We’ll see if Buttigieg gets any more bounce from this. His national numbers aren’t that great, but his New Hampshire numbers weren’t good until his showing in Iowa.
Bernie and Buttigieg got nine delegates each, Klobucharg received six, no one else got any. This means in delegates, Buttigieg is still one delegate ahead.
Now we have Perez, the chief of the DNC, saying there may have to be a re-do, just as the satellite caucuses, made up mostly of minorities and working class people, put Sanders over the top and give him the victory
When the errors are almost all against a single candidate, and never seem to benefit that same candidate, is it “coincidence” and “incompetence?”
Nor need we pretend that malign intention and incompetence are incompatible. As the old Bush, Jr. regime joke ran: “Evil or stupid? Why not both!”
The funny thing is, it’s hard to see Buttigieg’s path to the nomination, let alone the presidency. For all of this, *cough* not-cheating, he has no meaningful support in any other state. His only way through is by a brokered convention that throws the nomination to someone who isn’t likely to even be in the top three. If that was done, it would be rightly seen as a huge abnegation of democracy, and he would be crushed in the general.
So he’s not-cheating for what? He’s not even going to make #2 overall, which means he won’t be the presumptive nominee next time.
Now, of course, the Democratic operative class, of which everyone who’s been involved–whether incompetent, not-cheating, or both–is a member, is scared of Sanders. Not because they really don’t believe in his policies (though they don’t), but because, unlike Warren, the next most “left” candidate, all indications are he won’t hire them for his administration.
They make their living by being connected, and Sanders is going to cut them out. He’s actually an existential threat to their right to be incompetent, lose a lot, and still make tons of money.
Oh.
Right, so that’s why it’s worth pulling out all the stops.
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This is a prime example of the flailing that occurs when an establishment is scared of losing power (and when your billionaire boss is being crushed).
First, everyone who gets into power has, as a primary competence, the ability to get into power. There aren’t a lot of slots at the top, especially not in the Senate or the Presidency. If you got there, you have something on the ball. People don’t like to admit it about people they hate, but even Trump was shockingly competent at campaigning.
Second, after the Democratic party couldn’t build an app that worked to handle the Iowa caucus results AND the Sanders campaign could, well, perhaps it’s the outsider who’s competent?
There is a larger question here, about who will run the Sanders administration.
Outsiders, mostly. People who are competent and angry. Class traitors, who have worked inside the system, hated it, and want to smash and rebuild it.
The sort of people who ran FDR’s administration: People who can’t take the bullshit any more and want the government to actually work, and actually work for the people.
There will be teething problems, especially with those who have not been high-ranked in government before, but they will manage it–because it actually matters to them. It isn’t just about a paycheck.
Further, the damage Trump has done to the the bureaucracy will be more of an advantage than a bad thing in a Sanders administration. All that “draining the swamp” will make it easier to rebuild in the way Sanders want to, and it will reduce deep state resistance.
Because if you think the deep state hates Trump, well you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Hopefully, Sanders will be willing to use the power of the Presidency and remove deep state saboteurs.
But overall, while it’s possible he could botch it, I’m not super-worried about Bernie’s ability to run apparatus. The US has been sick for a long time, but there are tons of angry competent people who are itching to set it right. He just has to pick them, let them run, and if they blow it too often, replace them. (This is what FDR did).
Don’t be too fixed on methods, be fixated on outcomes. If one thing doesn’t work, have the next plan already teed up.
It’s not easy, but it’s not rocket surgery, anyway.
And I imagine the Bernie administration, unlike the Obama one, will be able to build a healthcare web site if they have four years in which to do it.
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Something I’ve been tracking for a while is who supports Sanders vs. Warren. This is anecdotal, though there’s some data to back it up. What I’ve noticed is that the people I know who prefer Warren are those who are doing OK or well in the current system, but understand it isn’t a fair system, and want to help those for whom the system hasn’t worked.
They don’t want radical change, they want the system fixed: They want it to be fair, and somewhat kinder to the poor. But they aren’t actually behind real Medicare 4 All, or full student debt cancellation.
These are people who are comfortable with Warren because she is like them–a member of the system who has done well by the system, knows how it works, and how it should work (like in the 80s, but a bit kinder), and want it put that way. She’s an insider, and they’ll go on about how she worked the system behind the scenes.
Sanders supporters tend to be either people the system has failed, who want radical change, or people who, despite doing OK, still want radical change: They see the system as rotten and evil, even if they are one of those able to make it work for them. To them, Sanders is an outsider, despite all his time in DC, and if it’s true he isn’t as adept at working within the current system to get shit done as Warren is, that’s OK, because they want the current system broken. Being an outsider is the point; insiders can’t be trusted.
Biden followers are people who think that things were great under Obama, who want a restoration to 2016 (as opposed to Warren’ 1982.) Buttigieg followers want the same, but to feel woke because Pete’s Gay.
Sanders basically wants to go back to the New Deal, add in help for minorities and the environment, then advance it somewhat further.
Voting preferences thus come down to a combination of identity (they’re like me), position (how am I doing), and belief (is the system good or bad and when was it last good?).
Biden and Buttigieg are about a restoration to 2016, ie., the problem is just Trump. Warren’s about a restoration to 1982 (just as Republicans are starting to chop up the New Deal). Sanders is about 1944, fix the racism and sexism, and advance the New Deal further.
Or, so it seems to me. If you see otherwise, let us know in the comments. (Yes, yes, this is Sanders week at the blog.)
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If you’re someone who thinks that The Thing Called “Identity Politics” (I’ll call it TTCIP for short, because I think the term “identity” has been thoroughly poisoned at this point) is simply a fabrication of intelligence agencies or at minimum only lives and dies at the behest of the neoliberal leviathan, then this post is not for you, because we simply cannot communicate. It’s very likely that nefarious actors do have a vested interest in manipulating leftist divisions (duh!), but if you think what they’re manipulating is all made up, then you dismiss a great deal of what I know are real life experiences and genuine political motivation based on the genuine interests of otherwise very ordinary people. We are very liberal about these things at Chez Ian, so of course you can continue to participate in the comments of this thread, but I suggest that there is no real point in doing so and no one to convince.
So yeah, I’m pursuing this Rogan/Sanders thing yet again, or rather the issue that underlies that controversy, because the discussions on the point took an interesting turn that’s worth exploring. I thought that what would ensue was something quite predictable: “guns and butter” leftists would interpret/subsume TTCIP into class conflict and hold that once we had resolved the class conflict in favour of the working class and an economically egalitarian society, the main instigating factor for other TTCIP-based resentments would disappear. Thus, working to attract a constituency of somewhat socially reactionary working-class voters would be worth it to everyone in the long run, because allowing the left to gain power would give it the leverage to satisfy all demands at once. A candidate like Sanders could safely hold TTCIP positions alongside positions that attract everyone who lives on a precarious paycheque and while appealing separately to each subgroup.
But this is not what happened. Instead, I noticed that many people were not merely hostile to the intra-class division caused by TTCIP, but actually held that the content of all but the largest and most obvious of the claims (hard for most leftists to deny the negative effects of “classic” male chauvinism and sexual harassment, for example) were either inherently objectionable in themselves or were actually stated from a position of acquired power, even implying that they were now merely claims of the managerial class engaging in a form of totalitarian “psychological extortion,” as one commenter phrased it with what seemed a certain amount of unseemly relish. More or less explicit is the suggestion that these TTCIP claims are actually trivialities, and to sacrifice them without hope of later restitution in the pursuit of a class-conflict power coalition is actually a net positive overall.
In the not too distant past, I also used to take for granted the idea that some TTCIP claims were merely the result of neuroticism or privileged frivolity. But I don’t throw out implied claims to justice lightly, so upon deeper investigation and contact with some of the sorts of people making those “frivolous” claim, I realized that actually it was intellectually lazy to dismiss them and assume that they hadn’t thought about the consequences. I came to understand that actually, even for the “sillier-sounding” ones, there were real consequences for actual people, often in surprising and indirect ways. That some of the conflicts represented by the “petty” TTCIP claims actually have a long lineage, that what appears like inordinate power is for them a brief moment to emerge into the light of the sun, and the powerful appearance is merely that the rest of us are not used to having ever been confronted by them. And that, yes, only the ascension of some TTCIP claimants to the upper classes gave them any social capital by which to emerge into daylight, and that is why, to some extent, it looks like it is being driven by powerful people.
Furthermore, while these groups are individually quite small, together they are large enough and overlapping enough with the general population to change, e.g., electoral outcomes.
So when even very progressive politicians, left-wing both economically and socially, decide to try to embrace media figures and voting blocs that are indifferent at best or actively hostile at worst to the claims of TTCIP, it’s not irrational to worry that, in order to hold on to newfound political coalitions, they may attempt to jettison the old, inconvenient, frivolous-seeming ones. That is doubly true when it appears that some part of the online or real-life economic left does not really intend to use the opportunity to reconcile these newfound supporters with the old, now-unpopular TTCIP ones. And that for the Good of Humanity, they intend for people with TTCIP claims to, possibly forever, give up their moment in the sun and accept the consequences to themselves that they always had to do.
Perhaps this is necessary. Perhaps it is even overblown, and we’re all going to sit in the big tent, together. But this debate has shown, at the very least, that it’s not a made-up conflict, except for those of you who think TTCIP claims are only ever fabricated by intelligence agencies.
To me, that’s the role of government: To help the most people. There are things that only government can do or does best, and making healthcare universal (whether single payer or not), fixing student debt, and fighting climate change are three of those things. The private market isn’t going to do those things by itself, it needs the government to set things up so the private market can profit by doing them (for whatever pieces of health care or fighting climate change the private sector’s help makes sense).
Many argue, “But he may not be able to pass this stuff.”
Here’s the thing: A candidate who isn’t strongly committed to passing universal health care won’t pass it. A candidate who isn’t strongly committed to fighting climate change won’t.
And Presidents have a LOT of power that doesn’t go through Congress. Simply letting the Environmental Protection Agency do its job goes a long, long way. Deciding that conforming mortgages require energy-neutral, low-carbon houses goes a long way. Choosing who runs the Federal Reserve goes a long way. Treasury policy matters. Anti-trust policy against companies jacking up insulin prices is entirely possible, if desired.
Likewise, the President has an effect on mid-terms. A popular President simply makes the case that the Senate is blocking him. If Sanders does popular things in the first two years, more people will come out for his candidates in 2022.
But the simpler point is just that someone who doesn’t want to do the right thing won’t even try for it. Obama didn’t. We now know he had completely written off the public option for his health care plan before negotiations even started, for example.
Sanders has been fighting for these causes for decades. We can trust he believes in them because he fought for them when he was nearly alone, and when it would have been easier for him to conform to the neoliberal consensus.
He’ll keep fighting. Maybe he won’t win, but a President who can be counted on to actually fight to do the right thing is a HUGE step towards the right things being done and makes a win far, far more likely. The power of the Presidency is huge, and people forget that because people like Clinton and Obama pretended weakness when trying to do left-wing things because they didn’t actually, ever, want to do them.
Elect Sanders. Support him. If he does good things in the first two years, he’ll gain support, and that will translate into seats in the Senate and House. That will mean more good things, and more support.
That’s how it works.
But to get the right things done, you first have to elect someone who wants to do the right things.
The democratic nominee who consistently wants to do the most important thing in the biggest way is Sanders.
So support him.
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Sanders has by far and away the best plans for healthcare, climate change, and student loans out of all the candidates. It is not close–even Warren is a distant second.
He will help the most people. Make the most people’s lives better. By a large margin.
If you do not support him, you want a lot more to people to suffer and die, or at least you’re willing to trade their deaths and suffering for something you think is more important.
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