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Democrats worry their most loyal voters won’t turn out for Biden in 2024
(www.washingtonpost.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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politics
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Maybe... Maaaaaayyyyyyybeeeee the Democrats need to nominate someone who is actually worth getting excited about instead of just being not-Trump.
Because if voters are excited, they may start voting in primaries...
Every since Obama beat Clinton 15 years ago, party leaders seem more motivated to make sure their pick wins the primary than a Democrat winning the general.
"Moderates" seem ineffictive because they're not trying to just win, they're trying to win by as little as possible. Like a corrupt pro athlete who's not throwing the game, but trying to win by less than the spread.
They know the reason most people vote for moderates like Biden, is if they don't, someone like trump would win. It's just the party leaders would rather trade back and forth than let Dems like FDR win every election for decades.
Jesus I thought you were exaggerating and then I did the math
If you think that's bad:
Biden's first presidential primary was 35 years ago...
He was the expected front runner due mainly to his (at the time) exceptional public speaking but got caught plagiarizing speeches, lying about his grades in law school, and even people finding out he cheated while in law school by plagiarising papers.
But everyone forgot about all that because he spent 8 years standing next to Obama. And the only reason he got that job was to make old white people less uncomfortable voting for a Black guy.
That's a great way to put it. Both parties are funded by dark money interests, one drives us to the right and the other keeps us in place. This is described as the ratchet effect
and millions are claiming the democrats are radicals, little do they know that the country was more progressive on certain fronts 50 years ago. So they have to resort to blaming gays and trans, because everything else about the current staye of the country is kinda right-wingy to begin with.
Hell, Republicans 50 years ago were more progressive than the Dems are today.
Anyone "worth getting excited about" is going to challenge the status quo too much - even nominally - for the DNC to be okay with it. They are conservative in the descriptive sense. "No-one's standard of living will fundamentally change."
I get that we have many problems that aren't really being actively solved, but personally I've been pretty happy with this return-to-status-quo term as compared to the previous non-status-quo term... and right now the narcissistic traitor is leading the nomination polls.
You've been pretty happy with status quo have you? Great, love that for you. Sounds like being apathetic to the problems is working out for you specifically. I certainly wouldn't want you to have to think about the enormous numbers of disenfranchised, poor and minority people who overwhelmingly don't turn out to vote because they don't see a real difference in their lives between parties and the dems aren't doing anything to prove to them why they should care. That sounds like it wouldn't be comfortable for you, and that's the top priority here.
Context matters. If you take my words out of context, then you aren't actually addressing what I said, you're addressing a straw man. Or did you intend to imply that you were happier with the previous president?
And this is putting words in my mouth:
But never mind your flawed approach to debate, let's actually take a look at what's been done during Biden's time in office:
Rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement
Overturning Trump's transgender service member ban
Reuniting children with their families who were separated by Trump's border control policies
Oh yeah, and more than $75 billion in support for Ukraine
In fact, Biden's track record is pretty good overall. So every single problem hasn't been solved in 2.5 years, at least there's been progress. And did you forget that Biden inherited the country in a crisis which Trump massively bungled? You're like a poster child for letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I could compile a similar list of their failures if I cared to. This is just a gish gallop.
Here's one: Hillary's campaign directly promoted the extreme far right leading directly to Trump's victory in 2016.
https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
That's not "good", that's "enabling fascism". Absolute clown shit.
If you have to compare them to outright fascists to say they are comparatively "good", that's not a great look, but even then you can't ignore when they do shit like this. You can't hide behind their supposed good intentions either. They nearly threw 2020 by pushing Biden into everyone's faces like a wet fart and saying, "At least it's not a torrent of diarrhea! Vote for the wet fart please!"
I never told anyone not to vote as far left as was practical - which in the US means voting Dem. I am simply pointing out the reality that the most disenfranchised people in the US don't even vote. Not voting isn't a sign of privilege, thinking voting will change anything is a sign of privilege, because it means you're in the increasingly small minority that might see any change from it.
You say I'm letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, but you actively defend mediocrity from any and all criticism because you can't see past the false dichotomy you've been presented with. If I want my kids to leave the park, I don't say, "We're leaving now," I say, "Do you want to leave in 5 minutes or 10?" and they respect the results, even though I invented the entire spectrum of possibility for them. The two party system has done the same thing to you.
It doesn't matter why you're happy with the status quo, what matters is that you are defending the status quo. That makes you functionally conservative. Just because there are other conservatives that are worse by comparison doesn't change that.
You might want to consider that millions of people know the kinds of ideas you want put forward and just think those are bad ideas
i doubt it. i bet they think what the cia wants them to think about it, but knowledge is a justified true belief, and my bet is that they believe a lot of things about those ideas that just aren't true.
Well that's silly
You might want to consider that US democracy is functionally an oligarchy and doesn't reflect the will of the people: https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc
Some of those accomplishments are worth celebrating, but:
lol are you kidding? The only countries on Earth with a competent response to COVID were New Zealand, South Korea, and China.
This is just tradewar bullshit with China. I work in manufacturing so I'm not against seeing more investment in my sector, but like, this isn't about making good American jobs. It's only about preparing for the inevitable war over Taiwan.
Sorry, the do-something machine is broke. Best we can do is partially fossilized C-Suite moderates.
Well, what if we put RFK Jr beside them, does that make them seem any better?
Well, now you're just being unreasonable.
Not being trump is enough for me. Sure, I’d love someone better. But I’d vote for a wooden brick if it meant america wouldn’t turn into a dictatorship.
Or maybe you need to understand that the down ticket races are more important than the presidency?
Change in the US starts at the bottom. Not the top.
Fuck the presidency. Just vote for the candidate that isn't going to burn the country down.
You want real change? Real progressivism? Vote progressives into local offices. Your young, progressive education board member today is your congressional rep tomorrow. Your congressional rep today is your presidential hopeful tomorrow.
Let the status quo dems toss whatever geriatric they want at the presidency and vote them in so we don't get another trump, or worse, a president desantis or something.
Presidents don't often push new laws anyway. You want to change the country? Help take the House and the Senate. As long as the president is the same party they're not going to veto progressive legislation.
I was about to write something like your comment.
Show up to every local election. Pay attention at the local level. Use your passion against the two party system to get third-party candidates elected to your state house.
Maybe… Maaaaaayyyyyyybeeeee the left voters need to actually show up to vote.
Now everyone is going to say they voted in a presidential election, possibly even a primary which makes them a rarity! Those aren't what we're talking about. The right has made it a point to vote on everything even as small as schoolboards so the only people voting in the tiny little races are the right wing rage crowd or the centrists who are being pulled to the right. Yes, the presidential vote matters, but frankly those lower down votes mean a lot more and if you watch how the Republican primaries are going, shows exactly how much power that batch that will show up has over a party.
This shit right here. Both times I was exited for a candidate he got thrown out because the party leaders didn't like him, first with Hillary, and then with Biden. I'm just going to continue to vote for not-trump because I know how bad it will be but I don't want any centrist democrat almost as much as I dont want trump.
I'm convinced he was picked because "it was his time"
I don’t think that was the main reason.
IMO, Biden was nominated because he was a fairly uncontroversial (by mainstream sensibilities anyway) white male candidate who also isn’t that attached to many positions that would threaten the powers that be.
Biden is a weather vane that swings in accordance to the winds. Which is all that was needed to beat a historically unpopular candidate like Trump. Thankfully, Trump is such a bad option that even Biden can be a palatable candidate.
Why this fossil didn’t bend the knee and allow another younger, more exciting candidate step up for 2024 is beyond me though. But I guess seeing the average age and mental capability of Congress, it shouldn’t be surprising. IMO, everyone over the age of 65 should be ineligible for elected office. They are at retirement age, and have no real, justifiable stake in the future. They should retire with the knowledge they won life and can live out the rest of their days in comfort and leave running the country to people who have skin in the game and the energy/mental faculties to actually play it.
Biden joining + everyone else dropping out was the last hope the establishment had to kneecap Bernie, and it fucking worked
That almost makes it sound like we live in an autocracy and not a democracy when the party picks who's running and not the voters...
Well they have argued in court on the public record that they owe their members no expectation of democracy.
Do people really believe this garbage?
The other candidates dropped out because Biden blew them out of the water in South Carolina and his campaign picked up momentum from there. A number of candidates effectively had their campaigns ended in South Carolina because it was clear they couldn't secure the crucial black vote.
This is normal. It has happened in primaries for decades. Candidates drop out as it becomes obvious they don't have a pathway to victory and the field narrows.
It's not some absurd conspiracy.
Bernie's strategy of only winning a plurality and not expanding his base was a total failure.
Bernie's didn't have working class or minority support. Hence his heavy defeats in places like Michigan.
You're gonna hurt their feelings.
I voted Bernie but this is absolutely true. I mean, he himself said his campaign was resting on young progressives coming out to vote for him and guess what? They did what all the people in here are doing- bitch and then NOT VOTE.
Does anyone wonder why "the establishment" doesn't pay attention to progressive attitudes? It's because progressives don't fucking show up every. single. time. like other blocs. They bitch all the goddamn time but refuse to participate if their version of Santa Claus isn't running. The truth of it is that you need to get involved and push the ideas and people you want and if they fail to get the primary nod, then you still vote to advance your goals as far as you can (ie. the moderate Democrat.) If they do get the nod (a la AOC) then you keep fielding more and more candidates. Look how they have pushed the convo further left already.
Someone best explained it as "you're going 10 blocks north. One taxi will take you 5 blocks, the other takes you 10 blocks south of where you're at. Do you just not take either? Or do you at least go 5 blocks north." Also because if you don't vote to go 5 blocks north, guess what? You're going 10 blocks south. Great job- even further from your goal.
But no- I'm sure after years and years and years of sitting out and complaining on the sidelines, surely the Dems will come to their senses and go "hey- why don't we run someone completely far left so maybe these people who refuse to ever come out might show up." Sure, that'll do it. That's worth betting the farm on- run someone that is essentially progressive Jesus and risk alienating every voter who does show up every single time.
Biden won because black women liked him and they actually go out and vote in the primaries, unlike the louts in this thread who are literally talking about how they won’t vote.
Probably because the geriatrics fucked two whole generations of politicians by not stepping down when they should have.
Gen X and millennials don't have enough horses in the race with the experience necessary to run for president because they got fucked by the boomers.
We're going to be in for an exciting ride over the next two decades as something like 40% of Congress retires or dies in office without anyone with experience available to replace them.
And this is on both sides.
He won because they weren't going to allow Bernie Sanders to win
Well...maybe it will be his time and we will get Harris. We can dream I guess.
Your dream is Harris?! Shit, no. No, no, no.
My hope is that Biden is staying in the race until the 11th hour to be the lightening rod and the dems have someone better to step in.
Of course, that would require some intestinal fortitude and a few brain cells and I don’t think the dem leadership has that.
Literally no one wants Harris. She's completely un-electable.
Or maybe grow up and realize that political offices and the people that fill them shouldn't be "exciting". Maybe the problem is that we all want someone exciting... With no regard for competence.
"I'd have a beer with him." Who gives a fuck???
Problem is that you need to convince tens of millions of people to grow up. I think this chap here is merely suggesting we give the idiots what they want.
Candidates that will the whole party will find exciting are basically a once in a generation event, if that. This generation's such candidate was Obama. Democrats as a party are reliant on far too big of a tent to make this a viable strategy or thought process.
A candidate that I, a far left progressive, would get excited about is a candidate that a lot of center-of-left or moderate voters would find boring. Even within wings of the party there's not going to be lockstep excitement (go back to Dec 2019 and ask Sanders supporters how "excited" they'd be for a Warren candidacy!).
This line of argument is consistently just people pining for candidates that more closely reflect our own ideological views, not a reflection of the reality available to us. There was no such candidate in 2016 or 2020 and won't be for 2024. I'm not going to hold my breath for 2028 either. Maybe by 2032 we might see the next Obama, someone that excites the whole party.
I gave you an upvote because I agree with the spirit of your message. However, I would like to remind you that if the DNC hadn't literally rigged the system against Bernie Sanders in 2016 that we more than likely would not be where we are today.
There was a HUGE amount of grassroots support behind Bernie (the most in modern American history), and the Democrats burned a lot of goodwill with voters by shoe-horning Hillary in as the heir apparent. There has never been a candidate that bridged the gap the way Bernie did in my lifetime, and that one single decision did incalculable damage to the world.
I will gladly vote for Biden because I know it is a moral imperative to do so, and I am not a moron. I am also not trying to take away from his legislative victories because I believe they warrant more merit than they have received. However, I will not easily forgive or forget the chicanery, underhanded closed door attempts at king-making, and generally coercive tactics utilized by the DNC that got us here.
The support for Bernie wasn't even just in the Democratic party. Young moderates and even a few conservatives I knew were excited about him.
That's exactly what I meant when I said he bridged the gap. Every single person I knew from every walk of life in my state were Bernie supporters including a surprising number of rural voters, moderates, and younger conservatives as you said in your post. I have just never seen anyone who's messaging was so effective at bringing so many different people together over solution oriented propositions on the issues.
Nothing has ever jaded me as much politically as watching what the DNC did to Bernie. The amount of fear they had over a candidate who was able to muster legitimate support from a heterodox voter base was very telling, and it shaped my political views more than any other experience in my life.
Yeah, many of whom went on to vote for Donald Trump in the general election.
It's "great" that he had so much "moderate" support, but if it had anything whatsoever to do with his actual policy views, so many of them wouldn't have stayed home or voted Trump.
They just shifted that excitement from Bernie to Trump, because it has nothing to do with policy. They ultimately made things worse by poisoning the well against Hillary.
These aren't the kind of people you want to court.
I disagree. If he had won the primary, those would have been voters for him instead of Trump, and I truly believe he would have won, or at least been more competitive than Hillary. People misjudged the mood of the voters badly prior to that election.
Huge Bernie fan. Voted for him in the primary.
But can we please stop pushing this bullshit agitprop designed to divide Democrats and progressives?
Political parties aren't government organizations, they're private companies. Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, and even though he often caucuses with them, he's been very outspoken against the Democratic party. Why would anyone ever think that the DNC would do anything to promote him over Hillary?
Even with all of that said, Bernie still came pretty damn close, and the DNC didn't "shoe-horn" anyone in. Hillary got more votes, it's time to get over it.
It will only last a few more years, but in the near-ish future the problem will take care of itself. (They're both very old)
Henry Kissinger is still alive.