address their concerns so that they'll vote for him in November, because he, Sanders, and pretty much everyone who understands politics knows that Biden will be the path of least resistance to advance progressive policy compared to the only real alternative winner in November: Trump.
- May 6, 2020
- 1,133
- 1,213
- 118
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- White Male
Well, this isn't nearly as disagreeable as I had expected, especially in regards to guns, which as I've mentioned before is my pet issue. I think that issue has severely shrunk in importance due to the protests/riots last month.
At this point, I think Biden will probably win if he gets the nomination.
At this point, I think Biden will probably win if he gets the nomination.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 14,850
- 3,719
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
I think at this point, any smart democrats want to just avoid the gun issues entirely, we have too much shit to deal with to worry about that fight and it tends to be a losing fight anyway. Plus, if the protests showed us anything its that maybe there is a reason to be armed.
I... really think you have a fundamentally huge misunderstanding of both socialism and the USA. Socialism is repellent because the three greatest murderers of the last century came to power through socialism. Which also leads to your misunderstanding of the USA. The USA was not founded on race, it was founded on the idea of everyone having a right to speak, bear arms, etc, a lot of "screw the man" things. It was founded against oppression, that's why slavery was such a big deal, because it was a huge contradiction to the values the country was meant to be founded on. That's why it gets people riled up, because black people are people too and should be as free as anyone else. Which is why socialism is so repellent to any American that knows anything about it, because it leads to tyranny, oppression.
- May 6, 2020
- 1,133
- 1,213
- 118
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- White Male
Exactly. I knew a lot of people who thought "just call the police if you have trouble" was a great argument against owning firearms. Now? I am not so sure many people are willing to make it.
An extremely short time it is indeed (though this is still less ambitious than the Green New Deal put forward by other candidates). But the US wouldn't need to reach the goals for the drive to have enormous positive impact.
From the paper (underlining mine);
Unity Task Force Recommendations said:
I don’t think the Biden/Bernie part of the platform would include guns, but I’m still slightly worried they’ll still let Beto have his day on that.
This isn't true. 14 went on to become President after being VP (only two of whom were among the Founding Fathers), so well over a quarter of all Presidents ascended this way.
Your quick googling included the 4 who ascended after their president was shot, and another 4 whose presidents died of various ailments.
6/48 (I have just recalled that there have been more VPs than Ps) have gone on to be elected President, 2 in the modern era, 2 who were founding fathers, and many others who ran for President and lost. I believe my point that "Historically, it's only a good potential basis if the President gets shot during his term" stands, with the minor caveat that disease has its say as well.
Last edited:
- Apr 1, 2009
- 14,850
- 3,719
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
That's cause it was a really good argument but it was also one of those that if someone who was anti-gun control I wouldn't really be able to argue against. Even less so now.
I'm aware. Leaving 6/45 who ascended without death occurring. Out of such a minuscule sample, 6 is not to be sniffed at.
You can see the rest of my edits for that. If you discount the founding fathers, you're down to 4. If you cut it down to the modern political scene, you're down to 2. If you weigh that against the number of VPs who have tried to become president and lost the election, results are in favor of VP being a shitty path to the presidency.
Edit: oh hey, guess what I forgot! Good ol' Jerry Ford got in when Nixon resigned. Take that down to 5/48 who have been elected President after their term as VP, minus the two Founding Fathers (who I have been discounting given that a few of them were such giants of the political field in their time that they were simply climbing all over each other between positions in a way that hasn't happened since, and those elections also predate the 12th Amendment), leaving only 3 who have ever gone on to be elected President without first inheriting the office through untimely death. A statistic from a Huffpost article that I'm not gonna bother vetting: those 3 are out of 9 total vice presidents who have tried to be elected without inheriting the office. If you want to keep it to post-WW2, you have 2 successes, 3 failures.
I call those bad results. You can look at that and call it good along the same line as a batting average of 40% is actually good all things considered. I'd call you wrong, and that's that.
Last edited:
To be frank, too good to be true. If an option is made available for full coverage, for free, with no deductibles, and no copay, you have full on government subsidized healthcare, with no reason for a private option to exist. Exactly what a lot of progressives have asked for, and been told they couldn't have. So where's the catch? There's one somewhere, but insurance matters have always made my head spin and I'm low on sleep.