Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

as a queer of potato color, I suggest Dem voters be less fucking stupid no matter their lack of privilege

too late

I think it would be psychologically healthier for left-wing media people who prefer Trump’s re-election to the prospect of a Biden presidency to actually say so, rather than doing months of weird concern-trolling about enthusiasm.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 29, 2020

Who here is a “media person”

the point works just as well without that word

Does it

if you're posting on twitter or facebook with your political opinions, you are a small 'm' media person. those are media. here, too, in a very minor way.

🤔

well, I personally know zero ilx people irl. you all come to me mediated. as they used to say, "on the internet no one knows that you're a dog". that's mediation. ilx is a medium. but as J.D. pointed out the point works just as well without that word.

It is uniquely stupid to blame "left-wing media people" for the reality that Joe Biden is a uniquely terrible and unloved Democratic candidate even compared to terrible and unloved Democratic candidates of yore.

Kerry was the terrible establishment compromise of his time... but he could string together a coherent sentence and make something resembling a case for the Presidency.

If "left-wing media people" don't mention that Biden excites no one... that's not going to make people more excited for him.

Yes. So far we have a clear majority of Democratic primary voters to blame for Biden's ascendance. However you measure their excitement is open to question, but it has been quite simple to count their votes and Biden has gotten the most votes. Maybe they were actually more excited about Bernie, or Warren, or Klobuchar, or Buttigeig, or someone else they didn't vote for. When it comes to excitement it's hard to measure compared to votes, which as I hasten to add once more, are easy to measure.

Matthew Yglesias can go fuck a duck

It's true he completely ignored the many left wing people who have no preference at all between Trump and Biden.

? pic.twitter.com/gm8oEuSZYr

— Holly Otterbein (@hollyotterbein) March 30, 2020

Sure to get the ILXors who were rending their garments about BernieBros in a tizzy.

@pat1944

(Aimless checks his garments, finds them intact, breathes sigh of relief.)

More horror scenes from New York City hospitals where employers are acting like generals sending their medical troops into harm's way. https://t.co/rYGqQjRTkJ pic.twitter.com/fMDHK0G9q3

— Daniel Marans (@danielmarans) March 30, 2020

Grown-ups: b-but judges!!

spoke to a close friend last night who is emergency room doctor in Jersey City and believes he's had the virus for the last couple of weeks—dry cough low fever etc.

according to him the situation is such that everybody working there just assumes they already have it or will anyway, and newly admitted patients are almost exclsuively the infected, so....

An absolutely disgraceful response from a democratic frontrunner at a time 1 Iranian is dying every 10 min as a result of coronavirus. Biden deserves absolute hell for this callous, incoherent, and morally vacuous response in the midst of a pandemic. https://t.co/145KW4zcre pic.twitter.com/CVEzNWfy2I

— Sarah Lazare (@sarahlazare) March 30, 2020

Clear, consistent and well-reasoned.

For those interested, here is @JoeBiden's full answer to @YasminV on opposing single payer health care: pic.twitter.com/gxjTN83NCg

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 30, 2020

Ageing about as well as his takes.

it's just stupid gibberish. the federal government supplying equipment has nothing to do with a single payer system. the single payer system would help in this crisis because millions of people just lost their employer-provided health coverage in the middle of a pandemic

also this is not the first time biden has been callous about iran.

during that paul ryan debate, he bragged that the obama administration's sanctions on iran were "the strongest sanctions in the history of sanctions."

yeah, all these news items about exceptions for the coronavirus, how the federal government will step in and cover the testing costs, how Cigna and a couple other insurance companies are taking the unprecedented step of stepping in to cover treatment costs (because it's the "right thing to do", etc etc), just highlights the endless cases where the federal govt and insurance companies are NOT stepping in to do the right thing for people in dire circumstances facing even more lethal diseases, every single fucking second of every day

I appreciate this thread as a terrific place to vent about Joe Biden's awfulness before he earns the nomination and goes against the even worse Donald Trump. Fortunately no one here who lives in the United States has an interest in depressing turnout.

Joe's depressing enough

So are the male white posters under the delusion that posting the terrible things Biden has done as a Democrat will make him any less a candidate against Trump. Ya just gotta pat them on the heads, even fellow Sanders enthusiasts. Grief has many stages.

I’m “voting blue no matter who” myself but if Biden hasn’t earned ppl’s votes then what are you gonna do

Alfred, this white male poster isn't posting things Biden's done as a Deomcrat because I think it will make him "any less a candidate against a Trump." Is that your belief—,that people pissed off about Joe Biden are posting here to diminish his chances against Trump?

Whatever the case I don't understand why you find the condescension necessary.

Anyway, the enthusiasm gap posted upthread is a real thing. Are we not supposed to lament that?

yeah, i understand what you're saying, alfred, but essentially you're asking kindly for people to withhold their feelings about biden during this election cycle. i understand the reasoning, and you might even succeed to some degree within ilx, but you have your own stages of grief to go through if you think that people aren't going to complain about biden the candidate just as much (if not more than) as clinton the poor 2016 candidate. you can be annoyed by it. you can even infantilize people by patting them on the heads! but the downside of a shitty candidate is that we all have to deal with the consequences of it throughout the year, on the left and right.

hadrian the way you address the enthusiasm gap is to get out there and talk to your friends about how much better biden will be then trump. that's actually the advice. it is logical, you should do it, but yeah, it's a fucking LIFT because of how fucking shitty biden is as a candidate. but don't complain about that until after the election, please (and actually, don't complain after that, because we'll all be exhausted. and don't complain about it in the months after that either, because it will be 2022 mid-term season)

I'm not complaining -- post away! I'm older than many of you. I know Biden's perfidy. I hated him when he had real hair. I screamed when Obama chose him as running mate. I've got the blog trail to prove it.

But we're smart people. We all know what this fool has done. Y'all will convert no one, and to what, exactly?

Like, if Hadrian, sic, silby, etc are being Janus-faced about Biden -- yelling here like Yosemite Sam while smiling at Democrats and swing voters as you volunteer for his campaign or shout down someone on social media -- that's cool with me.

convert no one (ilx is sanders land, which i enjoy) and won't repel anyone either (ilx is non-republican land, and we better all fucking vote for biden or i'll punch everyone's lights out). i think it barely makes a difference - it's just acknowledging what is actually happening

though i guess taking it onto twitter is a different thing, i agree

yeah, i understand what you're saying, alfred, but essentially you're asking kindly for people to withhold their feelings about biden during this election cycle. i understand the reasoning, and you might even succeed to some degree within ilx, but you have your own stages of grief to go through if you think that people aren't going to complain about biden the candidate just as much (if not more than) as clinton the poor 2016 candidate. you can be annoyed by it. you can even infantilize people by patting them on the heads! but the downside of a shitty candidate is that we all have to deal with the consequences of it throughout the year, on the left and right.

― Karl Malone, Monday, March 30, 2020 7:25 PM

It's funny how it's occurred to no one in this thread that Warren and Sanders -- my preferences -- were the shittier candidates.

"while smiling at Democrats and swing voters as you volunteer for his campaign or shout down someone on social media"

lol I don't do any of these things, this place burns me out

If it burns you out to volunteer for the Biden campaign, that's awesome!

It's funny how it's occurred to no one in this thread that Warren and Sanders -- my preferences -- were the shittier candidates.

do you mean for the democratic primary or the general election?

if you mean as regards the primary, that seems like an awfully meritocratic thought.

the fact that they lost to joe fucking biden means as much to me as some other rich white guy being a CEO ahead of all the better candidates

I just double checked and Joe Exotic can run for president again from prison.

"yes, but he knew how to take advantage of the establishment's centrism, that's politics", etc etc

to me that's similar to "yes, he's another rich white guy running a company, but thats because he knew how to take advantages of his connections, which of course have nothing to do with his race or social station"

It's funny how it's occurred to no one in this thread that Warren and Sanders -- my preferences -- were the shittier candidates.

do you mean for the democratic primary or the general election?

― Karl Malone, Monday, March 30, 2020 7:33 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if you mean as regards the primary, that seems like an awfully meritocratic thought.

the fact that they lost to joe fucking biden means as much to me as some other rich white guy being a CEO ahead of all the better candidates

― Karl Malone, Monday, March 30, 2020 7:34 PM (one minute ago)

They lost the primaries by wide margins, even Sanders, so, yes, they were shitty candidates by default -- a loser's a loser. I take heart that their policies are popular.

i guess the difference is that in this case there's a rival CEO that's even worse, and we have to pick between the two

I don't want Donald Trump to be president and will do what my own enthusiasm permits to prevent it from happening. Which pretty much to not campaigning for Donald Trump, either, and crossing my fingers that Biden doesn't shit the bed in WI PA etc.

Again, I live in MA, and I recognize that's a privilege many voters don't have.

pretty much *extends* to