The Preznit had a rally in Tulsa yesterday — no one is questioning why a sitting president is so insecure he needs these pointless mini-Nuremburgs — and beforehand, his managers were touting the YUGE numbers of people who signed up to attend. Then the rally happened.
In the days leading up to Trump’s Saturday rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he and his allies ginned up expectations for a massive crowd with campaign officials telling CNN that more than a million people had registered to attend, and one local official stating they expected 100,000 to show up near the arena.
But those crowds didn’t appear as large as expected Saturday afternoon, leading to an abrupt change of plans by the campaign. A campaign source told CNN that the team was abandoning plans for the President to speak to an “overflow” area outside the arena in Tulsa where only a couple dozen people were standing near the outdoor stage less than two hours before the rally.
The campaign had been leaning toward canceling Trump’s remarks to the overflow crowd for fear of angering the President if there aren’t as many people there as he expected when he lands.
Is there hope? Is his support fading? Maybe. But then there’s this.
The bar for President is this low now pic.twitter.com/G0rieqXxM6
— Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) June 21, 2020
He managed to drink a glass of water and is so proud of himself — and the crowd roars! His base might be shrinking, but the ones he has left are zealous morons.
Of course, when I allow myself to consider the possibility he might lose in November, I have to remind myself that his replacement will be Biden.
There ain’t much hope left here.
The size of hyper-partisan crowd isn’t a prediction.
He really showed that glass, tossing it aside like the nothing it was. He’s definitely not tired of winning yet. sigh
Anyway, I move the president be charged with littering and recommend the death penalty. During the proceedings, the prosecution may want to bring additional charges ranging from criminal incompetence to same negligence. Impeach now! Also, someone please start a littergate hashtag or something.
Biden has his problems, but it’s a choice between “bad” and “much, much worse” (much more important than the difference between good and bad, to paraphrase a quote I read somewhere).
I’d love to see a viable 3rd party candidate…but until the stranglehold that Dem/Rep parties have on the system is released, we are unlikely to see such a candidate. Certainly not this year. I doubt that more than a few percent of voting citizens know whether there are other candidates on the ballot.
Me, I’m not really voting for Biden, I’m voting against Prez Tweety.
For progress to happen in a democracy, we need to build majorities. As we saw predictably in Minnesota this week, police reform did not happen, because Republicans have a majority in the State Senate (the Senate wasn’t up in 2018, otherwise the blue wave would have wiped it out). To build a majority, you will find that you will not like or be in agreement with everyone in that majority. If you agree with and like everyone in your political group, guess what? You don’t have a majority. Get over this “but I don’t like Biden crap.” It doesn’t matter who occupies the White House as long as they have a “D” next to their name and they can operate a pen. Republicans figured this out. Trump is a moron who operates a pen and gives them tax cuts and judges — and that’s all they want from government. Republicans need to think less like this and Democrats, a lot more.
oh Wow Trump picked up a glass of water.! Now if he could pick up a brain
That’s because the kids know how to internet. The Tik-Tokers and K-pop stans went to work and blew up the numbers (and contaminated any data the campaign hoped to draw from this) with bogus ticket requests. I just hope the ones who can vote, do.
If nothing else, at least Biden seems like he’s much less likely than Trump to be willing to just deploy the military into an American city and order them to start mowing down civilians. He is concerned about optics in a way that Trump simply isn’t. I wouldn’t call Biden good, but when you’re asked if you want your balls punched or stabbed, it shouldn’t be a difficult choice.
Church Militant has posted an exposé on Joe Biden that reveals what a terrible Catholic he is. This should perk up some people who find the presumptive Democratic nominee unsatisfactory.
https://youtu.be/AijrLbbpPv4
With Biden there’s some chance of getting Stacy Abrams as the 47th president.
The concern for this November is that in the event that Biden takes the election, what happens when (not if) Trump refuses to accept the results and leave office?
Amen, Sonja. Sure, Biden has his problems, but it’s time to stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. It may feel good to throw rocks from one’s self-righteous liberal utopia bubble, but as Sonja says, we need majorities, and to get that, we’re going to have to work with people who don’t entirely share our viewpoints. Anyway, how about actually looking at the policies he promises to pursue before badmouthing him out of hand? Granted, no one is going to find everything they want there, but his positions are broadly progressive and address the interests of most Americans. And of course, in those areas where he may fall short, pressure needs to be kept on to make sure he doesn’t pander too much to powerful interests (banks, finance, big business especially) and pursues the policies he espouses. At least he can be expected to respond to the public will and put the best interests of our nation first, rather than his own. The other thing to remember is that the current incompetent fool in the White House has made a colossal mess of the federal government, and it will take every bit of Biden’s long experience to repair the damage. Indeed, I think one would be hard-pressed to find someone better for the job.
Well, Biden could peg out before November. What happens if he does so in October, say? Does his VP-pick get to inherit his place on the ballots, or would it then be between Trump and the fringers?
At this point, my bar for the next president is about as low as it can get: anyone who is sane is better than Trump, and will get my vote. My next-door neighbor, my 8-year-old niece, the first person I meet walking down the street, it’s all the same to me.
I am fine now with getting back to “Bad” when Biden is elected. We can hope for “Better” later.
When someone says they don’t like Biden, don’t interpret that to mean they’re going to vote for Trump. I detest Biden, I’ll be voting reluctantly for him in November, but I will continue to not like him and will continue to be critical of him. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand.
Srsly? A 78-year-old by the inauguration date, who was a mediocre student and a mediocre senator, is a repeat plagiarist and creep around women (if nothing worse), became VP and Presidential candidate simply riding Obama’s coat-tails, and who’s basically done nothing beyond make a few speeches for the past 3 1/2 years. All of which still, of course, makes him well-nigh infinitely preferable to Trump.
Sorry, #15 is in response to William Londo@11.
Addition to #15: and who has a singularly dodgy record on race, on women’s right to bodily autonomy, on LGBTQ+ issues, on subservience to corporate power…
Perhaps you needn’t worry, Dr. Myers. A Biden victory will likely be declared null and void by Trump for some reason, if only to placate the pro-Trump crowd that has already promised violence if their precious Trump is removed from office.
Sonja and William. I sold my soul and voted for Clinton here in Ohio in 2016 and it did no good at all, it wasn’t even close. As far as insisting on “The Perfect” I’ve been voting for Good Enough for 40 years now while working for better people in the primaries and guess what? It keeps getting worse and worse. Democrats keep getting more and more conservative and more and more corporate controlled. It has not worked in the past and I doubt if it will work this time either.
It may be necessary to vote for Biden, because the alternative is probably true classic fascism, but don’t fool yourselves about what the actual outcome is going to be. When shit stays the same then in 2 years the fascists will swoop in and take over the congress again (remember 2010?). In other words you’ve kicked the ball down the road a couple of years, at the most. You heard it here. Just call me Cassandra, you’re welcome.
The last two elections I voted in were the first ones I could legitimately say I liked who I voted for. But then the majority of the British people didn’t vote for him, because they’re idiots or monsters or both, and now I am heartily disillusioned with this whole parliamentary democracy business. So I feel for you.
weylguy@18,
Trump would either have to rely on the Supreme Court to overturn a Biden victory, as they did for Bush in 2000 (but the last week indicates that he may well not be able to), or on the military to stage an outright coup. I’m certainly not saying he won’t try anything to stay in power, but this year, I think the odds would still be against success, provided Biden’s victory is large enough (despite the vote suppression that will certainly occur). After 4 more years of Trump, I think the next Trump in line (probably Ivanka) would have an excellent chance of making the vote as much a formality as in Putin’s Russia.
I agree with #19 (Ronald Couch). In fact, I think it would be better in the long term for the US for Trump to win this election. This will tell the people that they must throw out the establishment Democrats, and bring in the progressive faction headed by the likes of AOC.
You had your chance in the primaries when you selected a mediocre establishment candidate over a progressive Sanders, you deserve whoever is elected, Biden or Trump. You will have to wait until 2028 when AOC becomes eligible to run for President, to have the chance to elect the first decent person as President since Eisenhower.
Change must start at the local level and percolate upwards. Change must start at the primaries. Vote in large numbers in the primaries to elect progressive candidates, throw out some of the rotten folk like Pelosi, Schumer, et al, in the primaries, and you have a chance to get the government you need. Until then you will get establishment Democrats and Republicans who screw the people.
Ravi Venkataraman@22
Ah, the rhetoric of somebody who feels entitled to tell the people voting in the democratic primaries they fucked up. Like only your choice, not theirs matter. The people that voted made their choice. Personally, I didn’t agree with their choice (I voted for Sanders), but in a democracy you either accept the voice of the people, or you sound like a pompous elitist twit.
By all means, get out there and find progressive candidates, fund them, and do the necessary campaign work to get them elected. Are you up to the task of following up on your rhetoric? The most vocal complainers often aren’t.
@#23, First off, I am not a US citizen or a US resident, I live in a civilized country.
It seems you people want change, but keep coming up with pathetic candidates like Hilary and Biden. If you want change, then you must encourage others to vote for progressives, assuming that is the direction of change you want. Pointing out that you had the chance to vote for progressives, and did not take that chance is not pompous or elitist, they are just facts, events that have already happened.
@20 The majority of Britain’s didn’t vote for bojo ,he only got 43% of the votes ,but he got a 80 seat majority .
The Electoral College put the snatch snatcher in the white house ,and FPTP ,first past the post put bojo into number 10 .
@24 Don’t think HRC was pathetic ,she got 3 million more votes than the snatch snatcher .
I live in Pennsylvania and I’m furious that I will have to vote for Joe the Schmo in order to try to beat Trump the Chump. We need to destroy the 2 party system after we destroy Trump. But not until then.
Ah, you mean like it did when Trump won in 2016.
Which one?
@ #27, One term of Trump, and you still come up with Biden as the candidate to oppose him. Maybe a second term for Trump will show that you need a Democratic candidate who can energize the masses. HRC was pathetic, all she had to say was, “Vote for me, make history by voting for the first woman President?” Was that even a slogan that people can rally behind? Equality for women is not achieved when a woman is elected President, it is achieved when a woman becomes President and nobody notices that it was a woman who won, but that the best person won.
Her experience? Starting or encouraging wars in Libya, Syria, etc. Being part of the Welfare Reform and War on drugs that hurt minorities a lot. Initially opposing gay rights, not on board with a minimum living wage, not for single payer healthcare, for privatization of prisons, etc. You call that a record and policy positions worth voting for?
A Biden victory now will only empower the establishment Democrats to double down on their positions, and leave progressives with another rotten choice in 2024, which may result in a Trump-like Republican taking power in 2024, and will set back the Progressive cause.
An extremely difficult task – even harder than in the UK, where it’s proving tough enough that attaining Scottish independence looks less difficult. The Democrats and Republicans seem to have made themselves part of the de facto constitution, as well as of the mentality of the vast majority of Americans, and have maintained their duopoly for over a century and a half, more or less completely switching political positions in the process. If possible at all, I think breaking the duopoly requires either decades of bottom-up work, beginning by electing candidates of other parties at city or state level, or the more-or-less complete collapse of the Republican Party so that a left breakaway from the Democrats is feasible without handing power back to the Republicans (similar collapse of the Democrats would lead to effective right-wing dictatroship, probably with sham elections as in Russia). In either case, serious constitutional change would be required to prevent a new duopoly emerging. Given all that, might not an attempt at a progressive takeover of the Democrats, as the far right have taken over the Republicans, be a better strategy?
Why would it, when it hasn’t this time? Or during the primaries, when Sanders did his best to “energize the masses”, and failed, doing less well than in 2016.
What a Biden victory will result in is far less predictable than what a Trump victory will result in – which is the entrenchment of the far right to an extent which may well make them permanently irremoveable. If you’ve paid any attention at all, you’ll have noticed the way the Trumpists have been packing the judiciary, which is already going to be a serious obstacle for any progressive reform for decades, and assiduously working on vote-suppression, attacks on freedom of the press and assembly, militarization of the police, building up armed militias. If you can’t see that this is proto-fascism, and that four more years is highly likely to remove the “proto-“, then frankly, you’re a fool. Results of a Biden victory, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, BLM and accelerating climate disruption, OTOH, are highly unpredictable: they may be as you expect, or they may be very different. At any rate, it’s utterly absurd to risk a predictable entrenchment of the far right in order to avoid an entirely hypothetical defeat in 2024.
Which “civilized country”?
One thing you need to remember about voting anywhere, is that advertising/propaganda works. It worked against Corbyn in the UK, it worked against Sanders (and to be fair against Clinton in 2016) in the US. The establishment hates both Sanders and Corbyn and they did everything they could to defeat and destroy both of them and it worked. Add this to the inter-party sabotage by the Democratic establishment and the Labor sabotage which has been shown in the leaked reports and that is part of the reason these guys lost.
This time around here in the US, Trump is just too tacky for the establishment and so he will not get the free (good) publicity that he got before, so I suppose Biden stands a chance.
KG@#29:
If possible at all, I think breaking the duopoly requires either decades of bottom-up work, beginning by electing candidates of other parties at city or state level
As we have seen with AOC and the fate of the progressive wing of the democratic party, they already have firewalls in place to control the party. I think you are right – what is required is a bottom-up invasion that saturates the party’s ability to control itself. The Tea Party, before it got twisted into a purely reactionary thing, was a form of that kind of ground-swell. That raises another point: the Tea Party came out appealing to conservative labor and the military by downplaying their allegiance to christianity and racism. Once they got Into power they hoisted their true colors. I’m reluctant to advocate lying to the public as a matter of policy, but I think that progressive democrats need to steal a riff from that wretched Susan Collins, who pretends to be a freethinker but is basically a stealth coward. Stealth progressives would be able to take the democrat party over eventually – and why feel bad about it? I feel Pelosi is closer to a republican than a progressive – she got into power by pretending to be progressive when in fact she’s a deficit hawk and an oligarch. Packing a movement from below is incredibly distracting to it; it forces a great amount of looking over one’s shoulder, deep rifts and loyalty oaths.
The same could be done to the republicans, of course. A small fleet of progressives who pack the bottom and build networks before voting their conscience. Cue utter clusterfuck.
Because American politics is all about short-term opportunism, it’s unrealistic to hope for concerted long-term strategies, but it doesn’t take a strategic genius to realize that if your opponent is mired in short-term tactics the path to victory is long-term strategy. What I’m talking about might take 20 years but so what?
Sadly, I think a lot of people voted for Biden in the primary because they don’t want more change, even good change. The chaos and tumult of Trump, the constant and repeated changes in every possible institution and norm, is difficult and stressful (that’s what stress is, it’s change). And, what Bernie held out was more change. Good change, for sure, improvements for all, but more change, which means more stress. The “normal”, or whatever people were used to, no matter how bad it was and will be, looks more comforting to people who are so stressed.
Although Trump will try the courts and/or an outright coup and/or lots of crimes we can’t even imagine, to try to stay in office, I don’t think those will ultimately be successful (well, unless he starts a global nuclear war as a diversion and an excuse to stay.) What I’m afraid of is civil unrest: those who have been slavering for any excuse for armed uprising will do just that, and Trump will encourage them or outright tell them to. There will be a lot of killing, and, who knows, maybe even the military needed to quiet it. Not looking forward to that.
I think I need to give more clarification to what it means to build majorities. It doesn’t only mean electing a President. The President is not as important as you all are giving the office credit for, especially for domestic and economic policy (and it is all about the money). Building majorities means winning state legislatures, who in census years determine the political boundaries for the next decade. It means electing Secretaries of State in states around the country, who run elections. Republicans have been taking these offices and systematically gerrymandering and disenfranchising the electorate. In the past 40 years, when Republicans have done the most damage economically to the poor and middle class by cutting taxes on the wealthy, attacking public education, letting infrastructure crumble, defunding the great research universities, how often have Democrats controlled the Presidency and both the House and the Senate? 72 days during the Obama presidency, and a couple years early in the Clinton Presidency. That’s it in 40 years! When Republicans simply want to block change, they only need one chamber and, in the Senate, they can do with 41 votes (with the filibuster). During those brief days of control, taxes were raised on the wealthy and health care was reformed for lower income Americans. But barely. This country has tried everything to improve the country the past 40 years except giving Democrats trifecta control (the House, 60+ votes in the Senate, and the Presidency). Divided government works for Republicans, who want no progress. In state governments, Republicans still have trifectas in twice as many states as Democrats (improved since the 2018 blue wave). It’s easy to blame imperfect individuals we see on TV, but we need to look at the larger picture and learn how to count.
Am I the only one weirded out about the fact there was an earthquake in Oklahoma last night? Sounds like god is a pit pissed off at this guy. LOL, J/K, but it is a strange coincidence.
He held the glass and drank from it with one hand! But he still needed to support it with his pinky. He has a weak grasp of both the glass and reality.
one of the most interesting things that is happening this year is the huge street demonstrations all over the country. The makeup of those demonstrations is very wide, wider then any demonstrations in years. the focus is one the police and racism and the solutions offered are much more fundamental and focused on societal restructuring with more effort at the sources of the problem and solution for it then the strictly civil rights demonstrations of the past.
The change is coming, it is out in the street, their are no great leaders pushing it. It will have to be dealt with and not by force either. Force just feeds it.
I do not fear an outright coup as much after so many of the retired military staff came out against agent orange in the last few weeks as I did before.
The majority of the people do not want radical change it scars them they do not like agent orange either.
maybe we can walk back from the precipice of fascism a little.
What might be workable would be if there was some politician who would likely pander to the crowd, some likable enough guy kind of a blah idealist conventional guy.
uncle frogy
The previous thread concerned statues- I recommend the statue of Trump should show him sitting on a golden toilet tweeting on his phone while Mitch McConnell is wiping his ass.
.
Re. Biden. As I mentioned before the perfect analogy is an episode of Family Guy;
Fritz Gutentag -aka Franz Schlectnacht the SS war criminal- has locked up Peter and Chris after they discovered his secret.
The octagenarian pedophile Mr. Herbert (who recognised Schlectnacht) throws up the door, shouting ‘I am here for the boy!”.
The following slow-motion struggle is morally problematic – while you do not want to root for Herbert the Pervert, Peter and Chris will be murdered if he does not win.
Likewise, if Herbert does not win this November, Schlectnacht will murder your society.
@cartomancer @20, couldn’t agree more. I was really glad to do some shoeleather-in-the-rain for Labour both times, which made the subsequent news about deliberate intraparty sabotage just that bit more of a kick in the stomach. Maybe I’m just naïve but it came as a surprise :-s
I can still vote for one of the good ones as my own MP, at least.
@29 KG
Not necessarily. We know a few things, which could make it possible – 1) the public, in general, may have confusing, and contradictory, ideas about how to “get to” the world they want, but they generally trend towards wanting the same thing and 2) both parties have, over and over again, betrayed this ideals.
So, what would be needed is a party that was serious about focusing on those specific ideals, who could, in the short term, lay off going too far over the edge into supposedly “controversial” topic (or, alternatively, could manage to present the public with clear messaging as to why these things are fake controversies), and who where willing to play hard ball with “both” other parties, where needed, to show, clearly, where those parties keep failing, and why.
This isn’t impossible. Every single freaking person here that is pissed that we will have to vote Biden already knows the GOP is a disaster, and the DNC is just hoping to grab power, and picked Biden because they, as an organization, don’t really give the damn they claim they do. What is missing is a third party which actually bases their decisions on fact, instead of opinion, and has a clear vision, instead of just more muddy waters, or an obsession with a few ideas, which they inevitably fall into, “Our solutions are better because we came up with them. Why should we ask anyone else what their ideas are?”, mentality, which seems to creep into almost every freaking movement at some point, especially when moneyed interested take over the conversation.
I admit that I personally don’t have a clue where to even start doing that, never mind keeping out the riff raff, who would just see it as a way to shoe horn in their own quackery, instead of what is already out there. But, what I do do, every opportunity some poll, or organization lets me is say, “Hell no I don’t trust Biden to do what is right for this country. But, yeah, I will definitely be voting for Democrats, which unfortunately includes him.”
Imagine if everyone who ever filled out one of those things was that honest, and 80-90 percent of the people filling one out said, “We can’t trust the guy you picked, even if we recognize that he is the lesser evil.” Some of these people honestly want to do what is right. They are lying to themselves, the same way a lot of other people do, and think just electing a Dem, never mind one that helped make the BLM situation worse, while in office, will somehow result of things changing for the better. If they honestly put out something claiming that their delusion, that he will fix things, is reality, and the response they got back, from nearly everyone, was a sound, “Hell no, he just won’t make it worse.”, its possible some of those groups would actually seriously rethink whether just automatically supporting the candidate with a D in from of them is actually going to be useful, or if, maybe, something else is needed.
Such polls, honestly, don’t give much wiggle room, which makes me laugh when they do let me be honest, because.. the people making them actually think the choices are binary, somehow, and live in an echo chamber. Its about time they start hearing, imho, “NO” echo in there.
Sonja, #4:
Have you considered that maybe it’s not such a good thing to a hire a moron with a pen who will give tax cuts and judges, while demanding nothing more from our government?
I mean, maybe you have, since you seem to recognize that it’s not good for some people to think that way. It’s not too big of a step after that, to dispense with the tribalistic bullshit and actually consider it the right way to think, no matter how any given person may relate to some political party or other.
William Londo, #11:
Hold the phone. So you’re saying I shouldn’t be asking for perfection in a candidate for elected office? Why hasn’t anyone ever mentioned this before?
All this time, I was thinking Biden is just shy of perfection but ever so close to it. And that’s why I was so repulsed by the idea of him being president and have been thoroughly disgusted with how the party has been acting. It’s really amazing. How did you know exactly what I was thinking?
But now … well, this changes everything. Everything.
Ravi Venkataraman, #22:
AOC would be eligible (just barely) in 2024.
Jimmy Carter was a decent president. Not fantastic, but if Eisenhower should count as decent, then I think Carter should too.
Electoral politics failed to save humanity for the past decades or so and won’t save humanity now.
Voting does not threaten the ruling class.
Do vote for the lesser of two evils if you can, but don’t expect to /solve/ any problem.
BLM has obtained more in few weeks of riots than… How many years of voting and putting effort in the electoral circus?
It is actually unfair to say that it was only a few weeks of riots: the protests have been years in the making, organising and building networks.
Take part and support the protests, use them to build allies and organise.
Strike.
Stop playing by their rules.
@14 Bravo!
OT: With Bolton’s book coming out, this is a perfect time for philosophers everywhere to examine the Liar’s Paradox.
To those who think voting doesn’t accomplish anything: Yes, I am aware of the old saw “if voting could accomplish anything, it would be illegal”. Well, guess which of the two major parties has been going all in on making it impossible for The Wrong Sort to vote in the USA for the past few decades, hm?
All those people who are pointing out that we need majorities? Absolutely right. Voting the Angry Cheeto out is what mathematicians would call “necessary, but not sufficient”. If we want the government to establish some actual, no-shit progressive policies, we’re gonna need one hell of a lot more elected officials than just the President. So vote for progressives in every election, okay? And keep voting for progressives.
The two-party system the USA has is, functionally, a consequence of our First Past the Post voting system. Suggest that we should get to work on replacing FPTP with some other voting system, of which there are many in use around the world.
A lot of States allow for citizen generated referendums to reach the ballot for general elections. Elections are run by the States, not the Feds. I can’t recall seeing any votes on say an instant run-off ballot to replace FPTP in any State. Why not? Those of you in referendum friendly states, get your act in gear and start the petition process, or post your acceptance/rejection for the general election ballot. IL, where I live, is not citizen referendum friendly State.
Remember the Chloroquine he was taking? I suspect they put him on Chlorpromazine and told him it was Chloroquine.
(Thorazine) It would actually explain a lot.
Nerd@45, From (admittedly very vague) memory, there was at least one attempt for a state-wide non-FPTP referendum on the Wast coast (California? (cannot recall when at all!)). As you say, I don’t recall it every being voted-on, suggesting the petition was “not accepted” (which could be legit (e.g., insufficient valid signatures)). I could easily, however, be conflating or confusing my poor recollection with something similar (probably in the UK, which is also welded to FPTP albeit not referendum-friendly). Apologies for being vague, and possibly (albeit inadvertently!) misleading.
@#9, dianne:
The woman who says Ayn Rand is her favorite author? Yeah, that will be great. I suspect, though, that even she is too far too the left on too many issues for serious consideration. Is suspect Biden is more likely to do as he has said in public he might do and choose an actual Republican as his running mate to show off how well he works with them.
@#11, William Londo:
“Time to stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good”? When the Democratic Party comes into even visible distance of the good, then that might be applicable. They are running a rapist who voted for the Iraq war, the creation of ICE, and the PATRIOT Act, who did more than any other living person to create the immunity from prosecution for police which is now causing riots all over the country. The man is outright evil, his campaign has already announced that he plans to normalize several of Trump’s policies (such as his stances on Israel and Syria), and he is going to continue to make absolutely everything worse. Unless your sole criterion is whether or not the President says embarrassing things on Twitter, voting for Biden is actively throwing your vote away, you might as well vote Trump for all the actual good it will do.
blf@47, You’re right, California and Washington did change the two party each FPTP State primaries, to a Jungle Primary where the two top vote getters met in the general election. The Presidential primaries are still FPTP.
@24 The left wing of the Democratic electorate isn’t big enough to select progressive candidates. Maybe in 2024 or 2028.
@28 Biden (or at least anti-Trump and anti-Bernie sentiment) energized voter turnout in the primaries.
People are overcorrecting what the 2016 election meant both in terms of the electorate’s taste (and it is a taste the average voter simply doesn’t reasoning ideologically or coherently) and for Trump’s chances in Nov.
The 2016 election was basically a statistical error.
Biden didn’t energize voters. Biden couldn’t get voters energized if he were given out crystal meth. The reason he won the nomination was because days before Super Tuesday, the other mainstream Democratic candidates dropped out of the race and endorsed him. Before that, his campaign was foundering and pundits were predicting that Super Tuesday would be the final nail in his coffin. His success certainly hasn’t been due to anything he’s done.
Can’t view the video though I’m sure I know what it is. Here’s the deal. The crowd didn’t materialize because Generation-Z TikTokers organized a worldwide “click here and get a ticket” campaign. When his normal rabid people tried to get tickets they were all told they would be in the overflow area and after that they were told they were on a waitlist for the overflow area. So any normal person that didn’t get what they thought were actual seats didn’t show. As much as I’m sure we all want to see a rally fissile this was an artificial failure. All Trump has to do to fix this next time is charge $10 per ticket, non-refundable. He’ll get less real people for sure since his base can’t even afford basics like groceries but it will stop Generation Z in their tracks because it is basically their life savings at this point.
Rydan, Entrance to Trump rallies is first come first in.
The Hair Furor could have filled the site if enough people had showed up.
@40 Kagehi
By the DNC you mean “black voters.” When he won South Carolina, Biden was almost broke and the establishment had almost given up on Biden and was defecting to Bloomberg. Then after Biden won South Carolina handedly (perhaps because he came in second in Nevada), the remaining moderates dropped out and the moderate lane consolidated. After that, 30 percent Sanders didn’t stand a chance.
@31 Ronald Couch
Have you seen “Planet of the Humans”? Everyone should see it
jack16
@53 So a majority of the Democratic primary electorate preferred Biden to Sanders (who had consolidated the liberal wing vote by that time).
And the moderates dropped out after Biden won SC. The other moderates saw the writing on the wall and knew that staying in would only hobble Biden. There is nothing nefarious about strategically dropping out.
It sucks that Biden and Sanders chose to run. They sucked the oxygen from Harris and Warren (better candidates). What we needed– a man who suffered a heart attack and knew nothing about coalition building vs. a man who is a creep to women (and possibly more) and gaffes a lot. Hooray.
@54 Politics isn’t like baseball. In the end, no one gives a shit about how you played the game. What happened hurt Trump and the GOP and we need to keep hurting them.
Shit like this always reminds me of this. https://b3ta.com/board/11218937
rydan @ #54 – Maybe, but your perspective on Gen Z is quite a bit different from what I see. I doubt that $10 is anything like their life savings. $100 might dissuade them, but that much will also dissuade a lot of Trump fans. In effect, they’re upping the ante. Just depends on wether it’s worth it to them. Of course, next time they may find a completely different approach to scamming the scammer. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
If you don’t like the way the Dems and want a third party or even want to shift the Dems to the left, you’re going to have to put in the unsexy work of low level organizing. Get third parties and/or more leftist Democrats elected at the local level, fix the gerrymandering, elect decent judges (if applicable in your area), etc. It’s never going to change if you only think about the presidential campaign. If Bernie Sanders somehow became president tomorrow, what would happen? The police would still be beating people up and killing them (especially since Sanders explicitly said he does not favor defunding). Large donors would still have disproportionate influence. There would still be essentially no chance that Medicare for All would pass. This mess didn’t happen overnight and it won’t be solved overnight and certainly won’t be fixed by a single “hero” president.
jack16 @57, not going to bother. The science on renewables was flat out wrong and it undermined the entire ecology and renewables movement.
microraptor @53, Biden really doesn’t have to do much of anything right now. Trump has been taking a belt fed machine gun to his foot incessantly.
It’s a case where Trump says, “Don’t you go and try to make a fool out of me!”, to be replied to, “I wouldn’t dream of interfering with a man with a perfect do-it-yourself kit”. Hell, I’d not be surprised if the National Guard with their loaded M4’s discouraged some from attending, along with COVID-19 fears.
Seriously, the expectations have gotten pretty fucking low when they applaud him doing something I’ve been doing before I was 2 – drinking water and not dribbling it all over myself!
What a laugh! Nearly 6200 people showed up for the water drinker ‘n’ thief.
ORigel @58: The claim was not that people voted for Biden- they obviously did, it was that people were excited about Biden, which is clearly false. Biden was obviously not the first pick among Democrats, or else he’d have had a lead early on
wzrd1: @63: Keeping his mouth shut is Biden’s best strategy anyway. When he opens it, he tends to do things like suggest that the solution to too many people getting killed by police is training police to shoot people in the legs instead of the torso. As long as he’s quiet, he can let Trump make all the gaffs, like suggesting that too many people are testing positive for Covid-19 so we need to stop testing for it.
I’m trying to imagine the discussion we’ll be having in 2024…
“Yes, I really wanted AOC to win the primaries, and I despise Ivanka Trump, but it’s either Ivanka Trump or Alex Jones…”
Yes, by any means, vote for Ivanka Trump (this November 2020 you’ll be already voting for someone to the right Mitt Romney, so there…) but maybe we should try and look to options beyond electoralism.
Voting is important but it’s only a small slice of the game, and it’s made into the circus it is so that people don’t consider other options (and I’m starting to think that this is done deliberately.
It is largely a distraction.
Even if you win a battle, the current system is forcing you to fight an endless uphill war against people who have power, money and can use it to gain even more, to control the media, redirect the discourse, buy laws and at the same time escape them.
For every same-sex marriage win, billions are moved to corporations, services are cut, wages lowered, hatred of minorities fostered to keep the lower classes divided.
You are forced to fight a losing war and the only choice you are told you have is how slow you can lose it.
F.O.:
You mean politicians do not need to be voted in?
Who is the ‘you’ here?
Ah, by ‘you’ above, you mean the lower classes. Presumably, readers of this blog.
@54 rydan
Whether or not Trump’s campaign can prevent this from happening again is immaterial. For weeks now Trump and his camp have been trying to turn the page on covid-19 and project strength. This is what the disgusting and illegal show of force leading to the church photo op was about. It is also why the daily coronavirus briefing happened until bleachgate. none of these attempts have worked and actually backfired to one degree or another. Concurrent with this is Trump-as a narcissist (non-clinical)-has been in funk by all accounts because lacking the cheers of the crowds. Trump doesn’t take losses well and he has repeatedly lashed out at the campaign workers because of his polls. The campaign has been trying to replicate the rallies for a bit because of this.
This rally was meant to do two things: 1) be the roaring “back to normal” return to the campaign trail and 2) get Trump out of his funk. The Tiktok teens and K-pop stans absolutely prevented both objectives from occurring. The campaign has been reduced to whining that they got outflanked by bored teenagers, others and/or pretending the crowds were huge and/or the Tiktok thing wasn’t real but it was really the dastardly media scaring people away. The optics of the event were terrible and like so much as of late it made Trump look weak and looks are everything in electoral realpolitik. Moreover, there is really no easy way to counter this even if the next rally is better attended. First impressions matter. Also I swear the K-pop stans are going to keep doing it. I might do it in the future.
On objective 2 Trump looked awful at the end of the rally and by all accounts he was fuming. Take the win.
microraptor @65, that is one of my biggest concerns, it suggests he’s channeling his inner Trump and not listening or consulting competent advisors.
I’m an expert shot with a firearm, competed for cash prize and well, frozen birds for fun.
Anyone telling me to shoot someone in the leg with my M4 or earlier, M16 might just get shot in the genitals, regardless of location with a knee or elbow. That’s insanity defined, leaving a stray round to go heaven knows where! My luck, under that insanity and in that position, right through the baby in momma’s arms across the street.
I’m a subject matter expert in a number of areas, largely out of boredom and a wealthy uncle named Sam having deep pockets.
As any subject matter expert knows, one consults subject matter experts for views and opinions on any subject within the realm of their expertise.
Neither candidate seems to be doing that.
Instead, we get Springtime for Shitler and HurtMany!
Alas, an old joke I made eons ago, in the Trumpelstiltskin era, I could run a potted plant against him and win. The DNC literally chose that option.
But, Trumpelstiltskin or Forrest Gump?
One will try, somewhat and maybe we’ll survive. Currently, I’m frankly uncertain if Trump loses, he won’t initiate a thermonuclear launch. He. Is. That. Petty. My wife and I met him as a “guest of honor” at a Chamber of Commerce function for our tristate area. Boor of the party, what you see on TV is worse in person, as television stations do have to protect their FCC licenses. The following year, there was a 90 – 95% attrition rate on that specific function.
Folks, this is why one should never poke baby once, let alone numerous times in the fontanelle.
See? Trump does indeed have a purpose in the universe.
Now, do excuse me, I do have to get back to my primary purpose in the universe. It’s a small part, but I’m conscientious and do my best.
I’m in charge of oxygen consumption and foodstuff depletion. Something trivial, when paying attention to that duty, due to my thyroid being attacked by my immune system deficiently. ;)
The impenetrable stupidity of thinking you can predict 4 years ahead, after what has happened in the last six months, is truly gobsmacking.
As for all the “voting isn’t important/changes nothing” bilge from you and others, why the fuck do you think the right are – and have been for decades – spending so much effort on preventing people from voting? Of course it’s not the only thing that needs doing, of course street demos, community initiatives, direct action are all needed – has anyone said otherwise?
BTW, The Vicar constantly referring to Biden as a rapist is just another of his many dishonesties. I don’t know whether Biden raped Tara Reade. The Vicar doesn’t know whether Biden raped Tara Reade. No-one knows whether Biden raped Tara Reade other than Biden and Tara Reade. AFAIK, there have been no other allegations of Biden raping anyone.
Nerd@49, Actually, the Jungle Primary wasn’t what I was very very vaguely recalling. In fact, I’d forgotten all about the Jungle Primary! ;-\
I am not an American citizen, but I can see where Trump and his enablers are pushing USA.
You need to help the potted plant (D) to win in November, even if you loathe him. You need to go out and knock on doors and do all the other unglamorous tasks that might drag Biden’s limp body over the goal line. It is not as if he is likely to be around 2024, so you will have an opportunuty to get a better candidate.
.
Meanwhile -and I cannot emphasize this enough- you have to get control of the state legislatures away from the Rethuglicans, so they cannot gerrymander the voting districs again as the districs are due to be redrawn soon.
Once the voting districs become fairly drawn -and voting is made easier, with more polling sites and many other details- the rabid crowd of corporate nihilists cannot bounce back.
Their party might bounce back if it changes enough to kick out the more obvious cleptocracy tools, but that will take a loong time. To bounce back, it is no longer enough to invoke scary foreigners, the demography that voted for Dubya et al is literally dying off.
@56 Yeah, no. I don’t mean “black voters”. I mean the damned DNC. Bernie was well ahead of him, right up until the rest of the pack decided to jump ship and throw their support behind him. Unless you are claiming that everyone else running, including the ones that should have bloody well known Biden was a crap candidate, and not liberal, and not the best pick, where a) “black”, and b) “all voters from SC”, this is bull pucky. They threw themselves in on the party line, and the party line is, “We can’t go too liberal, else how can we possibly work with the GOP.” A large segment of the public recognizes that this makes about as much sense as saying, “I know the Taliban is bad, but how can we work with them to give out relief aid?” (and insane concept, but we see this sort of thinking all the damn time), and this has been the thinking of the Democratic “PARTY” for decades – “Damn our ideals. We need to be able to work with these people!” Biden was a great choice, if literally the only f-ing things they care about is, “If he gets elected, will he get the same opposition that Obama did?” He is a useless choice, if your concern is, “How do we fix the damned nation?”
ORigel:
That’s quite a story. If Buttigieg and Klobuchar and the whole apparatus supporting each didn’t already know their chances were abysmal prior to the South Carolina primary, that suggests they’re not too capable of seeing whatever may be written on any walls.
In any case, it is nefarious to do something that purposefully (or “strategically”) hurts a less-nefarious candidate. If they were intent on doing the right thing instead, then of course a strategy with that as its goal wouldn’t be nefarious. The situation with Warren conveniently provides a nice contrast: if she had dropped out much earlier with the aiming of helping Sanders, then that would not have been nefarious at all. But she obviously didn’t do that.
KG:
A charitable interpretation is that F.O. was trying to imagine it. What F.O. came up with was a rather absurd possibility that you appear to have to taken as a genuine and serious prediction about the future. This is also a more straightforward interpretation, since those were exactly the words which were used.
Politicians aren’t the ones calling the shots.
Their donors are, and they largely donate to both parties.
The differences among politicians are significant enough that it is worth voting for them, but they are all committed to do the interests of their rich donor, ie not people like “you” and me.
Yes, I mean us lower classes, but specifically the readers of this blog: while I understand the passion behind voting discussions and ethics and strategy, it’s passion that is being squandered and the ruling class is deliberately exploiting this passion, channelling through things that, while significant, don’t threaten the interests of their donors.
“He managed to drink a glass of water”
Did he? It looked like he got to the half-way point and gave up and poured the rest away.
So much information was lost in the CME event of 2131. Lets see if I can find out how the 2020 election turned out for you all. Hang on a sec…
It appears the only thing I tell you is that neither Trump or Biden make it to the 2020 election in Nov. Wish I could let you know the specifics of what happens to them and who it’s going to be in November. Sorry about that, causality an all.
The strangest part of this is, all I had to do was copy and paste this comment. So this information is in a kind of loop. Strange that.
This last bit is for one person reading this in particular, though it’s true for all. Both parties are captured, electoral politics will now prove to be largely fruitless. Your power is in the streets, not the ballot box.
A little sci-fi fun.
I completely support BLM and calls for police reform: we need it, and the street protests are an important reason why we have a chance. But remember history: Peel reformed the London police (actually abolished and re-established them under a new system and name) in 1829. You could say that experiment did not work, given the London cops in recent decades. Or you could say it was a start. Maybe we can do better this time, but do not fool yourself into thinking that even with the best will in the world it will be easy to do or to keep.
Presidential and Congressional reform/replacement are also needed, but similar caveats apply. I’ll vote against Trump, and I think he’ll lose, but the work only begins then.
Come on, you’re not that stupid. Of course I didn’t take it to be “a genuine and serious prediction about the future”. I took it to be exactly what it was intended to be, and what you know it was intended to be: a hyperbolic expression of a prediction that If you vote for Biden, the choice in 2024 will be even worse than this time. It’s thinking you can know that which is stupid. As I said @30, the result of Trump winning is predictable: the far right gets more entrenched, quite likely to the extent that their rule is permanent*. The result of Biden winning is not, because whether Biden wants it to or not, it will shake up politics, shift the “Overton window”, bring new people forward. A huge amount will depend on who gets elected to Congress and governnorships, who is appointed to what positions, what’s in the program (even if Biden has no intention of carrying it out). Above all, the political demobilization that followed Obama’s election must not happen again – and it need not.
*Until environmental catastrophe or nuclear war.
It’s been reported that he may have thrown that glass because he lacked the ability to put it down gracefully due to whatever neurological condition they are trying to hide.
But after what has happened in the last six months, how do you know that? Were those events not momentous enough to make you incapable of predicting how stupid I’ll become?
Only kidding, of course.
Even if such a “prediction” turns out to be incorrect, isn’t there still good reason to point out that it’s an actual risk people are taking? Maybe just take a step back from which side you think you’re supposed to defend, and try to read what people are saying in that light.
It’s not stupid or crazy to think that’s a risk that we shouldn’t find acceptable, right? And if doesn’t turn out that way, then so what? It still wasn’t an acceptable risk to take. So what does your skepticism have to say about it? Nothing, presumably. There are tons of things we can’t predict with a great deal of certainty, yet you don’t dismiss all of them out of hand by saying “it’s the future, stupid.” And I bet you wouldn’t want to argue that the probability of some outcome translates directly into a conclusion about whether the risk of the uncertain thing is worth it.
So what gives? If you were just claiming that the predicted outcome is unlikely, then you should have to give an argument for why your claim is correct. But then you’d actually need to think something in particular about the future is more likely to be true, and you’d want to have some non-stupid reason for thinking this is the case. That doesn’t sit comfortably with your current argument, where you just take it to be the case that nobody knows (including you), because you’d have to put forward a positive claim of your own or at least evaluate the actual content of the claim in some way.
But that’s not exactly certain either. Many different things could happen — and that’s definitely not limited to environmental catastrophe or nuclear war, as you suggested. That said, I accept that you think this is likely or plausible, and I don’t consider you stupid for believing it. There are reasons why you think it, and I recognize that.
That’s more or less why I don’t understand how you’re having trouble with similar claims about a Biden win, because those are likewise not thoroughly irrational, stupid, based on nothing whatsoever, etc. If you ask me, the Democratic party behaves in fairly predictable ways, often to our detriment, and it has been like this for literal decades. (I’m thinking since the Clinton years at least, or arguably even earlier.)
I’m not going to put it very diplomatically here, but please don’t read it as an attack, since I think you’re alright. Perhaps you’ve grown too accustomed to stereotyping Republicans, so you now believe things which have more to do with the stereotype in your head than they have to do with the real deal. On the flip side, you might be more forgiving or forgetful, whenever Democrats engage in business as usual, as I said they have been very keen to do for a long time.
For all I know, both of these might be the case. The effect is that you feel quite certain that you “know” what Republicans will do. (Invariably, they’ll confirm your suspicions from time to time, because you haven’t made it especially difficult to do so.) At the same time, you may not have formed a similar sort of model of Democrats, or even if you do, it might be contaminated by some hope that they don’t continue on the same path. (Or plain old dishonesty could explain some of it, but I’m discounting that option.)
If that’s more or less where this sort of judgment is coming from, not from any particular set of facts that you could articulate, then I don’t treat that as a reliable source of knowledge. Sometimes, it might be a reasonable or practical/useful way for you to think, but I still don’t need to put much stock into it, because it doesn’t have the type of implications that facts do. Does that sound fair?
I’m still figuring out my options. I’m groupless. I pragmatically vote for Ds. I keep finding these places where the Ds and Rs have the same problem and I’m going to do something.
One thing I’m going to is criticize places where the Ds and Rs are bad, and the Ds have the opportunity to role-model good behavior. Sexual harassment for instance. Has anyone had the courage to refer to Biden’s serial sexual harassment problem yet? There’s an opportunity to make Trump look like shit and I want Biden to earn the presidency.
There’s a positive position for Biden. He is legitimately a better human being than Trump when it comes to sexual harassment. I want to see Biden recognize his sexual harassment problem and use the opportunity like a good politician.
I thought the water demonstration was a deflection response to the highlighted clips of him not being able to drink water.
They usually involved water bottles and needing both hands to get the opening in his mouth, NOT trying to get his mouth to the edge of a water glass.
Then again, I didn’t see the clip from West Point, maybe there he fumbled drinking from a glass.
The complaints about the West Point ramp are totally incoherent. I’m sure that ramp was absolutely OSHA ADA compliant. IE it is designed to be safely used by people challenged with elevation changes.
To complain how hot he was with the sun beating down so strongly. and say the ramp was slick as ice, is not consistent at all.
@Brony
I hear you, but Biden cant do that without giving the right wing establishment ammunition. Trump is not beholden to shame, consistency or reality. The pussygrabber can play the “Biden is a sexual harasser” card all day long if Biden outwardly showed some growth on the subject and genuine regret.
@non voter fools
This is the left wing version of libertarian-ism who say the government is no good for anything and supports a small government, except their philosophy is the reason why the government sucks. When you preach that something is no good when you gain power you ensure the thing you disliked is no good fulfilling you’re ideals artificially. This “voting doesn’t do anything” works in the same way. Voting is power, and you exercise that power by not voting, and thus nothing ever gets fucking done. Nothing positive at least. Ironic, the ones who believe in the power of voting the most (hard right republicans) use the power of voting to accomplish all the things you all claim the power of voting does nothing to prevent or fix.
I will never get tired of saying this, but consistently a radical not that popular third party takes over one of the two parties and mold it to fit their ideals. Except we are not the ones doing this. The right wing are. First with the evangelicals, then the Tea Party, and now the Alt-Right. And consistently the ones who don’t believe the power of voting (the leftists) are the reason Democrats drift to the right because they don’t have the loyal support the Republicans have.
What chooses the party structure is not the establishment. Its the radicals. The establishment is by definition in the middle. Meaning that’s the largest voter pool, but its a pool that’s split between three areas, the ones who are centrists because they are ultimately apolitical (or define themselves that way), between the left leaning ones who vote D, and the right leaning ones who vote R. But since the Republicans have a loyal fan base of radicals this puts them on top. Democrats don’t have that so they do the only thing they could do, appeal to the middle. Swing to the right and steal some of those votes. They MUST do this in order to stay politically relevant and prevent the country from becoming a one party state. And all of this started with one simple fact. Leftists don’t vote. Have you met young Bill and Hillary Clinton? Leftists. And they failed local elections over and over again, so they rebranded themselves and the Neoliberal was born. You’re protesting a problem with the same actions (through inaction) that caused it. Like the libertarian who ensures his philosophy is correct by making it happen.
It is when the alternative is four more years of the far-right in power under Trump.
I already did@80 (omitting the footnote):
Let me expand that a bit more. A win for Trump (in which case it is very likely the Republicans will retain the Senate and the governorships they hold, quite possible they will regain the House) will cement his hold, and that of the far right factions he has tied himself to. (He won’t loosen his ties to those factions, because that would risk his hold on the party, and he will want to pick his successor.) The process of dismantling what democracy the USA has will be accelerated: packing the courts, suppressing the vote, gerrymandering, installing corrupt cronies at every level of government, militarising the police, encouraging armed fascist militia, attacking the fredom of the press and of assembly. Now of course that’s not absolutely certain – he could have a stroke that produces a complete personality change, he could die and Pence (or whoever is his VP) turn out to have been an antifa or Daesh sleeper, the aliens could decide this is just too much and abandon their doctrine of non-interference, etc. – but it’s as near certain as anything in politics. If you disagree, then it’s for you to lay out plausible alternative scenarios. I’d say the most plausible is the kind of complete – and very bloody – collapse into chaos The Vicar lusts for. If Biden wins, then particularly in the kind of multi-crisis situation he will face, it will be far harder for him and the Democratic establishment to gain the kind of hold over the country a triumphant Trump would have. Even if it were true that Biden and the Democrats were indistinguishable in terms of policy, far right ties and personal corruption from Trump and the Republicans (which it isn’t), it would still be highly desirable to get the latter out – because the former will have to spend much of their energy fighting the Trumpist “deep state” to get their own people in, and to do that, they will need to keep progressive Democrats on board, provided there are enough of the latter elected, and the left in the country remains mobilised. I suppose Biden could simply decide not to try and replace Trump’s appointees (and I admit there are some grounds for regarding this as a possibility), but there would be immense pressure on him from those around him, for reasons of personal ambition as well as genuine distaste for the levels of corruption and incompetence the Trumpists show, to do so. And those appointees are not likely to go quietly. It’s when the elite is deeply divided and a new faction of it comes in that those outside it have their best chances to push for radical change – see just about any revolution you care to name.
You may say – well, look what happened when Obama came in: the left demobilised, Obama did his utmost to conciliate the Republicans, and bailed out the banks without conditions. But both the Democratic establishment and the left have that example, and what came of it, before them. Moreover the current crisis is much deeper, the Republicans have moved much further towards fascism, the transfer of power if Biden wins and no Supreme Court or military coup prevents it going through, is going to be much more turbulent.