END TO END BERNERS: The Official Bernie Sanders 2020 Crew thread

getting the margins that we had in 2009 seems unlikely even through 2022.

I find it very odd to downplay the power (soft and hard) of the Presidency to suit some purposes (like justifying why Better Things Aren’t Possible) while setting that directly against “removing Trump is the absolute most important thing in the world.”

The value of the presidency can be measured by the extreme lengths both parties and their backers will go to secure it for themselves. It is a single election that will control an entire branch of government for four years (and confers the inside track for a second four). The stakes therefore are greater than any other election.

There is no contradiction in also pointing out that the other two branches of government have great power, also, and holding the presidency in no way ensures domination of government. But those competing powers are far more widely distributed across many office holders and judges. The presidency is not omnipotent, but its potency is more concentrated in one person.

getting the margins that we had in 2009 seems unlikely even through 2022.

― Bo Johnson Coviddied (Neanderthal), Thursday, April 9, 2020 11:13 PM (forty-four minutes ago)

the party's center is further to the left, and the error bars narrower, than in 2009. m4a would probably still be a dog even if dems had the presidency and narrow majorities in both houses, but it'd be possible in a sense that would have been unfathomable a decade ago

I am just not in solidarity with the people who made Biden the Democratic candidate.

I am guessing by this that you mean someone other than African-American voters?

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, April 9, 2020 8:59 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Looool headshot

Bernie Sanders is interviewed.

sounds familiar

In all honesty, the impact the Bernie campaign has on political mobilization of American Muslims can not be understated. My mom whipped votes in her mosque to vote for Bernie and my dad was prepared to do the same and hasn’t voted since 2008. We felt like part of America

— ☹️ (@wilted_kale) April 8, 2020

Important tweet. Bernie brought a lot of people back into the political process, just like he promised. Not at the scale he needed but it’s still important.

from that Chris Hayes interview: Biden’s entertaining the notion of lowering Medicare eligibility age to... 60.

Imagine looking at the eventuality of 20% unemployment and that’s your opening move on health care. Maybe he and his great pals in the Republican Party can compromise and make it 63! Unbelievable.

As an overture to the Bernie left it’s along the lines of an insulting salary offer that I wouldn’t even negotiate with

As Shakey keeps saying young ppl don't vote so Biden won't need them in November. Best of luck to him.

anyone thinking there’s going to be a good faith effort in that regard is an absolute rube, and that includes Bernie

(but I suspect he knows how all this will play out, but even so will play the role of good soldier)

This is Bernie energy.

If you’re gonna use your one shot on tv to go out in a blaze of glory, you do it like this:
pic.twitter.com/WRKbNmLIYi

— Imraan Siddiqi (@imraansiddiqi) April 10, 2020

but I promised my girlfriend if credible, consistent polling shows Biden within 5 points of Trump in the state of Georgia I will vote for the accused rapist who fucked over Anita Hill and gave us Justice Thomas, who supported DOMA, who voted for and loudly supported the Iraq War, and who supported the Hyde Amendment (seriously, what in the actual fuck) until *checks watch* a few months ago.

so hey who knows, maybe we really will get Medicare eligibility down to 60 63!!

As Shakey keeps saying young ppl don't vote so Biden won't need them in November. Best of luck to him.

re: that clip, I...agree with that CEO.

Imagine watching that CNBC clip and maintaining that the media is in anyway biased toward anything but the preservation of capital for an elect few.

and yeah yeah it’s CNBC, but I’m really struggling to see how that dork’s incredulous response would be different from literally anyone on CNN or MSNBC, save for Matthews, maybe one or two others.

I'm an immunocompromised "young person" and the thing that is most likely to take my future away from me is another 4 years of Trump.

matthews??

chamath is ok ppl

lol jfc sorry I meant HAYES.

got my Chris’s crossed

the daddy chamath will make ya

http://image.lyricspond.com/image/k/artist-kris-kross/album-totally-krossed-out/cd-cover.jpg

Looool headshot

― flopson

would you care to elucidate that statement further?

i'll open it up, serious question, any cis white men not quite sure why andrew's little gibe was a problem? i don't want to start a big fight, but what he said, i've heard it before, and november's a long way off, i fully expect to hear it again, and since i'm feeling ok today, feeling like i can talk about it without being nasty or trying to bite anyone's head off, any takers?

A jibe would be "an insulting or mocking remark; a taunt."? It wasn't either of those things.

As an overture to the Bernie left it’s along the lines of an insulting salary offer that I wouldn’t even negotiate with

Spoken like someone who has lots of fairly well-paid job options.

I was pretty sure Biden would pick out student debt forgiveness as his main concession to bring Bernie voters his way. His qualified support for free tuition at public colleges and universities would be means-tested, but the cut-off of $125,000 household income is not such a bad offer. Given how outspoken he was about M4A, his proposal of Medicare at age 60 has zero appeal for the vast bulk of Bernie's voters and is only meant as bait for voters over 50.

This is a far cry from the political revolution, as Bernie described it, but Bernie deserves solid thanks for prying this much out of Biden's campaign. What Bernie's voters need to understand is that Biden's non-revolutionary politics can accurately be described as "I will scratch your back, but only if you scratch mine". The more publically you fight for Biden, while still clearly defining yourself as Bernie's bloc, the more power you'll accrue when these promises have to be turned into passed and signed legislation.

The finish line is much further away than you would like it to be, but quitting now just guarantees you have ceded all your power. The religious right never makes that mistake. They claw for every increment and then prepare for the next fight.

otm

Look, substitute whatever word you want in if it bothers you. I'm certain you're not deliberately trying to derail the conversation. I am moved to go into my perhaps-not-quite-motivated explanation though.

I don't like Explaining Things because I was socialized as a cis white man. That's how I was taught to communicate, and sometimes it really is appropriate, and a lot of times it's just condescending bullshit. But the flip side is that I understand better than I'd like that mode of speech and I know how to talk like a cis white man.

In cis white man language, the issue is one of standing. Cis white men are into using their Superior Rhetorical Skills to speak for anyone and everyone and one of the things that I like about Bernie is that even though he is unquestionably a cis white man, he doesn't really do that so much.

It's fucked me up a lot, this tendency. For a long time what it meant to be transgender was heavily gatekept. Our identity and our right to it was determined, on a fundamental level, by cis white men. Many of these cis white men were compassionate and well-intentioned and they did a fucking terrible job of it.

So that's self-determination. I speak for myself as a trans white woman. I don't speak for trans women or white people or women, but I can at least, I can speak for _one_ trans white woman. Black men can speak for themselves as black men. And so on, and so forth.

I do not recognize or accept the standing of white people to speak for the feelings and experiences of black Americans, either individually as a group, no matter how many "black friends" they have, no matter where they grew up. Whatever the intent of a white person bringing up "Black Voters" to another white person is, it inevitably tokenizes those voters, inevitably denies them a voice.

otm re: how much better right wingers are at this, xxl

The finish line is much further away than you would like it to be, but quitting now just guarantees you have ceded all your power. The religious right never makes that mistake. They claw for every increment and then prepare for the next fight.

― A is for (Aimless)

You're using the religious right as a model? The people transformed a movement that was supposed to be moral into a fucking cargo cult in the naked pursuit of power at all costs?

I'm just not sure we're totally on the same page here, Aimless.

For the leaders of the religious right, like Falwell and Robertson, the movement was never about morality, but always about the naked pursuit of power. They have always steered the RRW movement by that compass.

I've been stuck on an insulting 'salary' (actually an hourly rate) for 2 years

Bernie's politics aren't really revolutionary except graded on Uncle Sam's curve

The people transformed a movement that was supposed to be moral into a fucking cargo cult in the naked pursuit of power at all costs?

with all due respect, I see this as a false binary. Morals are useless in politics without power.

otm re: how much better right wingers are at this, xxl

As for using the RRW as 'a model', they in turn used other successful movements as their model, because in the arena of politics the ends may be moral, amoral or immoral, but the means are always the accrual and use of power.

“If you want to pull the major party that is closest to the way you’re thinking to what you’re thinking you must show them that you’re capable of not voting for them. If you don’t show them that you’re capable of not voting for them, they don’t have to listen to you. I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic Party. I didn’t listen or have to listen to anything on the left while I was working in the Democratic Party because the left had nowhere to go.”

And that quote is from what well-known authority on the Democratic Party?

LBJ was ruthless and gross -- turpitude in human form -- who saw no point in taking moral stands without (a) making sure constituents are behind you; and/or (b) using the power he accumulated when he saw the moment...and was responsible for getting Congress to pass the fairest, most moral legislation since the 1930s.

When the string of losses started for Sanders in late February, it staggered me because I thought he and the campaign had figured this out. Who cares if he's right, as Elizabeth Bruenig wrote yesterday? His campaign didn't expand his base beyond 2016's. He should've officially registered as a Democrat; it would've assuaged quite a few people? So what if he drew moral authority from being a proud independent? If he was in it to win, it's an easy choice.

A buddy who works for a certain congressperson in South Florida and a self-professed Bernie Bro in 2015-2016 told me last night that Sanders' campaign was the only one that didn't coordinate campaign strategy in her district: visiting ICE detention centers on his own, say, unlike Warren, Buttigieg, etc contacting them. When he insisted on being right about Fidel + education during the "60 Minutes" interview -- a move I regret defending, given that it cost him more dearly in Florida than I was prepared to admit in February -- my friend saw the end of his campaign.

From Lawrence O’Donnell, talking about when he staffed for Moynihan

xpost

Wikipedia:

From 1989 to 1995, O'Donnell was a legislative aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

So, during the end of GHW Bush's administration and the start of the first Clinton administration, an aide to a NY senator thought he could safely ignore "the left" - and he was probably correct about that. I'd say both "the left" and the Democratic Party have undergone a long series of learning experiences and adaptations since then.

Nor is Laurence O'Donnell the final word on political reality in a nation this diverse and sprawling. No one is that big an authority.

and I’m sorry, real quick remind your bonafides?

An argument from authority rests on the authority cited. My argument against his authority was not based upon my own superior authority but was an argument from probability. You may choose to believe Laurence O'Donnell, but I suspect his statement aligns with your prejudice and that is what makes it believable to you, more so than any idolization of Laurence O'Donnell as a fount of infallible wisdom. Or you may choose to think that my lack of bona fides undermines my argument, but I'd say O'Donnell's statement should be read narrowly as the experience of one person, in one place, in a particular time, working for a particular senator who wrote a notorious 'white paper' pleading for "benign neglect" of civil rights issues.

Biden, while still clearly defining yourself as Bernie's bloc, the more power you'll accrue when these promises have to be turned into passed and signed legislation.

sorry, aimless I’m going to need to see some “authorities” cited

The right didn’t grind it out for 40 years. They basically captured the GOP in 10 years and the country in 20.

Blocs don’t matter when they all vote for the same things or same guy. We did this yesterday - Biden is having to bargain for Sanders supporters because the possibility exists for them to withhold their votes in a meaningful number. He isn’t bargaining for Warren supporters because they’re already guaranteed votes for him, despite being a different bloc.

Keeping a seat at the table is a dumb argument anyway, because we know it’s objectively not true. Who did the Obama admin spend more time sucking off to get the ACA passed - Joe Lieberman or Any Progressive Senator?

how long did Obama have a veto-proof majority?

That usual excuse doesn’t work for you here. Lieberman was important because he could leverage withholding his vote to get his way, whereas the ‘left’ of the Senate were irrelevant - they were voting for the ACA regardless.