Thought this opinion piece deserved a thread since it hits on the main narrative about Biden's electability. His supposed appeal to moderate Democrats and conservatives is what his campaign is banking on going into the primaries.
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WaPo opinion piece: Joe Biden is the candidate of Other People. Is that enough?
- Thread starter Saucycarpdog
- Start date
That much is painfully obvious. We need another party comprised of people that have a dog in the fight. Democrats aren't fucking it. If you're on the fence with fascism, i don't know what else to say.
What the fuck ever. The world is changing.
The man in the white house lost the popular vote. I do not understand this appeal to centrism for the sake of "electability" No one is interested in, shy of bill clinton, a diet republican
I've become so stressed and full of anxiety over politics that I'm just going to try and tune out everything until November.
I literally get close to having an anxiety attack every time there a debate...
... The caffeine probably doesn't help...
I literally get close to having an anxiety attack every time there a debate...
... The caffeine probably doesn't help...
Please vote for Bernie Sanders in the Primary. Primary politics is a zero-sum game and Sanders needs to win on the first vote.
Appealing to Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs while losing progressive voters is an ancient strategy that doesn't work and lost in 2016.
Sanders will bring about real change and is inspiring a grassroots campaign which exists outside of the electoral process.
It will live into a Sanders Presidency and mark American politics for good.
Appealing to Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs while losing progressive voters is an ancient strategy that doesn't work and lost in 2016.
Sanders will bring about real change and is inspiring a grassroots campaign which exists outside of the electoral process.
It will live into a Sanders Presidency and mark American politics for good.
Ironically I think even Sanders might be more appealing to Republicans (and people who know me know I'm not a Sanders fan). The Democratic establishment isn't exactly who I think of when I think "appealing to Republicans".
This is true, but he is doing so by way of his policy stances being uniformly popular. He isn't changing or appealing to their worst sensibilities. He is appealing to humanity and a common struggle among workers. People are welcome to come along for the ride.
Biden appeals to a large swath of the country that the Twitter leftist wing of the Democratic party would rather toss in the garbage alongside Trump fans and literal nazis than form any sort of voting coalition with.
I don't necessarily like Biden, but this "burn it all down if that's what it takes to deny him the nomination," thing is insane. President Biden isn't the big bad of this season.
I don't necessarily like Biden, but this "burn it all down if that's what it takes to deny him the nomination," thing is insane. President Biden isn't the big bad of this season.
As long as this is their tactic, the youth will remain unreliable.
The youth won't even show up for people they supposedly like, otherwise Biden wouldn't be winning and aforementioned tactics wouldn't be used
I don't think I've ever seen youth being reliable in any country where voting isn't mandatory. Meanwhile, older people are always involved.
It's only now that they're starting to get more into politics, but otherwise they prefer to remain to the side.
Biden's entire campaign is based on him simply existing in the Obama administration, and a built in assumption that in the general, Democratic voters will easily be taken for granted in order to win the megan mccains of the world, instead of the younger voters or convincing voters who have given up on the process to vote through real reasons(IE far more realistic options for expanding the democratic vote against GOP)
Essentially, its an acknowledgement of the overton window shifting in the democratic establishment. they are moderate republicans and belive they have democratic party voters held in chains sufficiently because of how insane the GOP has become to allow them to openly wave that flag.
Of course, as Biden has said, they are banking on convincing people that Trump is an anomaly. Get him out and everything is "back to normal". That's the real goal, to sell people on the status quo for as long as possible.
Its also true that there will be plenty of people who are self defeatists and think this strategy is a winning one, despite losing in 2016 and countless races 2010 through 2015. Even if it were a winning one, does it even matter if the win itself largely is canceled out by pretty much everything else?
If your not playing to advance people's interests, your not playing for anything but to say you won, and if that's the case, for how long does a strategy like that continue to exist in the face of the right wing only growing more and more powerful over it?
If Biden were to hypothetically win by being a republican, and governs as a republican, sharing beers and capitulating to them at every turn under the guise of "bipartisanship" then congratulations, you have essentially just become someone who supports republicans, even if you say your a democrat
Essentially, its an acknowledgement of the overton window shifting in the democratic establishment. they are moderate republicans and belive they have democratic party voters held in chains sufficiently because of how insane the GOP has become to allow them to openly wave that flag.
Of course, as Biden has said, they are banking on convincing people that Trump is an anomaly. Get him out and everything is "back to normal". That's the real goal, to sell people on the status quo for as long as possible.
Its also true that there will be plenty of people who are self defeatists and think this strategy is a winning one, despite losing in 2016 and countless races 2010 through 2015. Even if it were a winning one, does it even matter if the win itself largely is canceled out by pretty much everything else?
If your not playing to advance people's interests, your not playing for anything but to say you won, and if that's the case, for how long does a strategy like that continue to exist in the face of the right wing only growing more and more powerful over it?
If Biden were to hypothetically win by being a republican, and governs as a republican, sharing beers and capitulating to them at every turn under the guise of "bipartisanship" then congratulations, you have essentially just become someone who supports republicans, even if you say your a democrat
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Because of our electoral college system.
We do not have one general election for the presidency every four years in November. We have 50 individual ones. For better or for worse, each modern presidential election is decided by a handful of states.
Unironically Ive come around to the idea that Sanders will actually fareas well as Biden in the general. It's all about personality in the general, whic is unfortunate for Warren or most women in the Democratic field. It doesnt help that these same handful of states are sexist af.
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Best way to fix this is to make voting mandatory.
Or at least offer incentives for being a voter.
No, he's not even in my top 5 primary choices. Thank you very much.
This is an opinion article written by someone who clearly is upset that Democratic party isn't as progressive as they are. Biden is a boring safe choice. That's his appeal. People care more about uniting the country and politics not being forced upon them on a daily occasion as with Trump's administration. Biden appeals to those people.
Hard left? Probably not. They've probably sat home since the '12 election, and many before that.
The entire decade has been a showcase of how fragile and risky that "pick off moderates at all costs" strategy is for Democrats. And how party leaders would rather stick with it to maintain their own positions than do anything different, even if changing would improve their odds.
Their laser focus on catering to upper middle class professionals and wavering Republicans allowed a billionaire charlatan like Trump to present himself as a champion of the working man--and actually get away with it.
Bidens campaign isnt about appealing to trump voters, its about winning Pennsylvania Michigan Arizona Minnesota maybe NC. He may not drive the populist crowds but he appeals to voters in those areas and is promising a return to relative normalcy. There have been 2 elections in 16 years decided constitutionally rather than democratically.
People are so shook from 2016 that it is clouding their judgement. The reality is that Trump is hated by the majority of Americans and his base isn't enough to win.
I think basically any Dem is going to win. Bernie might scare away some moderates but he would pick up enough of the youth vote so it doesn't matter. Basically same goes for Biden but in reverse.
Dems should pick who they want the best instead of deluding themselves into thinking they know what Republicans are going to do.
I think basically any Dem is going to win. Bernie might scare away some moderates but he would pick up enough of the youth vote so it doesn't matter. Basically same goes for Biden but in reverse.
Dems should pick who they want the best instead of deluding themselves into thinking they know what Republicans are going to do.
And it'll allow the next fascist despot to rise from the GOP trash heap to do the same. 'Normalcy' is how we ended up here. Trump isn't abnormal, he's a creation of the system moderates desperately want to go back to.
The center cannot hold.
This, in plainly articulated language, is what makes Biden electable.
The youth is often too busy trying to survive and can't lose their job to go out and vote.
That's part of the reason why we haven't made election day a mandatory holiday yet because only retirees voting is a feature, not a bug.
If Sanders isn't in your top 5 then you must not care much for working class people.
Seriously lol anyone who thinks the other ones have a chance r delusional
This is the real problem. A global economy puts middle and executive management and investors front and center, while ignoring the working class. Trump is what you get when you ignore the working class. The left is going to lose until policy and messaging are front and center, realistic, and focused on their needs, as they are about 60 percent of the population.
We really need someone like Bernie in terms of vision and messaging, but someone like Warren for technical implementation.
Yes, not liking Bernie is indicative of a person's political views.
Fair enough, who's in your top 5 and who are you voting for?
If Biden is the best we can do (and he probably will win), we're pretty much fucked going forward, over the mid/long term.
I'd rather it be Bernie or Warren but if it's Biden, then so be it. I need whatever it takes to make me sleep at night.
I was a Beto supporter. Really liked Inslee. I now would prefer Warren to win it all.
I've just come to accept the fact that it'll likely be Bernie.
Biden's (and Buttigieg, the other moderate) platform is significantly to the left of what Obama ran on in 2008
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So yeah I'd agree there has been a shift in the overton window within the Democratic establishment.Student debt said:
Only Biden simply being elected without the composition of Congress changing would be a return to the negative status quo of Obama's final years in office, when Republicans in Congress were able to obstruct and hold everything hostage in order to drive down Obama's approval ratings (and peoples' faith in government along with those). Given the power of the executive branch (where Trump has caused the most immediate - and reversible - damage), this would still be an improvement.
But as far as meaningful, legislative change? Biden with a Democratic Congress (which, as a reminder, would still contain Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, now in the majority party) could get that.
I'm not saying I agree with everything Biden stands for. I'm not voting for him in the primary. Suggesting that supporting Biden is the same as supporting the Republicans is ignorant hyperbole.
Biden isn't the best. He's just the one with the best chance of winning today. The democratic field is loaded with prospects. Its the Republicans who have absolutely no one else besides Trump.