Sunday, March 1, 2020
HUMPF
Just when I learned to spell his name, Buttigieg is out. So is Steyer. Fifty hours until the Super Tuesday results start coming in. I have been disappointed by Bernie's weak showing in the Black community, and thrilled by his strength in the Latinx community. Could he take Texas? If he were to do so, it would be game over. I hope Warren does well enough go the distance. I still dream of a grand Sanders/Warren deal. I mean, JFK picked LBJ. Stranger things have happened.
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I had typed a snarky comment about how unfair to both Warren and Sanders (Liz & Bernie?) to compare them to LBJ and JFK, respectively, when I realized it's not such an unfair comparison to her: but for Vietnam, LBJ would be considered one of the best presidents in US history, up there with Lincoln and FDR.* Beyond his boyish good looks, it is much more difficult to come up with anything good to say about JFK. While I cannot imagine her practicing escalatio on the Vietnamese, or sending in the Marines anywhere, there is little that JFK did that I can imagine Sanders doing (especially bonking anyone in the Oval office). So I would judge this comparison more unfair to him than to her.
Perhaps a reference to Nixon and China would have been more apt.
*Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
A recent article in The Intercept suggests that the media has been understating Sanders's support in the Black community(no surprise there), pointing to a poll where he leads nationally: https://theintercept.com/2020/03/01/south-carolina-results-biden-black-vote-sanders-msnbc/
I haven't been following these polls, so I'm not sure how representative this one is.
I've been shocked at the openness with which an anti-Sanders conspiracy is discussed in the media. Nearly each television news segment or major newspaper article where he's mentioned tacitly assumes that he must be stopped, with the only real discussion involving the means to stop him. This is when they're not fulminating against the wickedness of "Bernie Bros."
Fivethirtyeight is now giving a 64% chance of nobody winning a majority of delegates and Sanders a 23% chance. As of now, they project Sanders winning 1,626 delegates and Warren winning 235. Of course, these numbers constantly fluctuate and will likely be different Wednesday. In any case, this brings me to my question. If Sanders has a 23% chance of winning a majority of delegates before the convention, do you think this gives him only a 23% chance of becoming the nominee? I'm not sure what you mean exactly by a Sanders/Warren deal. Do you mean that Sanders would promise to choose Warren as a running mate in exchange for support at the convention? According to fivethirtyeight's predictions (for whatever they're worth), they would only have 1,861 delegates combined, so still short of a majority.
In the likely case of Bernie winning a sizeable plurality, would the party really screw him and millions of voters over by handing the nomination to Biden? I simply can't envision this outcome being anything but a disaster for the party, for the chances of beating Trump, and even for all those down-ballot candidates for whose benefit they would claim to be making this decision.
I’m disheartened by the fact that Biden seems to have way over-performed polling in South Carolina. Although I’m fairly certain Bernie will win in California, what does this mean for Texas?
In any case, it looks like a shitshow of a convention is all but certain. I predict — and I hope — that the plot to hand the nomination to someone else when Bernie is the clear delegate winner, broadcast in real time, will so offend the public’s ethical sensibilities that even many establishment figures will step forward to side with Bernie, insisting that while they don’t prefer him he does represent the choice of the people nonetheless. There will be some suspense, but in the end enough delegates will cave to the pressure and hand Bernie the nomination. The groundswell of outrage will simply be overwhelming. We’re already hearing murmurs of massive protests from the progressive flanks.
Of course, all this will redound to Bernie’s benefit, since people hate the Democratic Party, and any scenario that paints Bernie as the outsider dragonslayer will endear him to voters even more. Something similar happened with T***p in ‘16, but keep in mind that he was widely despised then (slightly more than Hillary even), while Bernie remains the most popular figure in national politics.
And if the establishment really cares about defeating T***p above all else, they’ll prevail upon Michelle Obama to agree to become Bernie’s running mate. Of course, she’d have to offer a full-throated endorsement of all his policies. And maybe she really is a closet social-democrat. Who knows?
If I had one message for Senator Sanders it would be: for the love of God don’t touch your face and wash your hands!
I don't understand how anyone can still have any hope in Warren, period, much less for a Sanders/Warren deal.
She has used every post primary speech to directly attack Sanders, openly snubbing his handshakes after every debate, and generally making it clear she's not his ally.
After promising no PACS and accusing Sanders of "dark money" from the Sunrise Movement, she now has the support of the largest PAC in the election, headed by oil people, which she disingenuously claimed was headed by progressive women.
And her campaign has now pretty much admitted they hope to win anti-democratically through a brokered convention:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/01/warren-hail-mary-strategy-nomination-118319
“[A]s the dust settles after March 3, the reality of this race will be clear: no candidate will likely have a path to the majority of delegates needed to win an outright claim to the Democratic nomination,” [campaign manager] Lau predicted in a memo released Sunday. “In the road to the nomination, the Wisconsin primary is halftime, and the convention in Milwaukee is the final play.”
“In the road to the nomination, the Wisconsin primary is halftime and Milwaukee is the final play,” Warren’s team concludes, referring to the Democratic National Convention. “Our grassroots campaign is built to compete in every state and territory and ultimately prevail at the national convention in Milwaukee.”
What has been intriguing to me is how ridiculous and hyperbolic the Bernie freak out crowd is. They are relying on an understanding of the electorate that is outdated and fundamentally wrong. Bitecofer refers to it as the "Chuck Todd theory of politics." They are focused on middle that doesn't exist in an electorate that is as polarized as it is today. They think that independents are actually independent. They think the electorate is a stable universe of people when it is not. In sum what they fail to grasp is that we are in the middle of a party realignment.
The most recent attack on Bernie is that he will cause down-ballot dems to lose, leading to a loss of the House. That is absurd. All things being equal, the same Blue Wave that turned out in 2018 will again turnout in larger numbers and the margin in the House will increase. A key part of the wave were voters 18-44. If the Dems deny Sanders the nomination they risk losing the election. Sanders is the break from the neo-liberal policies that created the difficult situations in which younger voters find themselves. Younger votes have no affirmative reason to vote for Biden, just as they didn't for Clinton. It doesn't bode well when Democrats are weaponizing socialism against Bernie. They seem to forget that to Republicans, Obamacare and social security are socialism.
The way that Democrats are weaponizing socialism against Bernie is just plain ugly: it's red-baiting. How can anyone on the left vote for Bloomberg in good conscience after his McCarthyite attacks on Bernie? I for one couldn't.
Hi, though we can pick at straws to gage which way the political winds blow- nobody really knows, and if they do, they can't prove it to the rest of us, desperate to survive and save the weathered residue of our fragile democracy.
We all have confirmation bias- me too, I'm a middle of the road guy, but I'd buck my class interest and give Bernie a boost, because, Trump is running and ruining the casino.
Idiot that he is, he seems to be in command of events, and I fear our last exit before the abyss is the election in November
The moderates and the left must unite against the greater menace-
Let's not relive the error of Weimar Germany
When my parents and their cohort hear "socialism," they think "Soviet Union." When my students hear "socialism," they think "Sweden." This, in part, accounts for the generational divide between the young supporting Sanders and more conservative older voters who are looking for an alternative to Sanders.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg is quoted as saying that Buttigieg and Klobuchar "behaved themselves" by dropping out, but he is in it to win. Sanders should consider Bloomberg for the VP slot: Bloomberg is peeling off votes from Biden, which will cement Sanders decisive plurality of delegates. Besides, a Sanders-Bloomberg ticket would unite the billionaire and anti-billionaire wings of the party.
I don't think Bernie will pick Warren -if it came to that - for this reason. Both Bernie and Warren are senators in states with Republican governors. I'm not sure of the process, but wouldn't that mean that a Bernie - Warren ticket would reduce the number of Dems in the senate by two and boost the Repub number by two - a sudden additional gap of four.
Anyway, it is clear to me that Warren continues to perform badly all the while staying in the race in order to prevent Bernie's electoral strength from growing. She has never really been on Bernie's side. Sadly, she too appears to be a sellout.
I can only hope this establishment gang up on Bernie further fuels the movement Bernie has started. The masks have come off.
S. Wallerstein,
Red-baiting it is. I moved to Vermont in 1982, a few months after Sanders was elected Mayor of Burlington. He was re-baited in that and a subsequent election to no effect, other than a negative effect on the reputations of those who tried it. The vast majority of Vermonters had no problem with his Democratic Socialist identity over the past 30 years. On that basis, I hold out hope that the red-baiting will have little effect outside Trump's base. As my wife often reminds me, I am uncharacteristically optimistic these days.
David, I can't see why anyone would choose a arrogant, entitled, egotist like Bloomberg as VP. It's asking for trouble.
Christopher J. Mulvaney, Ph.D.,
I was kidding. If you had seen my delivery in person (say, at Professor's Wolff's imagined gathering), you would have realized I was being ironic.
Red-baiting is a horrid phenomenon comparable to homophobia, racism and anti-semitism in its evil effects. During the McCarthy era countless leftists were black-listed or lost their jobs. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for supposedly giving the Soviets the secret of the atom bomb, when that was not at all the case: from what I've read Julius was a minor Soviet asset, while Ethel was completely innocent.
The red scare led to Viet Nam (with millions of deaths), to rightwing military coups backed by the U.S. in Guatemala, Brasil, Argentina, Chile and countless other nations.
Now in U.S. political life red-baiting is not seen as analogous with homophobia, but it should be seen that way, and Bloomberg's red-baiting of Bernie should not only be condemned, but also we on the left should make it clear that we will not support a candidate who engages in it any more than we would support a homophobic candidate.
Bernie made the perfectly accurate affirmation that Cuba is a dictatorship, but has an excellent educational system. Cuba is not a good place to go to study philosophy or history or any other discipline that demands open debate of ideas, but my partner worked as a secretary for a Chilean doctor who had studied medicine in Cuba (where the university is not only free, but also students receive room and board in not luxurious conditions, for example, bunk beds, at no cost from the Cuban government). The doctor studied in Cuba because she could not afford university tuition in Chile. That Bernie is criticized for the above affirmation just shows how low and how stupid the intellectual and spiritual level of people like Bloomberg and Biden is.
Maybe others who come here take an occasional look at what some conservatives are saying? But just in case not, and making no claim as to its representativeness, this may prove of interest, especially wrt the relevance of socialism pro/con discussion:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/with-bernie-trump-may-regret-what-he-started/
The billionaires should go back to donating to their schools and charities and running their businesses and leaving it at that. And they could remain confident that they still have outlandish influence in our politics and policy and get to enjoy practically everything that is good at a greater scale than the rest of us. And maybe we will leave them alone for the most part if they can be content with that. But Bloomberg spending 400 million at least on his own campaign really is upsetting me at some level and if bothers enough people the same way then it just might backfire on him and others like him. There has to be some point where enough is enough. Single digit billionaire Trump is already bad enough for me. Not voting for Bloomberg.
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