Bernie/Biden task force presents suggestions

[Tireseas]

(fucking character limits)

Personal story time: I live and vote in Washington (the state). I was a Warren girl since November 9, 2016 as she was the progressive technocrat who clearly understood how the administrative state works and how it can be changed in ways that you almost never see in any politician of either party. I was going to vote for her even if she couldn't win so long as she was in the race. I didn't like Biden because he's of a political generation that doesn't seem up to the task in front of us and I didn't like Sanders because he and particularly his campaign and his supporters often engaged in the very authoritarian politics that gave Trump the White House, even if I generally agreed with their policies (Trump, Clinton I, and Nixon are prime examples of why personal traits are extremely important to the presidency, often more than policy and Sanders' often absolutist and non-collaborative approach to politics over 30+ years has been a massive red flag for me).

And then, about two weeks before, she dropped out. I spent the following week in an existential crisis trying to decide between two politicians I absolutely loathe (and my enthusiastic Sanders supporting husband really didn't help). I eventually ended up voting for Sanders, with a not unsubstantial screed attached to it about my deep concerns with the campaign's messaging and approach to politics that I ended up posting on Twitter and a form of which got posted in the Primary thread on the previous forums. But once I made the decision, it was a weight off my shoulders, one less thing I had to think about, just as COVID-19 was becoming the dominant force in all our lives. I had made my decision and I didn't need to grapple with it any more.

So selling the idea of Biden as settling, as giving voters of all stripes just a fucking break after four years of non-stop chaos out of the White House so they can coast and focus on the more immediate problems, is not a terrible pitch. It's not a good pitch, it's not a great pitch, but, honestly, there is definitely a subset of voters that just want it all to go back to normal and it's not a bad pitch if you're just targeting them.

 

[Seanchaidh]

I was a Warren girl since November 9, 2016 as she was the progressive technocrat who clearly understood how the administrative state works

It was very inspiring when she placed third in her own state and stayed in the race just long enough to make sure Biden would be the nominee.

 

[Avnger]

It was very inspiring when she placed third in her own state and stayed in the race just long enough to make sure Biden would be the nominee.

If the mythical progressive majority of (non)voters had showed up to the polls, it wouldn't have mattered.

 

[Seanchaidh]

If the mythical progressive majority of (non)voters had showed up to the polls, it wouldn't have mattered.

Maybe if states didn't routinely close polling stations in poorer precincts, they wouldn't have had to wait 7 hours to cast a ballot.

The richer ones did show up and didn't have to wait so long... and many voted for Liz.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Maybe if states didn't routinely close polling stations in poorer precincts, they wouldn't have had to wait 7 hours to cast a ballot.

Well you know, if "those people" would take the day off from work or wait like everyone else would, they'd get to vote. Elections have consequences, if "you" want to win "you" need to vote, and you need to bootstrap yourself right up to vote. It's not hard, it's not like we have poll taxes, literacy tests, voter purges, and fake ballots any more.

Funny how easy all those tea party talking points slip right on like an old slipper for some, isn't it? Instead of, oh I dunno, asking why anyone would waste their time voting for a party that refuses to endorse policy positions supported by three quarters of the damn party's voters in the first place.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

This is actually a campaign.
Like, holy fuck.

View attachment 425

View attachment 424

I found this one.

 

[Buyetyen]

Still not sure how anyone can believe a Biden presidency would be worse than a Trump dynasty. Don't get me wrong, the dude's a tool who should have retired a long fucking time ago. Trump is just fucking evil.

 

[Avnger]

Still not sure how anyone can believe a Biden presidency would be worse than a Trump dynasty. Don't get me wrong, the dude's a tool who should have retired a long fucking time ago. Trump is just fucking evil.

Because, much like the Republican party as a whole, they've defined themselves as being "anti-Democrat" and don't know how to do anything else. It's the same shit; it's just thrown from the other "side."

 

[Seanchaidh]

Still not sure how anyone can believe a Biden presidency would be worse than a Trump dynasty. Don't get me wrong, the dude's a tool who should have retired a long fucking time ago. Trump is just fucking evil.

They're both evil. One has different expectations of him because of his party-- mostly as regards rhetoric and demeanor-- but also his behavior as president would influence what people think of as "how far left we can go" and what constitutes bipartisan consensus rather than "what new low can the Republican party stoop to". If you want to normalize something, have both parties do it. George W. Bush started using drones to kill random people in other countries. Obama normalized it. And so on.

A precedent set by only one party is nowhere near as determinant as one confirmed by both.

Because, much like the Republican party as a whole, they've defined themselves as being "anti-Democrat" and don't know how to do anything else. It's the same shit; it's just thrown from the other "side."

A Biden presidency would be materially better in the short term, probably. It also would reward the duplicity of the Democratic establishment and allow it to continue under the illusion that its coalition politics aren't completely stupid and that nothing really needs to change. It may well do that anyway which, without a Biden presidency, would undermine its credibility and bring it that much closer to complete collapse. We don't need two corporate parties. One will do. And either of them falling apart would be a blessing.

 

[Buyetyen]

They're both evil. One has different expectations of him because of his party-- mostly as regards rhetoric and demeanor-- but also his behavior as president would influence what people think of as "how far left we can go" and what constitutes bipartisan consensus rather than "what new low can the Republican party stoop to". If you want to normalize something, have both parties do it. George W. Bush started using drones to kill random people in other countries. Obama normalized it. And so on.

Biden is that kind of negligent, out-of-touch evil that allows suffering to continue because it's the way things have "always been done." Trump on the other hand is proactively malicious. Biden uses the cold calculus drilled into him by the donor class where there's a very high threshold of human suffering that's considered an acceptable cost of doing business. For Trump, the cruelty is the point.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Biden is that kind of negligent, out-of-touch evil that allows suffering to continue because it's the way things have "always been done." Trump on the other hand is proactively malicious. Biden uses the cold calculus drilled into him by the donor class where there's a very high threshold of human suffering that's considered an acceptable cost of doing business. For Trump, the cruelty is the point.

That very well may be, but the material consequences are not as different as one might hope.

 

[Buyetyen]

That very well may be, but the material consequences are not as different as one might hope.

I'm willing to take the bandaid on the sucking chest wound over pouring salt in it. Besides, there's more at stake than the Oval Office. The Democrats have a real chance to increase their majority in the House and the goddamn Senate is in play in a year no one expected it to be. To say nothing of all the governors races and local level politics. Biden's a shitty candidate. There's a bunch of better ones down-ticket, so I'm willing to take small victories in the name of ending an emergency.

 

[Eacaraxe]

I'm willing to take the bandaid on the sucking chest wound over pouring salt in it.

Your point would be more salient were Biden a band-aid instead of the knife you got stabbed with. That's our point. You want to talk about the fact there is a sucking chest wound, you don't want to talk about how it got there in the first place.

Or to put in terms of another favored analogy by Biden supporters, sure, you don't stop a fire by pouring gasoline on it (except in the cases you actually do, or bigger). You also don't hire the guy with the hard-on and the empty jerry can to run the fire department, either.

Or, in my favorite analogy. Trump isn't the cancer. He's the coughing, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and loss of appetite. Biden's the pack of Marlboros a day you smoked for 40 years.

 

[Buyetyen]

Your point would be more salient were Biden a band-aid instead of the knife you got stabbed with. That's our point. You want to talk about the fact there is a sucking chest wound, you don't want to talk about how it got there in the first place.

Oh, I know how it got there: neoliberal capitalism for the most part. And Biden is a whore to that ideology just like everyone else in the establishment. I resent that. Deeply. But I hate fascism even more. Under fascism I would be even worse off. In fact, these last 4 years have been some of the worst in terms of dealing with depression and anxiety, so I'm already partly a wreck. So if this is the unpleasant choice I have to make before Trump decides he's done coming for the immigrants and now wants to come for the socialists, so be it.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Oh, I know how it got there: neoliberal capitalism for the most part. And Biden is a whore to that ideology just like everyone else in the establishment. I resent that. Deeply. But I hate fascism even more. Under fascism I would be even worse off. In fact, these last 4 years have been some of the worst in terms of dealing with depression and anxiety, so I'm already partly a wreck. So if this is the unpleasant choice I have to make before Trump decides he's done coming for the immigrants and now wants to come for the socialists, so be it.

Oh man, if you didn't think the US wasn't already a fascist state and the only thing different about the last four years is the mask came off, you need to talk to a Chilean or Nicaraguan. Or better yet, a Mexican who immigrated to the US in the late '90s.

 

[Buyetyen]

Oh man, if you didn't think the US wasn't already a fascist state and the only thing different about the last four years is the mask came off, you need to talk to a Chilean or Nicaraguan. Or better yet, a Mexican who immigrated to the US in the late '90s.

And permanently throwing the mask away under Trump is an improvement? Sorry, but there are too many people I care about who would not survive another 4 years of Trump. Biden's a piece of shit, but at least we'll have bought some time. Cynicism is a lazy excuse for inaction.

 

[Eacaraxe]

And permanently throwing the mask away under Trump is an improvement?

Frankly to a certain extent, yeah. This is the first time since Vietnam the media's halfway reported on US war crimes abroad, interventionism through intelligence agencies, the surveillance state, and police power since Vietnam, with the exception of Iran-Contra and Abu Ghraib. Even if it's in "orange man bad, US doesn't do that" bullshit lather. The bumbling corrupt incompetence of the Trump administration, least of all to cover its own tracks, is in many ways an improvement.

What happens under Biden is all that shit gets swept right back under the rug, just like it did Obama. Respectfully, people like you get to go back to pretending this shit under Trump isn't in reality the norm, and quietly and passively consent to it through ignorance.

 

[Buyetyen]

Frankly to a certain extent, yeah. This is the first time since Vietnam the media's halfway reported on US war crimes abroad, interventionism through intelligence agencies, the surveillance state, and police power since Vietnam, with the exception of Iran-Contra and Abu Ghraib. Even if it's in "orange man bad, US doesn't do that" bullshit lather. The bumbling corrupt incompetence of the Trump administration, least of all to cover its own tracks, is in many ways an improvement.

What happens under Biden is all that shit gets swept right back under the rug, just like it did Obama. Respectfully, people like you get to go back to pretending this shit under Trump isn't in reality the norm, and quietly and passively consent to it through ignorance.

See, I get what you're saying. You still have not explained to me how 4 more years of this shit is the better alternative. Because I really do not see it. Why am I supposed to prefer this? In what way will this make the people I care about safer?

Respectfully, cynicism is the laziest excuse for inaction. It lets you morally absolve yourself for doing nothing.

 

[Silvanus]

Then explain how exactly it is "coalition building" for the DNC platform committee to expressly reject at least five election-defining policy positions (the three I mentioned, plus GND and CJ reform), three of which are of existential import, that are supported by between 70-80% of its own voters. Because the way I see it, that is the complete opposite of "coalition building" to fail to represent three-quarters of your own party.

With regards to the GND, I'd say that a 2 trillion investment in clean energy, green infrastructure etc-- the highest ever proposed by an enormous margin-- is intended to appeal to the progressives and left-wingers. It reflects quite a lot of what was asked for in the GND resolution.

Similarly, with healthcare, the universally-available public option, cap on premiums & deductibles, & automatic premium/deductible-free option for those uncovered are also designed to appeal to the progressives and left-wingers.

D'you see these policies as solely tailored to the right-wing, because they don't go all the way to your preferred end point? I don't doubt that Biden had to be pushed and pressured by political necessity into backing the above. But what's relevant is that the progressive wing has accomplished a major shift in platform.

It's also one I have taken as a complete wash, social security won't be around by the time I'd be old enough to draw from it regardless who's in office. All it is, is a carrot and stick to bring olds to go to the polls.

I imagine those who rely on it might object to that-- and might appreciate the difference between defunding it immediately now, or funding it a while longer, even if its future isn't assured.

The zero-sum approach inevitably ends up being callous in this regard. The principled stance that it doesn't matter if social security ends now or later is immaterial (and almost insulting) to the people who need it now.

Trump's your average shit tier Republican President, there are approximately two things different about his Presidency: one being he's honest about what he does and that's really why other Republican pundits and politicians are pissed, and for the first time since Bush the media actually reports on the fucked up, monstrous shit our own government does. Frankly, Trump isn't even half as bad as Bush on his best days.

Yeah, cool, but we were comparing Biden's record. What in his record matches or exceeds Trump's on the same issue?

We are when they're not honest analyses that prop up "right flanks" and run interference for wholesale moral, ethical, organizational, and strategic failures.

Ok. So you believe UK Labour's loss is not due to any long-standing issues with northern working-class communities, and that even suggesting such is "propping up right flanks"?

Jesus, no wonder people complained about the level of toxic recrimination.

And again, wish in one hand, shit in the other.

This is facile.

You're "wishing" as well, of course: wishing for a complete and immediate course-correction to give everything you want in a single electoral cycle. I daresay you'll be waiting a while longer for that hand to be filled.

That's not my argument. You're pretending it is. My argument is cable news viewers are polarized into locked-in Democratic and Republican blocs. Democratic-leaning viewers are voting Democratic, Republican-leaning viewers are voting Republican. They're not cross-party voters, which is the definition attributed to "moderates" to propagate this fantasy of appealing to the center. They either turn out to vote for the party with which they identify, or they stay home.

That's where Schumer and the Clinton campaign fucked it, they tried to appeal to people who don't vote Democratic and won't vote Democratic, least of all this year. The best Democratic strategists can hope for is for them to stay home. You tell me, with a 91% approval rating among Republicans, do you think they're going to stay home?

You've gotta forgive me, it's hard to keep track. You said before (emphasis mine);

"the Democratic party has a newly-minted bumper crop of low-infos who would vote for literally anyone to oppose Trump. Invariably, they fall into the "moderate" camp and their votes are not in question."

...And then a couple of pages later clarified that by "low-infos", you were talking about cable-news "brain worms".

But fine, I can accept that you only meant the Democrat-leaning ones, fine, whatever. Happy to let that drop.

 

[Agema]

Respectfully, people like you get to go back to pretending this shit under Trump isn't in reality the norm, and quietly and passively consent to it through ignorance.

Don't preface your statements "respectfully" and then say shit like that.

Nor have the colossal arrogance to assume you have some privileged insight into how the world works, such that people who disagree with you must necessarily be stupid. You're talking to load of generally reasonably smart, well-informed people who are perfectly capable of forming reasonable assessments of the world. It is not contemptible to take the pragmatic view that a flawed option is still a better than a totally broken one, and more progress will made by trying to working through with it than absenteeing oneself until exactly the right thing arrives.