It’s deja vu all over again. 2016 revisited, with only a few modifications. Then Hillary Clinton slugged it out with Bernie Sanders, and in a war of attrition gradually built up an insurmountable lead, despite the massive excitement the insurgent candidate aroused among the left-wing of the Party. Clinton went on to run a lackluster campaign that motivated no one (or hardly anyone). Yes, she won the popular vote and that is something. But she ran more as the least worst candidate than as the best. At least that’s the way most of those who voted for her saw her.
The same phenomenon is developing in 2020. Joe Biden’s victory in South Carolina and the “persuasion” used to get Buttigieg and Klobuchar out of the race created a steamroller effect which was hard for Sanders to answer. Though Biden’s delegate lead is relatively small even after Super Tuesday, the remaining contests will challenge Bernie is the same way Hillary’s war of attrition badgered him and led to defeat in 2016.
Elizabeth Warren isn’t helping. She is probably on the verge of quitting the race. But clearly there is animus on her part toward Bernie. It’s not clear that she will endorse him. Even if she does, will she do so full-throatedly or half-heartedly? And even if she does, is the consolidation of the left enough to outweigh the more massive consolidation from the right and center of the Party?
The Party Hacks and MSM are breathing a sigh of relief that their preferred candidate has saved the day and saved their asses (the political consulting class and think tank mandarins need that gravy train). But I wouldn’t start celebrating just yet. Just as Hillary waged an uninspiring campaign which cost her the election, so Biden has already shown us that he is an uninspiring candidate. Yes, of course he will gain a new burst of confidence and energy from Super Tuesday. For a while, he will perform much better than he has. But face it, Joe is Joe. He’s not Superman. He isn’t even Clark Kent. He’s an aging political dinosaur who’s been a Happy Campaign Warrior for a decade too long. He doesn’t offer any new policy initiatives. No bold programs. No inspiration. No passion. He offers warmed offer Democratic centralism. Nibbling reforms around the edges. Nothing too radical. Go along to get along.
Voters who chose Biden yesterday made the same false assumption that those who voted for Trump in 2016 did: they closed their eyes, held their nose and selected him in the ballot booth, hoping he’d be a better person and president once he entered office. Instead, the same defects were made even more manifest. Biden’s weaknesses are plain to see. To ignore them and hope that somehow they will be minimized or disappear is a fool’s errand. They will reappear and will be crippling.
My prediction is that Joe loses come November. I say this with no sense of smugness or satisfaction. Donald Trump is a disaster. But he has a rock-solid base which offers him a solid 40% of the electorate, no matter what we may think of them. He only needs to persuade another 8 or 9% to vote for him in order to win. He managed to do that in 2016 and odds are with an even weaker candidate than Hillary running this time, Trump can win again.
I say this with both sadness and bitterness. But nevertheless, it’s true.
Can Bernie still pull it off? Maybe. Would I like that to happen? You bet. But I think we must prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.
Are there any bright spots? Sure. Bernie has created a movement and a legacy. The young progressive women running and getting elected to Congress are our future. I don’t know which one of them will run for president and win. But surely in the next decade or so one of them will. My hope is that she (or he) will not make the mistakes Obama did of running as a progressive and governing as a centrist. Then Bernie’s promise will be redeemed. We will have Universal health care and a Green New Dead (as long as the planet is still habitable). I hope he lives to see it.
Yes, it’s sad. I won’t live to see the change we need either. Ithe =t’s up to the young and they apparently are not coming out in the numbers needed. Their elders are though and they re nostalgic for Obama… or scared of change.
There are only hints in your analysis that the establishment (or the deep state, if you like) has been behind this. Biden’s momentum argument is pathetically weak. Am I reading you right? If this is the case, I would feel even more helpless. There is NO bright spot then. Even the concept of democracy is fundamentally flawed. We r doomed.
A Drag On Progressive Movement – US/UK
Corbyn and Labour had the Blairites … Sanders had the Clintonites! Liz Warren has a great support from advisors from the Dem Clinton era. That’s the definition of Conservative or status quo. Obama didn’t deliver on hope and change for the African American community and the Middle East. Obama’s biggest mistake was appointing Hillary Clinton and the R2P clan in the State Department. Foreign policy was Obama’s weakness and he left major decisions to VP Biden and HRC. Kerry tried to mop up the mess .. did the best he could. Now we have to look forward to another poor DNC choice? I will never vote for a Republican. If Liz Warren follows her ethical self and advocated policies, her choice wouldn’t be difficult at all. The coattails of Obama? Lost the 2014 mid-terms badly.
Many headlines over the years: “The Democratic Party Got Crushed During The Obama Presidency.”
New ad by Bernie Sanders … odd. In 2012 it was Sen. Sanders who noted that Obama had actually been a disappointment. He was right, there never was a Barack Obama movement build on Hope and Change.
Last sentence should read:
“… there never was a Barack Obama lasting movement build on Hope and Change.”
To get him elected, there was great enthusiasm!
No. The elites have nothing to do with the Biden surge. He was written off as dead, by everyone, two weeks ago.
In fact, Donald J. Trump has frightened African-American voters, who see Joe Biden as their protector.
The African-American support in South Carolina gave Joe impetus, and impetus grew into momentum.
It was the ordinary voters and Rep. Jim Clyburn, who made this happen.
It wasn’t the hand of the MSM of the Democratic Party elite.
Bernie has hit a ceiling, the Revolution has not caught fire.
Come the end of this month, he will be left with only a rich number of delegates.
@ Lemontree:
One unwritten rule I have is don’t be an idiot. And no, you wont’be punished here for being one. But on the other hand, I will point out that you are for the sake of public embarrassment.
If you think the Democratic Party hacks weren’t working the phones like mad after South Carolina, making all sorts of promises and threats to Buttigieg and Klobuchar, I’ve got a beautiful piece of beachfront property to sell you in the Florida Everglades. There is far too much in consulting fees and political pork at stake for them not to intervene in this naked fashion to craft a result they can live with.
He is dead (politically). He just doesn’t know it yet. He will come November though.
So yes, South Carolina provided the spark. But that alone would not have changed the complexion of the race overnight. It needed the intervention of the Hacks, who acted deftly I might say. THough their manipulations have not yet been exposed. In due time, I’m sure they will and the Party Elites will look pretty shabby when it comes to light.
I make it a habit not to make political predictions unless I’m sure they’ll happen. If I’m wrong I look foolish. But I must say that you’re more than willing to look like a fool in predicting Bernie’s demise. Remember Mark Twain: the “rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated.”
@Lemontree
You read the papers? Bravo, well done.
I prefer the knowledge and analysis of Richard. Humanities and Jewish values … making a better and more peaceful world. EU’s Four Freedoms and social democracy, not pure capitalism of greed, violence and destruction.
On June 9, 2016, Elizabeth Warren made her choice and endorsed Hillary Clinton!
On June 6th Clinton was presumed the winner when she passed the threshold of (super)delegates.
Will she participate in the fight for progressive values and politics up to the Democratic Convention this time?
Elizabeth Warren was the better candidate. Bernie Sanders spoiled it for her. And the aggression towards her online from his supporters was just crazy. You would think they would respect someone with a similar agenda (except smarter and actually well thought out, and not just slogans) but not so: She was Satan, a snake “sssss”, “lock her up!”. I am not kidding you.
I quote her a reader’s comment from the NYT of today, with which I agree:
“From my perspective, Elizabeth Warren was by far the best choice. But, I think a major decision was made by Sanders very early not to endorse Warren and throw his considerable organization behind her but instead to run himself. I do think there was a conversation that’s been alluded to about the electorate’s willingness to elect a woman this cycle. I think Sanders calculated that he would have a better chance. He doesn’t. If the progressive wing had united behind Warren, this would have been wrapped up already–just add their numbers together. And as we’ll see, many of her votes won’t go to Sanders. She was the opportunity to grow the Sanders base and that road was not taken. When Warren failed to overtake Sanders on the left, her campaign was effectively over. There was only room for one progressive, as the moderate camp figured out coalescing around Biden–difference being that Warren can pick up moderates while Biden is truly uninspiring for the left. And the problem has always been that the Sanders camp has been myopic about his ceiling. It’s been reached and the real opportunity to nominate and elect an effective progressive has been lost.”
I had such hope for the US in these last months because of her candidacy. She is so much smarter and better prepared than Mr. Sanders and all other candidates combined. She could have been the new FDR, but instead we now have a contest between two old guys as usual: One has held the same speech for 30 years and the other has more than a whiff or corruption surrounding him (his son’s lucrative position at Burisma) and is half senile (inventing jail time in South Africa, for Godssake!). Just imagine Warren doing something like that. The misogyny of it all makes me puke.
@ Elisabeth: I am very sympathetic to Warren and would have gladly supported her if Bernie wasn’t in the race. But I do not under any circumstance agree with this comment except in what it says about Biden. Taking Warren’s failure out on Bernie is not fair. She ran a good race. But circumstances weren’t favorable over the longer term for her. I think if everyone had stayed in the race she could have as well.
But once Klobuchar, Buttigieg & Bloomberg dropped out the handwriting was on the wall. The race couldn’t sustain someone polling in the low double digits or single digits. She will easily be able to run again in four years or eight depending on what happens in November.
@Elisabeth
Compare the Dem primary results of 2008 – 2016 – 2020, Look at the states won by Hillary. The South is very conservative and look where a progressive candidate could have won and Sanders did win in 2016: Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota. Only in these three states lost to Biden, did Warren do well. In the other states won by Biden, Sanders got over twice the votes Warren managed. In my mind, the scuffle between Warren and Sanders during and after the Iowa debate lost it for Warren and the progressives. It augmented an existing gender gap with men to Sanders and women to Warren.
Joe Biden was not a good candidate, he got lucky because SC was perfect for the conservative candidate with the Norfolk Naval base and military vote. The endorsement from Jim Clyburn was an added insurance. See The Guardian: “’A chain reaction’: how one endorsement set Joe Biden’s surge in motion.” Similar to the 2008 Republican primary, when McCain inched out Huckabee in SC, he gained momentum and went on to win handily. SC was a perfect storm and Biden made the most of it against a divided progressive camp. A Democrat winning the presidency and winning SC only happened twice since FDR: John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.
Every election cycle has its own dynamics and a minor incident can get too much attention and become a major event.
In 2016 a progressive candidate came close, in 2020 the US has become more conservative, Democrats included. How to build on the good results of the 2018 midterms?
[Source NY Times Opinion: The Democratic Party Is Actually Three Parties]
The first two groups are made up of those who say they are “very liberal” and those who say they are “somewhat liberal.” Both groups are two-thirds white and have substantial — but for the Democratic Party below average — minority representation. They are roughly a quarter African-American and Hispanic.
Those in the third group are Democratic primary voters who describe themselves as moderate to conservative. This group has the largest number of minorities; it is 26 percent black, 19 percent Hispanic, 7 percent other nonwhites, and it has the smallest percentage of whites, at 48 percent.
For many women, me included, this election will always be remembered. It is a watershed. The time you realized that sexism is just as insidious on ‘our’ side, A supremely qualified woman – and yes likable: smart and funny (not a Hillary) – constantly being commented on as nasty, a scold, shrill, as schoolmarm, a lier, a snake. Bernie was disingenuous when he exclaimed: “How could anyone think a woman could not win in a MILLION years.” I will be nursing my wounds for a while.
“One unwritten rule I have is don’t be an idiot. And no, you wont’be punished here for being one. But on the other hand, I will point out that you are for the sake of public embarrassment. ”
Insults and threats! What an odd way to talk to someone who’s has an alternative opinion.
Anyway. This link is the closest thing that we have today to a chronology of the day after the South Carolina victory.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-day-everything-went-joe-bidens-way/2020/03/05/fdb89d3c-5e39-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html
Buttigieg’s decision to quit, seems to have been his and his alone. The same goes with Klobuchar.
We can safely assume that no one called Bloomberg and told him to resign from the race to the White House.
The only Democratic Party ‘hack’ involved, seems to be President Barack Obama, who spoke to Buttigieg.
When the phone call was made, and what was said, is unknown.
@ lemontree: I specifically did NOT threaten you. I said you won’t be moderated or banned for being an idiot. Insults? Deservedly so. Threats? No.
“Seems?” Nonsense. There is nothing in the article to which you linked that disproves that the Party Elites pressured them into withdrawing. And of course any candidate who did withdraw would never publicly reveal it was anything but their own decision. But in time there staffs will, I predict. BTW, Obama is as much a Party Hack as Tom Perez or Neera Tanden. And yes, whatever Obama said to him was said directly on behalf of Biden. He called in the chips and Obama delivered.
Biden is an educated Trump. Bought by and for Rich. PERIOD.
Trickle down economics don’t work yet the rich got the power and SCREW EVERYONE ELSE. sad
Many fake millionaires built on house and tech bubbles. where do you see a share worth 40 years forward value. say what. who’s holding the bag, BANKS, they would rather Biden obviously.
Israel not any different, why Gantz fails, MONEY TALK, Bibi has ALL JEWISH MONEY in his pocket at OUR cost.
Sad to say DNC just shot themselves HAIL 4 MORE TRUMP YEARS.
the blind leading the blind. Biden may have the blacks, but none of the youths and latino
heartbreak
[comment deleted: you’re repeating yourself and I hate repetition and regurgitation. I should’ve told you you were done in the thread after your last comment.]