Progressives (Liberals)

#Dem Exit was trending last night as Bernie was getting flattened.

Progressive third party brewing supposedly.

Well, maybe for some people; maybe even for most people. But some people are blind to their own misogyny, and that kind of bunk is hard to “de”.

Well I think “pressure” is a loaded word. Is it pressure to tell an able-bodied 30 year old that he needs to get out of his parent’s home and fend for himself? Is it pressure to tell an elderly person with failing eyesight and hearing that it’s time to leave the driving to someone else?

Sometimes telling someone the simple truth is the only thing to do. And in this case the truth is that if Bernie really cares about defeating Trump and saving this country, he should get out sooner than later.

I hope if Biden is the nominee he asks Staci Abrahms to be his running mate. She is super smart, very tough, and a tireless public servant who I think would be a strong and effective rudder and counselor for Joe.

So, with a four year head start and a huge organization of grassroots repeat donors, the Sanders wing of the progressive tendency within the Democratic Party was seen as a force to be reckoned with. We all heard about it — the voters want Medicare for All, polls show Sanders handily defeating Trump, Sanders will mobilize new voters to register as Democrats. Here on A2K we were treated to post after post declaring that the scent of victory was in the air, with plenty of tweets from really important people we never heard of explaining how a Sanders revolution was now unstoppable.

There was only one problem. The Sanders people never questioned the premise of their campaign, that near success in '16 was based on the country's desire for radical change instead of it simply being a case of Clinton fatigue. And now that people have actually gotten the chance to vote, instead of having to rely on popularity polls conducted in the aftermath of the embarrassing "debates", it's become pretty obvious that "Our Revolution" isn't in the cards and that the self-styled bolsheviks were just self-deluded mensheviks, carried away by their own propaganda and the heady narrative of retributive justice. Well, welcome to the real world.

Since it's now obvious that the Sanders wing of the progressive tendency within the Democratic Party represents, at most, about 15% of the total electorate, not 51%, the purpose of a "progressive" third party is simply to act as a spoiler and exact revenge on the feckless moderates by subjecting the country to another four years of Trumpism. It will be interesting to see if Sanders abides by the promises he's made to support the Democratic candidate or if he'll be swayed by the threats of the beloved Dirtbag Left and the widely-admired Bernard Sanders Online Brotherhood© — everyone knows that "Bernie Bros" properly refers to the friends of blatham on this site.

I thought Biden came off pretty well in his victory speech. We need to see more of that Joe Biden.

Didn't Abrams turn him down last year?

EDIT: Personally, I'd prefer if the choice for V.P. weren't made until after the candidate is nominated — I think an early announcement is tacky, like Cruz/Fiorina in '16.

That's not very realistic I'm afraid. These ideas just got beaten in the ballot box.

Agreed, he was on point and coherent. Kudos to him on that stint.

Bernie's campaign was super focused on what they perceived as weak spots in 2016 but missed the wider target that would have made the most difference. They thought larger turnouts would be successful for the 'movement' but the opposite was true. The 'left' movement has pretty much been rejected around the world, America doesn't seem to be any different in that respect. The Bern didn't give any sort of speech last night IIRC.

It's true, AOC would be better off being the next Warren instead of Bernie 2.0.

She is being challenged in her district right now, we'll see what happens.

I don’t remember her turning him down. What I remember is her responding to social media buzz and MSM rumors that she was being considered. She just said something to the effect that if she got into the race, she would run at the top of the ticket instead of the bottom. Not Biden specific.

And I never said he should prematurely choose anyone. I said if he is the nominee.

There's nothing wrong with Bernie, other than his looks (not patrician enough apparently), his policies (too scary for most) and his political history (too many dems hate him). I suspect that the same forces that doomed him will fight anyone carrying the same ideas, including AOC.

More than mildly, to me. His TV shows were excellent and ground-breaking and his documentaries have been valuable and brave. But I have found his rhetoric around the Sanders campaign tedious. And I have to say, persons as unhandsome as he is are at a significant disadvantage in visual media and yet he's persisted and been, by any measure, very successful.

Fair enough. Coaxed and persuaded without a tone of insult.

At any point in the universe's time continuum, I'd find that tacky.

I don't think that's so. This isn't an either/or matter. There's no question the party has been pushed further left and there's also no question that the Dems will have to attend to younger voters/citizens to build up the party and to win future elections.

Ah, okay — I remembered she'd said something.

I didn't mean to imply that you had — it was an afterthought, not a direct response to you. I think it looks like a candidate believes he's in trouble.

Perhaps the trajectory of this race has saddened you. We've all been there. But on this point, I'd definitely make a wager. I've seen almost nothing negative about her except from voices on the right including the neverTrump crowd (who, though they despise Trump, do not favor typical dem/progressive policies). She is a future Dem candidate unless something unexpected happens.

Moore has given up on documentaries, he was hoping they would have enough impact to make changes, but as he said, Bowling for Columbine didn't stop one school shooting. His other efforts he feels fell just as flat. So he's just doing a series of Youtube 'podcasts' with various guests.

So you didn't hear what Pelosi said about her and The Squad?

I don't think that's the case. I think many Democrats admire him and support his role as an outlier, a gadfly, and a consistent critic of the worst aspects of our political system, our economy, and of the United States of America itself. They just don't think he'd make a good president — or beat Donald Trump.