GIGO, you are creating a false binary here. To say that Democrats need to be careful not to be seen as pro-rioter is nowhere near the same as saying that Trump is doing anything right. This is not just about the top of the ticket or even just about this election.
For the sake of the long term or at least medium term prospects for the party, they need to very carefully thread a needle: not throwing base voters under the bus, obviously; but also not alienating the white suburban moderates who have recently fled the GOP and flipped the House in 2018.
Walz seems to be doing a good job with this, and now with the most recent statement, so is Biden.
Frey is doing a bad job. At least bad in terms of the national image of Democrats; it may be fine for his narrow interest in dealing with his own constituents.
When I wrote this OP, Pelosi had not at that point been balanced enough in her comments. Hopefully she has gone on to denounce the rioting and looting. She has shown herself to be a canny and pragmatic politician in the past, so it would be disappointing if she failed in that regard this time.
In addition to Biden there were good statements by John Lewisand Eric Holder.
On balance I think Democrats will get through this at an electoral level. It hurts them but it also hurts Trump since he is President and since he has been characteristically clumsy and crude.
However there is also the economic damage which will be harder to overcome particularly in the wider context. These cities have been decimated by the lockdown and now it will be all the more difficult to rebuild. Companies and small businesses are certainly going to be reluctant to invest in places that have seen serious rioting.
The right wing media are forgetting to mention the inconvenient truth that Democrats like Biden condemned the violence, so as told to another poster, you are not doing a false binary here but and incomplete argument, and not a very original argument, it is though an argument seen before coming from some Republicans and right wing sources as seen in 1992, so one should not fall for it as most voters did then.
As I pointed to other posters already, it seems that you want to think that that is a counter point to something, but as it was explained with cites already, it is mostly a right wing talking point that ignores that Democrats are doing already what you still claim is missing.
As noted, there was no word from her or other Democrats about supporting the rioters. The point here is that we should also never forget how the narrative is being shaped by the right wing media that ignores the condemnations coming from the Democrats… or that the right wing media continues to mislead others by claiming that there is support of the rioters by the Democrats.
GIGO, you have a template for your posts in which you always make sure to use the verbiage “fall for it” and “right wing media” over and over, even when those are total non sequiturs in terms of the post you are actually (ostensibly) responding to. :rolleyes:
Look for instance at my post #59. What “right wing media” did I “fall for” in composing that one? You (and many others) just can’t compute that Democrats can be moderate and/or politically pragmatic without being traitors or dupes, so anything an iota to the right of truthout reads to you as “falling for” “right wing media”. :dubious:
Yeah, those are really good–Holder’s especially. But we need to hear this kind of thing from the Obamas, who have a much larger megaphone than either of them do.
Come on. You should be able to figure that out just from the info given. Trump and Biden agree on an issue, but Biden disagrees with Trump’s tweet. Thus Trump must’ve said something other than the thing Biden agreed with. This would be true if you replaced Biden and Trump with literally any other people. It’s just logic.
You clearly have a predetermined conclusion that this is somehow the Democrats’ fault, and then are trying to fit the facts to that conclusion, rather than having looked at the facts and then come to a conclusion. If you had done the latter, you would know that both parties condemn this, and wouldn’t need to try and create a strawman where the Democrats secretly don’t.
Furthermore, if you think alleging bad faith is bad, then why are you doing it to the Democrats and Biden in particular? Is it okay when it’s someone you don’t like?
BTW, A long time ago I was spanked by **Irish Girl **for saying that Guiness beer was a British beer, I did not come back with other good posts to claim I was correct for that beer one. I had to admit that the post came by not looking things up.
Right now one should look at 1992 for a better example than the OP, regarding how Repuclicans had a lot of concerns about Democrats not condemning violence, but they did not convince most people then that that pee coming down was rain.
And do you think 1992 marks the beginning of some glorious progressive Democratic era? Clinton got 43 percent of the vote, and although he had a Democratic House and Senate, that was the last gasp of the era when Southern conservative Democrats were a dominant force in the party. Two years later, Newt Gingrich led the “Republican Revolution”, the biggest red wave in modern history.
Clinton was able to hang on, but that was in part with the help of Perot and in part by doing things like the now-infamous crime bill that the BLM faction of the party is so mad about. But it’s that kind of stuff that helps provide a good defense against suspicions among white moderates that Democrats are a party by and for inner city blacks that doesn’t care about what they care about. And it’s a sometimes-unfortunate reality that we can’t win without those suburban whites who are a little suspicious of the “urban agenda”. But we obviously can’t abandon that agenda, either; so we have to tap dance a bit on the tightrope and not tip our hand too far in either direction.
Good historical analysis, SlackerInc — that’s the realpolitik perspective, and it must be a part of Biden’s strategy.
But we can also lament that the deeper structural and cultural inequalities in our society force us to accept slow movement in the right direction, in part because faster movement — and some of the actions (lamentably) required to generate that faster movement — are distasteful and scary to suburban whites.
I already knew that it was not a great progressive time, the context shows that the point stands, remember that what I pointed at was about why it was silly to ignore how the Democrats in 1992’s did deal with the LA riots then. And how the Republican approach to them was not as formidable for the election as some think.
I agree they need to be careful, but the situation is not so clear-cut. In times of crisis and failure, people tend to blame the incumbents, regardless of party.
BTW, I have often in the past been very critical of Ilhan Omar. But I just heard her interviewed by George Stephanopoulos and overall I was very pleasantly surprised by the message she conveyed. She said that people who burn down buildings are not showing by their actions that they believe black lives matter. Great way to frame it!
Considering that just about all the pictures of looters show them to be WHITE, and that reports that all of the people arrested in Minnesota actually came from out of state, I think we can safely say your argument is about as airtight as French doors on a German submarine. #WhatElseIsNew
Thing is the protesters have largely been acting decent. Its the anarchists and the troublemakers inciting them or inciting cops by throwing things at them. Look at This videoof the guy busting windows even as the protesters tell him to stop. I only wish they had tried a little harder like take him down and hand him over to cops. I bet he’s a paid, outside agitator. There are other videos out there of similar people causing mayhem.
There are also some good people trying to stop these idiots and working to help clean up the messes.
Even your pro-Trump cite says the bail fund is for “protesters,” not “rioters.” Do you think it’s impossible that, in all the chaos, well-behaved protestors have been jailed as rioters? Is it so objectionable that individuals in the Biden campaign (not even “the Biden campaign” itself) would want to help those people?
Most posters here agree with you that the guy in the video is some sort of outside agitator. But think for a second – who stands to benefit when peaceful protests (supported by many) turn into rioting and looting? Who would likely pay this agitator?