2020 US Elections | Biden certified as President | Dems control Congress

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In the film On The Waterfront, a longshoreman tells the loan shark. "I'm poorer now than when I started."

Many people are in the same boat .
Saying to vote for Biden or his ilk will not radically change anything. Just that it wont get worse.

Is this acceptable?

This is what this election is about.
 
This is pretty much exactly what you told us would happen with Trump.
That's one way to see it. Seemingly the Biden view, "once Trump is gone everything will go back to normal."

Another way to see it might be that there is a growing trend of people being bored to death and disillusioned with standard liberal politics, and as a result there is an increased polarization by which more radical, extremist politics can hope to succeed.
There may be a difference in possibilities, though. I have a hunch a right wing populist government can run on ideological fuel in a way a left wing one can't. I'd expect someone like Sanders to be more dependent on tangible results and improvements, while someone like Trump can still feed his base with symbolic crowd-pleasers while messing up. The latter can easier be achieved without political compromises that limit one's agenda, because practical failure isn't as much of a show stopper.

Apart from my general dislike of populism, that's one of the reasons why I'm hugely sceptical about the recent enthusiasm for LW populism. Although I readily admit I haven't paid closer attention to the political concepts involved so far.
 
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There may be a difference in possibilities, though. I have a hunch a right wing populist government can run on ideological fuel in a way a left wing one can't. I'd expect someone like Sanders to be more dependent on tangible results and improvements, while someone like Trump can still feed his base with symbolic crowd-pleasers while messing up. The latter can easier be achieved without political compromises that limit one's agenda, because practical failure isn't as much of a show stopper.

Apart from my general dislike of populism, that's one of the reasons why I'm hugely sceptical about the recent enthusiasm for LW populism. Although I readily admit I haven't paid closer attention to the political concepts involved so far.

Yeah, and there’s also the problem the left tends to have of ripping itself apart over seemingly trivial ideological details. Whatever about Trump, (or Trumpism, ugh), he/it is a massive force to be reckoned with in terms of how he’s managed to unite the right around him.
 


Going back a good bit, but considering he's saying similar stuff now (whether about women or Republicans) the whole thread is quite pertinent.
 
He needs to be crushed asap, even fecking Tom Perez might see the risk of him.
 
He is leading everyone by a country mile, so I doubt Perez would be interested in hurting his leading contender.
if he wants his party to sruvive medium-term, i think he should look into it
 
Its almost like hes trying to lose

He probably thinks he’s going to get Democrat votes regardless because he’s not Trump so he might as well target the Libertarians and moderate Conservative Republicans who would settle for a right wing democrat to get Trump out of their party.
 
He probably thinks he’s going to get Democrat votes regardless because he’s not Trump so he might as well target the Libertarians and moderate Conservative Republicans who would settle for a right wing democrat to get Trump out of their party.

By going for the Republican votes, he is going to lose the Democratic votes.

Biden has shit for brains.
 
He probably thinks he’s going to get Democrat votes regardless because he’s not Trump so he might as well target the Libertarians and moderate Conservative Republicans who would settle for a right wing democrat to get Trump out of their party.

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
 
He probably thinks he’s going to get Democrat votes regardless because he’s not Trump so he might as well target the Libertarians and moderate Conservative Republicans who would settle for a right wing democrat to get Trump out of their party.

He likely also knows that a majority of Dems polled are trending to the center.
 
"Folks, I like Adolf Hitler. He's a reasonable guy, and we can work with his Party."
 
He probably thinks he’s going to get Democrat votes regardless because he’s not Trump so he might as well target the Libertarians and moderate Conservative Republicans who would settle for a right wing democrat to get Trump out of their party.

That's exactly what Bill O'Reilly thinks. The progressives will all just vote Biden anyway so he should target the moderate conservatives.

This is what happens when both parties essentially move to the right one to the far right the other to the center right. And now we have the Koch brothers setting up to influence Democrat candidates to keep both sides shifting to the right.

https://time.com/5602691/charles-koch-democratic-primaries/
https://www.gq.com/story/koch-brothers-eye-the-democrats
 
Digging up quotes from 40 years ago is proof he is trying to lose ?

More like proof he is going to win

But he's saying the exact same things now he was same 40 years ago. His ideology and outlook hasn't changed.

He'll probably win but he'll struggle to achieve much as President because he fundamentally doesn't seem to understand how power works and how the Republican Party operate.
 
But he's saying the exact same things now he was same 40 years ago. His ideology and outlook hasn't changed.

He'll probably win but he'll struggle to achieve much as President because he fundamentally doesn't seem to understand how power works and how the Republican Party operate.

He wont struggle at all because he has no goals that go against what Republicans will be for.
 
Trump is also unwittingly promoting Biden's profile by constantly attacking him and falling for the bait when Biden says something bad about him.
 
There may be a difference in possibilities, though. I have a hunch a right wing populist government can run on ideological fuel in a way a left wing one can't. I'd expect someone like Sanders to be more dependent on tangible results and improvements, while someone like Trump can still feed his base with symbolic crowd-pleasers while messing up. The latter can easier be achieved without political compromises that limit one's agenda, because practical failure isn't as much of a show stopper.

Apart from my general dislike of populism, that's one of the reasons why I'm hugely sceptical about the recent enthusiasm for LW populism. Although I readily admit I haven't paid closer attention to the political concepts involved so far.

I was hearing an old podcast episode which references this article, about a Trump supporter: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...b6f334-7f68-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html
The portrait is of - not a typical Trump supporter - but someone who I think is inspired by his populist rhetoric.
Briefly her life story is - job as a railway engineer, sexually harassed constantly, won a lawsuit, lost on appeal and blamed the powers that existed (the Democratic governor and president Clinton), lost her job, saw her factory shut down and town fall apart, became a Republican, had mental health issues, and entered every conspiracy theory possible. Obama is a gay Muslim who married "Michael Obama", their kids are kidnapped, etc. The appeal of Trump is that he reflects her beliefs back to her.

For me the interesting things in the article are:
1. the justice system which protected the powerful corporation from the big lawsuit settlement
2. the multiples networks of information - Fox, megachurches, Alex Jones, etc - that create and reinforce conspiracy thinking
3. the candidate Trump and his party which embraces it fully

Under capitalism, especially US capitalism, 1 is a fact of life. Perhaps a left-wing govt can reduce it a little. 3 would be the appeal of a LW populist.
The missing link is 2. The right-wing has the largest national TV news network, the most number of local networks, megachurches, donors, internet stars - that maintain an ecosystem where blame goes in one direction (coastal elites), the rich as a class and the GOP as a party aren't attacked much, and where the motivations of these evil forces are usually race-related (Obama) or for self-enrichment (Clinton). Sometimes it is just that they hate America and how strong it is.

I think LW populism totally lacks that type of media domination necessary to survive. There is a fairly easy narrative that can be built, with an easy enemy - the owners and the rich - but it would conflict with the liberal party (the Dems), and it would never be funded. I think if you could somehow build an infrastructure where most news is filtered through the lens of class and wealth, LW populism would be a stable force.
 
The closest the modern Democrats have come close to a theory of power, one with a clear villain, is Russiagate. Maddow on TV, Eric Garland and Louise Mensch on twitter, and various online outlets explaining Trump's actions not through selfishness, laziness, impulsiveness (all well-documented), but all as part of his payback to Putin for help in winning the election.
The enemy's defining characteristic is that he is foreign, stirring domestic division and helping an aberration win the presidency, which made it compatible with and palatable to a patriotic American liberal anti-Trump mindset.
The end result of this thinking would work to the advantage of some moderate Republicans and all moderate Democrats, whose common ground is to support aggressive US foreign policy including in areas where Russian and American interests collide, and to rhetorically oppose Trump.

For a leftist, it is a dead end.

Edit - I don't know enough about the rest of his campaign, but this famous speech is an example of a Democrat putting forward mostly a class view of society, and pitting big money against the ordinary people:

Bernie did a version here.
 
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Lets be clear about what Biden is for and at least what he is not bothered about when ...

he says “With Trump gone you’re going to begin to see things change. Because these folks know better. They know this isn’t what they’re supposed to be doing."

1. The Republicans did nothing to prevent thousands of children being separated from their parents. Many sexually assaulted. Some even killed by Trump's policies.
2. They voted to take away pre-existing conditions for millions.
3. They voted for a wanna be rapist to be put on the Supreme Court.
4. They said nothing when Trump had many secret meetings with Putin. Nor when he believed Putin over American Agencies who said Russia interfered in our elections.
5. They did nothing when Trump openly supported Neo Nazi and white supremacists even when a protester was killed in Charlottesville.
6. They have done nothing about the Trump families open corruption.



There are many more.

Biden is not naive enough to believe they did not know what they were doing. He is simply saying it does not matter.
Because he knows there will be no accountability.
That is the prime reason for saying 'they will change'.

Trump himself will not be held accountable.

Why?

The DNC does not want accountability.
To seek accountability is to upset the apple cart of huge business.
It wants to win to serve its masters.
Not serve the American people.

Is this what the elections should be about?

Should Biden win, will he pack the Supreme Court with Judges whose objective will be to serve the people?
And if he will not do anything about the filibuster what makes you think anything of import will be passed to save American lives.

That is the prize.

Lives.
 
Yeah, it's as if Biden's whispered implication is: "We've got a good thing going here. Let's not allow Trump to risk it, and we can get back to business as usual." It's the gravy train that dare not speak its name.
 
The Republicans are accused of being openly corrupt.

Are the Democrats much better? When Pelosi and others speak about Medicare for All they mention ridiculous figures from 27 Trillion to 30 Trillion. That's Trillions.
The National debt is 22 Trillion.

So they just lie.

And we are supposed to vote for them.

Many don't bother to vote and we cannot blame them. They have given up.
Those who follow Trump blindly will show up.
Their voices will be heard.

It is essential to vote for True Progressives if lives matter.
 
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