And, certainly, Uyger would never give a TERF a platform!
This is a weird thread.
Don’t like Cenk, or don’t think he has a chance? Fine.
Disagree with him on some issue? Fine too.
But instead, let’s try to interpret something he wrote to right-wingers (who, in America, have been trained to think that “progressive” just means “identity politics”) urging us to get past culture wars, means he’s really anti-trans, anti-gay etc…despite presenting a channel that posts pro-gay and pro-trans videos on a daily basis.
And apparently that’s the only possible interpretation. 
I’d actually missed the context where he was specifically addressing right wingers, which does invalidate my criticism. Sorry.
Ah no worries 
And sorry yeah I was already a bit dialled up from other posters’ responses.
Okay, let’s do this again then. Quoted sections from Hatchie’s OP to be clear:
“[Cenk Uygur is] fired up about Joe Biden and his allegedly diminished chances in 2024, and is determined to keep the Dems from running him again by declaring himself as a long-shot contender, with the hope it will give him the platform to spread his messages”
So he acknowledges that he’s a long shot, and wants to use running for President as a Platform to spread his messages. Right off the bat, this is a problem, because while it’s by no means illegal, it’s dishonest, and risks fractioning the Democratic vote, which ESPECIALLY if the first point about Biden’s allegedly diminished chances is correct, is a very bad idea. But lets continue.
“to wit: that another Trump win would be disastrous (can’t dispute that),”
Yup, everyone here probably agrees with that.
“that Biden is weakened because of the age factor and his basic allegiance to donor money,”
Arguable, but for myself and many posters, his age is a factor we consider as not being in his favor if there was a better qualified (in terms of winning the Presidency) candidate. As for being beholden to donor money, I’d like evidence that is a factor - after all Trump ran on the assumption that he’d be above such things because of his wealth, and he was far more terrifying and corrupt despite that “insulation.”
“other Dem Party approved choices based on poll numbers (Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, yikes Hillary) are just as likely as Biden to blow it in the general election (doesn’t matter if they can win debates and look good on the campaign trail,”
And here we have a vast excluded middle making this a pointless excuse. There are dozens of Democrats that certainly poll lower than the above choices, but waaaaay above Cenk Uygur, who, as pointed out upthread, had a dismal showing in his prior political efforts.
“Trump is immune to that and they are all perceived as old style politicians as much as Biden is), and his hope is to get enough traction, should Biden drop out for whatever reason, to persuade the Democrats to look elsewhere for a strong nominee (conceding that it probably won’t be him).”
And we’re back to at least likely majority agreement, BUT one of the advantages to Biden is that he is an “old style politician” in that he makes efforts to keep things running, to inch towards a better (from my, and most Democrats view at least) tomorrow, but isn’t pushing hard enough to scare most people who aren’t already pearl-clutchers. And, right now at least, we see zero evidence of a STRONG nominee, but I’m glad Uygur realized it isn’t him.
“He makes some good points, one of them being that name recognition in the primaries gets a lot more credit among party insiders than it deserves”
Disagree, pointing to the jump start various Bush scions and Kennedy’s have received from their famous families. Sure, it’s not the ONLY factor by a long shot, but again, VAST excluded middle.
“an unknown with a strong message who out-performs the name brand politicians deserves party support, and if nominated is immediately no longer an unknown;”
And here we agree again. Obama was a largely unknown factor prior to the Primary, and proved to be a skilled speaker, fully capable of energizing the voters.
“in fact much better positioned in the general election to excite voters if his or her message is fresh and addresses real concerns.”
Also true! But also not in evidence that this is anything Cenk is capable of based on his performance to date. Any message (okay nitpickers, ALMOST any message) addresses real concerns, and may motivate a portion of the audience and voters. But does Cenk Uygur bring to the table motivate a majority of voters, or show any signs of freshness? Nope. Now again, Hatchie in the OP, and Cenk as reported in this section, makes the case that any energetic Democrats could make this work, and guess what, I agree. But the point is, are there any running?
No, not yet. Because of a ton of reasons. The ones that stand out to me right now is that other than age, TRUMP better represents the qualities Cenk Uygur is admiring:
- Trump is younger than Biden, so he wins in age factor!
- Trump has no allegiance to (anything really) donor money.
- Other Republican candidates are just as likely (possibly more!) likely to bow the general, especially if Trump tells them to stay home!
- Trump is indeed immune to almost anything when it comes to reactions of his base.
skipping down to your last points
- He’s absolutely not a traditional, old school politican.
- He doesn’t arguably need it anymore, but in 2016, he was the PERFECT example of how name brand recognition catapulted his campaign forward.
- Trump was largely unknown as a political entity (outside his birtherism), but he had bold new ideas: Build walls, ban Muslims, jail anyone he likes without due process, just to name a few. And they were were well accepted, and he was certainly not an unknown afterwards with full party support.
- Trump indeed was MUCH better equipped to excite voters in 2016 with his message of hate, anger, and quick fixes, and because he said all the prior quiet parts out loud, it was certainly fresh and exciting to his fans, and it addressed their concerns, which they at least perceive to be real.
So, in short, Cenk Uygur’s IDEAL candidate is a (younger) Trump! And honestly, it sounds a LOT like Cenk is pursing the route that many of us suspect Trump was pursuing in 2016: run a big political campaign, not because he wants to / thinks he will win, but because he can use it to promote himself for his own enrichment or future political career.
Which, well, I don’t admire them for, but it’s not illegal as I said a page of text ago. But it’s still dishonest IMHO. I respect them less for doing it, and that’s leaving out all the problematic stances and history that other posters have brought to the thread. But as summarized by Hatchie, his arguments are self-serving and disingenuous at best.
I’ve re-read your OP. It seems to come down to:
- Uygur thinks Biden is going to get thrashed by Trump in the 2024 general election, and that this would be a disaster for the country.
- He thinks that the Democrats’ other possible “big name” candidates would fare no better against Trump.
- He wants the Democrats to seriously consider/pursue lesser-known possible candidates, who might somehow be stronger/have fresher ideas.
What have I missed?
Then he shouldn’t be running. End of story.
But suppose Cenk thinks that by being outspoken and critical of Biden’s weaknesses, his general laconic way of presenting himself on nearly every occasion - which can drive even his most committed partisans nuts - suppose he thinks (typical Cenk hubris) that by demonstrating what a firebrand looks like on the hustings - he can spark Biden, the guy everyone knows barring disaster will be facing the other guy everyone knows will be facing him, into injecting a little more passion, no wait, not just that, but old-fashioned evangelical fervor into his act. Oh, I hope Joe can do that without needing Cenk to demonstrate, seeing as how he will probably complete his run completely unaware of his semi-obscure competitor and his fizzled campaign. But didn’t Joe adopt some of Bernie Sanders’ mojo in 2020? And did it not help? (Maybe Bernie should do some angry rallies, this time for Joe, since he’s a proven crowd magnet.)
Have Elon and Arnold endorsed him? For that matter, have they said anything about naturalized citizens being eligible to run for president?
And why should a progressive put his faith in a Supreme Court that just voted (among other things) to repeal Roe v. Wade? There’s a way to amend the Constitution; it’s called amending the Constitution, and it happens when enough people get fed up enough to put pressure on enough of their elected representatives to change things. That’s how we got Prohibition AND the repeal of Prohibition. That’s how we got the 18-year old vote, the repeal of the poll tax, direct election of Senators and others.
Think it’s impossible? Read about the 27th Amendment. I promise it will take less than an hour.
Oh, for the last time I never said it would work, I only repeated how Cenk thinks it could work. No, nobody famous has endorsed him or said they would support his expected lawsuit versus the Nevada Election Commission. And for crying out loud, all of you, stop telling us to read the Constitution! We know what it says in plain writin’. Personally I think some parts of the Constitution are an excellent document… for me to poop on!
Because “bickering” means arguing, and the Right can win without that by doing precisely what it has been doing: Passing horrible laws, bullying people who seem weak, and killing everyone who can’t be bullied. When only one side has power, enforcing silence means the powerless group loses because their voice is all they had.
We’re talking about Cenk, not you.
Although I do think that the court effort is, say, 99.99% likely to fail, it seems that the idea that the natural-born citizen requirement is already contradicted by an amendment isn’t completely insane:
https://repository.law.uic.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1287&context=lawreview
Article II of the United States Constitution declares that the President of the United States must be a “natural born citizen.”’ In recent years, the number of legal scholars attacking this provision has been growing, and there have been numerous calls for a constitutional amendment to repeal this provision. Oddly, no one has argued that this provision can be thrown out by judges; however, it seems clear that this provision is in complete contradiction to the current understanding of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Numerous Supreme Court precedents have said that classifications based on national origin are subject to strict scrutiny and are presumptively unconstitutional for the federal government or the states. Moreover, there is ample precedent for the view that a constitutional amendment can overrule an earlier part of the constitution by implication, as well as by explicit repeal. Hence, there is nothing radically new in the idea that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment can be held to overrule the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause of Article II.
The author may be wrong, but he doesn’t appear to be a crackpot. It would be interesting to see it make it to a court, at any rate.
That sounds a lot like our last president.
Every time I open P&E and see the thread title Cenk Uygur running for Pres, I say “Still?”
And I wonder if the title will change when he gives up.
How’d that work out for Ralph Nader?
Ralph Nader would be astonished anyone called him a firebrand.
Well, Washington Post just did a month ago.
I’m so old that I remember pundits lamenting Henry Kissinger’s exclusion, so it has been useful in modern times.
I met Ralph Nader; he doesn’t come off as the fire-breathing type.
But good on the Post for calling him that. Must have warmed the old guy’s heart.
Not logical at all. Telling people on the right “stop bickering about social issues” is almost the exact opposite thing of promising to give them what they want.
But you quoted me, and replied with a non sequitur.
In any case, let’s talk about Cenk then.
He has founded one of the most popular progressive channels, started over 20 years ago. He presents videos every day that promote and explain the Progressive position. He part founded the Justice Democrats, who have been instrumental in electing progressive candidates. He also started Wolf-PAC, a progressive PAC.
But nah, all that is invalidated if we can find one tweet that we can misinterpret. He’s not a “true” Progressive because “stop bickering” clearly means throw LGBT / minorities etc to the wolves.
That’s all the ingenuous.