Right, so we all agree, the idea that another Republican wins the Republican nomination is a fantasy.
Unless trump isnt running, of course.
Right now, I’d say Trump’s chances are north of 50%, and he might even win fairly and squarely without controversy.
He’s an incumbent with a very strong economy and he’s so far avoided the much-feared foreign policy clusterfuck.
By contrast, take a look at his Democratic competition. Simply put, it’s increasingly no place for white moderates. Harris, Castro, and Booker are going to drive wedges between the Democratic party and independents if they’re not careful, and both Warren and Sanders are competing for progressive voters with pie-in-the-sky proposals that are going to fall flat in more moderate counties across the country. It’s early yet, but I hope that what’s happening in the Democratic party now is just nothing more than shit candidates say just to get attention; otherwise, it’ll be a disaster.
To follow up on a theme that I’ve mentioned before, this article kinda illustrates how Trump’s hyper-partisan polarization can work.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/07/democrats-2020-primary-election-1399248
If the activist wing of the Democratic party goes full-on Freedom Caucus against its more moderate members, it’s going to weaken the party over all. Identity politics could in some ways fracture the Democratic party and inflict more damage to the party than the anti-Obama madness did to the Republicans in the years 2011-13. Many on the Democratic party’s activist left have taken the position that since partisanship worked for the Republicans, it follows that they should take a similarly hard line with moderates in their own party. What the activists fail to realize is, what ‘worked’ for Republicans - and some would point out it just barely ‘worked’ - won’t work as well for Democrats. That’s because Republicans have begun polarization according to demographics, which is a game that they can win if the Democrats follow them into the sewer and fight them down there. They can win because if politics gets broken down along racial and demographic lines, then it becomes a matter of which party has the biggest tribe. And the reality is that republicans are better suited to play tribal warfare. Democrats need to use their advantages of diversity to form broad coalitions that can work together effectively even if they disagree on the specifics.
If people like Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar, and Pressley take the position that the Democratic party is the party of brown people and they’re going to shove white moderates aside, they will alienate a lot of people. And they will lose. And we will all lose with them. And if you think Republicans have turned back the clock and thrown out the rule book now, wait for what comes next.
Takes two to tango. I don’t think AOC et al. are really alienating people; they are actually doing a good job forming alliances with others (like Warren and Sanders) and keeping problems with the status quo on the front burner. But your basic point is sound. Biden’s people should heed it because if he keeps diminishing, patronizing, and “otherizing” more progressive Dems like AOC, the stink of conservative (and racist) pandering is going to hurt his momentum.
See this article that Slacker posted in the other thread. Now is not the time to be saying shit like this.
Never mind that she did more than win a primary (which was a notable feat in and of itself), why is he acting like he’s running against her to be the Dem nominee for President? It’s like he’s drinking from the same FoxNews water hose that keeps everyone on the right obsessed with her.
She won a primary in a district in which winning a Democratic win in the general is a given. Biden’s point is valid: across the country it was mostly mainstream Democrats who won in swingable contested districts.
He has a balance to hit here in how he makes that case though. He cannot and should not inauthentically pander to the hard Left. He won’t win their votes in the primaries in any case and trying to appease them only makes him come off as weak or “feeble”, which he cannot afford. He needs to strongly advocate for the mainstream positions he believes knowing that most are paying more attention to the how he defends the positions than even what those positions are. On the other he cannot afford to hit so hard that he loses turnout in the general. HRC was in a similar circumstance and ended up erring on giving Sanders too much kid gloves which hurt her more than it helped. He should not make the mistake she made of treading excessively lightly with that end of the party. He has to disagree respectfully but strongly and firmly, arguing clearly that mainstream wins the purple and maybe even the pink. Winning in deep Blue is not how one beats Trump.
Disrespect he saves for Trump and Trumpism.
This seems to be what people ALWAYS say to those on the Left. “Hush! You’ll alienate the moderates! Just be quiet and appease the center, and eventually, you’ll… get nothing.” On the Right, on the other hand, a relatively small band of extremists have dragged the party after them. As a result, the center of both parties has moved considerably to the right over the last 30 years.
I don’t want the two parties to be hyper-left and hyper right, but I do want to know why the double standard. Why can’t the Democrats stake their territory to the left of the center? Why can’t we drag the overton window back to the left?
Some of us see the state of the GOP and the impact of it on our country and our politics as a cautionary tale, not as a role model.
That “some” includes many with hard progressive beliefs even.
And most of us understands that winning back the Presidency and having a chance at winning the Senate is how any movement in the direction from here that those from far Left to Center all want to go, is what matter.
A Far Left party would be a small minority party. By itself it can accomplish nothing. Working with the larger numbers who are center Left it can and has pulled the window of the party toward it (many mainstream positions had not been mainstream eight years ago) and get a good number of their goals met.
The structural factors that lead to disproportionate power of the Far Right do not exist for the Far Left. Gerrymandering is only a small part of it.
Yes but it doesn’t need to be said. Diminishing the accomplishment of a young female minority just to argue the (dry) case for moderates is not politically savvy. It doesn’t matter if it’s a “valid” point. Likening Trump’s detention centers to concentration camps is a valid point too, but it is not smart politicking for a presidential candidate to hammer this message.
He doesn’t have to pander hard to the Left. He just needs to avoid inflaming the Left against him. Taking shots at AOC (who, I have to reiterate, is not even in this race) is exactly the type of play that creates Bernie bro-type dissenters in the general.
If y’all can’t see this is 2016 all over again, Lord Jesus help us.
The problem with trying to learn from history is that we sometimes see it teaching different lessons … 
Yeah I think this is right. Sometimes Biden will have to alienate the left for a good reason, e.g. defending his position on busing when he was attacked. But there is no need to gratuitously inflame the left, e.g. talk about working with segregationists like Eastland. It’s a tricky balance to find but that’s what being a top politician, particularly in the Democratic party, requires.
That (she’s a brilliant bright woman but mainstream is what wins elections across the country) is gratuitously inflammatory?
He was being asked about his approach in contrast to the Go Big popular promises of the side of the party for which AOC is a self-appointed spokesperson for, and widely embraced by the media as poster child, held by them as the example of how that approach wins.
AOC is not in this race but the question is about the conflict between the approach that she exemplifies and is one of the biggest salesperson for, and his take on winning and getting things done.
Sorry but calling that response to that question gratuitously inflammatory is as absurd as saying Harris “yelled” at Biden during the debate.
He needs to defend that has plans (which he then detailed) that can actually deliver the goods to the (disappearing) middle class.
Amash doesn’t rule out running. That gives the “I don’t like Trump, but I’m not voting for a Democrat” Republicans an option.
Why would that inflame the left? He DID have to work with Eastland. Unless someone is trying to claim that Biden is a closet segregationist, that simply illustrates that he has experience working with people whose views could not be more opposed to his own yet he still accomplishes good (from the Dem point of view) things for the country.
Only in this hypersensitive PC world could anything negative be taken from that comment.
This would have been a much better response:
“You know, I have tremendous respect for AOC and the energy she carries, despite our differences in opinion on some important key issues. No doubt about it, she and others like her have to be the voice of their district-level constituencies. You can’t extrapolate that to everyone in the country, though. I believe I can be the voice for everyone.”
See how no shots are taken here? No “but” statements that turn a compliment into something patronizing? He should be affirming AOC’s position as a legitimate representative of the people (just a different group of “the people” than the national one), not implying she’s just a small potato aberration who doesn’t matter in the grand scheme.
The trouble and reality is that no Democrat can “deliver the goods” without a Democratic Congress. If the Senate stays Republican and McConnell lives, it will be deja-Obama all over again.
Again, that’s not true. The Dems hold the House. If we pick up a couple Senate seats, then with someone like Biden in charge, he will be able to get a couple Republicans to roll over.
I went back and actually listened to the full context of that Biden quote. My opinion about it has worsened. Biden didn’t even need to bring up AOC’s name, but he did. Just what was he thinking went out of his way single out the young brown woman for his old man finger waving?
She’s not the only person in the party clamoring for universal healthcare and free college for all. She’s not trying to be President. Sanders and Warren check both those boxes, and yet it’s not their names that Biden is calling out. It’s the Puerto Rican “disrupter” who Fox News beats up on all day, every day. So we know exactly who ole Biden is trying to appease and at whose expense.
You think that Biden can pry the balls of enough Pubbies out of McConnell’s iron grip to pass Democratic legislation in the Senate? I’m interested in your thinking on this, that is, why you think this is possible.
Could Amash have enough traction in (enough) key states to make a difference?