Here is the Krystal Ball bit in full that expresses the attitude of the Left these days, what I was talking about up above. (wv’s Jimmy Dore video makes the same point, but in a meandering, 20 minute version). The Left came out and voted for Hillary in 2016, and got scapegoated for her loss as a reward. The Left is not in the mood for that anymore. As Krystal Ball notes, if Biden loses, we are going to get blamed anyway, just like last time. And every time we support another loser like Gore, Kerry, Hillary, Biden…what do we get for our vote, exactly? What do we get?

We get…”Hey, the other guy is worse.”

That’s what we get. That is the SOLE extent of the entire reward package the Democrats lavish on us.

People are pissed now. And I think you absolutely WILL see a decrease in Leftist turnout for Biden this time.

I’m sorry. As Ball says, if you think we always have to pick a “safe” candidate who will appeal to moderates…go right ahead. Just look how well that has worked out for you in the past. Democrats are CHOOSING to play to the “middle” (whatever THAT is supposed to even mean) because they think that is the Smart Play.

It’s not. It’s NOT the smart play if you want to win. Look at how many times your Safe Play has lost. Tell me why you think that’s a good strategy, playing it towards the middle. Obama broke through because he spoke the language of progressive (though nobody on this board was fooled for even a second because we were sharing the opensecrets information on where his financing was coming from), and he got black voters to turn out. That was what put him over – voter turnout.

And – clearly – the vigorous voter turnout is on Sanders’ side. ALL the polls show him beating Trump by a wider margin than any other candidate, and the Democrats rally everybody to support Biden, and get the compliant liberal media to echo the talking point – “Biden is the more electable.” We know that isn’t true. It’s false. Polls tell us it is false. But we’ve been told for so long, so many times that we have to put up someone from the conservative wing of the party if we want to win. Consequence: Loss after Loss after Loss.

This is because the DNC would rather lose to Trump than win with Sanders. THEY are to blame for this. The media will blame the Left. And THIS time they will at least most likely have evidence that supports that. And when the DNC actually BELIEVES that the Left cost them the election, maybe THEN it will start to do something about it.

This also contains the critique of Sanders from the Left. Like I said elsewhere, I think he is the wrong messenger for the right message, and looks like my fiance agrees with me.

wv wrote:

=======================

You really think Biden is a lesser candidate than Hillary? I dont agree on that. From what I’ve heard (on Fox news Hillary’s ‘negatives’ are WAY higher than Bidens. Biden is just this ‘bland’ drab, boring, typical Dem. Like John Kerry, Al Gore, Dukakis.

BUT, he worked with/for OBAMA. And he doesnt have the big negatives Hillary had.
Centrists, conservative-professional-moderate-Reps, and Dems are not gonna care that he’s senile. They dont care. They just want the National-Security-Ship-Of-State to run smoothly. A senile President can do that just fine. (Think Radar and Colonel Blake)

It all comes down to Progressives. If they hold their noses and vote for that lowlife CIA-loving, pro-corporate, imperialist, murderous, shitbag – Joe Biden will be the next President.

And btw, I jus wanna make it clear that i TOTALLY respect the view that progressives should or will vote for the lesser evil, and thus vote for the murderous imperialist Joe Biden. Its a perfectly reasonable decision. Chomsky has talked endlessly about it over the years. I’ve done it myself in the past.

For me personally, though, there came a time i just decided i wont do it anymore.
Its got nothing to do with WV being a Red-State or any other ‘calculation’ like that. Its hard to explain. Its a conscience thing. Coupled with a recognition of what the system is. Frankly I may not even vote at all the rest of my life. I havent decided on that. I lean toward voting Green, but i may not vote anymore.
…my vote has moved to Thailand, perhaps

PS — this virus could put the nation in a bad mood. Not good for Trump.

w
v

I don’t know for sure what you mean by “lesser candidate.”

Hillary had historically high negatives, much higher than Biden. But Hillary has more “gravitas” than Biden. She projects greater command.

Biden is vulnerable because he appears “empty,” and trips on his on thoughts.

But I wouldn’t call him “senile.” I think that is way over-stating his mental health. Biden has brain farts. But he is mentally sound otherwise. Mentally, he is superior to Trump. He is FAR more likely to make decisions rationally than Trump is. However, I think Trump will is a greater showman than Biden by several miles. Trump will be able, imo, to make Biden look foolish. He couldn’t do that with Hillary. He could make her symbolize corruption, and the Establishment, but he couldn’t make her look foolish. I think Trump WILL make Biden look foolish.

I don’t think Biden IS foolish.

I think he will LOOK foolish.

Final note: If you EVER dispute me in public again, I will be forced to respond in a congenial way. I’m warning you.

I dunno. I dunno anything anymore.

Biden was absolutely dead in the water. We all saw it. Then the Democrat Party – proving for the first time in decades – that it actually DOES know how to fight for something it believes in – rallied everybody together in the party and the media behind Joe Biden, and push-started his car. The strategy now is to have him sit down and shut up while the media runs his campaign for him, and it worked again on Tuesday.

The market is crashing like Jericho right now.

Who the hell knows what’s gonna happen.

I agree with what zn said about Biden. To me he is Hillary with half the wits.

I’ve already said 3 times that my vote is irrelevant in California, so I don’t have a decision of conscience to make. But I will say that out there on the internet, I am seeing a lot of progressives say they won’t rally behind Biden this time. Statistically, they turned out for Hillary in 2016, and they got blamed for the loss anyway, and that has created resentment. And I am seeing a LOT of them saying they won’t do it this time. Now…what people say in March, a long distance away from the actual election, may very well reflect their feelings more than anything else, and not be a rock solid attitude, but I think Waterfield is right to be worried about a tepid turnout from progressives. Maybe it will be balanced out by a higher turnout from blacks who didn’t vote in 2016, but I haven’t seen any analysis on that.

In short, Biden is a weak candidate, and with 4 years of Trump, it is a serious clusterfuck on the DNC’s part that Joe Biden is the guy to be the champion of the party. He is a symptom of the rot in the Democrat party.

Bernie Sanders is a rare man in politics, and he is the kind of politician literally everybody says they ideally want: honest and dependable. The fact that this man – who has spent his entire life fighting on behalf of poor and marginalized people – has been smeared for 4 years by the Democrat establishment as a sexist threat to democracy, tells you everything you need to know about how much the Democrat party actually cares about ordinary people.

I don’t see either one of them beating Trump, but Sanders has a better chance.

Biden is not a guy who can take abuse. Remember how he folded up against Kamala? And Trump specializes in that kind of abuse. Mocking people is his forte. Wagging the dog is what Trump does best. Biden will be sorry he’s still alive after facing Trump. I’m ALREADY sorry for him.

What is Biden running FOR? Associate ANYTHING with Biden. Go ahead. I dare you.

His platform is “I’m not Trump” and “I’m friends with Obama.” Name one other thing.

Now, I am sure his team will compose some lovely Glittering Generalities to photoshop onto his image, but those will wilt, and look ridiculous under the studio lights. This guy is Hillary Clinton without the accomplishments, talent, wit, or composure. What on earth makes anybody think he can perform better than Hillary did?

This is the end. Biden will not only reassure 4 more years of Trump, he will probably cost us any chance of taking the Senate, so we are fucked. Ginsburg is going to be replaced by Stephen Miller or Heinrich Himmler. It’s over. Nothing left to do but go watch the planet die from a bamboo bungalow in Thailand.

I told my wife I wanted to marry Krystal Ball, and she said she’s fine with it, so….

I thought about asking her to a ballgame, and proposing on the big screen. I hope she’s not a 49ers fan, though.

Naomi Klein is second on my list if Krystal turns me down.

I think Bernie should run on the Green New Deal. Use it as an umbrella for a huge transformation in our economy, and our system, that paves the way for a Utopian future where we all get rich off renewable energy, and minorities get access to the American Dream. I think Sanders runs Against things too much, personally. I think he needs to run FOR an all-inclusive sustainable future.

I also think he should play his hand more forcefully. Subtly let them know that they can either concede peacefully, or there is the option of civil disobedience. He has to be willing to play that card, though. I learned as a teacher and a parent that you cannot make threats that you aren’t willing to follow through with. He has leverage. He needs to show that he knows he has leverage.

Well, I saw an argument that actually Super Tuesday was bad for Biden because – while he won some states he shouldn’t have – he underperformed overall compared to Clinton vs Sanders. Maybe I will stick it in the ST thread.

I’ve decided to marry Krystal Ball, btw.

And…btw…this whole “Bernie Bros were mean” thing just tells you everything about Warren, don’t it? Like…she could be making the rounds talking about Medicare for All and banking problems and climate change, but she’s going around whining to Maddow and whomever about Bernie Bros. Where are those progressive causes you care about, Liz?

Beat Trump.

Beat Trump.

Beat Trump.

That’s the Democrat mantra.

Now…I wanna ask something: How hard is it to see Biden as representing exactly the kind of government that led to Trump in the first place?

Sanders is the threat to Trump. Not Biden.

I don’t know, W. If we didn’t have the Electoral College, and the popular vote actually determined the winner, I would be in a serious pickle. As it is, California is not going to go to Trump no matter how I vote. My vote counts only as a personal statement, not as a vote. I’m not as deep in despair as WV is, though I’m not far from it. I have kids, though. I can’t give up. I do not want them to suffer because of climate catastrophe.

My wife and I were gently chiding our daughter the other day over her teenage fondness for junk food, and she said, “It doesn’t matter. Climate change is going to kill me before this does.”

My wife chuckled. I didn’t.

Well, I’m in despair.

I really think we have a pretty awesome planet here, and I am sorry to see it destroyed by greedy sociopaths.

I have no confidence that Biden can beat Trump. He looks muddled and lost from time-to-time. And his primary draw seems to be he isn’t Trump. That’s what the Democrat establishment is running on. Not Trump. And that’s important, but I also think it’s not enough.

And if Biden loses, the courts are gone. And if the courts are gone, they will formally disenfranchise minorities from voting in a variety of ways, and we won’t be able to regain the government through the ballot box. And they will move to voting machines that produce whatever numbers they want anyway. They’ve already undermined confidence in polls, so people won’t really have any idea what’s going on anymore, and…we’re dead. So…you know…placing hopes of averting that on Joe Biden does make me sad. That’s it. Joe Biden. He’s the people’s Last Champion. A man in mental decline who is Not Trump.

Not exactly Henry V.

Yippee.