“Voting is a chess move, not a valentine.” -Rebecca Solnit
Here’s the counterargument to that. If progressive votes are taken for granted, if they always “vote blue no matter who”, why the hell should the democratic establishment bother to listen to them? By strategically threatening to withhold their votes if they aren’t catered to, progressives could possibly shift Biden leftward on policy.
In the real world, Biden is already reaching out to Sanders about picking up some of his policies.
I will put on my Carnac cap and predict that reality will make no difference in anything the Bernie Bros say for the next six months.
Yes, you could try to drive a hard bargain as it were. But you play a dangerous game there as you might find yourselves getting traded out for center right business types who don’t like the populist rednecks who have taken over the GOP. And I honestly would not like to see that, even if part of me would feel “it serves you right”. I will go along with that if it is what is needed to win, but I would prefer the left stay aboard and pull the center of gravity of the party to the center-left rather than to the center or center-right.
Just keep in mind that grabbing one center-right voter is worth as much as two left-wing voters because I don’t believe for a second that your side is going to swing to actually voting Republican.
I think you are getting compromise from Biden already (several old Washington hands have observed that this is the first time they have seen a Democrat pivot left after wrapping up the nomination), and you might be surprised by how much you lose if you bail out. It makes me think of the 1990s negotiations over a Palestinian state. Is there any doubt that Palestinians would now take the deal they turned their nose up at in a heartbeat if they were offered it again?
The game you are talking about playing is similar. You are trying to drive a hard bargain for a better deal, but if you just get replaced by center right voters, you may find you have lost all your leverage and I will be sad about it too because I will be on the left edge of the party at that point and have less leverage than if you were in it further to my left.
It’s also a dangerous gambit because as we saw in Wisconsin, the GOP is seriously eroding democracy, and are such a clear and present danger you might not get the free and fair election you need later to trade in the “cred” you built by playing electoral hardball now. If Biden were running against a McCain or Romney type nominee, then sure: you could teach the Dems a lesson and then maybe they’d come hat in hand four years later. In the meantime you’d have a GOP president who respected small-d democratic norms. But if we let Trump win this, there may still superficially be elections but they might become a total farce.
Sure. But, the thing is, Biden actually had far more people turn up and vote for him than Sanders did. So it’s hard to bemoan Biden’s inability to inflame passion when the alternative was a guy who could only get people mad on Twitter or to show up for a concert rally but who provably stay home on election day.
I agree with this. I am not as radical as Sanders or Warren, but we NEED you radicals — not just for your votes, but to keep pulling us in the right direction.
The radical agenda was never going to get passed in 2021 in any event. But with hope and unity among the anti-Republican camp, progress may come sooner rather than later.
GOP cheating will make victory in November difficult. This is the hurdle we must focus on now.
I’m afraid you underestimate the damage Trump has done.
The tax code has been changed radically, to favor corporations and the rich, and against blue-voting urban dwellers. Tax codes aren’t easy to change back.
The institutional damage at Dept. of State, Dept. of Energy and other important agencies has been brutal. Scientists and experienced personnel have been fired or have quit in droves. Many of these fine people have moved on and won’t be eager to try a government job again. Some long-term scientific experiments were abandoned; they are completely lost. Scientists were ordered to destroy records — we’re dependent on some of them disobeying orders.
Intelligence assets planted in Russia have been outed. The national debt has ballooned for no good reason (exacerbating the necessary debt we incur due to the virus). Countries no longer respect the U.S.A. The partisan divide grows worse. American people now have less faith in government than ever.
The damage caused by Trump is huge, and will dominate America’s grieving process for years.
Yes, and I will the second.
But talk about a sense of deja vu. We said the same thing just four years ago.
From Joe Biden’s Platform Is More Progressive Than You Think by Jonathan Chait, New York Daily Intelligencer (3/12/2020)
I like that.
As SlackerInc (quoted below) and others have said, this strategy makes no sense in the face of a GOP that is intent on ending free and fair elections—and that has made substantial progress toward that end.
There are still leftists saying 'let Trump stay in until 2024 and then the American people will see that their best bet is to vote in a true progressive’ (or democratic socialist or what-have-you).
This is purest folly. Leave Trump in until 2024 and “voting” will be what it is in Russia: 90% for our glorious leader! What a landslide!
And, again,
The leftist theory that we should ‘let the people suffer more from Trumpism and then they will rally to the far left’ is delusional. And massively irresponsible to boot.
I wish I didn’t agree with this prediction, but I do.
They are on social media, they’re just not on tiktok making headlines for threatening to burn down cities.
You mean like how the right needs its radicals too keep pulling them further to the right?
The tax code is one of the most malleable laws in the country. No law has been amended more than the tax code.
And yes, Trump radically changed the tax code as you described and moneyed interests try to hold onto all their bought and paid for tax cuts but every Democratic administration since Clinton has rolled back tax cuts to some extent.
A lot of them will come back if they think they can make a positive difference. There is a reason they were there in the first place.
Generations.
I was an election judge for the Minnesota primary. Biden won handily - even with Minnesota’s easy vote ahead of time rules and Amy still in the election for most of those absentee voters.
My job was checking people in and determining if they needed a Republican or Democratic ballot.
Most people would simply check the party on the iPad, get the receipt and move over to the table to exchange their receipt for the ballot.
There were three exceptions
-
People who would make faces as they picked the Democratic ballot in a disgusted sort of “I can’t believe I’m doing this” sort of way. (i.e. Republicans trying to spoil the Democratic outcome)
-
People who wanted to “vote for Trump” and needed to make that known verbally
-
And people who were “here for Joe” and needed to make that known verbally.
There weren’t many of the second - Trump was the only person on the Republican Ballot - although I was surprised how many people came out and bothered to vote for Trump. The first I might have been reading into, there were a fair amount of them, though. The third type - there were actually a lot of them. I was shocked. Absolutely no one announced that they were there for Bernie (or Warren who was still in the race at that point - as was Tulsi, but she didn’t get any votes in my precinct at all).
If one day and one precinct is any indication - definitely not a generalized sample - people are far more fired up about Biden than I would have imagined - and not at all interested in Sanders.
The AP is reporting that Bernie Sanders has now publicly endorsed Joe Biden for POTUS.
Is Sanders getting Secretary of State? Or maybe Treasury? Those are the 2 he would probably want.
I doubt Sanders is getting any position in a Biden Administration and he likely wouldn’t want to be.
Sanders as SoS? God help us. I’m hard pressed to think of a less-qualified candidate.
He’d rather stick to his principles from the sidelines, where he never has to compromise. Leave him there until he retires.
The place where Bernie can speak about his ideals is on the Senate floor not working for someone.
Good for him to come out now and say we need Biden in the White House. That’s the unambiguous message that needed to be said as soon as possible. I’m glad he didn’t wait until the convention.
I’m not even going to guess what a convention is going to look like this year. At least it won’t be contested and on Zoom.
He probably needs to at least ask Sanders if he wants a job with Biden. Same for others who ran who are not picked as VP, Booker, Harris, mayor Pete, etc.