Where's BETO?
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I guess being known as the American Macron is better than being known as a flash in the pan. But that will be for history to determine. Writing yesterday for The Independent, Elle Griffiths got right the heart of the matter: "The left would presumably want to enact change, not just gain power for the sake of it, and O’Rourke has shown that for all his gloss and engaging rhetoric he simply doesn’t seem to stand for much." She a keener observer of our politics than many (many, many) U.S. writers. She's in Nottingham. But, like all of us, she really wanted to see Cruz lose last month. "And," she wrote, "for a short period of time, all the sectarianism of the Democrats and the American left seemed to evaporate as Clintonites, Bernie bros and centrists united and watched with bated breath as relative unknown Beto O’Rourke had the Republican incumbent running scared of losing his Senate seat. It wasn’t to be, but the fact that the photogenic and social media savvy congressman came so close to doing so in Texas, a notoriously red state that hasn’t seen such a good showing for a Democrat in 20 years, understandably set his star skyrocketing." So now he has to run for president? Jesus!
There were the crowded rallies, the big money raised from small donors, the celebrity endorsements and the electrifying speeches. It all felt very… familiar.Where's Beto today? Not here:
The comparisons to Obama are obvious and inevitable and at a time when nostalgia for the former president seems to be reaching fever pitch, this has only added to O’Rourke’s appeal. Indeed, a new poll this week confirmed his popularity, showing him to be the top choice among Democrats for presidential candidate in 2020. But this would be a mistake.
The fact that establishment Democrats can take a look at the current political landscape and decide what Americans are crying out for is “Obama, the sequel” makes me worry they haven’t learned a single lesson since 2016.
...The Trump presidency is not a political experiment, it’s a very real nightmare that is destroying people’s lives and the Democrats cannot afford to mess 2020 up. Picking the “right” candidate is paramount.
But what does that actually mean? Is the right candidate simply someone who can beat Donald Trump by virtue of not being him? Genuine progressives would presumably want to gain power to enact change, not just gain power for the sake of it.
And in this regard, O’Rourke comes up short. For all his gloss and engaging rhetoric he simply doesn’t seem to stand for much. While the democratic base is talking with increasing confidence and urgency about single payer healthcare and free college education, when it came down to it O’Rourke didn’t back either bill. He seems positively Clintonite when it comes to Wall Street regulation and has voted consistently pro-police to the point of supporting making police officers a protected class.
Furthermore, a U-turn on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza (as a rookie O’Rourke was one of just a handful of Democrats to vote against funding the “iron dome missile defence system” in 2014) suggests that when he does take a stand on something he lacks the stomach to fight for his convictions.
Such criticism may sound like pedantic purism and I empathise with and understand the urge to get swept up in Beto-mania. By very nature of American politics, the protracted search for a presidential candidate leaves a frustrating power vacuum when the opposition needs leadership to get on the offensive.
Never has that felt truer as we watch Donald Trump stagger from one controversy to another, bashing out typo-laden tantrums on Twitter. It is tempting to throw your eggs in the first basket that seems like a viable candidate.
But Democrats should hold their nerve. The ascendance of true progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shows both that these candidates exist and, crucially, that there is a huge appetite for them among Americans.
Beto O’Rouke is progressive for Texas, but he’s not what the party should be projecting for 2020.
Even if he did manage to beat Donald Trump, which is indeed feasible, an O’Rourke presidency isn’t going to magically reset everything back to the Obama years as if the Trump interim was just a bad dream. Nothing can.
The Democrats need to take off the rose tinted glasses, stop clinging to the centre and look forward like true progressives. Aesthetically pleasing moderates aren’t the antidote to right wing or left wing populism. Just ask France. This time, let’s say: "Yes we can... do better."
Labels: 2020 presidential election, Beto O'Rourke, Macron
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 5:00 AM
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4 Comments:
OK. Good piece on the democrap vacuum named beto.
but you still don't get it: "The fact that establishment Democrats can take a look at the current political landscape and decide what Americans are crying out for is “Obama, the sequel” makes me worry they haven’t learned a single lesson since 2016."
It isn't that they look at the sitchie and decide obamanation III would be the answer. It's that they look at the voters and think that obamanation III would be the best they can do to prevent someone who talks like Bernie from ruining their cash flow from corporations and still be palatable enough for their usual third of the electorate to keep showing up... reflexively?
And it is NOT 2016 they didn't learn from. They haven't learned shit since 2006. They're still baking the same cake from the same recipe... and all they need is for the EEG-flatlining left to keep eating that same cake.
They lost 15 million voters between 2008 and 2010 because obamanation was shit. After Pelosi's house refuses to do anything at all between 2019 and 2020, no telling how many of the anti-red voters of that wave will be lost.
It's a real difficult balancing act for the democrap oligarchy. They can be opportunistic when the Nazi admin is such a shit show. They cannot afford to dampen that anti-red wave by nom'ing another equally hated shit show like $hillbillary or biden. But they must never allow a sincere progressive to lead their ticket lest their corporate owners keep their checkbooks locked away.
The balance is for them to find someone who is just good enough (sounding) to cajole a winning number from among the barely sentient independents but provably fascist enough to keep their donors paying.
beto checks all the boxes... except he couldn't beat the most hated senator in history. if even Texan lefties see the light... it would be easy for lefties in the rest of the country to see it.
Anyone who would seek a repeat of the rule of "a moderate 1985 Reagan Republican: hasn't been paying attention since the Supremecist Court stole the 2000 election.
Obamanation did nothing for eight years but lick the boots of the RepubliKKKlans, serving as their Praetorian Guard and defending those performing the economic ravishment of the American Majority from the consequences of their actions. "I'm the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks," he told them, instead of rounding them up and putting them on trial.
We don't need another toady catering only to the wealthy. We don't need someone putting the needs of the nation behind the continued aggrandizement of those already bloated to excess. Anyone willing to get behind such a person is a fool.
If I had the cash I would buy an ad in the Washington Post Sunday Opinion section and run Pavlina's chart, because one glance will show you how we got Trump and why going back to Obama's policies would be a nightmare
https://www.pavlina-tcherneva.net/?lightbox=dataItem-ikwqx6fp
8:06, right on. You forgot to mention that electing democraps *IS* "putting the needs of the nation behind the continued aggrandizement of those already bloated to excess" and, therefore, makes one "a fool."
Alice, your chart is quite stark in its proof of what ails us (since Reagan).
But save your money. I doubt that more than 5% of the idiots in this cluster fuck of a shithole would understand it; and of the 5%, only 1 in 10 would be able to divine that the 2009- column proves that obamanation was perhaps our WORST ever president (especially considering his numbers in congress and his mandate).
a note: the only reason that the blue line during Clinton was not negative is purely due to happenstance. He won an election in '96 to be the president during 2 of the biggest bubbles in history (dot.com and Y2K) where a couple trillion in untaxed capital was spent creating actual middle-class jobs as speculators chased instant wealth and catastrophe-avoidance instead of stock buybacks and bigger bonuses.
Clinton, luckily for him, was term-limited so he left the deflation of both bubbles for cheney/bush. Voters didn't notice because of 9/11 and the Mideast wars for oil... and because they are imbeciles.
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