The Orange Menace Must Be Defeated-- Biden Needs To Rev Up The Democratic Base

I feel like Trump is slitting his own throat and, in fact, he's already a dead-man-walking in terms of the November election. That's my opinion and not everyone agrees with me. But polls show most voters have made up their minds and will not be swayed and a majority of them have made up their minds to oppose trump, whether they like Biden or not. In fact, stunning numbers of voters are just motivated to cast ballots against Trump, not for Biden. On his blog yesterday, David Sirota took it a step further and noted that "As Biden has ignored the Democratic base, polls now show he faces an enthusiasm gap. Progressive pressure is needed to force him to energize Democratic voters and defeat Trump. The survey data is clear: One of the biggest threats to defeating Donald Trump in the upcoming election is a Democratic enthusiasm gap. It exists, in part, because Democratic voters spent the last 12 years voting for change, and now they are exhausted after they kept getting a status quo that gratuitously kicks the face of humanity. The enthusiasm gap also exists because Joe Biden has seemed more focused on trying to court Republicans in ways that can demotivate Democratic voters. Progressives sounding alarms about these facts are periodically depicted as seditious Russian-backed assets nefariously trying to throw the election to Trump."

Most [progressives] criticize Biden not just because some of his policies are so wrong on the merits, but also because his wrongness is a clear and present danger to the effort to win the 2020 election.

A comparison of Biden’s positions and polling suggest that this danger is now very real, even though the Democratic ticket still could win.

Biden has continued to oppose Medicare for All, even as polls show the health care crisis has made that proposal even more popular.

Biden has used the wildfire season to declare that he won’t ban fracking-- a move portrayed in the media as a way to court Pennsylvania voters, even though a new poll shows a majority of voters there oppose fracking.

I remember when Matt Cartwright challenged Blue Dog incumbent, Rep. Tim Holden. Holden basically represented the fracking interests inside the House Democratic caucus and Cartwright made his own opposition to fracking the issue. Blue America put up anti-fracking billboards all over the district. Thewhole Democratic establishment-- especially Steny Hoyer-- came out strong for Holden. The Democratic establishment said an anti-fracking platform would never win in northeastern Pennsylvania. In a leans-Republican district, Cartwright beat Holden 33,255 (57.1%) to 24,953 (42.9%) and then went on to beat pro-fracking Republican Laureen Cummings 161,393 (60.3%) to 106,208 (39.7%). The GOP has been throwing candidates up against Cartwright-- whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus-- even since and, aside from screaming "Socialist!!!!" and "Pelosi" (and now "AOC and Ilhan"), they campaign against him on fracking as well. Since Cummings, he's beaten all 3 pro-fracking Republicans they ran against him-- even in 2016, when Trump won the district against Hillary by 10 points. They're trying again now and if you want to help Matt keep his seat, you can contribute here. 

Cartwright is backing Biden and I'm sure will be a good influence on him when he's in the White House. Back to Sirota:

Biden engineered a Democratic convention promoting GOP politicians as a way to try to make this “the year of the Biden Republican,” as Rahm Emanuel put it. And yet, a recent CBS/YouGov poll shows Biden is earning the support of just 5 percent of Republican voters and trailing Trump among independent swing voters.

The Biden-Sanders task forces produced some solid progressive economic policy recommendations, but Biden hasn’t campaigned on those proposals. Instead, his campaign publicly downplayed the recommendations, while Biden has continued to periodically echo his infamous “nothing would fundamentally change” theme by telling donors he may not actually push those policies. Now, one poll shows him underperforming among some Latino voters and another poll shows just 9 percent of his own voters say they are supporting him because of his position on issues.

...To be sure, enthusiasm may not determine the election outcomes-- an excited voter’s ballot is no less powerful than a depressed voter’s ballot, and as long as both ballots are turned in, then enthusiasm levels don’t matter. But enthusiasm tends to relate to turnout, and it could particularly determine turnout at a moment when some Americans will be required to be so psyched about the election that they are willing to venture out during a pandemic to cast their vote.

In that situation, enthusiasm probably matters a lot-- which means an enthusiasm gap could be a big problem.

...Voters aren’t unreasonable “purists” because they are unhappy that Democrats don’t seem to be offering policies that will prevent communities from being incinerated in climate-intensified wildfires. They aren’t “holier than thou” by expressing dissatisfaction with a Democratic Party still propping up a for-profit health care system that threatens to quickly bankrupt people when they need medical care.

At a moment of such pain and suffering, attempting to guilt, insult and bully voters into supporting the Democratic cause is moronic and ineffective-- and worse, it is ignorant of millions of Americans’ lived reality over the last 12 years. The Democratic electorate has voted over and over and over again for change, and their party’s leaders have returned the favor with bank bailouts, record oil exports during a climate emergency, an abandonment of the labor movement, corporate-written trade policies that crush workers and health care reform that props up insurance profits.

Who could experience the real-world consequences of that and not feel a wee bit frustrated?

Like? Click.

Yes, wanting voters to throw Trump out of office is totally understandable-- he is far more dangerous than Biden, he must be defeated, and there are plenty of constructive ways to make the case that voters should back the Democratic ticket (which I’ve said before is what I’ll be doing). But vote-shaming isn’t one of them. Indeed, throwing shade at voters for feeling burnt out and unenthused is the modern-day “let them eat cake”-- and the impulse to engage in as self-destructive a tactic as vote-shaming evinces the dangerous ideology at work here.

You’ll notice that Democratic vote-shamers rarely complain the other way. Typically, they lament progressive pressure, but don’t lament big donors constantly demanding ideological fealty to an incrementalist corporate agenda that makes sure nothing fundamentally changes-- which inevitably leads to voter disillusionment.

They celebrate efforts to policy pander to affluent conservatives, but scoff at the notion of having to do any work to secure support from disaffected lower income Americans who might consider sitting the election out or voting third party because they are so completely disgusted with both parties.

In this world view, Democrats promising tax breaks to wealthy suburbanites is seen as laudable pragmatism and shrewd politics to attract affluent Republicans. By contrast, the idea of having to promise a Green New Deal to young people who see a lifetime of climate dystopia and think about voting third party-- that’s seen as uncouth behavior and detestable pandering to petulant serfs who supposedly don’t deserve even minimal respect or attention. The political class tells us to pay them no mind-- they are the electoral arena’s “no real person involved.”

As an election strategy, this attitude presumes that Chuck Schumer was right in 2016 when he insisted that “for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”

Of course, that theory has been electorally shellacked for a decade. And yet, these Democratic elites adhere to it-- and vote-shame anyone who questions it-- not because it has been successful and is the best strategy to win back Congress, expand health care or save the planet from climate change. They cling to the hypothesis because it at least provides a rationale-- however absurd-- to continue running campaigns whose number one directive is comforting the donor class.

More than even defeating Trump, satisfying the big contributors is the top priority because at least that is guaranteed to keep their checks going to Washington super PACs, consulting firms, think tanks and advocacy groups that are the permanent full-time employment machine for the entire Democratic political class, regardless of whether that political class ever actually wins elections or materially improves the lives of voters.

As long as donor maintenance is the prime directive and the money keeps flowing, that political class will be safely insulated in their second homes in the Hamptons, still getting the big TV invites and the fat corporate lobbying contracts even if Trump wins.

The rest of us, though, are screwed in a second Trump term. We don’t have vacation compounds, escape pods or endless cash reserves for the basic necessities of life-- and so we do not have the luxury and privilege of staying silent while Biden’s corporate-friendly politics and nothing-will-fundamentally-change message elicits an enthusiasm gap that could blow this election.

When, for instance, Bernie Sanders politely suggested that Biden needs to amplify a stronger economic message and “do more as a campaign than just go after Trump,” that wasn’t apostasy-- that was much-needed encouragement for Biden to do the most basic things to actually win the race.

When progressives criticized Biden for loading up his transition team with corporate cronies, that wasn’t some evil plot to tank the Democratic ticket-- it was an effort to root out the soft corruption that has defined Democratic politics for three decades and that has contributed to voters being unenthused about the party.

When progressives wondered aloud why Biden was giving a platform to unpopular Republican politicians like John Kasich at the Democratic convention, it wasn’t some pointless temper tantrum-- it was an attempt to steer Biden away from touting the GOP politicians who turn off Democratic voters and toward generating the massive Democratic turnout that will be necessary to defeat the current president.

When this newsletter spotlighted Biden’s campaign using GOP talking points and suggesting he will not follow through on his campaign promises, that wasn’t a display of purity trolling-- it was a warning that such messages were not only dishonest but potentially vote-depressing. And when Team Biden then backed off, that’s not something to complain about-- that’s a victory not just for better policy, but also for the campaign to defeat Trump.

That’s a different interpretation than you are probably used to seeing. After all, in our red-versus-blue, with-us-or-against-us tribalized politics, loyalty is venerated as the ultimate value. But here’s the thing: Loyalty is not falling in line and shutting up while leaders coddle donors and create a dangerous voter enthusiasm gap.

That’s political suicide-- and all of us who do not want to see another election-night disaster have an obligation to speak up and try to avert it before it happens.

The Democrats Will Never Voluntarily Stop Force-Feeding Us Lesser Of Two Evils Elections

If U.S. politics were as binary as the average Joe thinks it is-- and everyone was either a Democrat or a Republican-- then any Democrat not voting for Status Quo Joe would be a traitor, just the way so many average Joes on Twitter seem to think #NeverTrump/#NeverBiden Americans are. Don't hate them for their simpleminds. Even the Simple Minds had a hit song. People who know nothing about Biden except that he was Obama's vice president-- if not why-- and is running for president, feel they can assail people who know a lot about why Biden is unfit for leadership because of their well-placed hatred for Trump. Some people, however, are committed to voting for a candidate, not against another candidate.

Likely many millions of Americans will be finding out exactly who Joe Biden is between now and November and the corporate entity known as The Democrats better hope that their anybody-but-Bernie jihad and their forever lesser-of-two-evils strategy, which has driven millions of Americans away from the party in disgust, works for them. They're so driven by both of these conditions that they're willing to risk inflicting Trump on the rest of us for another four years.

The Other #MeToo Movement

Last week Zak Cheney-Rice, in a New York Magazine essay noted that Tara Reade is making it harder to hide Joe Biden. He wrote that "Biden's most effective campaign strategy has been to lie low and let people vote for whatever imagined version of Joe Biden congealed inside their heads. On Friday, he went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the Tara Reade allegations. It was not a good argument for changing this strategy.

For the most part, the interview with Mika Brzezinski held few surprises: Biden denied the allegations that he assaulted Reade in 1993, when she was on his Senate staff, while maintaining that women who make such allegations should be heard and have their claims investigated seriously. He declined to speculate as to Reade’s motives and called on the secretary of the Senate to search for her complaint in the National Archives-- the “only … place a complaint of this kind could be,” Biden said. Less surefooted than these broad strokes were their substance and delivery. Soon after Biden called for the search, a National Archives spokesperson told Business Insider that they do not hold the records to which he referred, which, if true, means the vice-president directed the inquiry toward an easily verifiable dead end. More predictably, Biden proved to be an uninspiring spokesperson for himself, fumbling his words at times and cutting himself off mid-sentence, unprompted.

It vividly distilled his party’s bigger plight. With the general election looming, Democrats have organized, rationalized, and voted themselves into the unenviable but richly earned position of having a presumptive nominee who’s at his best when he’s neither speaking nor appearing in public. While other campaigns busied themselves with big plans, stirring rhetoric, and disruptive ideological positions, Biden’s candidacy has been judged by one criterion to the exclusion of all others: whether it’s up to the task of beating President Trump. Poll after poll has shown that Democrats privileged this metric in an outsize manner when winnowing the primary field, which included contenders who diverged negligibly from Biden in both demographic and ideological terms. But what the other candidates lacked has proved to be determinative: a career long, resilient, and ideologically contortive enough to have produced allies and admirers at every level of American politics, and the imprimatur of serving under the party’s most mythologized figure, President Obama. The persuasive heft this combination gave Biden’s pitch as a proven winner and America’s best bet for a return to normalcy-- meaning the pre-Trump status quo that gave us Trump-- was such that being the prohibitive front-runner where some candidates had campaigned for months merely required him to show up.

He proceeded to test voter goodwill at every turn. He reminisced fondly about working with segregationists, even as his record as a busing opponent, “tough on crime” zealot, and architect of punitive criminal-justice policy came under fire. He joked glibly about asking permission to touch his supporters, shortly after more than half a dozen women came forward with accounts of him touching them inappropriately. Perhaps most damning to the prospect of his running a presidential administration come January, to say nothing of four to eight years from now, the 77-year-old proved to be senescent, leaving thoughts unfinished in his public remarks, going off on tangents from which there was little hope of returning, and stumbling through debate appearances while his opponents ran roughshod over his stream of gaffes. It didn’t matter. His lead in the polls collapsed only briefly when Bernie Sanders’s momentum heading into the Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada primaries-- contests that Biden had largely dismissed as lost causes anyway-- suggested a general-election viability to rival his own. But a livelier-than-usual debate performance and endorsement from Representative Jim Clyburn cemented the vice-president’s South Carolina firewall and restored his winner’s sheen. He won that election in a landslide, prompting several challengers to drop out and endorse him. His victories on Super Tuesday and beyond left Sanders with little choice but to do the same.

This all happened despite Biden getting out-organized, out-debated, and out-spent by one or more of his opponents, sometimes several at a time, most glaringly in states like Alabama, Maine, and Minnesota, where the vice-president had no field offices but won anyway. That voters in these states could crib together their champion from fragments of a comparatively nonexistent effort to win them over suggests it hasn’t mattered much what Biden says, does, said, or did, as long as he can win — an endeavor aided immeasurably by the fact that everything else he does seems immaterial. The result is a national campaign to elect someone who exists largely in the minds of Biden’s supporters. Luckily for the real Biden, nobody to whom he’s inclined to listen is asking him to be anything more.

Nor, it seems, has his MSNBC appearance given them a good reason to. Quite the contrary: In the face of mounting evidence that Reade’s allegations are more than the baseless smear his campaign has dismissed them to be, Biden has mostly faded into the background while his surrogates, supporters, and some pundits went to bat for him, deploying timeworn canards about sexual assault victims and what circumstances justify disbelieving them, or dismissing Reade outright before a fuller picture sees daylight. When pressed on the latest developments-- that Reade told a neighbor and a former co-worker about her assault shortly after it’s alleged to have happened, according to Business Insider-- columnists from the New York Times to The Nation stepped up to discredit her, and politicos from Stacey Abrams to Nancy Pelosi reaffirmed their support of the vice-president. Even Kirsten Gillibrand, who drew ire from within the Democratic Party when she pushed for Al Franken to resign after evidence of his misconduct surfaced in 2017, doubled down on her support. (That it’s fallen mostly on women to speak for Biden when he’s hesitant to speak for himself-- and will likely continue to be-- indicts both his strategy and the sexist standards from which it profits.)

We’re now at the point where corroborating testimony supporting Reade’s allegations meets or exceeds the threshold established by those made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and President Trump. Many of their defenses are now being deployed to protect a man whose efforts to nullify the former’s power and depose the latter are being framed by his supporters, and even some of his skeptics, as America’s best alternative to catastrophe, moral and otherwise. Opportunism guides political behavior as much as cynicism and hypocrisy shape it. That’s about as involved an explanation as this reversal merits, I think. More striking is that Biden hasn’t had to do much of the defending himself. Mounting evidence supporting Reade’s claim makes things harder, but he’s largely staying true to the strategy that’s guided his campaign since early on, which holds that the winningest Biden is one to be imagined, not seen, heard, or even thought about too hard. His staff recognizes that the less its candidate speaks, the less opportunity his supporters have to neglect evidence that undermines their faith-- in his competence, his election odds, and, increasingly, his innocence. If there’s one thing for which the Democrats have yet to punish Biden this cycle, it’s his silence in the face of lingering doubt. To change that now would be to change the very foundation of his campaign’s success.

I made up my mind about Biden when I was living abroad and reading about a young racist asshole running for the Senate in Delaware. Since then, he's never given me a moment to reconsider. In fact, he consistently got worse in the Senate and after that, Obama called all the shots for him. I believe Obama is doing that again today and whether Biden is ultimately the nominee or replaced with a younger, more palatable version will be Obama's call as well.

Bonnie Kristian attempted to figure out what many people want to know. Is it possible to get rid of Biden... if not elegantly at least not by some method that smacks of a coup? "Before the convention, which is currently rescheduled for August," she wrote, "the answer is probably no. Suspended primary elections have already raised concerns about abrogation of transparent, democratic processes... While Democratic delegates will understand the need to modify normal convention procedure to avoid spreading COVID-19, their understanding won't be unlimited. Sweeping changes to the nominating process would be suspect, and if the process continues as anticipated, Biden will very likely be selected as the nominee on the first ballot.

So far, Biden has 1,406 of 1,991 delegates needed to win that initial vote, and those are delegates pledged (by strong custom, though not law) to Biden by primary and caucus results. Between now and August, there will be 22 more primaries whose outcomes will pledge another 1,368 delegates. Biden has no remaining challengers campaigning against him and needs fewer than half those delegates to win the first ballot. Unless the Democratic Party, wildly improbably, tosses its entire rule book out the window, Biden will take the nomination at the convention in a single vote.

Ah, but what then? In the waning days of the Sanders campaign, I argued endorsements from superdelegates-- prominent Democratic leaders and elected officials-- showed party bosses had decided Biden was their guy. I don't expect to see those endorsements disappear, not publicly. But is the party leadership's commitment to Biden as solid as it once was?

Suppose, plausibly, it is not. Suppose they don't want to run a historically elderly candidate amid a pandemic that is deadliest for the elderly? Suppose Tara Reade's assault accusation and Biden's tendency to misspeak even from the low-pressure, high-preparation environment of his own basement further fuel the "two senile sex offenders" narrative of this election? Suppose enthusiasm continues to grow for running New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), whom one poll found 56 percent of Democrats would prefer to Biden as their nominee? (Cuomo says he won't do it, but that could be an obligatory performance of deference to a party elder.)

"The presidential debates are in effect already occurring daily between" Cuomo and Trump, Craig Snyder, a former Republican Senate chief of staff, argued in the Philadelphia Inquirer. We don't have to suppose Democratic Party leaders have noticed; they undoubtedly have.

So if they wanted to replace Biden (whether with Cuomo, the veep nominee, or some arrangement of both) Democratic leadership could wait until after the nomination to do so. Then, as they did with Democratic vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton in 1972, they could ask Biden to step aside, citing his health.

Biden's agreement is a long shot. Eagleton continued his Senate career after leaving the 1972 ticket over pressure about his mental health, but he was a much younger man. At Biden's age, stepping aside would end his political career for good. Relinquishing the nomination would therefore suggest he expects an embarrassing loss and ruined legacy if he stays.

With Biden out, the Democratic National Committee, a group of around 350 which is "composed of the chairs and vice-chairs of each state Democratic Party Committee and over 200 members elected by Democrats in all 57 states and the territories," would vote to select a new nominee.

Such a switch could be made any time between the convention nomination and Election Day. Because we technically vote for Electoral College members rather than presidential candidates, it may be, as Vox proposes, that Electors could simply transfer their vote from the old Democratic nominee to the new one regardless of what was printed on the ballot. But the legal situation is uncertain and varies from state to state. "For instance," notes FiveThirtyEight, "Michigan's law requires an Elector to vote for the ticket named on the ballot whereas Florida's rules say that an Elector is to 'vote for the candidates of the party that he or she was nominated to represent.'" That means a sooner swap, allowing more states to print the new name on the ballot, would be better. Yet court battles would be inevitable with the ever-litigious Trump involved.

The likeliest outcome remains the most straightforward: That Biden will be the Democratic nominee and will face Trump in November. But if Democratic leaders did want to change horses midstream, late August or September could well be when they make their move.

Obama will decide.

Amy Klobuchar And Sherrod Brown Want To Be President Too

I've tried to make it clear that the Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President series is not just for any candidate I don't like, but really for the very worst of the worst, like Gillibrand and Bloomberg. So... I may not want to see Amy Klobuchar get the nomination, nor Sherrod Brown, Cory Booker or Kamala Harris, but none of them belongs in that series. Still all fair game for criticism of course, but not as a "Worst Democraps." For example, reporting for BuzzFeed News yesterday, Molly Hensley-Clancy wrote that there's more to Klobuchar than Minnesota Nice. "[B]ehind the doors of her Washington, DC, office, the Minnesota Democrat ran a workplace controlled by fear, anger, and shame, according to interviews with eight former staffers, one that many employees found intolerably cruel. She demeaned and berated her staff almost daily, subjecting them to bouts of explosive rage and regular humiliation within the office, according to interviews and dozens of emails."

Dead Armadillo by Nancy Ohanian

It looks like two of the next announcements will be from the Midwest: Amy Klobuchar on Sunday and Sherrod Brown... soon. Since first being elected to the Senate in 2006, Klobuchar has rarely been a topic for DWT. The last time she was involved with anything controversial was when she got into a mud-wrestling match with Justin Bieber as she spearheaded an effort-- for which she was well-paid-- to make it a felony to stream certain content online. She introduced a Luddite "illegal streaming bill" (SB 978) for Hollywood, co-sponsored by 2 corporate whores, John Cornyn and Chris Coons, meant to make the streaming of any copyrighted material on the Internet a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. At the time, the nonprofit, Fight for the Future, was particularly concerned and launched a campaign called "Free Bieber," using the example of Justin Bieber’s rise to fame, doing cover songs, as a way to get out the message. (Ironically, Bieber’s camp issued a cease-and-desist over using his name in the campaign.) The implications were far broader than a Bieber, though. When Rufus Wainwright and Sean Lennon covered Madonna’s "Material Girl" at Occupy Wall Street, if someone had uploaded a video of the performance to YouTube, Madonna (or whomever owns any part of her music or publishing) could sue the uploader if it’s deemed a "public performance." October 23, 2011:



In the end, the Senate was just embarrassed by the bill and it didn't get a vote. She introduced it again a year later and the Senate basically told her to just stop wasting everyone's time. This week she made a spectacle of herself again-- the only serious candidate for the Democratic nomination to vote in favor of making it a crime to boycott Israel. Voting against the bill were Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, even Kirsten Gillibrand, while Klobuchar joined all the Republicans and the AIPAC-Dems to vote for another clearly unconstitutional bill that appeals to her (or her donors).

The only other time we thought about her this year was when she was blandly and ineptly questioning Brett Kavanaugh. Justin, a sharp lawyer friend of mine told me her performance would have flunked her out of Duke, where he had graduated.

NBC News began its day yesterday with a report from Chuck Todd and Co. about how geography-- ie, the Midwest-- is destiny in presidential races. A stretch, at best. "People," they wrote, "often forget this about Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign: One of his strengths-- in both the primaries and general election-- was geography. Obama’s Illinois borders Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Indiana, and Obama won all of these states in either the primaries/caucuses (Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin) or the general election in 2008 (Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana). And part of the POTENTIAL that Klobuchar brings to the 2020 Democratic field is the ability to replicate this Obama strength from 2008. Minnesota, after all, borders Iowa (whose caucuses could be more important than ever this cycle), as well as Wisconsin (which could be 2020’s all-important battleground state in the general election)." Most of Minnesota borders North and South Dakota, Manitoba and Ontario, although I guess in theory you can see across Lake Superior from Grand Marais to Isle Royale, which is part of Michigan but has no inhabitants. I doubt Klobuchar is hanging her hat on the geography theory.

Daniel Straus and Holly Otterbein had a more salient theory for what Sherrod Brown could be hanging his hat on-- being Biden without the baggage. That Biden is nothing at all-- except the name recognition from having been a part of Obama-- other than the baggage isn't occurring to anyone yet. His lane is largely discredited neo-liberal corporatism and I doubt Brown really wants to identify with that, at least not in a primary. None-the-less, they insist that Biden and Brown "are on an early collision course in the initial days of the 2020 presidential race. They’re chasing the same potential supporters, touting the same themes and even using some of the same language to go after President Donald Trump. And Brown, kicking off a pre-campaign tour of key presidential voting states last week, made clear that if he gets into the race he intends to run, essentially, as Biden without the baggage."

Chris Schwartz, a Black Hawk county supervisor who hosted an event for Brown in Iowa, introduced him by ticking off a list of votes-- including opposing NAFTA, opposing the Defense of Marriage Act and voting against authorization of the war in Iraq-- that had featured Biden on the other side.

"All those things that I said that Sherrod Brown got right, Joe Biden got every single one of those things wrong." Schwartz said. He said that the congressional record might not come to mind immediately for other caucus-goers. But "we've seen Biden on the campaign trail many times already so we already know what to expect,” Schwartz continued. “He certainly has done great things for the country [quick-- name one] but I just don't think that’s what folks are looking for."

Brown’s “Dignity of Work” tour introduced himself as a progressive who can “talk to workers” and railed against the distractions of Trump’s “phony populism”-- echoing a memorable Biden line from the midterm campaign trail. Brown’s political pitch is that he can win back the Midwest for Democrats after winning reelection in Ohio in 2018-- a version of the rationale that the Scranton-born former VP can reconnect Democrats with the working-class white voters who have left the party in recent years.

...Brown himself is more diplomatic. When asked whether he and Biden are trying to make the same appeal to voters, Brown pivoted to his campaign slogan. "I'm not going to make the comparison to anybody, but my whole career has been about the dignity of work," Brown said.

As Brown and Biden both consider the presidential race, they and their respective supporters have both tried to frame themselves in a specific light: progressive Democrats with long lists of liberal policy positions who can nevertheless reach out to voters across the partisan divide.

Brown will also face questions from the left-- he has firmly refused to endorse Medicare for all, for example, saying he first wants to see more incremental changes like lowering the Medicare eligibility age. But at each stop in his early pre-campaign tour, Brown has laid out his background of winning elections in an increasingly Republican-leaning state [Democrats just won 3 of the 4 House seats and came within a hair of winning the 4th] while also staying a champion of major liberal issues like fighting for same sex marriage and voting against the war in Iraq.

"I think Democratic primary voters want somebody that’s going to be on the side of workers and will not compromise on civil rights and workers’ rights and LGBT rights," Brown said during a stop in Cresco.

Ohio attorney, activist and blogger Tim Russo knows Brown up close and personal-- and is no fan. Friday he was writing about the beginning of revolution: When The Boots Wear Out, Will Anyone Be Ready To Listen. Russo wrote that in the clip from Doctor Zhivago, "Alec Guiness plays a Russian Bolshevik joining the czar’s final army with the sole purpose of being in place when World War I grinds the working class soldiers to dust, predicting, 'when the boots wore out they’d be ready to listen.' As a new presidential campaign begins to reveal to America that hindsight is indeed 2020, American boots are beginning to wearing out."

Ohio voted for Obama twice, then Trump in 2016. To establishment media, and establishment Democrats, this somehow means Ohio is irrevocably a Republican state. To Alec Guiness’ character in Doctor Zhivago, it means quite something else. Ohio has been voting for radical change three presidential elections in a row now, but change never comes. In a hopelessly rigged game, both political parties’ establishments now shamelessly plundering America before our eyes, Ohioans know to the bones in their weary feet the boots are indeed wearing out.

The Obama-Obama-Trump voter of Ohio may just stop voting altogether in 2020. If the choice for Ohio in 2020 remains an abusive, insulting, pointless D vs. R, why subject oneself to ever more self humiliation? I used to seethe in anger at nonvoters. How dare you? Now, I’m close to giving up voting myself. My own personal story of endless exile imposed by the very Democrats I helped elect myself would be enough justification.

Boy, did I help, swallowing hook line and sinker every fraudulent con designed to excise every coming generation’s security into some repugnant oligarch’s third yacht, fourth home, tax haven hedge fund on an island with a private jet strip built solely to escape the reckoning they know is coming. That is my Generation X’s responsibility-- we bought it. Such fools we were. Turns out, we weren’t temporarily embarrassed millionaires in waiting. We were suckers.

Americans aren’t yet 1931 hobos begging brother, can you spare a dime; yet. But we know our road is cut off before us. The 2020 presidential election may be the last chance America has to avoid the hell the characters in Doctor Zhivago would soon endure, as the boots slowly wear out.

This morning, Tim, no doubt fired up by Alex Guiness, was still waxing poetic-- if a little more pointedly so: "As we march back from the fake front to face our real enemies in our worn out boots, snakes like Sherrod Brown will wave their canary logo at us, but we will all know his bird is kept in a golden cage gilded by Wall Street. Rotted boots tend to cleanse the soul and open the eyes."

The Centrist Primary-- Who Will Represent The 1950s In 2020?

Yesterday, Dave Weigel tweeted "One fallacy you’ll never see me fall for is that an election between Trump and 'someone on the left like Warren' would leave a huge path in the middle. If you’re saying that, find me the polls and point to the unpopular idea the left is running on. There isn’t one." Back in October, Weigel reported a telling remark by Biden at a rally in Alabama-- during which Biden fondly remembered the "good old days" during which the Senate was filled with segregationists from the South: "Guys, the wealthy are as patriotic as the poor. I know Bernie doesn’t like me saying that, but they are."

Au contraire, mon ami, I'm pretty certain Bernie would very much like Biden to say that-- and would like him to say it over and over and over again. People need to remember what Joe Biden was before Obama plucked him from his goof-ball conservative Senate record and made him respectable to folks outside the Beltway who didn't know anything much about him and his repulsive neo-liberal, corporatist career.

There's a separate primary going on within the Democratic Party: which ideological fossil between Biden and the two billionaires (3 if you want to count Andrew Yang) will represent the ancien régime? Sunday night 60 Minutes brought one of the billionaires into our living rooms-- and Democrats, at least the ones who don't work as scum-sucking consultants, wrote him off. He had already changed his mind about running in a primary-- knowing full well he couldn't compete no matter how much of his $3.3 billion he spent-- and to run as "an independent centrist" instead. Hours after the 60 Minutes debut, Mr. Starbucks told Axios that he was "unfazed" by the online trashing he got from Democrats. After making it perfectly clear he would oppose spending any money to help struggling working families, he told Axios "I'm concerned about one thing: Doing everything I can to help families who have been left behind." What a joke!

Monday morning, bright and early, Politico was out with a post by Ben White, Wall Street freaks out about 2020, whose theme we are sure to see repeated over and over for the next two years: "Top Wall Street executives would love to be rid of President Donald Trump. But they are getting panicked about the prospect of an ultraliberal Democratic nominee bent on raising taxes and slapping regulations on their firms." And not even one gratuitous bashing of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the whole piece! Good man!

You know who Wall Street wants-- maybe even more than they wanted Hillary: Bloomberg first and foremost and forever! "The result," wrote White, "is a kind of nervous paralysis of executives pining for a centrist nominee like Michael Bloomberg while realizing such an outcome is unlikely from a party veering sharply to the left."

Early support from deep-pocketed financial executives could give Democrats seeking to break out of the pack an important fundraising boost. But any association with bankers also opens presidential hopefuls to sharp attacks from an ascendant left.

And it’s left senior executives on Wall Street flailing over what to do.

“I’m a socially liberal, fiscally conservative centrist who would love to vote for a rational Democrat and get Trump out of the White House,” said the CEO of one of the nation’s largest banks, who, like a dozen other executives interviewed for this story, declined to be identified by name for fear of angering a volatile president. “Personally, I’d love to see Bloomberg run and get the nomination. I’ve just never thought he could get the nomination the way the primary process works.”

"Socially liberal, fiscally conservative centrist," means "conservative" in the early 21st Century. Not a progressive like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren and not a Trump fascist, just a garden variety conservative. As for moaning about "the way the primary process works." Pity the poor billionaires... people voting can be just deadly for their ambitions. Damn democracy! When White wrote that "across Wall Street and more in executive suites across the nation, corporate titans are trying to figure out how to navigate the 2020 presidential election," the word "navigate" could be read as "control." They demand a conservative-- demand, demand, demand-- "On Wall Street, executives love Trump’s tax cuts and soft-touch regulatory posture. But as the nation comes off the longest shutdown in American history amid warnings of an impending economic slowdown, there is also a clear preference for a change to more predictable leadership."

Remember, Wall Street "backed then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008, viewing him as more savvy about the depths of the financial crisis than Sen. John McCain, the GOP nominee. Bankers swung back toward Republicans in 2012 when private-equity executive Mitt Romney became the standard-bearer. But the financial support could not overcome-- and perhaps added to-- Romney’s image as a plutocrat with fancy houses and a rotating garage. In 2016, Wall Street campaign cash and paid speeches to big banks became a serious headache for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, helping open her to a brutal primary battle with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who made those banker ties a central issue. Now, several Democrats are trying to figure out if they can scoop up Wall Street money without significant blowback." Oh, yes... here we go: enter the conservatives-- social moderates, fiscal conservatives.

After mentioning Bloomberg, Wall Street executives who want Trump out list a consistent roster of appealing nominees that includes former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Kamala Harris of California. Others meriting mention: former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, though few really know his positions.

Bankers’ biggest fear: The nomination goes to an anti-Wall Street crusader like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) or Sanders. “It can’t be Warren and it can’t be Sanders,” said the CEO of another giant bank. “It has to be someone centrist and someone who can win.”

...For Democratic candidates, seeking Wall Street support in the 2020 race will be tricky. The allure of cash to report on initial fundraising filings remains strong. Booker, Harris and Gillibrand have all taken meetings or made calls to top Democrats on Wall Street gauging potential financial support.

But news reports of such meetings often draw swift social media backlash from progressives who don’t want the 2020 nominee to have anything to do with Wall Street “fat cats“ and view higher taxes on the wealthy and stronger banking regulations as sacrosanct positions for any potential nominee to hold.

After CNBC reported earlier this month on Gillibrand making calls to bankers to gauge potential support for a 2020 bid, the senator tweeted a list of her progressive credentials on the banking industry including support for a financial transactions tax, reinstating a wall between retail and investment banking and opposing the bank bailouts of 2008.

In several interviews, Wall Street executives cited these positions as reasons they were skeptical of Gillibrand as a candidate and unlikely to support her unless she catches fire and emerges from the field. “It will be an interesting test to see if people actually step up and support her,” one senior executive at a large bank said. “There is not a lot of trust there.”

But Gillibrand does have Wall Street backers who view her as pragmatic, a centrist and preferable to Warren or Sanders.

“She understands Wall Street, but she is not owned by Wall Street,” said Larry Rand, a Wall Street veteran and visiting professor of economics at Brown University. “Wall Street likes her because she is a pragmatist, not an ideologue, and of the announced candidates so far she is the most electable.” [In their dreams.]

...[T]he allure of wealthy donors who can write the maximum $2,700 checks to candidates-- and billionaires who can fund outside super PACs-- will remain, especially given the competition for small dollar online donations and the pressure to put up solid fundraising numbers in early reporting periods to show momentum.

“People are still calling and showing up. They just don’t want to be seen doing it,” a senior Wall Street executive who has worked in Democratic politics said.

Pete Buttigieg, the Democratic mayor of South Bend, Ind., who just entered the presidential race running at least in part as a voice of fiscal prudence, said in an interview that he would not shy away from seeking Wall Street cash. “But I’m not sure they would be too wild about me anyway,” he said, noting that he too is focused on small dollar, grassroots donors.

While Bloomberg represents something of the platonic ideal on Wall Street-- fiscally responsible while strong on climate change and gun policy and not in need of cash-- Biden represents something of a wild card.

The former vice president does not have deep relationships across Wall Street, but he’s viewed favorably as a candidate who could win and would take a somewhat more moderate approach on taxes and regulation. But there are concerns about his age and his penchant for gaffes.

“Everybody likes him. I don’t know if you want him to be president at 78 in 2020, but it looks like he’s in great shape,” said one hedge fund manager and top Democratic donor. “If it’s Biden and Beto or Biden and Harris, that might make a difference. The good news for Biden is everyone likes him. The bad news is there is not a lot of passion.”

Among the most hardcore Democrats on Wall Street, the strong desire is to find a candidate-- any candidate-- who can beat Trump, even if that means getting behind someone like Warren who supports policies that bankers hate.

“Everybody just wants to win,” a second senior executive who has worked in Democratic politics at the presidential level said. “It’s as wide open as I’ve ever seen it. There is no gravitational force that everyone is sort of running towards. Everyone has their candidate. Frankly, if people believed Warren would win, they’d jump on board. And everyone in the top tier not named Bernie Sanders could probably win.”

NOTE: Bernie isn't as popular on Wall Street as he is in America. But, can America throw off its Wall Street chains in 2020? Remember... the banksters want anyone other than Bernie. That should tell you something about who would be the greatest president of any of our lifetimes.

Did Biden Cost Us A Seat In Michigan?

Joe Biden by Nancy Ohanian

Matt Longjohn was a good solid progressive candidate last year in MI-06, the southwest Michigan district that is centered on Kalamazoo and includes all or part of 6 counties: Kalamazoo (the biggest and overwhelmingly blue), Berrien, Allegan, Van Buren, St. Joseph and Cass. Upton only managed to get 50.2% of the vote, his worst showing ever. Not one poll leading up to the election showed Upton hitting 50% and the last poll, from Change Research, had Longjohn beating him 42-40%. The Change Research polling for half a dozen tight races was extremely predictive, except in MI-06.

Upton, a hereditary multimillionaire, out-spent Longjohn $3,527,274 to $1,443,894. The DCCC largely ignored the race, as they did with nearly all progressive candidates, spending just $219,564. Did the DCCC kill the chance to replace Upton with a progressive? They had a role-- but apparently not as much as Joe Biden's! According to Alexander Burns' report, Biden's Paid Speech Buoyed The GOP In Midwest Battleground, Biden, well known as a virtual gaffe machine-- worse now that he's been getting increasingly senile-- stumbled into the MI-06 race and screwed it up for Longjohn, not on purpose, of course, but because he's still an asshole.

It was just before the election in November in one of the biggest and most crucial towns in the district, Benton Harbor in swingy Berrien County. Burns wrote that Biden "took the stage at Lake Michigan College as Representative Fred Upton, a long-serving Republican from the area, faced the toughest race of his career. But Mr. Biden was not there to denounce Mr. Upton. Instead, he was collecting $200,000 from the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan to address a Republican-leaning audience, according to a speaking contract obtained by the New York Times and interviews with organizers. The group, a business-minded civic organization, is supported in part by an Upton family foundation."

Biden stunned Democrats and elated Republicans by praising Mr. Upton while the lawmaker looked on from the audience. Alluding to Mr. Upton’s support for a landmark medical-research law, Mr. Biden called him a champion in the fight against cancer-- and “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with.”

Mr. Biden’s remarks, coming amid a wide-ranging discourse on American politics, quickly appeared in Republican advertising. The local Democratic Party pleaded with Mr. Biden to repair what it saw as a damaging error, to no avail. On Nov. 6, Mr. Upton defeated his Democratic challenger by four and a half percentage points.

As Mr. Biden considers a bid for the presidency in 2020, the episode underscores his potential vulnerabilities in a fight for the Democratic nomination and raises questions about his judgment as a party leader. Mr. Biden has attempted to strike a balance since leaving office, presenting himself as a unifying statesman who could unseat President Trump while also working to amass a modest fortune of several million dollars.

But Mr. Biden’s appearance in Michigan plainly set his lucrative personal activities at odds with what some Democrats saw as his duty to the party, linking him with a civic group seen as tilting to the right and undermining Democrats’ effort to defeat Mr. Upton, a powerful lawmaker who in 2017 helped craft a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Ac

Eric Lester, a retired physician who chaired the Democratic Party in Berrien County, Mich., during the midterms, said he viewed Mr. Biden’s supportive remarks about Mr. Upton as a betrayal. Mr. Lester, who attended the speech, said he had confronted an aide to Mr. Biden in the hallway, telling him the former vice president had badly damaged the Democratic cause.

“It just gives Fred Upton cover and makes it possible for him to continue to pretend to be a useful, bipartisan fellow,” Mr. Lester recalled saying, adding, “I entered the hall with positive feelings about Mr. Biden and felt very frustrated.”

Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist and veteran of several presidential campaigns, said it was an open question whether voters in the party would punish candidates they see as overly friendly or cooperative with Republicans. He suggested that could be one of the defining pressures for Mr. Biden if he announces his candidacy.

“I really believe the country does not want to be at war with each other,” Mr. Trippi said. “But there is also the polarization going on, where people say: Damn it, I want to fight.”

Several people involved in planning the event said Mr. Upton, 65, had no role in arranging Mr. Biden’s appearance, and Mr. Upton said he was not involved. There is no evidence Mr. Biden was motivated to praise the lawmaker by anything other than sincere admiration, stemming from Mr. Upton’s role in crafting the 21st Century Cures Act after the death of Mr. Biden’s elder son, Beau, from cancer in 2015.

Bill Russo, a spokesman for Mr. Biden, said the research-funding legislation was the foundation of Mr. Biden’s relationship with Mr. Upton.

“It was one of the few bipartisan bills passed in an otherwise deeply divided and gridlocked Congress,” Mr. Russo said. “Vice President Biden believes to his core that you can disagree politically on a lot and still work together in good faith on issues of common cause-- like funding cancer research.”

Regarding Mr. Biden’s decision not to endorse Mr. Upton’s Democratic challenger, Matt Longjohn, Mr. Russo said the former vice president “received hundreds of requests for endorsements from all over the country and endorsed in 135 races this cycle where his impact could be greatest.”

Since leaving office, Mr. Biden has sought out opportunities to earn substantial income-- mainly through paid speeches and a multimillion-dollar book deal-- and his newfound wealth would be closely scrutinized in a presidential race. Mindful of Hillary Clinton’s stumbles in the 2016 presidential race, Mr. Biden has attempted to set guidelines for his activities that would minimize any political sensitivity, declining to give paid speeches to big banks or to accept foreign contributions to several nonprofit organizations he controls.

Mr. Biden has continued to pursue commercial activities while he is in the final stage of making a 2020 decision; he is scheduled to give a talk in Grand Prairie, Tex., a suburb of Dallas, on Thursday, as part of an extended tour promoting his 2017 book, Promise Me, Dad.

The speaking contract for Mr. Biden’s October appearance in Michigan suggests that the popular Democrat would have known he was addressing a Republican-leaning crowd. The speaking series was underwritten in part by organizations connected to Mr. Upton’s family: Among the biggest sponsors listed on the Economic Club’s website are the Whirlpool Corporation, which was co-founded by Mr. Upton’s grandfather, and the Frederick S. Upton Foundation, a family charity named for the same man.

The contract for Mr. Biden’s visit shows he was paid $200,000 for his appearance, including a $150,000 speaking fee and a $50,000 travel allowance. It also specifies that the audience would be “primarily older, conservative Republicans and local community members.” The document was disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information request made by America Rising, a Republican group that conducts research on Democratic candidates.

It is unclear whether the fees Mr. Biden received in this case are standard for all his speeches. Mr. Biden’s aides have declined to confirm what his rates are for paid appearances, including the appearance in Michigan, or how much he has earned through paid speaking since leaving office. In at least one instance, his speaking bureau, Creative Artists Agency, offered a reduced rate of $100,000, plus travel expenses, to the University of Utah.

If Mr. Biden were to have charged a similar range of fees for all his comparable speeches since leaving office, he would most likely have collected between $4 million and $5 million through speeches over the last two years.

Representatives of Lake Michigan College, which recently took over management of the Economic Club speaker series, and the Fredrick S. Upton Foundation confirmed that the Upton organization was a major sponsor of the series. Both organizations said Mr. Upton had no role in proposing or choosing the speakers. Lisa Cripps-Downey, president of the Berrien Community Foundation, a nonprofit that administers the Frederick S. Upton Foundation, confirmed that the organization had given substantial funding to the Economic Club, with an annual grant of $80,000 over the last three years-- a total close to a quarter-million dollars.

“When we see the speakers, we’re just as surprised as everybody else,” Ms. Cripps-Downey said.

Mr. Russo said Mr. Biden’s team had been aware that the Frederick S. Upton Foundation helped fund the Economic Club. He said Biden aides had vetted the funding sources for the speaking series and concluded they met his standards.

Mr. Upton, who confirmed in a statement that he attended Mr. Biden’s speech at Lake Michigan College, said he had “no idea” that Mr. Biden would refer to him at all, let alone so favorably. The two men ran into each other briefly at the venue, before Mr. Biden’s speech, and they agreed to follow up to discuss the medical-research law’s implementation, an aide to Mr. Upton said.

“Being in the audience with my family and hearing Vice President Biden reference our work together was an immense honor,” Mr. Upton said. “He was warmly received by everyone in attendance who were thrilled to have him there, including myself.”

For campus speeches, Mr. Biden refuses to let schools pay him with funds that come from the government or from extra fees charged to students-- requirements that appear to have been met in this case.

Candice Elders, a spokeswoman for Lake Michigan College, said funding for the speaking series there “comes from private sources through ticket sales, memberships, contributions, grants, sponsorships and event proceeds.” She said the grant from the Frederick S. Upton Foundation is part of a fund designed to make up any difference between expenses for the speaker series and the revenue brought in by events. Ms. Elders estimated that the Upton grant makes up about 11 percent of the series budget.

Ms. Elders said that no public money was used for the event, and that Mr. Biden addressed a group that included several hundred college and high school students while he was on campus. “Young people from area schools and nonprofit organizations are routinely invited to attend Economic Club events at no cost,” Ms. Elders said.

The greatest impact of Mr. Biden’s speech, however, was outside the lecture hall. His remarks about Mr. Upton ricocheted through Michigan’s Sixth Congressional District. Mr. Upton alluded to Mr. Biden’s praise in a debate with Mr. Longjohn the next day, and his campaign sent out a mailer stressing Mr. Upton’s bipartisan streak, including Mr. Biden’s description of him as “the reason we’re going to beat cancer.”

A business-backed Republican group, Defending Main Street, ran digital ads on Facebook showing a grinning Mr. Biden and the crucial quote-- “Fred Upton is one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with”-- above a mock version of the former vice president’s signature.

Mr. Lester, the local Democratic chairman, said he strove to contain the damage. In an email to Mr. Biden’s staff, Mr. Lester implored the former vice president to back Mr. Longjohn: “Surely VP Biden did not intend to endorse Mr. Upton and slight the local Democratic candidate here,” he wrote.

Mr. Longjohn, the former national health officer of the YMCA, said in an interview that he had been disappointed to see Mr. Biden “clap Mr. Upton on the back in an establishment political way.” He said his campaign had reached out to Mr. Biden’s staff through an intermediary, seeking to discuss his involvement in the race.

“There was nothing but silence,” Mr. Longjohn said. “We had just requested a phone call and there was no response.”

Suggested follow-up reading: The Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President-- Part IV, Joe Biden... or these 7 posts explaining why Biden should not be the Democratic nominee in 2020. It's hard to think of a worse next president to follow Trump-- but if pressed I can. Biden would be the Democrats' Warren G. Harding... and that turned out rather badly for everyone, especially the American people.

What Could You Expect From-- God Forbid-- A President Joe Biden? Kinder, Gentler Corruption?

Jeremy Toback's essay, Democracy Is Coming To The U.S.A.-- which I referenced in the title of this post last night-- is worth taking to heart if you're contemplating doing what I did when Nixon became president. I left the country-- and stayed away nearly 7 years. I had a great time... but in the end I still came home (once it looked like Nixon was absolutely getting impeached). "This," he wrote, "is a country born in the blood of slavery and Native American genocide, where freedom from tyranny applied to White landed gentry only. The republic our founders got together represented an evolutionary shift up from authoritarian monarchy but a distant drift from pluralist enfranchisement. If we want to talk every race, gender and class, America has never been an actual democracy. At best, it’s been one long, slow, embattled slog toward… and at times, away from it.

While we’ve long since extended the vote beyond that initial White minority, with battles at every increment, any meaningful enfranchisement requires more than the mere permission to cast a ballot. It demands that our representatives respond to the will of the people who elect them. Yet, as a recent Princeton/Northwestern study reveals, even when we do elect our representatives (and I’ll say more about that in a moment), the legislation and policy those representatives implement almost exclusively reflects the will of big donor elites and corporations… not everyday constituents:

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

Despite inevitable attempts to downplay that study, even the most cursory glance unveils obvious evidence of this disenfranchising fracture in our democracy. We continue to see the DEM party and its de facto media allies attempt to derail immensely popular proposals like #MedicareForAll... [The] DEM party not only refused to run on a unified message of #M4A this past cycle, it continues to misrepresent the affordability and necessity of it, while instead focusing on fixing a hopelessly broken ACA that has given millions insufficient insurance, while throwing millions in the middle into financial hardship via annually escalating premiums. Rather than outright insulting popular will with let-them-eat-cake cries that #M4A “will never, ever come to pass.” Beto O’Rourke embodies the evolved DEM strategy of offering vague nods to universal care, while espousing priorities that make its fruition impossible.

Beto and the DEM party are in fact ignoring the measurable will of their constituency to serve that portion of the DEM donor class, which wants to maintain some version of the disastrous private-insurance-dominated status quo. They’re doing so in a way that measurably harms the physical health and material abundance of their constituency. And they’re doing so at their own political peril. Functioning democracy this is not.

...We are divided because the social contract is fractured. We are divided because the pluralist promise we like to wax about so proudly in liberal social circles amounts to a nominally integrated upper class and deeply disenfranchised rest of us. We are divided because of the hypocrisy that festers between what we say and what we actually do. A recent United Way study reveals that 43% of Americans can’t afford the basics. Folk don’t need a degree in propaganda deconstruction to know damn well that they’re being played.

If we’re at all interested in fostering the kind of legit democracy we’ll need to create genuine cohesion in our divided populace and implement the transformative policy necessary to limit the rapid overheating of our biosphere… most of us on the so-called-left in this country and specifically in the DEM center need to shake off the shackles of our own creeping authoritarianism.

We need to refuse to accept extra-legal, authoritarian actions from DEM as well as REPUB representatives. We need to fight anti-democratic suppression and rigging in this next series of DEM primaries with the same intensity we will need for the general election to follow. We need to elevate representatives committed to exercising the will of we-the-people and diminish those who will not demonstrate that commitment. We need to demand pluralist democracy, the long fought-for enfranchisement of every race, gender and class.

Yesterday, reporting for the NY Times, Kevin Sack and Alexander Burns wrote about the very opposite in an essay about one of the worst of the potential 2020 candidates, Biden. When he speaks at colleges, he doesn't make them remove the brown M&Ms... but "Middle Class Joe" doesn't take the AMTRAK either. Sack and Burns wrote that "When officials at the University of Utah invited Joseph R. Biden Jr. to speak there in December, Mr. Biden’s representatives listed a number of requirements for the appearance. His booking firm, Creative Artists Agency, said the school would need to fly Mr. Biden and his aides to Salt Lake City by private plane. It would have to buy 1,000 copies of his recent memoir for distribution to the audience. There would be no insertion of the word “former” before “vice president” in social media promotions. And the speaking fee would be $100,000-- “a reduced rate,” it was explained, for colleges and universities."

When he realized the $100K would come out of state tuition funds, he didn't take the check. Why? Sacks and Burns put it clearly: He wants to get richer but... "So long as a campaign remains possible, Mr. Biden has appeared mindful of the political backlash against the last Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, for earning millions by speaking to private interests in the run-up to 2016, and for her family foundation’s acceptance of huge sums from corporate and foreign donors... During the 2018 cycle, Mr. Biden maintained visibility with campaign visits to 24 states and at least 135 other speaking engagements, giving him a platform whenever he wanted. At a book-related talk in Missoula, Montana, in early December, he fueled coast-to-coast speculation about his plans by declaring himself 'the most qualified person in the country to be president.'"

Biden has long been self-deprecating about his relative lack of wealth, compared with some politicians. He and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, left office with assets worth between $277,000 and $955,000 (not including their house near Wilmington, Del.), as well as a mortgage of $500,000 to $1 million and other smaller loans, according to a 2015 federal disclosure. The report gives values in ranges.

But they have very likely earned more in the two years since leaving office than in the prior two decades, thanks largely to a three-book deal with Flatiron Books reported to be worth $8 million (a figure unconfirmed by the publisher). Two months after the contract was announced, they bought a six-bedroom vacation house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware-- off the water-- for $2.7 million. No mortgage was recorded.

Mr. Biden’s only salaried work, according to Mr. Russo, is a Penn professorship that occupies about one day a week. Dr. Biden-- who is writing one of the three books-- earns $99,398 as an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, state records show. Mr. Biden, who earned $230,700 a year as vice president, receives a hefty federal pension after 44 years of public service. The couple also receive about $66,000 a year in Social Security benefits and in other pension benefits paid to Dr. Biden, according to their last public tax return, from 2015.

Mr. Russo said Mr. Biden would be transparent about his finances if he ran. “He will make available his tax returns, financial interests and other information that used to be-- and should once again become-- commonplace,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump’s defiance of a four-decade tradition of voluntary disclosure by presidents and many candidates.

...Mr. Russo and Mr. Biden’s representatives at Creative Artists declined to disclose his usual fees. But his contract with the University of Utah, obtained through the state’s freedom of information act, was for $100,000, plus $10,000 for the private plane. In an October email between university officials, one told the other that an agent for Mr. Biden had described that as a discount.

The book events feature Mr. Biden being interviewed for an hour by another prominent figure, like the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin or the philanthropist Melinda Gates. Tickets for a recent appearance, in Burlington, Vermont, cost $45 to $90, with a meet-and-greet package going for $375.

The Bidens pay a staff of five to handle scheduling, media and advance work through a Delaware firm they incorporated called CelticCapri, after his and her Secret Service code names.

Nearly all of the former vice president’s closest advisers are attached to one of his centers, full or part time.

Mr. Ricchetti, who has been gauging donor support for a Biden candidacy, is at the Penn Biden Center, a foreign policy think tank intended to give the university a higher profile in Washington. Others on the staff include Antony J. Blinken, who was Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, and several regional policy experts.

At the Biden Institute at Mr. Biden’s alma mater, the focus is on domestic issues including strengthening the middle class, gay and civil rights, and violence against women. It is housed within the school of public policy, which was recently renamed for him as well.

Administrators at both universities declined to provide budgets or salaries. Their presidents called Mr. Biden’s contributions invaluable, particularly in luring dignitaries to their campuses. “Among our strategic priorities is bringing Penn to the world and the world to Penn, and who better to do that?” said Amy Gutmann, Penn’s president.

Mr. Biden’s PAC, American Possibilities, is led by Greg Schultz, a political operative who served as his senior White House adviser. The committee paid him $225,000 over 18 months, records show.

The PAC raised $2.5 million during the 2018 midterm cycle from contributors who included the technology entrepreneur Sean Parker and the Hollywood producers Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. But only 21 percent of its spending was distributed to Democratic candidates and committees-- more than 120 in all-- while the rest went to salaries and expenses like Mr. Biden’s travel.

There is modest overlap between Mr. Biden’s political donors and the benefactors of the Biden Foundation, the only of his nonprofits that has voluntarily disclosed its donors. Notable is Tim Gill, a Colorado software entrepreneur and influential gay-rights activist, who, with his husband, is listed as giving at least $1 million to the foundation, as well as the maximum $10,000 each to the PAC.

The foundation is chaired by Ted Kaufman, Mr. Biden’s chief of staff in the Senate and appointed successor after the 2008 election. With Mr. Biden’s help, it raised $6.6 million in its first two years, including seven gifts of at least $500,000. The Bidens pitched in $100,000, according to Mr. Kaufman.

Staff compensation accounted for 42 percent of the foundation’s $2.6 million in spending in 2017. That included $256,000 for the executive director, Louisa Terrell, who was deputy chief of Mr. Biden’s Senate staff. The foundation’s website now lists 16 staff members, including policy experts in areas like military families and violence against women.

“These are people who have been with him doing these kinds of things throughout his career,” Mr. Russo said.

The Biden nonprofits are not traditional grant-makers, and the only one made by the Biden Foundation was nearly $500,000 to spin off the cancer initiative. That group took in $3.9 million in 2017, including three gifts from undisclosed donors worth at least $1 million, according to tax filings.

It spent $1.8 million, more than three-fourths of it on salaries and other compensation. That included Mr. Simon’s package and a projected $292,500 for the vice president, Danielle Carnival, who had worked on cancer policy in the Obama White House.

At the Beau Biden Foundation, based in Wilmington, Delaware, salaries accounted for 45 percent of spending in 2016 and 2017, while grants accounted for less than 1 percent.

Those around Mr. Biden would not speculate about what might happen to the groups if he entered the 2020 race. But at least one set of plans has already been shelved.

When the Biden Foundation applied to the I.R.S. for tax-exempt status in February 2016, it stated that one mission would be to “educate the public regarding Vice President Biden’s career in public service” by building “a first-of-its-kind vice-presidential library and museum for the study of the vice presidency.”

Then Donald J. Trump was elected, perversely reviving Mr. Biden’s three-decade dream of winning the presidency, a job that comes with its own library. “Since that time,” said Mark Gitenstein, the foundation’s president, “the board of the Biden Foundation determined that was no longer a relevant objective.”

Many of these well-paid folks from the non-profits will slide right over into the campaign. I looked closely at who Biden's PAC gave money to. Really disgusting. Among House candidates he was far more likely to give to a Blue Dog or New Dei than to a candidate endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. They raised $2,562,525 last cycle and it looks like a classic establishment scam job, just $350,211 going to candidates, the rest going to consultants and other insiders who will one day (soon) be helping Biden's own campaign. This isn't illegal and Biden can't be charged with any criminal behavior for the scam.

The PAC gave money to 7 incumbents; see if you notice anything tying them together:

• Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL)- $7,000
• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)- $2,500
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- $7,000
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- $7,000
• Cedric Richmond (New Dem-LA)- $2,500
• Brad Schneider (Blue Dog-IL)- $4,500
• Darren Soto (New Dem-FL)- $7,000

Trying them together... let's see. Ah, yes, they are all corrupt conservatives who are part of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Not even one progressive... not even just for cover. It was almost as bad among 40 challengers he contributed to-- nearly all endorsed by the Blue Dogs or New Dems, with 6 possible progressives in the mix. Only 4 candidates who received any money from Biden have endorsed the #GreenNewDeal so far-- Mike Levin (CA), Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL), Debra Haaland (NM) and Joe Neguse (CO).