Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

well, there wasn't the same level of awareness when that stuff happened. the start was occupy wall street, almost 10 years ago, it's a slow road but the old tricks will not be feasible forever.

this shows, to me, that for bernie and his team improving the country was always the main goal and was desired far more than electoral victory.

fair point treesh

treesh your optimism is admirable

I wish we had a system in which public awareness weighed more than lobbyist influence

I don't mind Sanders team lobbying Biden tbh

they should! we all should push him. clearly it's worth it

Big overture to Bernie Sanders supporters here:

Just In: GOP Senator Josh Hawley (Missouri) proposes a Denmark-style plan where the US government pays 80% of worker wages.

"Beginning immediately, the federal gov should cover 80% of wages for workers at any US biz, up to the nat'l median wage, until this emergency is over" pic.twitter.com/BbcTgiIaXj

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) April 9, 2020

better use of the money printer than propping up equities!!

As someone with $80 in the bank, the only pressure I can exert on a politician is withholding my vote.

But then I’m a monster who single-handedly elected Trump...

i'm a few years away from Medicare, but I understand as presently administered it is its own shitshow

They’d want to do a bit better than “lowering Medicare age to 60”.

Hillary ran on lowering it to 55; they can't possibly risk losing by offering such a radical platform in the current climate.

Only 22 more years and I can get this hernia fixed, hell yeah

if I recall, she ran on allowing people 50 or 55+ to buy into medicare, not necessarily automatically enrolling everyone xp

the only pressure I can exert on a politician is withholding my vote.

I agree that poverty exerts a severe crimp on one's political leverage, but I also think you do not understand the multiform avenues of political activism. Did you do any phone banking for Sanders? Throw him $5?

Almost certainly your state legislature probably posts its legislative calendar online, listing committee assignments, hearings and the texts of bills. Joining an email listserv regarding your political interests cost next to nothing. A phone call costs next to nothing. Writing a letter costs approx 50 cents. If you want to leverage your vote, get some neighbors or friends to cosign.

All the things I just listed definitely cost time. They cost thought. They cost effort. Therefore they require some passion and engagement to even get started. But they cost little or no money.

I'll understand if you think it all amounts to nothing in the end. But realize that hopeless citizen disengagement is the biggest boost we give the lobbyists and big donors who are walking all over the supine bodies of the masses.

Did you do any phone banking for Sanders? Throw him $5?

That's irrelevant now to my ability to exert pressure on Joe Biden.

Almost certainly your state legislature probably posts its legislative calendar online, listing committee assignments, hearings and the texts of bills. Joining an email listserv regarding your political interests cost next to nothing. A phone call costs next to nothing. Writing a letter costs approx 50 cents. If you want to leverage your vote, get some neighbors or friends to cosign.

(Also generally not that relevant at all, of course.)

But yes, I did say more broadly "on a politician" - my Senators are John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

(as an example of why the two things that actually matter are votes and money - no amount of letter writing or calling their offices is going to make them less racist or evil)

None of these things is relevant to the pressure that I can exert on Joe Biden.

Joe Biden is looking for about 68,000,000 votes, give or take a few million. Your desire to directly exert pressure on him is kinda cute. Your assertion that what I listed is irrelevant only confirms my observation that you do not understand political activism. At the national level you seek out a coalition, join it, and do volunteer work for it. Just like you did for Sanders. Politics hasn't stopped just because Bernie suspended his campaign. You sure are defeatist for a radical.

You sure are defeatist for a radical.

ILX in a nutshell

Politics hasn't stopped just because Bernie suspended his campaign.

When you "seek out a coalition and join it" and blah blah blah, you are seeking to combine the giving or withholding of your vote with others. Every person's power, outside of the ability to buy politicians, is fundamentally tied up in voting. Voting for, voting against, not voting at all. What do you think letter writing is, except a threat to not vote for that politician next time and to convince your friends and neighbors to do the same?

When you 'vote blue no matter who,' you've neutered whatever threat you had and you are irrelevant. You're a reliable Democratic voter - and without the money to lobby - they can abuse and ignore you in whatever way they wish and you'll take it.

That's why Warren voters were the deadest weight of the primary - they are the ultimate case of nowhere else to turn. Unlike a certain portion of Sanders voters who won't vote/will vote Green/might even vote Trump, and unlike a smaller percentage of centrist voters they were never a threat to vote Republican - they were going to vote blue regardless of the nominee. That's why Biden has to pretend to ingratiate himself with Bernie voters now and not Warren voters.

When you 'vote blue no matter who,' you've neutered whatever threat you had and you are irrelevant. You're a reliable Democratic voter - and without the money to lobby - they can abuse and ignore you in whatever way they wish and you'll take it.

Unless you support a candidate in the primary. I don't see the binary.

To circle right back to the front, if I 'seek out a coalition and join it,' recruiting people to vote for the Greens or PSL, I'm once again responsible for Trump.

I see you are one of those people who knows the score and can't be fooled. I tried to fool you into thinking your activity could make a difference toward achieving your political ends, but nope, you're too smart for me.

Well, it's Holy Thursday, and if you're Catholic you can expiate by virtually washing a priest's bare feet.

xpost

I forgot about holy thursday! also the day of the last supper

Unless you support a candidate in the primary. I don't see the binary.

If you fold right back into voting for the candidate with bad policies, what difference did that vote in the primary make? How is it going to change the bad politician's bad policies if you're going to vote for him anyway?

What Biden's campaign is doing now is simply an expression of what I'm saying - they've got to convince Bernie voters to come out for him. They don't have to convince you - you're on the record as saying you'll vote for him no matter what. The primary votes of Warren progressives gave them, collectively, zero leverage whatsoever.

Did you read the WaPo article? The Sanders campaign is already influencing them.

Yes, that's what I just said?

Framed differently, of course - I describe that as the Biden campaign is trying to make it appear that the 'Sanders campaign is influencing them' but what we got out of it so far is... Medicare for a few more senior citizens and means testing.

It's going to take a lot more to convince the Bernie voters on the margin not to withhold their votes.

How is it going to change the bad politician's bad policies if you're going to vote for him anyway?

Yeah, I'll vote for Biden anyway because he's not Trump, and Biden will be a better candidate if he's espousing diluted bits of Sanders policy with Sanders approval, so your counter-factual doesn't quite work here.

Such as Joe Biden dying or taking off the scooby doo mask of his entire career

It's going to take a lot more to convince the Bernie voters on the margin not to withhold their votes.

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z),

well, that's their fucking problem

xp

Yeah, I'll vote for Biden anyway because he's not Trump, and Biden will be a better candidate if he's espousing diluted bits of Sanders policy with Sanders approval, so your counter-factual doesn't quite work here.

He's not halfheartedly diluting bits of Sanders policy to earn your vote, though, that's the point.

He's doing it to earn mine.

it's not anyone's problem per se, it's just a tradeoff

If Joe Biden is going to win anyway, it makes plenty of a ense for the most left-wing Sanders voters to withhold their votes, on the theory that it will make the Democrats sweat over the margins and wonder what happened to their under-40s.

i assume this is what the Kerry threads were like in 04?

*sense not a ense

Which is, circling back around once again, that the only power held in our shit democracy for someone without the means to buy influence, is to withhold votes and convince others to withhold votes.

Which, in this moment... and really, every four years of my entire life... results in the emotional blackmail of personally being responsible for awful things and results for using the one bit of power the powerless theoretically hold.

Like the recipient of the electoral college votes in both milo’s state and mine is a foregone conclusion, Joe Biden honestly doesn’t need either of our votes.

i assume this is what the Kerry threads were like in 04?

nah even kerry was less pathetic than biden

i am personally very mad that hillary clinton isn't president right now and it's hard for me not to be at least somewhat mad at people who are at least ostensibly anti-Republican that didn't vote for her, even though i understand the why & that she didn't earn their votes.

to be clear i am even more mad that bernie isn't president right now

Most of my ire in that regard goes towards the slaveowning fucks who saddled us with the electoral college.

(Not to mention the Senate)

true

My ire is apportioned at the slave-owning fucks and Hillary (for choosing Tim Kaine, for being an awful campaigner, for 'America is ALREADY great,' for Iraq...) in equal proportion. I voted for Hillary despite swearing I'd never vote for someone who voted to invade Iraq but I can't ever be mad at someone who's lived under five decades of declining real wages, shit healthcare and no hope for the future who didn't vote for her.

multi-xps

what difference did that vote in the primary make?

It helped to enumerate the amount of support within the party for the candidate who received that vote. Even if Biden isn't a numbers guy, he employs several of them to tell him what those numbers mean. He is now in the 'consolidation' phase. He wants those votes that went to other candidates, but he's playing a game of footsie with dozens of leaders of Dem-aligned voting blocs, trying to pull them in and bring their bloc to him. Their job is to explain who they represent and what their voters want from him. It's a negotiation, but in the end Biden will decide what line he'll walk, and how he'll lean one way or another to accommodate those blocs.

Bernie is actively engaged in that negotiation right now. Your vote for him, and more importantly your volunteering for Bernie, represents a tiny chit in Bernie's bag of arguments he's making in your favor. It's not as satisfying as Bernie being the one the other politicians are courting and coaxing, but the incandescent support he got from people like you is going to make him heard seriously.

Bernie's biggest problem right now is that Biden and his advisors are going to be very skeptical that Bernie can deliver his bloc in November, unless Biden morphs into Bernie, which he won't do. If Bernie's bloc evaporates and sits on their hands, so does the leverage you so earnestly want to exert on Joe Biden. Joe Biden's problem is deciding how much and what kind of concessions he can safely make in search of Bernie's bloc.

My impression atm is that Bernie voters will be seen as only Bernie voters, who are uninterested in any candidate but Bernie. Which may not be as true as Conventional Wisdom says it is, but I'd expect Biden will pick one Bernie issue, water it down some, and offer that as his concession. And Bernie voters will sniff it and each decide for themselves whether to turn their noses up and walk away from Biden. In that game, you sound already primed to walk away. In which case, even if Biden wins, his numbers people will sift out how the Bernie votes fell, and if they disappeared, so does any regard for delivering even that one concession.

At the presidential election level, that's roughly how the game gets played. Make of it what you will.

"...someone who's lived under five decades of declining real wages, shit healthcare and no hope for the future who didn't vote for her."

Some of these people are probably mad at themselves.