2020 Democratic Primary

[Cristalle]

I was about to post exactly the same thing.

I didn't watch the debate, but from what I've read Biden certainly seems to have given a fluent and assured performance that, at the very least, should put to rest concerns about his "cognitive decline" and so forth.

Does anyone who expressed concerns on this score want to comment?

Seems to me that, since by all accounts he more than held his own against Sanders in the debate, people might begin to wonder what they should give for Sanders' chances in a confrontation with Trump, particularly since he failed to make much headway against an opponent with whom, we were confidently told, Trump would wipe the studio floor.

To borrow a remark attributed to the economist John Maynard Keynes, "when events change, I change my mind. What do you do? "

The only sources one needed to see cognitive decline was any news outlet that showed Biden live. CNN, etc.

Credit where it's due, Biden was nimble for his performance. Bad where it's due: he lied like crazy to paint over his horrible record. It's easy to have a good performance when you lie shamelessly. He learned something from Trump.

 

[Brenda Archer]

I hope you're feeling better today.

After last night's debate, it seems even more clear how the chips are going to fall.

"You could, if you need a libertarian party, actually start building one and pull Right wing support away from the extreme Right." It's interesting that you say this. This kind of tomorrow seems a long way off to me, right now. Whatever ends up remaining of the Bernie Sanders movement, I think it might need some elements of a lost Trump people who believed he ever had their best economic interests in mind. Maybe Biden is the answer to break that group apart? There will likely be fracturing in that party as it's core power structure scrambles to take the reins again. It's something to look forward to.

At this stage, all but a vanishing few of the Trump supporters are either religious conservatives or unreflective consumers of right wing media of the less reliable type.

Any Republican who was capitalist, but not an extreme social conservative, has been pushed to the margins. Republicans who were there to be hawks, to be libertarians, or for any other reason than to give material support to well-organized Christofascists, have been pushed to the margins, or can be.

That’s a lot of people who don’t really have a party. But they’re still not Trumpian, for the most part. The actual Trumpists cannot be reached by ANY Democrat (including Biden), and if they think they belong in the Sanders camp, they don’t understand it.

I put most of this to most Americans not really understanding any politics but the center right and the extreme right. If center left politics are understood dimly and mostly as caricature, you can be certain socialist and anarchist politics certainly are. A lot of people seem to think they’re so very leftist for holding what were normal Republican ideas in the Seventies.

As nearly as I can tell, the takeover of the Republican Party by Christofascists was visibly underway (even to casual observers) in the Eighties. There was a long period of not exiling other Republicans, mostly to keep voters from being skittish. All that is way in the past.

If a sensible right-libertarian party existed (and it’s more likely, in my opinion, than the creation of a viable socialist party) we’d have the mathematically impossible situation where three parties would be trying to be viable on the national level.

But it’s not impossible for a sensible right-libertarian party to emerge locally in places not too tied to evangelicals - possibly on a state level in California or Utah.

But it would still only be a gadfly to the national level Republicans.

The best thing to happen to the nonfascist right would be to lose, and lose hard, and stay lost for eight or twelve years. This gives the normal right a chance to re-organize itself, out of the spotlight and not losing face. It gives generational and demographic change time to do its work. The end result would be a younger party no longer captured by fading fossil fuel interests and racists still fighting the Sixties culture war.

If the Republicans can’t organize in this way, the Democrats will be the center-right party and the country will gradually move leftward. I don’t know what the remnants of the hard Right will do, but it won’t be pretty.

But what I don’t understand is why libertarians (like you seem to be), have attached yourselves to a Bernie movement that’s social democratic and communitarian. It seems like the opposite of intelligent right-liberal and right-libertarian politics. I put most of this attachment to the American tendency to be unreflectively right wing in their opinions regardless of what they *think* their politics is. The flavor of the week is always capitalist vanilla. It’s not the worst when it’s self aware.

So I’m asking you to become *aware* of your values and politics. If that pushes you rightward, it’s at least authentic.

But libertarian supporters of Bernie may have helped to kill his chances. I don’t say that lightly. It’s not as if Bernie hasn’t articulated his postitions very clearly. But the people in the movement who are just there for rebellion haven’t listened.

 

[Cristalle]

GOP Sen. Cotton calls for monthly cash payments to Americans during coronavirus pandemic

A friend on FB said:

I
Keep
Warning
Y'all
This
Mother
Fucker
Is
Gonna
Run
For
President
And he will be ten times more efficient at doing bad things than Trump.
And Republicans are gonna come at the useless centrist-corporate Democratic party from the left and utterly destroy them in November. I warned you.
Y'all have been played.

Obviously not this November. But if Republicans are the ones taking care of working class needs? It is game over.

 

[Brenda Archer]

This raises a point that's been worrying me a lot.

I'm not going to go into a potted history of fascism (though I can do if people would like me to, or if they provoke me too badly) but it's often forgotten that, before Mussolini and Hitler came to power and followed broadly corporatist, pro-business, policies, fascism was a radical movement that brought together disenchanted WWI veterans who wanted radical change but had lost patience with the traditional parties of both the right and the left to achieve it, and both countries' fascist movements contained plenty of former socialists and anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists among their ranks.

Ever since the 1960s and 70s, elements of the far right have been eschewing the sort of uniformed cosplay that attract some of their comrades and, instead, trying to pursue a "third way" or "third wave," containing elements of radical socialist social policy and trying to appeal to the working-class and the poor and dispossessed (normally only so long as they're the right colour or have the right passport, of course).

The Italian Casapound Group would be an example of this.

Whoever the Democratic candidate is, and however the elections turn out, it seems to me that, come this time next year, the US is going to have a lot of disenchanted white radicals who had previously supported either Trump or Sanders, unhappy either that their candidate lost or, if he wins, that his policies are failing to be adopted (or if they are, that they don't work) because, as they see it, of the machinations of the corrupt Democratic Party, the fake mainstream media and, at least for the previous Bernie supporters, because of low-information older black voters, all in the middle of a world recession and a social and medical crisis caused by Covid-19.

So, however things work out over the next few months, I foresee a number of Bernie Bros and MAGA deplorables joining together to form a loose radical right alliance, which may become yet another disruptive force in US politics.

They could, but I don’t see the Christofascists conceding any real leadership to them, and definitely not the Democrats. They’re more likely to get co-opted by the Republicans as a fringe movement, not unlike what’s happened to the militia movement and the online groups that made up Gamergate.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

As nearly as I can tell, the takeover of the Republican Party by Christofascists was visibly underway (even to casual observers) in the Eighties

Though according to Wiki, he was saying that as early as 1989.

 

[Brenda Archer]

GOP Sen. Cotton calls for monthly cash payments to Americans during coronavirus pandemic

A friend on FB said:


Obviously not this November. But if Republicans are the ones taking care of working class needs? It is game over.

Terrifying, if it happens. The Republicans have been so rigidly attached to budget slashing something like this would practically cause whiplash. But I can see someone using a temporary UBI as cover for worse things.

They should be careful, though. It’s going to make it harder for them to accuse genuine social democrats of being the free giveaway people if they do it too.

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

At this stage, all but a vanishing few of the Trump supporters are either religious conservatives or unreflective consumers of right wing media of the less reliable type.

Any Republican who was capitalist, but not an extreme social conservative, has been pushed to the margins. Republicans who were there to be hawks, to be libertarians, or for any other reason than to give material support to well-organized Christofascists, have been pushed to the margins, or can be.

That’s a lot of people who don’t really have a party. But they’re still not Trumpian, for the most part. The actual Trumpists cannot be reached by ANY Democrat (including Biden), and if they think they belong in the Sanders camp, they don’t understand it.

I put most of this to most Americans not really understanding any politics but the center right and the extreme right. If center left politics are understood dimly and mostly as caricature, you can be certain socialist and anarchist politics certainly are. A lot of people seem to think they’re so very leftist for holding what were normal Republican ideas in the Seventies.

As nearly as I can tell, the takeover of the Republican Party by Christofascists was visibly underway (even to casual observers) in the Eighties. There was a long period of not exiling other Republicans, mostly to keep voters from being skittish. All that is way in the past.

If a sensible right-libertarian party existed (and it’s more likely, in my opinion, than the creation of a viable socialist party) we’d have the mathematically impossible situation where three parties would be trying to be viable on the national level.

But it’s not impossible for a sensible right-libertarian party to emerge locally in places not too tied to evangelicals - possibly on a state level in California or Utah.

But it would still only be a gadfly to the national level Republicans.

The best thing to happen to the nonfascist right would be to lose, and lose hard, and stay lost for eight or twelve years. This gives the normal right a chance to re-organize itself, out of the spotlight and not losing face. It gives generational and demographic change time to do its work. The end result would be a younger party no longer captured by fading fossil fuel interests and racists still fighting the Sixties culture war.

If the Republicans can’t organize in this way, the Democrats will be the center-right party and the country will gradually move leftward. I don’t know what the remnants of the hard Right will do, but it won’t be pretty.

But what I don’t understand is why libertarians (like you seem to be), have attached yourselves to a Bernie movement that’s social democratic and communitarian. It seems like the opposite of intelligent right-liberal and right-libertarian politics. I put most of this attachment to the American tendency to be unreflectively right wing in their opinions regardless of what they *think* their politics is. The flavor of the week is always capitalist vanilla. It’s not the worst when it’s self aware.

So I’m asking you to become *aware* of your values and politics. If that pushes you rightward, it’s at least authentic.

But libertarian supporters of Bernie may have helped to kill his chances. I don’t say that lightly. It’s not as if Bernie hasn’t articulated his postitions very clearly. But the people in the movement who are just there for rebellion haven’t listened.

This is just a concept that I have heard floated around elsewhere in discussion. It tries to learn from the lessons of Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party failure.
I can't imagine a fully functioning third party ever forming in American politics with Democrats and Republicans living together in perfect harmony. The best I could imagine is a single-strike united effort at the executive branch with a very focused agenda around the economic needs of the working class and disruption of the status quo. People would have to be free to find their own value expressions down ballot.

There needs to be some sort of united effort by working class Americans of both parties to show that they are capable of being more than just mindless little rodents in need of extermination. There is really nothing "radical" about the lives and aspirations of working class people in either Party. The true "radicals" are the elite class that has been controlling them for decades in both Parties. The economic numbers don't lie.

It was just a concept that maybe doesn't have to fall into the classist fear of Innula Zenovka, where bringing the working class together might ignite a fusion reaction of Fascism. Separating and pitting the working class against each other has brought us to where? Fascism. It's here, and it has been summoned by the ruling class of both parties and excused by the loyalists.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The only sources one needed to see cognitive decline was any news outlet that showed Biden live. CNN, etc.

Credit where it's due, Biden was nimble for his performance. Bad where it's due: he lied like crazy to paint over his horrible record. It's easy to have a good performance when you lie shamelessly. He learned something from Trump.

I see.

I didn't watch the debate, so I can't comment, though I note that none of The Guardian's panel -- you will recall that you quoted one of the panelists' reaction to the previous debate -- mentioned either his shameless lies or this cognitive decline that was so clear, you say, to anyone who did watch.

Why is that, do you think?

Also, since Sanders was apparently unable to do much damage to Biden during the debate, what encouragement does that give when considering how he might perform against Trump?

 

[Jolene Benoir]

It was just a concept that maybe doesn't have to fall into the classist fear of Innula Zenovka, where bringing the working class together might ignite a fusion reaction of Fascism. Separating and pitting the working class against each other has brought us to where? Fascism. It's here, and it has been summoned by the ruling class of both parties and excused by the loyalists.

Classist fear? What? You think that Innula is sitting in some ivory tower somewhere? You show how little you understand more and more each day. Trump working class voters gave us a fascist, as did you. A man who professes to care about them but who, in reality, does every thing he can to maintain and extend oligarchy (tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and using those cuts as an excuse to cut programs that help working class voters) for 40 years give or take (Supreme Court - incredibly anti-working class Kavenaugh). Just a couple examples that fly right over your head. There are so many more like removing workplace protections from those coal miners that he cares so much about to going after SS. Everything he does is in favor of trampling the working class, but he lies (so many, but like the one where everyone would retain or gain healthcare as he then made it his priority to tear apart the ACA).

Bernie Bros aren't much better, threatening to give us Trump if they don't get their way, tossing out their professed values with such abandon that people like me can easily see they didn't share in the first place. Then, there is their love of false information that they also pass along with all the muster they can garner.

Nay, I don't think the fear is that of the working class uniting, but of those who don't pay the slightest bit of attention to policies that are not only the opposite of helping the working class, but designed to keep it under boots for generations. People who watch Fox news all day and don't bother investigating the truth on one side and people like you on the other who pass along blatantly false information as though it were the gospel.

To think, people like you have the nerve to call older people who have been paying attention and working for the working class for decades low information and uninformed, not to mention "elitists" and part of the "establishment". Cultists and populists who don't actually care about policy but just want to "tear everything down" without a thought as to what will replace or even if and how their proclaimed leaders intend to, you know, actually achieve any goals that help the working class. I believe that is the fear, not unjustified based upon current behavior or history.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

So, legit, I've friends saying on facebook that all three primaries today will really go for Biden, but that the DNC is going to change it. well, and -their- friends.

 

[Salome]

I didn't watch the debate, so I can't comment, though I note that none of The Guardian's panel -- you will recall that you quoted one of the panelists' reaction to the previous debate -- mentioned either his shameless lies or this cognitive decline that was so clear, you say, to anyone who did watch.

I watched it, and the reason they didn’t mention it is because it’s a fantasy. As you’ve seen here, despite having reality and history pointed out over and over, certain people opt to cling to half-truths and nonsense. But, more importantly, it’s because grown, functioning adults know that all politicians stretch the truth. They know Sanders is being just as disingenuous when he fearmongers that Biden or Dems would cut social security the same way they know that Biden will sugar coat the less flattering aspects of his long history. The reason Bernie lost the overall exchange is because politicians evolve over time. Bernie was trying to attack on past grievances while trying to dismiss his own glass houses and came off looking petty and small. Like, you know, so many of his more cultish followers.

As for cognitive decline, Biden looked calm and strong (despite team Bernie implying he wouldn’t be able to stand for a debate) and didn‘t misspeak any more or less than Sanders did (who himself kept misusing Ebola). They spent weeks following the Russia troll farm ploy of pushing the dementia slur against Biden and ended up fucking themselves by making Biden look stronger than his adequate self due to the lowered expectations. Now they’re all a flock of mad wet ducks because they played themselves.

Also, since Sanders was apparently unable to do much damage to Biden during the debate, what encouragement does that give when considering how he might perform against Trump?

The more I watch Sanders, the more I think Trump would eat him alive. There’s little contrast because they’re both so similar in divisiveness and rhetoric. No one is going to out-Trump Trump. The people that want a Trump aren’t going to be won over by another one, so a candidate will have to provide contrast. We tried a competent woman. Now it seems like Dems want to go with sympathetic, strong grandpa. We’ll see.

 

[Salome]

So, legit, I've friends saying on facebook that all three primaries today will really go for Biden, but that the DNC is going to change it. well, and -their- friends.

I don’t understand? If Biden is winning and the conspiracy is that the DNC has the fix in for Biden...why would they change it?

Also, ffs, we have to go back to teaching civics in this country.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

I don’t understand? If Biden is winning and the conspiracy is that the DNC has the fix in for Biden...why would they change it?

Also, ffs, we have to go back to teaching civics in this country.

Sorry, I'm not feeling anywhere near 100% - I meant that the three primaries will really go for Bernie.

And definitely, I mean, I didn't get a decent civics course until college, even back in the 70s-80s, but we did at least have schoolhouse rock, and some basics.

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

There has been some great effort to contrast the two American political parties. I recently saw a reference to the ACA championed as an achievement for the working class and it made me think of Mitt Romney Finally Takes Credit For Obamacare

Now Romney has a new plan for the working class: Mitt Romney Calls for $1,000 to Every American for Coronavirus Relief Hopefully this will give the Democrats permission to do something for the working class again.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Sorry, I'm not feeling anywhere near 100% - I meant that the three primaries will really go for Bernie.

And definitely, I mean, I didn't get a decent civics course until college, even back in the 70s-80s, but we did at least have schoolhouse rock, and some basics.

I can't speak for Salome, but I suspect she meant those FB friends.

 

[Salome]

Sorry, I'm not feeling anywhere near 100% - I meant that the three primaries will really go for Bernie.

Sanders is polling underwater in all states, but especially Florida. I mean, I understand them hoping for an upset, but convincing yourself it’s a fix if the vote and polls align is...unhinged.

Also...the idea that the DNC has any control over the vote is so exhausting.

ETA: Jolene is correct, my civics comment was aimed at those who think the DNC oversees state voting and has any method or control available to them in the modern day which could alter results.

 

[Anya Ristow]

But if Republicans are the ones taking care of working class needs? It is game over.

I wonder what would happen if Trump were to tweet: "If Bernie's M4A bill crosses my desk, I'll sign it."

 

[Cristalle]

I see.

I didn't watch the debate, so I can't comment, though I note that none of The Guardian's panel -- you will recall that you quoted one of the panelists' reaction to the previous debate -- mentioned either his shameless lies or this cognitive decline that was so clear, you say, to anyone who did watch.

Why is that, do you think?

Also, since Sanders was apparently unable to do much damage to Biden during the debate, what encouragement does that give when considering how he might perform against Trump?

Biden's had a low bar for "success" in these debates because we've sunk so low. He didn't have a lot of time to speak in quite a few of these debates, and when he did... there are montages out there of how bad it is, especially when you look at how he used to be just a couple of years ago. He's lost his polish and that's plainly obvious. Is it dementia? Who knows. Maybe not, but he has struggled to put sentences together before. This time, he just lied shamelessly to hide his record.

His campaign has been deliberately keeping the number of engagaements low, and they limit the amount of time he's had to speak. It's worked to his benefit.

As for the lies, if the media doesn't fact check that stuff - especially in real time - there is little Bernie can do other than to try to point it out. This just takes on a few:

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

I can't speak for Salome, but I suspect she meant those FB friends.

Sanders is polling underwater in all states, but especially Florida. I mean, I understand them hoping for an upset, but convincing yourself it’s a fix if the vote and polls align is...unhinged.

Also...the idea that the DNC has any control over the vote is so exhausting.

ETA: Jolene is correct, my civics comment was aimed at those who think the DNC oversees state voting and has any method or control available to them in the modern day which could alter results.

That's what I figured - just saying, that I'm pretty aware of how woeful civics was even when it was still offered, and that a lot of people I know seem to have become unhinged.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It was just a concept that maybe doesn't have to fall into the classist fear of Innula Zenovka, where bringing the working class together might ignite a fusion reaction of Fascism. Separating and pitting the working class against each other has brought us to where? Fascism. It's here, and it has been summoned by the ruling class of both parties and excused by the loyalists.

As a socialist -- which, you will recall, is what Bernie Sanders claims to be, though I'm not sure that -- I want to bring the working class together in a mass-membership democratic socialist or social-democratic party, because that -- not amorphous "movements" -- is how socialists come to power.

A mass-membership socialist party is also, historically, a good defence against the fascists who will certainly be seeking to capitalise on the kind of anger and discontent expressed by so many Sanders supporters.

I'm not sure what you mean by "fascism" in this context -- I mean it as a specific political term rather than as an all-purpose insult, so if you want to persuade me that anyone in mainstream US politics today is a fascist, I will need to know what you mean by the term and why you think it's applicable.

I don't, for example, regard Trump as fascist, though his nationalist and authoritarian populism certainly appeals to fascists, as do parts of his rhetoric, though that no more makes him a fascist, in my book, than does Bernie Sanders' embrace of various socialist policies make him a socialist.