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

the aca would have been OK if there was a medicare buy-in option. without it, the market remained almost as unregulated as before.

I’ll give most them—perhaps even Obama—the benefit of the doubt and presume they honestly thought Better Things Were Possible, even without a robust public option and serious govt oversight.

but imo it’s past time for them to learn where this feelgood neolib shit gets you, and respond accordingly

I’m really impressed you’d even consider goving Obama the benefit of the doubt, how generous of you

it's true will. it's time to be bold -- the post-reagan consensus has produced disastrous outcomes and they're plain to see. time to try something else.

the Dems and Repugs shut down unions pretty quickly -- gorgeous bipartisanship

I’m really impressed you’d even consider goving Obama the benefit of the doubt, how generous of you

(at the leadership level, anyway)

Not many people voted for Mike Bloomberg when given the chance.

Have definitely been hearing a lot of "Bloomberg for veep" talk lately, while "Warren for veep" is something nobody says, and "Adopt significant planks from Bernie's platform" is something nobody is doing

Voters don't matter Aimless, you know this. If voters mattered then Bernie would be the nominee

It all makes sense

will definitely like to see receipts on the amount of money the Dems take from an autocratic billionaire who was a republican until like 2 years ago. and who spent 11 million getting PAT TOOMEY elected to the senate last go round.

I’m sure he won’t have any say whatsoever on the the party direction at all.

It helps to remember that a presidential election is the last place to look for your own personal desires being catered to, because while you are pulling your direction, 135 million others are pulling in theirs. The higher you go in the political hierarchy, the more it's a game of aggregation, where the largest identifiable masses dictate outcomes.

like no one bats an eye at the idea that corporate money contaminates the GOP, or even how Fox News crafts conservative opinion.

but for some reason the Democrats are immune? it’s ludicrous.

it's not personal policy preferences though. there are things that *need* to be done.

I bat my eyes at that constantly, but I don't expect that to abolish those facts.

i'm glad the votse in the New York primary proved that... oops

we only have a fucking democracy in the eyes of the brainwashed

And what would "a democracy" look like, then?

togas for one

laurel wreaths as headwear

it wouldn't start in goddamn ofay states like Iowa and New Hampshire, to take one sliver

or have a quadrennial multi-billion-dollar auction (that literally is always going on) for the chief executive job

I think the fundamental schism here (not ilx per se, just generally) is that some very smart, informed people think there’s a way to do good governance for the most people, even when the entities who fund our team’s politicians have very different objectives. and then there are people who don’t think that’s possible at all.

i’ve p much turned into the latter over the last couple of years, but I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t know what eschewing the former *actually* looks like in practice.

Mr Choppy

it wouldn't start in goddamn ofay states like Iowa and New Hampshire, to take one sliver

it wouldn't start in states demographically tailor-made for bernie sanders to win?

I think there’s only one party in our two-party system that has any inclination to make public funding of election campaigns into a reality and that’s the one I support. Not coincidentally, it’s also the one that has had success getting the NPVIC passed, which is another necessity.

but morbs, we already know that "a democracy" wouldn't look like this, because you already informed us of that. my question was more in terms of, uh, how would I recognize "a democracy" if one happened along?

will I appreciate how you characterize the schism.

I think there’s a healthy amount of cynicism that any adult can/should maintain about politicians and the profession of politics, but it’s a far cry from constant seething ire.

right on

it wouldn't start in states demographically tailor-made for bernie sanders to win?

This was... incorrect this time? His supporters weren't white and old - Nevada and California were much closer to the ideal demographics for Sanders 2020.

Did the Clintons have ANY desire to cut off their big-teat rich friends from funding them? Oh, to laugh...

how would I recognize "a democracy" if one happened along?

ah, the fave status-quo gotcha question

use any combo of functionality, 40% corporate tax rate, Sweden

I don’t think getting there is out of the question. The “hard part” is that we have to elect Democrats to achieve it

I actually do have hope that once the boomer sociopaths are no longer the majority that this kind of flagrant influence will become more and more unpalatable to the average democratic, and maybe even truly independent voters (all 37 of them).

but,,,I also suspect that billionaire
and corporate donors will find more and increasingly ingenious ways to launder their influence.

it's not personal policy preferences though. there are things that *need* to be done.

― treeship., Sunday, 19 April 2020 21:02 (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

those things that *need* to be done are your personal preferences fyi

We all think Joe Biden sucks.

We all preferred Sanders and/or Warren.

What else is there to say? Lock thread.

boomer sociopaths.

This is exactly the election Democrats wanted to have. No enthusiasm (could lead to Expectations), no promises (promises are Irresponsible), just pure disgust and resignation propelling their guy to victory https://t.co/zlyYRB0AJC

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) April 20, 2020

it's a great setup for a 2024 GOP amnesiac victory: 4 years of Biden and congressional democrats putting together the pieces of whatever is left after coronavirus+trump, dealing with another global recession, re-reversing regulations and policies that trump reversed. then some GOP candidate that isn't the very worst person in the entire world, and thus is very appealing everyone who will completely forget about 2016-2020 as soon it's over

the only path out of that quagmire requires constant agitation for The Good of All, because even The Good of All needs publicity and it's hard to cut through all the noise.

That 2024 GOP candidate is going to be worse than Trump in every way as a human being and politician but younger and more media-presentable.

oh yeah it's Tom Cotton. Been saying it for a year.

i'm going with josh hawley or nikki haley

cotton, haley, maybe crenshaw throws his patch into the ring

or shit, cruz again.

i've tried to limit my exposure to Cotton as much as possible but from what I've seen he seems like a dead-eyed ghoul, not picking up on any charisma whatsoever that would propel him to the White House. Haley seems way more mainstream-palatable to me.

xp
good news: cruz is in no way "more media-presentable" than trump

If anybody thought Tom Cotton had any chance of being president, Chuck Todd would already be gargling his balls on the regular. But he's a non-presence on Sunday shows as far as I can tell.

I get why Haley worries people, but the gop base is pretty into being racist and misogynist, so she seems kind of like their version of Warren to me: if people decided these things dispassionately she'd be a shoo-in. That said she has a ton of running mate potential. otoh, Crenshaw strikes me as a legit threat--what if trump really was the soldier of god they draw him as?

this is probably the last possible moment that thinking about the next republican primary is weirdly soothing

I asked a friend on Facebook this week when The Bride was going to take Crenshaw's other eye.