Bernie/Biden task force presents suggestions

[Agema]

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.

Yes, but what's the ultimate stepping stone to being the president? Put simply, being the party's candidate for presidential election. If someone does not achieve that, they are effectively guaranteed to not be president.

Which job has done better? It can be assumed that the vast majority of presidents after the founding fathers will have been a senator, state governor, or perhaps leading general - these are the territory of minimal qualifications. I'm not going to count them so I'm just going to throw out a not-too-implausible figure, but let's say there have been ~1000 senators postwar. How many of them made it to the presidency? What's the hit rate for Secretaries of State, Secretaries of Defence? You can say VPs don't amount to much, but they're pretty much better than anything else.

Politics needs a pragmatic long game, and the job of progressives is not to sulk in a corner because a centreist won their party's nod. It's about building up a future candidate to represent them: public attention, grassroots campaigning, people to rally round. It's not just building up potential candidates, but that that anyone in a position of power can also use their position in turn to bolster the wider movement, influence the party and its machinery.

Do you know how many Democratic Senators are in the Congressional Progressive Caucus? One, and he's already 78 years old. Progressives have a void of people in more senior positions to build upon, and you need to think about preparations for 2024. If you're planning on a new candidate arising before then, they're going to have to be Obama-level charming and inspiring (which is to say one-in-a-thousand amazing, so don't count your chances), or they'll have just three years to build a platform and they'll face a welter of criticism for inexperience. Getting a progressive VP hands you a big shot of a potential 2024 candidate on a platter, should Biden not seek a second term. And more influence and ability to work on the party for 2028 and beyond.

 

[Silvanus]

Not being Vice President, for starters.

Really? About 108 billion people have not been Vice President of the United States, 31 of whom became President of the United States. That doesn't seem a very high success rate.

Military experience, for another. Being able to form coherent sentences is a plus, as is not subjecting woman after woman to scratch & sniff tests.

Yeah, military experience, if we count all the various kinds and branches as a whole. But V.P. is a specific role. A like-for-like comparison would involve a specific military rank.

So don't remove exceptions. Except for [...]

See the issue here?

On the one hand, that's nice and I approve (with the exception that I still take exception to the "low income" wording since it does not explicitly include no income Americans). And I don't feel ashamed to say that I approve of that idea, it's a step in the right direction, and what Obamacare should have been all along.

However, I do feel safe in saying that I do not believe that it will happen. I disagree with Eacaraxe's overwhelming cynicism as to the motivations of those who drafted this proposal, but I believe that he is correct that it will be henpecked to death through the process of becoming a part of the party platform and the legislative process.

We'll have to see. I find it pretty unlikely that the proposals will make it into policy without significant "adjustment" (read: fuckery) either.

But a public option was already a part of the party platform before the task forces. Decarbonisation was, too. Less extensive, less generous versions; but the point is that the proposals build on bases that were already there. He knows he has to appeal to these areas.

What I find even more unlikely is that with a Democratic voterbase so invested in healthcare reform, Biden's approach will be anywhere even approaching as bad as Trump's. No matter how disillusioned you are, you have to recognise that parties must to some degree cater to the interests of their voterbase. There is not a total disconnect. What those voters want often gets watered down, sometimes gets ignored, and occasionally gets betrayed. But to pretend there is no reflection whatsoever of the voters' interests in their party of choice is naivete. The most jaded political analyst on the planet will admit as much.

And those expecting equivalence between Biden's platform and Trump's are not just expecting watering down, or ignoring, or even regular betrayal. In order for his party platform to become equivalent to Trump's, he would need to drop every single policy-- every single one-- and then implement the most right-wing platform the country has seen in a century. It would be the greatest betrayal in modern American political history. Nothing in Biden's shitty, shitty record even comes close. And to expect it even after he's gone quite a lot further than his predecessor in forming a task force with his progressive opponent and then publishing their proposals in full on his own website?

Expecting this to happen is not healthy scepticism. Expecting this is absurd.

EDIT: Please note that I'm using 'you' in the general sense above. I'm not saying you're making any such assumptions.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Politics needs a pragmatic long game, and the job of progressives is not to sulk in a corner because a centreist won their party's nod. It's about building up a future candidate to represent them: public attention, grassroots campaigning, people to rally round. It's not just building up potential candidates, but that that anyone in a position of power can also use their position in turn to bolster the wider movement, influence the party and its machinery.

The problem with this is it's at immediate, irreconcilable, loggerheads with this:

Biden is not everything one should, or could, hope for, but progress is a a process. The first goal must be to create a space that allows for progressive thought and progressive voices, it is impossible to jump straight to solutions.
Just look at Trump, once he was elected the far right conservatives came crawling out of the woodworks, because they had representation and were emboldened by the president, there is a hope that with Biden in office the left will start to stand up for itself.

"Stop the bleeding, vote for the 'moderate' compromise now, hold us accountable after the election, and once we've done damage control we can move left" has been the go-to rhetoric/excuse since at least '68 -- but it's awful funny how little that advisory plays the other way 'round. This will be the sixth consecutive Presidential election in which that "logic" has been employed, during which time the only Democratic candidate to win would be the one who ran an insurgent populist campaign founded on core progressive values, and this was despite a whole-ass quarter of the party's conservative/corporate wing bailing and voting for McCain. What Obama actually did in office notwithstanding, he won to begin with.

There's a choice between one of two factions within the Democratic party with drastically different visions, strategies, and ideologies. One faction brought Gore, Kerry, and Hillary to the platform; the other, Obama. Taking that into consideration, the only question really left is why is the Democratic party hegemonically ruled by professional wrong people.

And I haven't even gone into the Democratic party's think tank complex, donor base, nor how the DCCC and DSCC consistently favor conservative Democrats to the point of violating their own bylaws to back conservative primary challengers against progressive incumbents. Just in case we forget every member of "the squad" save Pressley faced DCCC-backed challengers this year, and it's pretty much a foregone conclusion NY is going to gerrymander AOC and Bowman out of their seats next year.

 

[SupahEwok]

Really? About 108 billion people have not been Vice President of the United States, 31 of whom became President of the United States. That doesn't seem a very high success rate.

Yeah, military experience, if we count all the various kinds and branches as a whole. But V.P. is a specific role. A like-for-like comparison would involve a specific military rank.

See the issue here?

I see the issue of you not being able to concede for your life, yes. And the reference to military experience is from 50+% of US Presidents having it. 26/44.

"Really? About 108 billion people have not been Vice President of the United States, 31 of whom became President of the United States. That doesn't seem a very high success rate."

That's such a laughably bad, poor faith argument that it's hardly worth responding to.

Seriously, how hard is it to concede that over half of Vice Presidents got to be Presidents cuz the President died means that those VP's aren't an example of being VP improving your election odds? Likewise that VP's elected before the 12th Amendment, which fundamentally altered the procedure for electing VP's?

Which job has done better? It can be assumed that the vast majority of presidents after the founding fathers will have been a senator, state governor, or perhaps leading general - these are the territory of minimal qualifications. I'm not going to count them so I'm just going to throw out a not-too-implausible figure, but let's say there have been ~1000 senators postwar. How many of them made it to the presidency? What's the hit rate for Secretaries of State, Secretaries of Defence? You can say VPs don't amount to much, but they're pretty much better than anything else.

You too, dude. 16 Presidents have been Senators. 17 Presidents have been Governors. 12 Presidents were Generals.
8 who were Cabinet members, 5 of those were Secretary of State. More former Secretary of States have won the Presidency without inheriting it first than former Vice Presidents, which will remain true even if Biden wins this Presidency. That's something you brought up.

Spin it as you like, dude. VP is the exact kind of "looks good but does nothing" position that can be used as a sop to progressives without actually giving them anything of substance. It's the embodiment of the exact criticism progressives have of the Democrat party as a whole.

 

[Silvanus]

I see the issue of you not being able to concede for your life, yes. And the reference to military experience is from 50+% of US Presidents having it. 26/44.

Not that. The issue of saying that we should be applying exceptions, and then the next two words being, "except for".

"Really? About 108 billion people have not been Vice President of the United States, 31 of whom became President of the United States. That doesn't seem a very high success rate."

That's such a laughably bad, poor faith argument that it's hardly worth responding to.

I put it that way as a joke, in an (apparently misguided) attempt to add some levity.

I was hoping to illustrate that not being V.P. isn't an avenue. You're pitting every other career path combined against one single career path. There's no useful data to be drawn there.

Seriously, how hard is it to concede that over half of Vice Presidents got to be Presidents cuz the President died means that those VP's aren't an example of being VP improving your election odds? Likewise that VP's elected before the 12th Amendment, which fundamentally altered the procedure for electing VP's?

Well, for one thing, we were just talking about becoming President, not being elected President. One of the main purposes of the V.P. role is to be next in line if the POTUS is incapacitated in some way, so it seems odd to except those circumstances. Particularly since Biden is pretty damn old.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Spin it as you like, dude. VP is the exact kind of "looks good but does nothing" position that can be used as a sop to progressives without actually giving them anything of substance. It's the embodiment of the exact criticism progressives have of the Democrat party as a whole.

I had a longer post worked out, but frankly, I don't need it.

Everything else I might have to say about this topic is irrelevant. But here it is anyway since I already wrote it.

Spoiler

Under normal circumstances you'd be right, but these are not normal circumstances:

First, the Democratic party establishment perceives itself in a state of civil war with their left flank. They're hardly wrong, but it's a war they started in 2016 and have waged for four years to the detriment of the party's and country's best interest. You don't have to look any further than the distribution by age of the vote in the Democratic primaries to realize the party has chosen to ratfuck itself into extinction inside a decade, just to preserve the short-term vested interests of its constituent elite. In short, Democrats think they're waging war with progressives, but what they're really up against are actuarial tables.

We'll see how that bold strategy pays off post-boomer remover, in a country with devolving standards of living, quality of life, average life expectancy, fertility, and infant mortality.

Democratic policy elite would rather burn the party to the ground than substantively tack left, and that's a matter of record at this point as Democratic policy elite have said as much in interviews with the press consistently for four years. This isn't about beating Trump, it's about scapegoating progressives for the 2016 election and blocking electoral gains by progressives by any means necessary. It's a war waged out of ego and personal animus, of, by, and for the Clintonista wing who were the ones who got Trump elected in the first place.

Simply put, establishment Democrats are too egotistic and buttmad to give the VP nod to a progressive, because it would signify they do in fact need the progressive vote. Especially in this case, because...

Second, Biden's a sundowning 77-year-old with arrhythmia, extremely high cholesterol, and a history of brain aneurysms. Cut the shit, compare his speech and mannerisms from his time in the Senate, past Presidential campaigns, even his time as VP -- he's in cognitive decline, period. The extent of it has been exaggerated, sure, but we're not talking about March, now, or approaching election day -- we're talking about a four-year span of time between 2021 and 2024 working the most stressful job with the highest potential stakes on the planet. I'm not even worried about him and the decisions he would make, I'm worried about unelected cabinet members and bureaucrats whose names are generally kept off front pages, who would have his ear during that term.

Like it or not, the chance Biden will croak in office is very real. That means the VP pick is extremely important, Biden said as much himself. If you want another example, look at good old Ronnie Raygun: Reagan's former inner circle can circle the wagons as long and as hard as they want, he was in '81 the oldest President elected to office, and he was sundowning before the '84 election. Bush's selection as VP was central to his campaign as well.

 

[SupahEwok]

I had a longer post worked out, but frankly, I don't need it.

Everything else I might have to say about this topic is irrelevant. But here it is anyway since I already wrote it.

Spoiler

Under normal circumstances you'd be right, but these are not normal circumstances:

First, the Democratic party establishment perceives itself in a state of civil war with their left flank. They're hardly wrong, but it's a war they started in 2016 and have waged for four years to the detriment of the party's and country's best interest. You don't have to look any further than the distribution by age of the vote in the Democratic primaries to realize the party has chosen to ratfuck itself into extinction inside a decade, just to preserve the short-term vested interests of its constituent elite. In short, Democrats think they're waging war with progressives, but what they're really up against are actuarial tables.

We'll see how that bold strategy pays off post-boomer remover, in a country with devolving standards of living, quality of life, average life expectancy, fertility, and infant mortality.

Democratic policy elite would rather burn the party to the ground than substantively tack left, and that's a matter of record at this point as Democratic policy elite have said as much in interviews with the press consistently for four years. This isn't about beating Trump, it's about scapegoating progressives for the 2016 election and blocking electoral gains by progressives by any means necessary. It's a war waged out of ego and personal animus, of, by, and for the Clintonista wing who were the ones who got Trump elected in the first place.

Simply put, establishment Democrats are too egotistic and buttmad to give the VP nod to a progressive, because it would signify they do in fact need the progressive vote. Especially in this case, because...

Second, Biden's a sundowning 77-year-old with arrhythmia, extremely high cholesterol, and a history of brain aneurysms. Cut the shit, compare his speech and mannerisms from his time in the Senate, past Presidential campaigns, even his time as VP -- he's in cognitive decline, period. The extent of it has been exaggerated, sure, but we're not talking about March, now, or approaching election day -- we're talking about a four-year span of time between 2021 and 2024 working the most stressful job with the highest potential stakes on the planet. I'm not even worried about him and the decisions he would make, I'm worried about unelected cabinet members and bureaucrats whose names are generally kept off front pages, who would have his ear during that term.

Like it or not, the chance Biden will croak in office is very real. That means the VP pick is extremely important, Biden said as much himself. If you want another example, look at good old Ronnie Raygun: Reagan's former inner circle can circle the wagons as long and as hard as they want, he was in '81 the oldest President elected to office, and he was sundowning before the '84 election. Bush's selection as VP was central to his campaign as well.

You can see my former posts in this thread on:

1) Cheney being an outlier, due to his political power outside of the office of VP, and his hold over W. He was quite possibly the most powerful and influential VP of all time, by a significant margin. Compare Cheney's Vice Presidency with Biden's for the difference.

2) that the VP pick will say more about the DNC's confidence in Biden's health, or lack thereof, than anything else. A progressive pick means that they're confident he'll make it, a party-liner means they aren't. Simple as that. And it makes the question of a progressive pick moot.

 

[SupahEwok]

Well, for one thing, we were just talking about becoming President, not being elected President. One of the main purposes of the V.P. role is to be next in line if the POTUS is incapacitated in some way, so it seems odd to except those circumstances. Particularly since Biden is pretty damn old.

Wrong.

Historically, it's only a good potential basis if the President gets shot during his term.

My very first post on the topic. It was followed by a bunch of waffling over how it was a route to the Presidency outside of those circumstances, which I rebutted point by point with how it was a bad one, especially in comparison to others, and now we've looped back around to the beginning. I'm disengaging from the topic, it's gone from amusing to inane.

 

[Silvanus]

I'm disengaging from the topic, it's gone from amusing to inane.

That's fine, since it's a relatively unimportant topic to begin with.

If I might make a suggestion, though: you may find it generally more amusing if you approached an obvious joke as a joke, or at the very least didn't react with hostility.

 

[Agema]

The problem with this is it's at immediate, irreconcilable, loggerheads with this:

The US progressive model for winning election widely touted on these forums seems analogous to someone hoping to get a job by a strategy of sitting around at home in their pyjamas and waiting for an employer to realise how brilliant they are and come round to their doorstep begging them to sign up.

Blah blah blah... That's something you brought up.

No, it really isn't. It's just you made such an utter fucking hash of reading and processing the point put to you. But oh well.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

The US progressive model for winning election widely touted on these forums seems analogous to someone hoping to get a job by a strategy of sitting around at home in their pyjamas and waiting for an employer to realise how brilliant they are and come round to their doorstep begging them to sign up.

It's a problem with 3rd party candidacy's in general: US mythology is so saturated with "and then One Big Person did One Big Thing and the problem was solved forever" that finding people to actually put in the work is like finding needles in a haystack, and the people currently in power know that. A particularly progressive faction, or the Greens, or the Libertarians, or whatever other 3rd party is not, *is not*, going to have any sort of shot at the presidency until they have a power base.

And I mean city councils. Ombudsmen. District Attorneys. State Legislatures. Governors and Congresscritters.

The Tea Party is garbage, but they were *effective*. They shotgunned every single primary and election they could find, from national Senate elections to Dogcatcher. It's only because their actual policies were spectacular dogshit that they lost any influence at all. Similarly, we've got Qanon candidates for shit now.

Meanwhile, my choices for city council are "vague liberal who wants better jobs for my largely residential section of town and who will at least pretend to read a memo about possible rent control" and "vague conservative who wants better jobs for my section of town and also fuck that communist"

 

[tstorm823]

What's the hit rate for Secretaries of State, Secretaries of Defence? You can say VPs don't amount to much, but they're pretty much better than anything else.

More former Secretary of States have won the Presidency without inheriting it first than former Vice Presidents, which will remain true even if Biden wins this Presidency. That's something you brought up.

No, it really isn't. It's just you made such an utter fucking hash of reading and processing the point put to you. But oh well.

I mean, that looks pretty cut and dry to me. Pretty sure this round goes to SupahEwok.

 

[Eacaraxe]

The US progressive model for winning election widely touted on these forums seems analogous to someone hoping to get a job by a strategy of sitting around at home in their pyjamas and waiting for an employer to realise how brilliant they are and come round to their doorstep begging them to sign up.

Keyword, seems. Because that's the carefully-tailored message you're fed to feed into and propagate the narrative progressives are free riders.

It's also a complete fabrication and a comforting lie liberals tell themselves to hide the fact old boy networks and political machines never went away. Nowadays they're more powerful than they've been since the death of William Tweed, Slick Willie saw to that. Only thing that's changed is women and black people get let into the backroom.

You might fool somebody else with that bullshit, but that's a complete no-sale for me because I had family members who were fixers, and I grew up around the party apparatus. Not one bit of what I was offered -- campaign positions, page positions, favors, scholarships -- was down to talent, skill, education, experience, or any other consideration, it was because I popped out a vagina with the right last name.

"Progressives need to work from the ground up to prove their bona fides and network" is the "bootstraps" of the Democratic party. It's designed to fail, because the party machine is purpose-built from the ground up to exclude unapproved voices.

1) Cheney being an outlier, due to his political power outside of the office of VP, and his hold over W. He was quite possibly the most powerful and influential VP of all time, by a significant margin. Compare Cheney's Vice Presidency with Biden's for the difference.

You mean the guy who was supposedly Obama's go-to man who had "an unprecedented level of access and influence" and "consistently changed Obama's mind on policy, including same-sex marriage" as a selling point for his campaign? This is kind of an either-or proposition here, either VP is powerless and meaningless and Biden's time as VP doesn't matter, or the VP is a substantive office with considerable influence on the Presidency.

And more importantly, Biden's still a 77-year-old sundowner who's already gone on record saying he was a POTUS-ready VP who will have considerable influence in his prospective administration. For reasons that should be obvious. Which means the question is, "would we see a Democratic equivalent to Cheney?".

 

[Agema]

I mean, that looks pretty cut and dry to me. Pretty sure this round goes to SupahEwok.

Okay, so count up how many Secretaries of State there have been postwar, and then count up how many have become president. Now express that as a percentage success rate.

In fact, let me answer half (and indirectly all) of that for you, because the last president to have previously served as Secretary of State was, Google tells me, James Buchanan. Whilst my knowledge of US presidents is far from encyclopaedic, I'm pretty sure he was pre-war... by which I mean the US Civil War.

Keyword, seems. Because that's the carefully-tailored message you're fed to feed into and propagate the narrative progressives are free riders.

Firstly, "free rider" is the wrong term. Progressives are not free riders, because they're not getting what they want: they're a minority lacking both raw votes and institutional power. It might be more accurate to call the Democratic centre free riders, because they're co-opting the progressive vote for their own ends without giving much back.

I'm well aware that intraparty politics is as much a brutal knife-fight as interparty politics, and that patronage is a universal problem. Fun fact - even in UK Labour's Corbynite years, party internships were full of the scions of Labour MPs and fixers. The business-friendly Democratic centre is surely happy to suppress the progressive left, but they cannot obstruct indefinitely, particularly if progressives have the raw popular vote they claim to: chip away and chunks will fall. I'm sure many progressives are busy at this.

But I don't get the impression many people on this forum are. All I feel like I'm reading is abstentionism in the hope that eventually the Democratic edifice is just going to collapse on its own, and progressives can take over and rebuild it. If that's the aim, vote Republican, as it'll be more efficient. Otherwise it all seems to like putting yourself in the control of other people and fate.

 

[Worgen]

But I don't get the impression many people on this forum are. All I feel like I'm reading is abstentionism in the hope that eventually the Democratic edifice is just going to collapse on its own, and progressives can take over and rebuild it. If that's the aim, vote Republican, as it'll be more efficient. Otherwise it all seems to like putting yourself in the control of other people and fate.

I really get the feeling they think that if they quit hard enough then everything will go their way or they are just trumpers playing at being progressive.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Firstly, "free rider" is the wrong term. Progressives are not free riders, because they're not getting what they want: they're a minority lacking both raw votes and institutional power. It might be more accurate to call the Democratic centre free riders, because they're co-opting the progressive vote for their own ends without giving much back.

It is the correct term, because it is both the common perception among establishment figures and the scenario you laid out: of progressives doing nothing, but expecting to be rewarded with legislative seats and policy proposals in exchange for nothing. And as Chuck Schumer so brazenly put it in 2016 in not as few words, their votes are disposable and the opportunity cost of catering to progressives in terms of lost "moderate" votes is counter-productive. Because Democrats are preoccupied with "winner take all" politics when it comes to their left flank, but more than happy to engage in "coalition building" when it comes to their right.

And, it might have worked in 2016 had Hillary Clinton or anyone in her campaign understood how the electoral college works and thought to substantively campaign in swing states...or at least, not defraud and ignore state parties until three weeks before the election when any forthcoming course-correction would be too little, too late.

...chip away and chunks will fall. I'm sure many progressives are busy at this.

But I don't get the impression many people on this forum are. All I feel like I'm reading is abstentionism in the hope that eventually the Democratic edifice is just going to collapse on its own, and progressives can take over and rebuild it. If that's the aim, vote Republican, as it'll be more efficient.

This is the only graphic that matters. As I said, Democrats think they're fighting progressives but what they're really fighting are actuarial charts. Democrats are more than happy to play demographic games when it suits them (see, "Texas will be blue by 2024!" arguments based on hispanic/latino population growth), and what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I neither identify with nor participate in Democratic politics; I'm an "undecided". Democrats aren't entitled to my vote because I'm on the left, end of story, and if the Democratic party wants to vote itself into irrelevance by the end of the decade, it's no skin off my ass.

 

[Avnger]

It is the correct term, because it is both the common perception among establishment figures and the scenario you laid out: of progressives doing nothing, but expecting to be rewarded with legislative seats and policy proposals in exchange for nothing. And as Chuck Schumer so brazenly put it in 2016 in not as few words, their votes are disposable and the opportunity cost of catering to progressives in terms of lost "moderate" votes is counter-productive. Because Democrats are preoccupied with "winner take all" politics when it comes to their left flank, but more than happy to engage in "coalition building" when it comes to their right.

And, it might have worked in 2016 had Hillary Clinton or anyone in her campaign understood how the electoral college works and thought to substantively campaign in swing states...or at least, not defraud and ignore state parties until three weeks before the election when any forthcoming course-correction would be too little, too late.

This is the only graphic that matters. As I said, Democrats think they're fighting progressives but what they're really fighting are actuarial charts. Democrats are more than happy to play demographic games when it suits them (see, "Texas will be blue by 2024!" arguments based on hispanic/latino population growth), and what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I neither identify with nor participate in Democratic politics; I'm an "undecided". Democrats aren't entitled to my vote because I'm on the left, end of story, and if the Democratic party wants to vote itself into irrelevance by the end of the decade, it's no skin off my ass.

I mean while that's a nice chart and all, those tucked away in a hard to see color "% of voter" numbers tell the entire story. When people aged 50+ make up 55% of total voters, no shit their overwhelmingly preferred candidate is going to win. I look at those numbers and it's clear to see that Democrats aren't failing progressives; young people are failing progressives. Democrats are merely following the voters (as a political party is meant to do). If you want progressives to win elections, then all those young progressive voters that you claim exist need to get off their asses and get to the polls. Until/unless that happens, why should Democrats cater to non-voters over voters?

 

[Silvanus]

It is the correct term, because it is both the common perception among establishment figures and the scenario you laid out: of progressives doing nothing, but expecting to be rewarded with legislative seats and policy proposals in exchange for nothing.

I don't believe that's the expectation for a moment. The expectation is that there exists a large and reliable progressive electoral coalition just beneath the surface, which nobody is tapping into. One which the Democratic Party could tap into if they put forward a committed progressive candidate, such as Biden or Warren, and that the only reason they don't do so is that they're beholden to financial interests.

Of course, they are beholden to financial interests, as anybody with a tertiary knowledge of lobbying can see. But this is unavoidable to some extent in an organisation of this size, and it doesn't explain their electoral decisions. The majority of Americans may support M4A if it's explained to them in an apolitical, disconnected way, sure-- but that doesn't translate to an electoral coalition. The true progressive vein in America is not large enough to win without compromise right now. And it bloody hurts me to recognise that, since I'm significantly further to the left than the Democratic Party is in pretty much every respect.

Speaking generally-- not directly to Eacaraxe-- as somebody who's studied it, electoral politics is enormously distinct from political theory. It is not limited to convincing somebody that, in principle, you're right. It's building coalitions among existing interest groups that can possibly closely align. The modern Democratic Party is a grotesque Frankenstein's monster of competing ideas, watered-down ideals, self-contradictions and bitter reproach. But it's one of the most successful organisational bodies on the planet in terms of putting together electoral coalitions. It has to be. The alternative is existing as the American Green Party, or the Libertarians; scarcely registering on the position of the Overton Window.

 

[Agema]

It is the correct term, because it is both the common perception among establishment figures and the scenario you laid out: of progressives doing nothing, but expecting to be rewarded with legislative seats and policy proposals in exchange for nothing.

Sounds like they're right, because you're not voting.

 

[SupahEwok]

You mean the guy who was supposedly Obama's go-to man who had "an unprecedented level of access and influence" and "consistently changed Obama's mind on policy, including same-sex marriage" as a selling point for his campaign? This is kind of an either-or proposition here, either VP is powerless and meaningless and Biden's time as VP doesn't matter, or the VP is a substantive office with considerable influence on the Presidency.

Lol, you think any of that is actually true?