Joe Biden- why?

[Edge-]

He's normal. People like normal.

The 2016 elections and the cast of fairly "normal" people who all lost to a braggadocios reality TV host called. They'd like to disagree with this sentiment, at least for 46.1% of the US voters that voted.

[Dacien]

The 2016 elections and the cast of fairly "normal" people who all lost to a braggadocios reality TV host called. They'd like to disagree with this sentiment, at least for 46.1% of the US voters that voted.

I guess I just mean for the non-diehard Trump voters, which I think is something like 30%. The rest of the people who voted for him either thought Hillary was terrible, or plugged their nose. Or both.

How he rose to get the nomination was a moment in time.

[Elegiac]

Because the media insists that he’s “electable”

I'm going to have to be the one to say the unpopular thing, aren't I?

*sighs*

Oooookay. Let's start this as civilly as possible with an article from FiveThirtyEight...

Every election is followed by an attempt to explain its outcome. One of the more common explanations of the 2016 presidential election was that Hillary Clinton lost because she relied on “identity politics.” So we were curious: Would white Democrats be inclined to choose a different type of 2020 candidate if they were told that Clinton’s 2016 loss was caused by identity politics? We conducted a survey to find out, and the short answer is yes, but with one big caveat: While women’s preferences shifted substantially, men’s views remained largely unaltered.

The identity politics argument, as explained by political scientists like Mark Lilla and Francis Fukuyama, is that Clinton’s appeals to groups like women, people of color and the LGBT community left white working-class men feeling alienated from and unappreciated by the Democratic Party. They responded by voting for Donald Trump, whose identity-based appeals were directed at them. A message that focused on universal economic gains, rather than the needs of marginalized communities, the argument goes, would have allowed Clinton to win. Of course, others have argued that Clinton could have won more votes by making more explicit appeals to African American voters, who did not turn out in at as high a rate as they did when Barack Obama was on the ballot in 2012 and 2008.

These sorts of post-election narratives can be very powerful, regardless of whether they’re actually true. As political scientist Marjorie Hershey notes, they can affect the lessons people draw from an election and how they approach future contests.

...

Among those who weren’t shown the story about identity politics, men were more than twice as likely as women to believe that identity politics caused Clinton’s loss. But reading the identity politics story seemed to have little effect on men, who believed that explanation for Clinton’s loss in about equal numbers whether we showed them the identity-politics story or not. Among women, on the other hand, there was a dramatic difference between those who were shown the story blaming identity politics and those who were not — those in the first group were more than twice as likely to blame identity politics for the loss.

We also found large effects on women’s choices for the type of candidate they wanted to see as the Democratic nominee in 2020. Women in the study who were not shown the identity-politics narrative were more likely — by 11 percentage points — to choose female candidates over male candidates. But women who were shown the identity-politics story chose female candidates at a lower rate — they were just 6 points more likely to choose a female candidate over a male.

So yeah. One has only to look at this forum to see that we have been pretty consistently inundated with "Why Clinton Lost" narratives that are either half-true or outright concern trolling - and we can see from these findings that it's a statistically significant factor.

In short - his perceived electability is because he is a geriatric white dude, but not a left wing ideologue like Sanders. And people think that we can't win with a minority candidate, even if they won't admit it openly.

[Edge-]

I guess I just mean for the non-diehard Trump voters, which I think is something like 30%. The rest of the people who voted for him either thought Hillary was terrible, or plugged their nose. Or both.

How he rose to get the nomination was a moment in time.

I mean, he's still got huge support from Republicans. The latest Gallop poll has him at 90% approval rating from Republicans, so it's hardly some "fringe" of the Republican party that threw behind him and some "silent majority" holding their noses.

[Dacien]

I mean, he's still got huge support from Republicans. The latest Gallop poll has him at 90% approval rating from Republicans, so it's hardly some "fringe" of the Republican party that threw behind him and some "silent majority" holding their noses.

Well I still maintain that his best shot at losing is a "normal" candidate. If you put some wacky character up there against him, that's rolling the dice.

[Edge-]

Well I still maintain that his best shot at losing is a "normal" candidate. If you put some wacky character up there against him, that's rolling the dice.

I don't entirely disagree, but that's more because a lot of American's are seeing what an "unconventional" president looks like, and it's god-damn horrifying.

Then again, due to Republican support, he still mostly sits around 40% approval. So a solid chunk of the country still thinks, "Batshit crazy and probably high on bath salts and paint thinner" is A-OK in their book.

[Dacien]

I don't entirely disagree, but that's more because a lot of American's are seeing what an "unconventional" president looks like, and it's god-damn horrifying.

Then again, due to Republican support, he still mostly sits around 40% approval. So a solid chunk of the country still thinks, "Batshit crazy and probably high on bath salts and paint thinner" is A-OK in their book.

You also have to remember the people who don't take any of this nearly as seriously as we do. Some people even go so far as to, and I'm not joking, "vote for funny". Vote for the candidate they think will cause the most dysfunction. So to these people who don't take it seriously, they don't see problems, they see entertainment. That could very well be part of it.

These are the same people who really don't care at all about any serious economic or social issues, mostly just their own day-to-day issues.

[Gestopft]

In short - his perceived electability is because he is a geriatric white dude, but not a left wing ideologue like Sanders. And people think that we can't win with a minority candidate, even if they won't admit it openly.

I do like to say that perception matters more than reality in politics. And I think it may very well be true that many Dems implicitly assume that it takes an older white guy (other than Sanders) to beat Trump- but that said, there are plenty to choose from. Biden leads them all in name recognition clearly, but while the name recognition of the other older white candidates can be improved, Biden's record can't.

[Milchshake]

I don't entirely disagree, but that's more because a lot of American's are seeing what an "unconventional" president looks like, and it's god-damn horrifying..

I wonder if the BErnie-or-Busters will pick up on this. In 2016 they were all about "after 4 years of Trump, the masses will be begging for Bernie."

Here we are a few years into Trump ... Biden is the front runner.

The hard left never realizes how much they need the center-left or a Biden in the current framework.

[Wyrt]

I wonder if the BErnie-or-Busters will pick up on this. In 2016 they were all about "after 4 years of Trump, the masses will be begging for Bernie."

Here we are a few years into Trump ... Biden is the front runner.

The hard left never realizes how much they need the center-left or a Biden in the current framework.

Biden is right wing, not center-left. Bernie is center-left.

You're basically asking why left wing people don't want to vote for a right wing politician. Seems pretty obvious why they wouldn't want to.

[Milchshake]

Biden is right wing, not center-left. Bernie is center-left.

You're basically asking why left wing people don't want to vote for a right wing politician. Seems pretty obvious why they wouldn't want to.

Only if you insist on presenting him as a "right wing" politician. I dont know of many right wingers in the US that can be pushed to the left on; taxes, health care, civil rights etc like a Biden can. Sure he might not be a true believer, but with a big enough coalition on the left to provide cover, he can embrace leftist policies.

Thats again the shortsighted of the bernie-or-busters. They want to bust up the coalition before bothering with how to use it. It's even weirder these days. Bernie bros contempt for this coalition has them trying to scrounge up votes on Fox News.

Sorry, but Biden is "left enough" if he wins the nom.

[Wyrt]

Only if you insist on presenting him as a "right wing" politician. I dont know of many right wingers in the US that can be pushed to the left on; taxes, health care, civil rights etc like a Biden can. Sure he might not be a true believer, but with a big enough coalition on the left to provide cover, he can embrace leftist policies.

Thats again the shortsighted of the bernie-or-busters. They want to bust up the coalition before bothering with how to use it. It's even weirder these days. Bernie bros contempt for this coalition has them trying to scrounge up votes on Fox News.

Sorry, but Biden is "left enough" if he wins the nom.

He is a right wing politician. Another worthless corporate cocksucker.

Being better than Trump isn't hard, that alone shouldn't be enough for the nomination.

[Sunseeker]

I wonder if the BErnie-or-Busters will pick up on this. In 2016 they were all about "after 4 years of Trump, the masses will be begging for Bernie."

Here we are a few years into Trump ... Biden is the front runner.

The hard left never realizes how much they need the center-left or a Biden in the current framework.

Frankly, if the Democrats are going to run a DINO, they might as well let the country suffer another 4 years.

But the Democrats wouldn't get it even if someone beat it into their heads with a hammer, because they do this every single election. They assume "the left" has no choice, so they lean right. Every. Single. Election.

Biden isn't the front runner because he has great policies, or because he's a great politician, or for quite frankly, any reason other than the Dems have essentially said he's their front-runner. I still hear more about Andrew Yang and Buttgieg(sp) than I do about Biden, and yes, that's from the MSM. Biden is, in all reality, not running. He's thrown his name in the hat and the Party has run with it because as @Elegiac posted, the Democrats are playing soft with a candidate they think will be easily digestible by Republicans.

[Endus]

I wonder if the BErnie-or-Busters will pick up on this. In 2016 they were all about "after 4 years of Trump, the masses will be begging for Bernie."

Here we are a few years into Trump ... Biden is the front runner.

The hard left never realizes how much they need the center-left or a Biden in the current framework.

Don't pretend all left-wingers back Bernie, blindly.

I thought him running in 2016 was fun. But he stayed in past his sell-by date. He's got some interesting ideas, pushed a bit to the left, but he doesn't have a solid grounding in policy framing for his views, nor does he have the leadership capacity to forge forward and drag the party with him.

By comparison, Warren is probably one of the closest front-runners to Sanders, politically, and she's at least got the solid grounding in policy that I'd want to see in a candidate.

And for 2020? Here's why I want Bernie Sanders to fuck right off. He caucused as a Democrat in 2016, when he'd been a long-time Independent. Why? Because he'd never get votes as an Independent. And then, when he lost the primary, he went back to being an Independent. Now, he's caucusing as a Democrat again. Same reason.

The first time, maybe he'd had a change of heart and wanted to cooperate to shift the Overton window a bit. But then he showed that wasn't the case when he went back to being an Independent. Now, the second time? It's clear it's entirely about personal aggrandizement, for Sanders. He just wants to win, and he's manipulating things to find his best chance, rather than caucusing as a Democrat because he, like, wants to represent the Democrats.

He can fuck off, with that dishonest manipulative shit. I liked him when he ran in 2016. Now I see that he's just trying, and failing, to build a cult of personality around himself, not standing on principles. If he'd run as an Independent this time, things would be different, but he doesn't have the balls to do so. Which says everything you need to know about him.


I don't want it to be Biden, either, but I'll take Biden over Bernie at this point. And realistically, pretty much anyone who's announced over another 4 years of Trump. Even de Blasio.

[Milchshake]

Don't pretend all left-wingers back Bernie, blindly.

Agreed, that's why i try to be specific in using terms like "bernie-busters", and "berniebros". I'm very conscious in not saying "all bernie supporters".
Unfortunately this is utterly lost on the hard bernie-busters. They assume to be representative of all bernie supporters, or all leftists. Sorry but fuck those guys.

I was also careful not to call Biden center left. But again, the leftists on their purity crusade cant make the distinction. Biden, and democrats like a John Dingell Jr. occupy a complex place in politics. Trying to wash away that complexity with an "ashukley on the golbal right/left axis" does their cause no favors.


Thats again the problem with the bernie or busters. They wanted to Dems a lesson, the center left a lesson, the center a lesson. That inflicting Trump on the world would tech it a lesson. The Biden surge proved them wrong.

The dont understand the electorate. How they hope to teach anyone, anything, is beyond me. I just paused to enjoy the irony that Biben, who is more out of touch then them, was leading in the polls.

Nad ya, history shows that Biden will eventually flop.

[Wyrt]

Agreed, that's why i try to be specific in using terms like "bernie-busters", and "berniebros". I'm very conscious in not saying "all bernie supporters".
Unfortunately this is utterly lost on the hard bernie-busters. They assume to be representative of all bernie supporters, or all leftists. Sorry but fuck those guys.

I was also careful not to call Biden center left. But again, the leftists on their purity crusade cant make the distinction. Biden, and democrats like a John Dingell Jr. occupy a complex place in politics. Trying to wash away that complexity with an "ashukley on the golbal right/left axis" does their cause no favors.


Thats again the problem with the bernie or busters. They wanted to Dems a lesson, the center left a lesson, the center a lesson. That inflicting Trump on the world would tech it a lesson. The Biden surge proved them wrong.

The dont understand the electorate. How they hope to teach anyone, anything, is beyond me. I just paused to enjoy the irony that Biben, who is more out of touch then them, was leading in the polls.

Nad ya, history shows that Biden will eventually flop.

Well, Democrats lost to fucking Trump because they told the left to go fuck off. Let's see how it works out for them this time.

[Gestopft]

Sure he might not be a true believer, but with a big enough coalition on the left to provide cover, he can embrace leftist policies.

Pretty much anybody else running can do that, and I don't think any of them have nearly as terrible of a record as Biden.

[Skroe]

*puts face in hands*

Folks. Really.

Look.

It is personal reasonable to want things and want your elected person to do things. That is what democracy is at some level. But the pie-in-the-sky hopes for some kind of political, or even symbolism that you people think matters (it doesn't) is beyond farcical. It's like you've been asleep for the past two plus years... hell, past eight years... and hoping that with your man, it'll be different.

Mitch McConnell will almost certainly remain majority leader after the 2020 election. Sorry. Democrats lost one too many seats in 2018. If they managed to hold two of the ones they lost - namely Florida and Indiana, they probably had a good shot of gaining the majority. But in 2020, Republicans will still probably have a narrow majority. If Democrats knock off all of their "easy" targets, they have a one seat majority. Its likel'y they'll come up one short. I wish it weren't the case, but we're going to be cursed with the grave digger of American democracy as Majority leader until 2022.

From the legislative perspective, that is what matters. So President Bernie, President Biden, President Harris, President Sock Puppet, it is irrelevant. Democrats will likely hold the house, and regardless who becomes President on the Democratic side, they'll be blockaded by Mitch McConnell, who will not give any President the time of day.

The only hope you individuals on the left had is that President Bernie would win, and Democrats would eek out a majority in 2020 somehow, and then nuke the legislative fillibuster. I've advocated for that here before. I think, from the purely political perspective and objective, the next time Democrats have all their ducks in a row, they would be crazy not do it it. But because of 2018 losses, that is unlikely to happen.

Which means President Bernie or President Biden gets the honor of signing what will likely be the four iteration of the two-year budget deal model... the third iteration planned to land on Trump's desk shortly, that hikes Defense spending by tens of billions and domestic spending by a commeasurate amount. Your progressive President will oversee the largest defense build up in nearly 40 years, because just like Trump's budgets being flushed down into some black hole, so will President Bernie/Biden.

That is how this works. That is how sausage is made. And no amount of your fucking passion will change it. The "fierce urgency of now". Mitch McConnell doesn't care. First he'll give you the finger, then he'll call you a communist, and he'll top it off by turning the already farcial essentially 3 day a week Senate session into a 2 day a week one. You think President Bernie will be putting judges on the court? Mitch won't let him.

This is the way things are. The question is, how do you win in this environment?

If progressives want to actually win something, rather than just make a show of it in some kind of mastubatory show, they need to plan to win the Senate in 2022 or 2024. This means winning in Florida, Lousiana, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and places like that. I.e. Places Progressives dont generally thrive.

Do you not understand? Whenever a party is in the minority, it is more homogenious and more centrist. Nancy Pelosi owes her majority to centrists, not progressives. The next Democratic Senate Majority leader will owe his or her majority to having Senators from purple and red states.

Democrats, from a policy angle, need to dual track their agenda well beyond 2020. They need to have one track somehow winning in those purple-red states, and the other track of convincing the centrist Democrats of the Senate to agree to nuke the legislative fillibuster. You think that'll happen in a month? Or a year. It'll take years of coaxing to make it happen. And since Democrats have no real route to a 60 vote supermajority, the only way Medicare for all and the New Green Deal and all that stuff happens, if if the legislative fillibuster goes away.


Do you folks understand this? Do you fully comprehend that winning some fucking election is ultimately irrelevant unless Democrats also win the RIGHT elections and have the arguments in place to advance a broader strategy? Because this thread makes me think some of you don't. You want Bernie to be President to feel validated. That's dumb.

The truth is the next President will spend their time cleaning up the Trump mess in the executive branch. It will be spent declassifying things Trump is keeping a lid on via executive privlege, from the Mueller report to doing something about Russian interference. It will be repairing the rule of law in this country, fighting corruption and overseeing the potential prosecution of dozens of people involve in the Trump criminal enterprise. And this will be done against the backdrop of Mitch McConnell who relishes being an obstructionist and will seek to retcon his own history of playing ball with Trump. President Bernie and President Biden will be overwhelmed with that.

Biden is unlikely to lose his lead. But as I said, if Bernie somehow eeks out a win, I'd vote for him over Trump. There just needs to be an understanding about what you're getting with President whoever here. There is no policy advancement coming, until Democrats can somehow retake the Senate. That is the truth. So focus your efforts short term on things that are relevant now while planning for the long term.

For example, I would say Kamala Harris is a better choice than Bernie. Because since the next President's job will primarily be about undoing the damage Trump did and potentially overseeing the imprisonment of the 45th American President, who better to be a champion for the rule of law and and historic norms, than a former prosecutor? Bernie going on about the progressive wish list will be a non-sequitur in that context.

Obama arrived after years of Democrats paving the road to him, that started after a brutal and defeat in 2002. Democrats didn't put the cart before the horse.

If I were a progressive, I'd start paving the road to the mid to late 2020s, and figuring out who is going to be my post-Bernie progressive champion who can win Flordia.

But then again, I value winning over just feeling good.

[Gestopft]

I thought him running in 2016 was fun. But he stayed in past his sell-by date. He's got some interesting ideas, pushed a bit to the left, but he doesn't have a solid grounding in policy framing for his views, nor does he have the leadership capacity to forge forward and drag the party with him.

Before he announced, I was sort of hoping he would stay out of it. In a sense, I sort of feel sorry for him actually- he's been putting out many of the same ideas for years and years, and now that the electorate is starting to catch up to him, he's in his mid-70's and well past his prime.

And for 2020? Here's why I want Bernie Sanders to fuck right off. He caucused as a Democrat in 2016, when he'd been a long-time Independent. Why? Because he'd never get votes as an Independent. And then, when he lost the primary, he went back to being an Independent. Now, he's caucusing as a Democrat again. Same reason.

The first time, maybe he'd had a change of heart and wanted to cooperate to shift the Overton window a bit. But then he showed that wasn't the case when he went back to being an Independent. Now, the second time? It's clear it's entirely about personal aggrandizement, for Sanders. He just wants to win, and he's manipulating things to find his best chance, rather than caucusing as a Democrat because he, like, wants to represent the Democrats.

I've always been a bit split-minded about this- I get the argument about de- and re-registering as a Democrat to run, and wish he would just stay a Democrat, but for me the more important part about this dynamic is what it says about the Democratic Party. I think if an Independent can garner that much support from a party's voters over the actual party members, then to me it says that the party isn't doing a good job representing its voters. I'm reminded of a Politico cartoon wherein (to paraphrase) two well-dressed donkeys are watching from a balcony as AOC and Bernie Sanders stand in front of a cheering crowd, and the first donkey says "Wow, I've never seen our base so enthused before," to which the second replies "I know, isn't it awful?"

Trump did the same to the GoP after all. If a party is doing a good job representing its constituents, then it won't be so susceptible to outsiders.

If he'd run as an Independent this time, things would be different, but he doesn't have the balls to do so. Which says everything you need to know about him.

Running as an independent isn't ballsy, it's stupid. Until we get a proper voting system, the gatekeepers of almost all political power are the two parties. All he could do running as an independent is tank the Democratic nominee, and everybody knows it. I plan on voting for him in the primary, and I would be livid if he did that.

[Wyrt]

And for 2020? Here's why I want Bernie Sanders to fuck right off. He caucused as a Democrat in 2016, when he'd been a long-time Independent. Why? Because he'd never get votes as an Independent. And then, when he lost the primary, he went back to being an Independent. Now, he's caucusing as a Democrat again. Same reason.

Democrats are just as responsible forced 2 party system as Republicans are. They don't get to bitch about Sanders playing by the rules they forced.