Sanders Suspends: What Happened? What Now?
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Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk commented just as Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign: "Bernie made a number of mistakes that I highlighted and broke down in detail. No excuses. Having said that, you're out of your fucking mind if you think I'll forget or look past 'bloody Monday', aka the day Obama got Pete and Amy to drop out and endorse Biden. Saving his campaign."
In fact, the "Bloody Monday" move-- when Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar both endorsed Biden just after his South Carolina win and just before "Super Tuesday"-- might be the tip of the iceberg in terms of how the DNC or other establishment forces molded the campaign to producer this outcome.
Consider:
• Kamala Harris and Cory Booker pulled out of the race before South Carolina, paving the way for Biden's win there. Jim Clyburn of course endorsed Biden just before South Carolina. Tragically, Jesse Jackson only endorsed Sanders after.You couldn't have planned it better for Biden if you tried. And lots of forces-- from the DNC to the establishment media did try in thousands of ways.
• Warren split the progressive ranks throughout and ultimately refused to endorse Sanders.
• Even the choices of the candidates was useful to stopping Sanders. Pete Buttigieg was from Indiana and the net effect of his campaign was to deny Sanders a clear win in not-so-far-away Iowa. Amy Klobuchar was from Minnesota and so the net effect of her campaign was to throw that state to Biden so that Biden won something substantial outside of the south on Super Tuesday, making his rise appear national and therefore plausibly inevitable.
• Ostensibly antiwar candidate Tulsi Gabbard throughout refused to meaningfully criticize the war addicted Biden-- even when she had a clear shot to do so during the debates on his Iraq war lies. Meanwhile, Sanders just kept saying Biden voted for the Iraq war while Sanders didn't. Sanders never meaningfully made the case that Biden played key role in making the Iraq invasion happen and never really tore into his lies.
• Mike Gravel-- who might have really tore into Biden-- was excluded from the debate stage throughout.
• Julián Castro was marginalized shortly after he attacked Biden.
• Bloomberg coming in had the net effect of Warren going after him-- for things she could well have gone after Biden about but didn't. His demise effectively gave the base a sense of weird relief that Biden is the nominee: "Well, at least we didn't get stuck with Billionaire Bloomberg".
Indeed, in this incredibly vicious cycle, just as many Republicans likely turned to Trump because they felt they needed a corrupt celebrity to stop Hillary Clinton, many Democrats likely turned to Biden for similar reasons this year.
And at a societal level, the pandemic struck chords of fear in people's collective psychology. It was like the Y2K story. As January 1, 2000 approached, people were filled with dread and fear, so that what should have been a time for great hope was a time for just hoping to get by. Like now. The pandemic pushed many people to turn to the familiar, to something that they associate with not being a disaster. (This is the opposite of what happened in 1900-- that period was apparently greeted with great embrace.)
Then there's Sanders' own role, his incapacity-- or more likely, his unwillingness-- to mount sharper attacks on Biden, of shedding his imperial presumptions and more deeply taking on the foreign policy establishment. Sanders' ultimate legacy may be what the late great Bruce Dixon called "Sheepdogging."
So, now what?
As I outlined last month:
There are two obvious responses:Given the pandemic, all bets may be off. Things could slide into disaster-- or a great new world could be born. One could almost envision the rise of the Stay-At-Home party. People can talk to their loved ones in a way they never have. And they may embrace their neighbors-- even if it is at ten feet-- as the never have before. Zoom could be filled with hopes and dreams and a path might be found to get there. We might be driven by fear and shallow hate and sectarian thinking-- or we might decide to come together as a country and as a world as we never have before.
Burn it Down: The impulsive thing to do would be to want to burn down the Democratic Party. It’s possible that the establishment of the Democratic Party would be OK with this-- they seem to fear a President Sanders more than the fear another term of Trump. So, people would stay home or vote for a third party or independent candidate who openly states that they have virtually no chance of winning.
Cave In: Others might insist that no matter how badly the Democratic Party establishment treats its voters, they need to get in line come November and vote for whoever the nominee is. This is euphemistically referred to as “hold your nose and voting.” People have done this for decades and it’s typically resulted in the corporate wing of the Democratic Party becoming more and more powerful.
The first of these will be disastrous because it will help Trump.
The second will be disastrous because it effectively surrenders control of the Democratic Party to the corporate wing, probably for the foreseeable future.
But there is a third choice: The VotePact strategy.
With the VotePact strategy, in the general election, disenchanted Democratics team up with a disenchanted Republicans. They pair up: spouses and friends and coworkers and neighbors and debating partners and ex-facebook friends. Instead of the two of them voting for candidates they don’t want, they pair up and vote for the third party or independent candidate of their choice.
VotePact takes work. But it's a path out of the duopoly and toward freedom. Given the tumult before us, it is actually a rather moderate proposal, drawing us to a sane center, away from the disastrous paths of both Biden, which gave birth to Trump-- and Trump himself.
Labels: 2020 presidential election, lesser of two evils, Sam Husseini, VotePact
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 5:00 PM
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8 Comments:
The "Democratic" Party efforts to limit the People's Choice to their own corporatist choices is certainly bad enough on its own to merit abandonment by the voters.
But I'm going to look at another question: What has the "Democratic" Party done to EARN election?
Obamanation essentially strutted through his eight years and never did any of the heavy work to actually benefit the nation. I wish I could find even one of the articles I read during his first few months were he'd comment about how cool it was to go around wearing his POTUS jacket.
Meanwhile, he waited for the Congress to send him a health care bill he could sign.
The piece of crap he did produce is essentially destroyed now. The Republicans chipped away at it constantly until it's become completely useless, with premiums and copays now high enough that significant numbers of people can no longer afford to use it.
Heck of a job, Barry!
He passively let McConnell steal a POTUS nomination which rightfully belonged to him.
His lack of action generally allowed the GOP to take over 1000 state legislative seats away from the "Democrats", along with many governorships.
Just the highlights of why the disaster of 2010 happened - and why those conditions continue to exist.
But if the Republicans want something, the "Democrats" line up and vote for it. "Trillions for corporations, but pennies for the People" might as well be their surrender slogan.
One thing Hillary said (allegedly) which is somewhat true was "Where else are they going to go?" Considering how both "parties" are the paid-for property of corporations, she was certainly correct.
Which brings me to The VotePact strategy. I have never yet met a Republican who doesn't immediately snap to attention whenever the dog whistles blow. There is no likelihood that it can work, because the dog whistles never stop blowing. Every Republican knows that they have to defend "Freedom" and "Liberty" - for corporations from all those "lib'ruls" hiding under their beds and in their cabinets, waiting to pounce when their guard is let down.
So put me in the "Burn It Down" Party. When an election only produces a corporatist who only does the bidding of corporations while the needs of the populace go unmet, they can cry me a river over their lost "campaign contributions". Fuck them.
"With the VotePact strategy, in the general election, disenchanted Democratics team up with a disenchanted Republicans. They pair up: spouses and friends and coworkers and neighbors and debating partners and ex-facebook friends. Instead of the two of them voting for candidates they don’t want, they pair up and vote for the third party or independent candidate of their choice."
"VotePact takes work. But it's a path out of the duopoly and toward freedom. Given the tumult before us, it is actually a rather moderate proposal, drawing us to a sane center"
... um... wtf? freedom? to get even dumber? moderate? if you take the midpoint between parties, you're still a neoliberal fascist. the chasm between what disillusioned Nazis want and disillusioned lefties want is so wide that neither would agree to go that far just to compromise.
anything close to what a Nazi wants will only make things worse. anything much less than a total progressive and FDR-style revolution will not actually do any good.
Everything that won't do any good is not worth doing.
Credit for trying, I suppose.
"You couldn't have planned it better for Biden if you tried. And lots of forces-- from the DNC to the establishment media did try in thousands of ways."
Sanders' ultimate legacy may be what the late great Bruce Dixon called Sheepdogging."
Seems like I've seen that word before somewhere... whatever.
Biden's success (in this, his 8th or 9th try) is far more attributable to the voters getting dumber. For obamanation's strategery to work so spectacularly, voters had to be spectacularly stupid.
Do you know what you call a sheepdog that has no sheep? just a dog.
Too bad we have so many sheep for the sheepdogs.
To the list of things that were done to stop Bernie I would add:
1. Tom Perez selection at the DNC - that was a critical intervention by Obama in 2017.
2. Timing of impeachment -- took Sanders, Warren, and Klobuchar off the trail in critical weeks before the Iowa caucus.
3. Killing off the reporting of the final Des Moines Register poll. A move that probably did significant damage to Warren who was reported to have been in 2nd place ahead of Buttigieg.
4. Issues with Iowa vote reporting. If the first votes cast at satelitte caucuses had been reported first, Sanders would have been in the lead in both the popular vote and the delegate account for several days. Perez's interventions to slow and stop the counting and reporting -- the failure to correct errors -- blunted Sanders momentum going into New Hampshire.
Sanders team did an excellent job of anticipating and preparing for manipulation of the vote count in Iowa. In Nevada, they overcame efforts to sink his campaign over single-payer health care. They set things up well in Texas and California and were well positioned in Super Tuesday states prior to Obama's intervention on behalf of Biden.
Biden benefited from receiving no scrutiny by national media -- few attacks by other candidates. e.g. these made some sense -- Harris got a brief bump, but then a backlash. Same with Castro. Biden was generally popular with Dem voters so insulated him from attacks. Once the impeachment issue was resolved it also created space for him to get a bump.
As far as going forward, the answer in my view isn't about building up third parties. It's about building up organization and power around policy goals. That's where the real power resides in our political system anyways. The third party strategy is a dead-end because of ballot access rules, because of restrictions to debates, because of the cost of building up infrastructure. Party primaries are a relatively low cost point of entry. Hopefully the Dems make adjustments and make a vote for Biden (or whoever is the eventual nominee) something more than just a vote against Trump. There needs to be tangible commitments in terms of the transition team, cabinet roles, VP selection, opening up the DNC. My concern is that we get someone like Cuomo and he ends up doing to progressive activists what he's done in NY -- not just marginalizing those efforts -- but actively endangering the lives of ordinary people and creating additional obstacles for progressive policy goals. Basically acting like a socially liberal Republican. Bloomberg's threat of buying up Dem databases too sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. That would foreclose electoral strategies. There are other ways as well of influencing politics outside of electoral strategies. e.g. protests, strikes.
Could never vote for Biden. Period. Trump...perhaps with hesitation.
Jimmy Dore on why neither party is worth a damn
Anon: 9:10
I will never vote for Trump under any conditions. I can understand not voting for Biden. I could even understand voting for Trump in 2016. However, after all that has happened since 2016, Trump has proven time and again that he is the most corrupt and incompetent president in U.S. history. He has absolutely no concern for the American people. It's just about how much money he and his family can loot from the U.S. Obviously a lot of the richest people in this country and corporate elite have been happy to support him for this reason. "End of Timers" too. But I don't see how any sane, rational, self-interested ordinary American could cast an affirmative vote for Trump in 2020. It's absolutely crazy to do so.
I don't see how replacing one criminal organization with another makes any sense, 9L46 - especially when the replacement candidate has already promised Big Money that nothing will fundamentally change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pa55YtDBzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_xTjrF7Q3w
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