2020 Democratic presidential primary thread, pt 3: life is very long

On sports bulletin boards they have “game threads” where fans post comments on the action in real time. It’s somewhat understood that this is a place where you can express extreme emotions that you need not stand by the next day.

I’m bellyaching and kvetching liberally about Joe Biden to my s.o. tonight, but it’s because I need to vent and work the disappointment out of my system. Tomorrow, the day after, and certainly in November.... I’ll be done wallowing .

Here's a "cake and eat it too" unity song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCHeTeWNzXs

Since everyone seems to have agreed that Sanders is done, a few self-indulgent ruminations: Although McGovern's name has been much bandied about, perhaps the better analogy is Goldwater, who was as far to the right in 1964 as Sanders is to the left today. If anyone needs a refresher, due to a split field and a late-breaking sex scandal involving the moderate front-runner, Nelson Rockefeller, Goldwater somehow squeezed through to be the nominee, only to be shellacked in the general election. For a minute there, it looked like Sanders might catch the same lightning in a bottle, but most likely his brief moment in the sun would have ended just as ignominiously. It took the right-wing another 16 years in the wilderness before they seized the top prize, with Reagan in 1980, after they had finally figured out how to weaponize some issues that resonated with another politically motivated and organized group (anti-abortion evangelicals) and expanded their base beyond the anti-tax diehards. Perhaps it won't take the Bernieite left that long to find some issues that are tied not only to a charismatic figure but to self-interested organized communities that will diversify their base in a similar fashion.

I agree with Morbs, milo, and the rest that our planet may not have this long.

If there’s a takeaway from the Biden phenomenon it’s that a well-timed endorsement can change the whole game

― Webcam Du Bois (Hadrian VIII), Tuesday, March 10, 2020 7:36 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think the key to the Clyburn endorsement before SC, and then the Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and O'Rourke endorsements before Super Tuesday, is that the people who took something from them were voters who were undecided or didn't feel strongly. If you were someone who generally liked Biden but weren't sure if he was the right guy this time around, the endorsements sent a signal that Biden had the party's broad trust and support.

But what does a Warren endorsement of Sanders after Super Tuesday accomplish? Maybe it gives his campaign a bit of momentum or briefly turns around the media narrative, but who would it actually persuade? If voters are looking for clarity and guidance, how does a single endorsement that's out of step from the majority of the party help?

Our planet will be just fine, peacefully rotating around the sun for billions of years after that pesky batch of humans rendered itself extinct.

Medicare For All, wealth taxes/inequality, climate change already resonate with self-interested organized communities - and most of the Democratic party. They, however, run up against the donor class, consultants and media who have their own deep self-interest in thwarting attempts to fix all of those things.

Goldwater and the right had the wealthy on their side funding them and soon were able to tap into open racism - I don't think that's a particularly useful parallel to draw in how to go forward.

Pity the planet, all joy gone
from this sweet volcanic cone;
peace to our children when they fall
in small war on the heels of small
war – until the end of time
to police the earth, a ghost
orbiting forever lost
in our monotonous sublime.

i thought we weren't moving forward i thought we were shitposting

We are, god help you if you think it's possible to do ILX right or that it's actually useful to the world in any way (as in the previous thread - you can't even find a freelance gig writing about music for an alt-weekly on here anymore). Shitposting can include idle musing about the future.

I personally think all of this was more or less pre-ordained; we're past the point at which gaffes (there have been dozens to hundreds, from everybody), money (see how much individual donations, or bloomberg's pissing an entire small town's next 40 years of salary into the void, moved the dial at all) or campaigns (which biden largely didn't) really move the dial, and even endorsements seem like recency bias

Yup

As i said re: 2016, its all just down to personality/media image

Bloomberg bought 10% nationally stepping in without any of the traditional campaigning over the previous 18 months, I wouldn't say money doesn't matter.

I guess MI just hated HRC then??

You also don't have to spend money when you get free coverage - https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/media/joe-biden-earned-media-reliable-sources/index.html

Bloomberg hasn't promised to spend another half billion because it doesn't matter.

which, I should clarify, is not my posting to 'take a particular side' or disagree with anybody in particular; I just think most of the narrative, such as it is, is an accident of which primaries occurred in which order

also I'm not really sure how it qualifies as bellyaching to note that the outlook for the next four years objectively seems bad, and bad in ways that can lock in a bad outlook for well past the next four (climate change action or inaction, the supreme court, etc.)

Biden is speaking slowly and what is for him well at this moment.

I've been scared, dismayed, or disappointed by election results before but I don't think I've ever been this viscerally disgusted. Hillary Clinton was at least highly intelligent and serious about the issues.

I'm amazed Warren and Sanders brought us to this point.

I don't think this was pre-ordained, if joe biden had a less impressive night in south carolina and buttigieg/klobuchar would have stayed in and super tuesday would have been a mess. the moderate majority managed to solve a collective action problem but I don't think it was a given that they were going to.

like joe biden's campaign came extremely close to not existing anymore

they may even have had the benefit of seeing what happened in the republican party 4 years ago to derive lessons from

They won?

the more immediate lesson was that a fringe candidate can win if the field is divided

I don't think this was pre-ordained, if joe biden had a less impressive night in south carolina and buttigieg/klobuchar would have stayed in and super tuesday would have been a mess. the moderate majority managed to solve a collective action problem but I don't think it was a given that they were going to.

― iatee, Tuesday, March 10, 2020 10:54 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is kind of my point, joe biden was always going to have a good night in south carolina, and the timing of people dropping out is largely people's reactions to which cards were revealed first

Sund4r otm. This is abominable.

like, shit, all 30+ years of my life all I needed to do was just *not be sad*! if only someone had told me this sooner!

Biden's likely nomination is basically

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/40/King_Ralph.jpeg/220px-King_Ralph.jpeg

I don't think Joe's sure night in SC was destiny - Clyburn waited as long as he could to see if one of the centrists broke out IMO.

Idk anything about clyburn but maybe he would’ve backed Bloomberg if he hadn’t so thoroughly embarrassed himself in the debates?

Obama clearing the field for Hillary in '16 at Joe's expense and making it up to him after his brain has turned to mush is beautiful.

biden was consistently winning sc polls well before clyburn endorsed anybody

he did 30 points better than his polling a week before and 20 points better than his polling a month before - if Clyburn hadn't endorsed and he squeaked out a narrow victory, the narrative is completely different, if he only finishes 15 points ahead of Petey Butts in SC it's much harder for Reid or Obama to make the call and tell him they'll make sure he gets the next Indiana gubernatorial nomination (so he can lose 70-30).

James Carville's eyes are going to bleed with anger that Bernie's sticking it out to do one last debate

I'm a michigan resident in a non-'bubble' community & the voter apathy here is deeply saddening, especially considering that our state has become such a demographic linchpin. b/w this and esp the 2016 general, i'm just left reeling, wondering if perhaps I could've done more. Perhaps i could and should have.. Dunno, but i wish many of those around me realized what power they really have to shape the things to come.

I posted this on another ilxor's fb thread & thought I'd repost on ilx proper. Somehow I can't help but feel PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE for the poor decisions of my state writ large, even though I know it is SOLIPSISTIC AS FUCK to feel that way.

My hope is that at the debate Bernie will hold back on attacking Biden explicitly but make a strong case for pushing the party’s platform left. Maybe he’ll go on the attack. I don’t know what good that would do anybody at this point though.

Obama clearing the field for Hillary

A politician endorsing another politician, the shock and corruption of it all.

You can try to "clear the field" all you want, it still comes down to actually winning votes. If people don't turn out to vote for you, it doesn't matter who endorsed you. None of those people are mindless puppets any more than you are.

I think it's prob likely that biden's strength w/ southern blacks was always there, which was more of a real base than anything the other moderates had, so he would have been in the strongest position after the slog and would have won a lot of southern states, but I don't think buttigieg and klobuchar dropping and giving him glowing endorsements was a given, and he might not have ended up in a stronger spot than sanders by convention

xp

I posted this on another ilxor's fb thread & thought I'd repost on ilx proper. Somehow I can't help but feel PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE for the poor decisions of my state writ large, even though I know it is SOLIPSISTIC AS FUCK to feel that way.

― Poptimus Grime (Pillbox), Tuesday, March 10, 2020 11:47 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

for what it's worth I feel the opposite; I was born in one swing state that voted for biden (and also trump) and grew up in another swing state that voted for biden (and also trump) and thus feel personally responsible for no longer living there, even though moving there would likely leave me indefinitely unemployed

I felt the same way years back while living in Ohio, but not having state residency. Of course, that was during the Obama era, when Michigan was still reliably blue.

A politician endorsing another politician, the shock and corruption of it all.

You can try to "clear the field" all you want, it still comes down to actually winning votes. If people don't turn out to vote for you, it doesn't matter who endorsed you. None of those people are mindless puppets any more than you are.

Oh man, some Joe that time has forgotten since the primaries started 12 years ago

Since announcing his candidacy, Biden has proven himself exceptionally gaffe-prone, repeatedly referring to former British prime minister Theresa May as Margaret Thatcher, claiming he was vice president during the 2017 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and saying, "Poor kids are just as bright, just as talented, as white kids," at a speech in Iowa. Apart from making verbal stumbles, he's also defended his working relationship with segregationists in Congress.

(from an article on Obama discouraging him from running this time)

Obama merely advises, he does not endorse.

In the end, he will shill for Joe, however reluctantly, and would have for Bernie, more reluctantly.

has there ever been such an age-based divide on two candidates? to this degree? no one i know supports joe biden except people a few generations above my own. i don't know anyone who likes biden! like, anyone! it's so fucking weird

and i'm sure that in older circles, absolutely no one they know likes bernie except for their children and their friends

the impression i get from wealthy MSNBC pundits is that every single biden voter is a former mcgovern voter, now wise

i was thinking about these same wise old biden voters, and who or what they thought they stood for in the 60s and 70s.

*kids in the hall voice*

i CRUSH you