I understand, but I do think too much of this country is too unevolved to elect Sanders. Biden seems to me our best (remaining) hope to beat Trump. He wasn’t high on my list of people I’d like to see as the next POTUS, but I’ll do all I can to see that he wins this thing.
I was a Booker/Pete/Warren supporter, and was similarly worried that Biden was just too uncharismatic to beat Trump. One thing that significantly boosted my optimism was the comparison of the results in Michigan (and remember, only a few states really matter, Michigan is definitely one of them) between 2016 and 2020. All of these rustbelt counties went for Bernie over Hillary in 2016, and then went for Biden over Bernie in 2020. And she lost Michigan by 10K votes. All a candidate has to do is do as well as Hillary did, plus a teeny bit, in Michigan, and similarly in a few other states, and, bam, white house.
Right. Biden seems to be much better than Hillary Clinton in the rural white working class - whereas Sanders won those in the primary in 2016, Biden is winning them this year. All we need is a little bit better showing in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and I think Biden gives that (he definitely seems more popular in Michigan than Sanders this go around).
I think the debate happens, if for no other reason than to cancel it sends the message to Bernie’s supporters that their cause is lost for 2020, which will probably drive a lot of them to not vote for Biden (and who knows how many of them not to vote at all, possibly depriving progressive candidates of House or maybe even Senate seats - then again, how many progressives have won Democratic Senate primaries in 2020, anyway?), which is just asking to re-elect Trump.
Besides, it gives Bernie a chance to make one final nationwide case to his supporters to vote for Biden - and vote progressives for Congress. People seem to forget that the Representatives and Senators of the party in the White House are not merely a rubber stamp - otherwise, for example, the ACA would have been “repealed & replaced” by now as McCain, Collins, and Murkowski wouldn’t have voted against it - and a “progressive” Congress can pass whatever budget it wants and put it on the President’s desk.
It sounds like turnout was exceptionally high in the suburbs as well which is the same thing we saw in 2018 when Democrats retook the House. It’s encouraging to think that a lot of these same voters are still involved and enthusiastic.
After having slept on it, I agree with That Don Guy and all he posted. I think this is the week Sanders accepts the inevitable, but he does want the debate as a way of putting an exclamation point at the end of his campaign. (Plus I already learned via the news that Bernie intends to attend the debate.)
As he said, I just hope he uses the opportunity to not simply point out the differences between his agenda and Biden’s, but also the similarities. Something that broke my heart in 2016 was learning that, during their time together in the Senate, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders voted the same 94% of the time. All those young people who stayed home and didn’t vote, or who protest-voted for Trump, literally spit the dummy over a 6% disagreement in policy.
On so many metrics, Biden and Sanders just aren’t that far apart.
I believe that the progressive movement is truly the wave of the future. There’s a good parallel to the Progressive Movement of the early 20th century, which advocated for a long list of needed measures, nearly all of which came to pass.
But it took more than three decades and an overwhelming Democratic victory in 1932 for the agenda to move through Congress. You’re fooling yourselves if you think it can be done with a single presidential election. FDR was the people’s candidate, not an outlier in the party. And he straightforwardly lied to the public about what his plans were during his campaign.
Generational change takes a generation. Keep that in mind while you keep pushing for incremental change year by year.
She made important points to her followers and the statement is a powerful one.
As a Biden supporter who supports M4A, climate change as Priority One, getting big money out of politics and shifting the wealth of this country to a much more fair distribution, I am grateful she pointed out why people like me are supporting Biden this time around over Bernie.
As a party, we have got to pull together.
I did want to hand her a scrunchie for her hair.
Amusingly there are Bernie fans on Twitter who are blaming this loss on AOC because she made Bernie’s campaign “too woke” and therefore ruined his rapport with the white working class. As opposed to perhaps acknowledging that maybe a good portion of that white working class base was just anti-Hillary as opposed to pro-Bernie.
I do like AOC quite a bit though. I think she’s a far better politician than Bernie Sanders is. But she may be too much of a lightening rod to so something nationally (aside from say Speaker of the House or Senate leadership).
Analysis of the voting patterns seems to bolster this idea. I can relate, I really don’t like Hillary, but not for any substantial reason. I’m way to the left of her, but so what? Voted for her because of the, ah, “alternative”. Maybe its some form of “likeability”? Dunno, but it sure would explain a lot.
I’m not sure if you can really just boil it down that way. Biden always seemed to project an image of someone that “fights for the little guy”, someone that rides the train to work, is comfortable hanging out with bikers or steel mill workers, pumping his own gas, and drinking a 6 pack of bud light.
I mean, just look at all the “Diamond Joe” stuff from the Onion, back in the Obama days.
How much of this is real vs. a completely manufactured image, i don’t know. And maybe this is all inherently unfair, a politician exactly like Joe Biden (but female) may have never managed to get stuck with this sort of “Diamond Joe” reputation. But Hillary Clinton certainly didn’t, and i think “Diamond Joe” is exactly what an unemployed white steelworker is going to respond well to.
Yeah, I see AOC as the future Nancy Pelosi complete with right wing demonization machine.
(YamatoTwinkie): True. We’ll never know to what extent simply being a woman was a factor for some number of these folks.
But, speaking as someone living in a small Midwestern city (did I mention that?), I know it was part of the package for some.
PS Those “Onions” are hilarious. This should be the template for Joe’s campaign: go see the Scorpions, feed alligators, fool around with manly vehicles…
I hope political journalists finally realize that spending all day on Twitter to gather your perceptions of the electorate is a waste of time. The stats would show that anyway. Only 20% of Americans use Twitter and of that 20% an even smaller amount post regularly, and of that smaller amount an even smaller amount talk politics.
The problem is the professional class of media are all on there because it’s instant communication for them. But Twitter’s demographics tilt younger, more educated, more liberal and more affluent. It’s not reflective of the party anymore than going to diners in the deep south is reflective of the Trump voter.
I’ve tried to make this point too. If the separation between Biden and Sanders were measurable strictly one-dimensionally, I’d probably be around 75% toward the Sanders side. But even given a Senate flip and a filibuster repeal (or at least a repeal of the no-show filibuster), they aren’t going to just enact the Sanders agenda. So may as well go with the candidate with the better chance in the general.
Who, specifically, was doing this?
My guess is no one.
I have heard/read many journalists themselves acknowledge that they are guilty of doing this, and need to try to remember “Twitter is not America”.
No, that’s not where the blame belongs. I think, just the opposite as you, that Bernie was more likely to lose to Trump. But that doesn’t mean if we had nominated Bernie and he lost, that he (or his backers) would deserve blame for Trump. That actually does go on racism and people who are too unevolved to have a minimum standard of competency and decency when choosing a president.
I am one such person, and I watched–and all I kept thinking was “GET A FUCKING HAIR TIE, GAAHHH!” :smack:
There are many journalists and political staff that do acknowledge their their social media bubbles can definitely be a hindrance to seeing what’s out there. In particular, I think the Warren campaign was guilty of this.
Journalists have to realize how easy it is to live in a bubble of younger, highly educated and urban people, both in real life and online. That’s their demographic. They should spend more time with that rural woman from MS (either CNN or MSNBC) last night who said ‘I don’t do the Tweety Bird.’ She has voted for Biden because she wanted to vote for Biden and that’s it. Didn’t spend hours looking at platforms or discussing if a Medicare for all plan is better than Medicare for all who want it.
It’s over. Democrats rallied behind one candidate. I suspect that Bernie will be out by the end of Spring Break.
AOC seems to be acknowledging that the millenials sneering “OK Boomer” at older folks was counterproductive.
She also seems to think that Millenial progressives are more robust in their ideology than every generation of progressives before her. Only time will tell.
Now if she would only refrain from targetting moderates.
Sanders’ statement today was a masterful use of coded language. He said aloud that he’s staying in the race while his subtext was that he knows he needs a miracle to get the nomination. He didn’t want to drop out now because that would send his bros into sheer insanity. Instead, he’s stopped attacking Biden entirely so as to give him a chance to make appeals to Sanders’ base by agreeing to push some of the progressive agenda, which Sanders laid out point by point for Biden to pick and choose from.
He’s laying out a course for Biden to follow so that he can concede gracefully while saying that the progressive agenda will be a part of Biden’s campaign, presented by Smilin’ Joe as a return to the Golden Era, not the scary future.
The odds of Biden picking up this baton and running with it are high. Bernie’s out of the race as of this moment except as a spoiler. If Biden for whatever weird reason slaps him down, then Sanders will hit back hard. But I don’t see that happening. They both understand the game being played. They’ll mock compete on March 17 and it will be over when the returns come in.