The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Electoral Politics Page 8 of 30

The Left-wing “Shit Sandwich” Dilemma

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden each have terrible records. There is no reason to believe they will do much that is good, and every reason to believe they will do much that is bad.

Trump will, at least for Americans, probably be even worse. (It is less clear he will be better for foreigners.)

The issue is simple, both choices are bad choices.

The left-wing dilemma is simple: If you always vote Democratic, then why should they give you anything? If, however, you don’t vote Democratic, Republicans are likely to win and they are generally even worse (though not in every way).

If you vote, you’re stuck with the choice of endorsing a shit sandwiches. One has slightly less shit and a single leaf of lettuce, but they’re both shit sandwiches.

The “Don’t Eat a Shit Sandwich” vote happens, usually, in the Democratic primaries. This time and last, the “Don’t Eat a Shit Sandwich” candidate was Bernie Sanders. His offering was a spam sandwich. He lost because Obama convinced every remaining candidate except Sanders and Biden to drop out — all nearly simultaneously.

Thanks, Obama! You sure deliver!

So now the choice is simply which shit sandwich to vote for or whether to not vote. Not voting doesn’t mean you don’t get to eat a shit sandwich, it just means you aren’t saying, “Yes, please feed me a shit sandwich!”

Shit sandwich eating is, alas, compulsory, unless you are rich. Rich people are a bit stupid, not understanding that having to live with people, 96 percent of whom eats shit sandwiches, is gross.

What tires me out, beyond the obvious (mmmm, shit sandwich!) are the people who pretend, every election, that the Democratic Presidential candidate is not a shit sandwich candidate.

Don’t try and tell me that Biden is offering brie and thinly sliced apples on a croissant when I can see that what’s in his hand is a shit sandwich.

Anyway, it’s almost time to decide which sandwich to eat. The only forbidden option is not eating.


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Biden Picks Kamala Harris as VP

The two most important consequences of this decision derive from the fact that Biden is old and almost certainly senile.

This means that Harris stands a good chance of becoming President if Biden dies or his incapacity cannot be concealed, even with the best drug cocktails.

If that doesn’t happen, Kamala is odds on to be the next Presidential candidate of the Democratic party.

Kamala is ruthless and ambitious, a hard person willing to do whatever it takes to win. That might be acceptable, but her ruthlessness has been used mostly in favor of doing evil. (Here’s a rather long list.)

Particularly comic-book-villain-evil was fighting to keep someone she knew to be innocent in prison. You have to be particularly twisted to do that.

Of course, Wall Street is thrilled, they know they can’t lose. Trump/Pence win, great! Biden/Harris win, great! If either President dies, the person who replaces them will take great care of rich people whose money comes from parasitical rentierism and direct financial subsidies from the Federal Reserve.

Biden/Harris will be worse in foreign affairs than Trump has been (despite the screams). Domestically, they’ll be somewhat better, but will keep the shovels feeding trillions to the rich going. American decline will continue. In four to twelve years, odds are Donald Trump’s true successor, the competent authoritarian “populist” will win, and that’ll be all she wrote.

The US has been offered many off-ramps (the most recent being Sanders, twice) and refused them all. Decline will continue until it is irreversible (it may already be), or until Americans accept that right-wingers aren’t going to produce good results, whatever their party, gender, skin color, or sexual orientation.


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It’s Biden’s World

Biden was one of the key architects of the bankrupty bill, which made it impossible to declare bankruptcy on student loans.

The result of the bankruptcy bill is that millenials and zoomers who went to university and don’t have rich parents can’t own a house and many have decided they can’t afford families. They expect to live in poverty for decades as a result. (Not going to university means you can’t even apply for good jobs.)

Biden pushed hard for three-strikes laws, the drug wars, and so on. He is responsible for completely destroying entire generations of poor black men and gutting inner cities.

Biden has repeatedly tried to cut social security. He didn’t just vote for war with Iraq, he pushed the lie that Iraq had WMD, and worked hard to promote approval for the war.

He actively helped repeal Glass-Steagall, setting up the 2007/8 financial crisis that caused a ten-year long “recession” for ordinary people.

We live in Joe Biden’s world. Joe Biden was there every step of the way, creating a world in which young people live in poverty, poor black (and white) men are in prison, and in which the rich get richer and everyone else scrambles to even keep up.

By any rational consideration, Biden is a bad man. Evil, even.

Let us move briefly to Sanders. Bernie’s key planks were Medicare-for-all and student debt forgiveness, with a large climate change plan.

There are now great cries that Sanders supporters should support and vote for Biden.

People supported Sanders so ferociously because his policies meant they could actually have health care they could use (Medicare-for-all) and might be able to not spend decades in debt, and thus start families and maybe even own a home.

In other words, Sanders policies would make them more likely to NOT DIE and to be able to live a decent life.

Biden’s policies do not do that. Period. So when you see upset Sanders supporters, understand that they’re angry that people who voted Biden don’t seem to care if they die or live in poverty.

Biden, even if Sanders likes him personally (a fact which should have had no effect on his strategy, and is one of Sanders ethical failings), is one of the top fifty or so people in the country responsible for how shitty the US is to so many people. That is Biden’s legacy. He’s a warmonger, and someone who has favored rich people over the middle class and poor all his life, and made sure that the poor and young were hurt–and hurt badly.

Trump may be worse, but this a case of Beelzebub vs. Satan.

The Left is not Democratic. It does not have the same beliefs as Democrats. It does not believe in war. It does not believe young people should be poor. It does not believe in increasing fracking and destroying the climate (which Biden/Obama did–and do). It does not believe that whether you can have health care should depend on how much money you have.

The two are not friends–they’re not even allies, because allies don’t make separate peace.

The entire argument for voting for Biden rather than Trump, if you’re left-wing, is, “We’ll throw you some scraps, and kick you slightly less often.”

I mean, OK, I guess?

But don’t act like it’s some great moral argument, or that the Left and Democrats are friends, or allies, or even exist in the same moral universe.

Democrats like Biden are people who have done literal incalculable harm to both Americans and foreigners throughout their careers. Those who prefer Biden to Sanders are people who want more evil done than good, claiming that it is less evil than Trump would do (which it may well be, especially if you’re American). But they don’t actually want good. They aren’t, on the whole, in favor of doing good. They are, on the whole, in favor of doing evil. (No, no, don’t tell me about Biden’s platform. His record is what matters.)

So, yeah, Bernie losing matters, and Americans will pay the price. Biden is evil, there is no question about that. He is so far from being good that he’s somewhere around the sixth circle of hell. The argument is, yet again, simply about voting for the lesser evil.

But a majority of Democrats did want the evil guy rather than the good guy, and that’s what they have.

So be it.


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Sanders Drops Out

Bernie Sanders

Yeah, not much to say right this moment. I think this is a mistake; there’s a lot of flux right now. This isn’t an ordinary season, and he might have made it in, though, obviously, the odds were against him. I suspect part of Sanders’ reasoning is that, unlike Biden, he wasn’t willing to urge his followers to go vote during a pandemic and many states were making mail-in voting impossible.

Biden was always most likely to win, alas. There are a lot of people who want a return to the old normal, and Biden, for all his flaws, symbolizes that. Plus, for most people, he’s best known threw memes showing him as Obama’s best buddy (thanks, Onion).

Biden won’t be President for long, if he wins. He’s clearly in decline, even if he’s a figurehead, someone else will be running the show. Or they’ll just hand it to the vice president. His vice president pick is incredibly important, since that person may well be who is actually being elected as President.

As for Bernie, this was his last hurrah. Warren is seen as having betrayed the left; she won’t be able to win if she runs again. I would guess AOC is the heir apparent, but we will see.

Bernie lost because Democrats are actually conservatives (Republicans are reactionaries). Independents tend left, but don’t vote as much as registered Democrats. Likewise, the old vote more than the young, and there was heavy-handed engineering to shut down the votes of poorer or younger people. (For example, shutting down polling places in poorer neighbourhoods, leading to massive lineups in the few that remained. Same with campuses.)

Bernie was the only chance of having a good government in charge in the United States for the next four to eight years.

If Trump wins, we have another four years before a chance at someone decent. If Biden wins, it will be eight, as even if Biden’s VP loses in 24, he still takes up the running slot.

Either way, we’re out of time on things like climate change. We were already past the point of no return, we’ve now lost the serious possibility of mitigation.

So be it. Be well, all and take into account that, no matter who wins, the 20s are not going to be a good time unless you’re already quite well-off.


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Another Set of Primaries Today

We have Idaho primaries (25 delegates), Michigan primaries (147 delegates), Mississippi primaries (41 delegates), Missouri primaries (68), North Dakota caucuses (18 delegates), and Washington primaries (107 delegates).

The polling on this is terrible, it went very south Sunday. Expect bad news tonight.

Fortunately, this is not a big mess of primaries, and there will be a chance to turn it around later, but some luck is going to be required. Perhaps Sanders can take Biden down clearly in the next debate (or, more likely, Biden’s senility will take him down). Perhaps a Biden senile-moment blows up past the media’s ability to filter it. Perhaps something else; obviously no one wants the Coronavirus to decide the primaries or elections, but Trump, Biden, and Sanders are all in the very vulnerable class, and politicians are still exposing themselves to people.

If you’re working to get Bernie elected, I’d suggest you keep working. It’s impossible to know what will happen, but also be prepared for the bad news which is most likely coming.

(Aside: To me it looks like Warren’s repeated attacks on Sanders had the effect of estranging various of her followers from Sanders. She’s not stupid enough not know what she’s doing. So be it.)

Feel free to use the comments to discuss the results as they come in, and so on.

Edit: Corrected the number of delegates Missouri offers.


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Once More on Elizabeth Warren in Her Moment of Truth

Warren Elizabeth

There is another set of primaries tomorrow. Bernie and Biden are neck-and-neck in current total delegates, with Biden taking the lead in polling for tomorrow.

Warren has spent a week not doing anything but complaining about Bernie and going on a comedy show.

Today is the last moment Warren can endorse either Bernie or Biden and look like she means it. If she endorses today she can claim it was for impact on the next set of primaries.

If she doesn’t do it today, she clearly dithered.

The case for her endorsing Sanders is simple. His policies and politics are far closer to hers. So much closer that there is no comparison between Sanders and Biden in this regard.

But more than that, and perhaps worse, is that the bankruptcy bill Biden championed and helped force through is why Warren claims she went into politics. It is her political raison d’etre. It is her origin story as a politician.

If she doesn’t endorse Sanders, not only is she not supporting the politician who wants to do most of what she wants to do, she is failing to oppose the politician who she claims has been her nemesis.

On top of that, she will be forfeiting a leadership position in the left-wing progressive movement, a movement large and powerful enough to challenge the Democratic political machine.

In 2016, she slid on not endorsing anyone, but this time tens of millions of passionate Sanders supporters, many of whom feel they need universal health care to survive, student debt relief not to be poor, and a vigorous climate change plan to have a future, aren’t going to forgive sitting on the sides.

If she sits this one out, then she’s just a Senator again. Plus, she’ll probably be primaried.

I also keep seeing arguments that Warren owes no one anything, and I find that strange. She’s a sitting Senator whom millions of people supported in the primaries. It seems to me, at least, that she owes those people something; that if she believed in her policy platform, if she believed those policies were good for the country, that she owes her supporters an attempt to get something similiar through with Bernie, because Biden isn’t going to do it. Heck, he’s floated Jamie Dimon and Bloomberg’s names as potential cabinet members.

Meanwhile, we’re coming up on another finanical crisis, thanks to the Coronavirus and Russia deciding to crash oil prices at the same time as demand is already slumping. The big banks are going to need another huge bailout–again, Warren’s reason for being in politics.

She won’t fight to have Sanders in charge, so that Wall Street isn’t bailed out while ordinary people aren’t?

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that if Warren doesn’t endorse Bernie, it looks like she has no principles and doesn’t care about her followers. (No, don’t use electability. Sanders polls better against Trump and doesn’t have dementia.)

It makes it appear that she’s primarily concerned with only one person: Elizabeth Warren.

I hope that isn’t the case, but she’s running out of time to prove it isn’t. In fact, if you read this post by email tonight and she hasn’t endorsed him by then, she’s probably too late.

I confess to some anger over this, but I also feel sadness. When a politician who had a chance at greatness proves that they are primarily moved by self-interest, not by the principles they espoused, it is a cause for sorrow. We sneer at politicians precisely because so many of them seem to have no real beliefs, but it is ennobling when we find one of the few who aren’t like that.

I had hoped Warren was among their number, and my anger is genuinely partly moved by sorrow. As I said repeatedly throughout the primary, though I preferred Sanders I would have endorsed Warren if she were the nominee.

And everyone knows that if Sanders and Warren’s positions were reversed, he would have already endorsed.

May Warren prove her that followers were right to trust her, that her origin story was real, and that she stands behind her plans.

(If anyone else is getting bored of “all primary all the time,” yeah, posts on other subjects soonish.)

Edit: I changed the wording from “neck-and-neck” in first paragraph after commenters pointed out I obviously hadn’t read the polling from today and yesterday. Yup, Biden’s pulling ahead substantially, my bad, I had only looked at current delegate totals. Guess Americans really do hate the ideas of universal health care, their children not being debt slaves, and not dying like flies to climate change.


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Elizabeth Warren’s “What Am I Moment”

Warren Elizabeth

So, Warren has been the second most progressive candidate in the primaries on domestic issues. But now she’s dropping out, and she has a decision to make: Should she endorse Bernie, endorse Biden, or stay neutral?

Back in 2016, Warren declined to endorse anyone during the primary, even though she and Sanders were closer politically than she and Clinton. I assumed then that she believed Clinton was likely to be President and wanted to not estrange her. Clinton is famously vindictive.

That time, her endorsement only really mattered in Massachusetts. This time, she’s a former front-runner with a stack of delegates. She’s been hitting Sanders for a few months, trying to find a road to victory, but now her campaign is over.

I said in 2016 that Warren had shown she wasn’t an ally, that she put herself and her own viability before the movement.

I hope I was wrong, or that I was right and that she feels that she has a future on the left to protect. This, after all, is Sanders last Presidential run, he’ll be too old next time. She can be the heir apparent if she moves hard behind him.

Alternatively, she can try and get the VP slot with Biden. He’s clearly got dementia, so she could wind up as the power behind the throne or even as President, if he declines fast enough.

Finally, she could decide to stay in the Senate, and she might be thinking that Biden is likely the next President and wants to be able to work with him.

This is a close race, however, and her endorsement could make the difference between who wins. Bernie will do far more of what she says she believes in, so much so that there is no comparison.

Does that matter to her? Do her principles come first? Does she care about the policies she says she believes in and the good of Americans (because, yes, Bernie will help far more Americans)? Is she an ally, a member of the progressive movement, or just a politician, maneuvering for advantage and ambition?

We’ll see.


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Super Tuesday

So, Pete and Klobuchar have dropped out and endorsed Biden. (I’m hearing unconfirmed rumors that Buttigieg had to have his arm twisted.) The lastest polls show Biden up slightly. Warren has stayed in, and yeah, it’s credible that the reason why is because more of her voters would go Bernie. Wonder if she was offered Biden’s VP slot?

Biden is very clearly senile. Sounds like he has dementia.

Use the comments to this thread to discuss, as this will be the story of the day.


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