The 2020 Democratic Primaries End But the Fight Against trump Remains

Given the intensity of the last two months focusing on the ongoing nightmare of trump's failed responses to coronavirus, the importance of yesterday's announcement from Bernie Sanders' campaign wasn't the top news it deserved to be. And yet, attention must be paid (via Scott Detrow at NPR)...

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders suspended his 2020 presidential campaign Wednesday, bowing to the commanding delegate lead former Vice President Joe Biden established.

"I wish I could give you better news, but I think you know the truth. And that is that we are now some 300 delegates behind Vice President Biden, and the path toward victory is virtually impossible," Sanders told supporters in livestreamed remarks, shortly after he had broken the news to campaign staff.

What this does is leave Biden on the Democratic primary ballot without a serious challenger, pretty much guaranteeing he secures the delegates for the nomination. All that's left now are the Choosing of the Veep and the Recriminations of the Utopian Idealists Who Can Never Accept a Moderate Centrist And Will Openly Threaten to Vote A Second Term Of The Shitgibbon As Our Punishment.

I hope I am kidding about that second part.

A quick postmortem about how Sanders failed to win in 2020 when he had done so much better in 2016 should look at these factors:

It is turning out - especially when you saw Sanders winning Michigan in 2016 but getting nuked in 2020 - that Bernie did better in 2016 because he was the Not-Hillary candidate. A lot of us, myself included, knew Hillary was hated but never understood how hated she was even among Democratic voters. And not because she was more pro-business than the Progressives would like: A lot of that hatred was on a personal level, pure vitriol towards her as a target for rage. As a result, Sanders got more votes and delegates than he would have gotten had a more popular candidate run back then. By 2020, thinking he was more popular than he truly was, Bernie jumped into this primary cycle thinking he was the front-runner, and to some extent he was (besting other genuine Progressive opponents like Warren and Inslee), but he just wasn't as popular as Biden.

Biden winning this primary cycle violated a couple of campaigning norms: He once again did a weak job organizing his campaign, was floundering at fund-raising, and hadn't even done a lot of advertising to promote himself. Bernie beat him at each of those factors. What Biden did have was the endorsements: The benefits of a party elder is that a lot of people owe you at least one favor, and you don't even have to call those favors in because they'll still back you because you're a known - and well-liked - factor as a leader on the stage. Those endorsements - especially Jim Clyburn who personally turned South Carolina into Biden's biggest victory - carries a lot of weight with much of the party base. Bernie - still marketing himself as the Outsider - couldn't even beg an endorsement from any other major players (he did get several, but only from some of the freshmen Progressives like AOC).

And even with Biden's shaky record on civil rights, women's rights, and other questionable votes as U.S. Senator, he had the marquee name by now, something he didn't have in 1988 nor 2008. He ran essentially as "Uncle Joe" from the Onion satires and people went with that.

That "well-liked" aspect for Biden helped him and hurt Bernie. I've mentioned it before - I will live and die by Professor Barber's Character Chart - that Biden is Passive-Positive as opposed to Bernie's Active-Negative. For all the outreach Sanders' campaign tried to do with the larger voting blocs of the Democratic Party - Southern Black voters, College-educated Whites - he still could not win them over on a personal level. His personal abrasive and uncompromising nature was still in full effect this cycle. It's telling that when Warren dropped out last month, rather than give her endorsement to Bernie as the most likely Progressive to defend her many plans, she refused to give any endorsement at all (whereas the major Centrists who dropped out - Buttigieg and Klobuchar - both heartily endorsed Biden within hours).

That Passive-Positive nature for Biden - his congeniality - means that he has a better skill set in building coalitions, which a lot of the Democratic leadership - and enough of the party voting base - see as more necessary in an election cycle where turnout and unity are key. Given how he's not as focused on forging agendas, he's actually in a good position to absorb and promote the agendas of other party figures. It's expected that he's going to take all the good and popular ideas that Warren, Buttigieg, Harris, Klobuchar, and even Sanders offered this primary season and merge them into a Big Tent platform.

It did not help Bernie that yet again he was campaigning on a platform of Revolution: Changing the American system from Capitalism to a Euro-style Democratic Socialism. Primarily his push for a Medicare-For-All system that would overturn the privatized health care system currently in place. Change frightens people, and are only receptive to it under the proper conditions. In 2016, a lot of Liberal and Progressive voters - having been burned out by Obama's pragmatic Centrist agenda limited by Republican obstructionism - did feel the need to break the system to enact greater left-leaning solutions. But a lot has changed in four years of horrifying misrule by trump and his Republican cronies. Right now, the mood among Democratic voters is desire for Stability, not Revolution... no matter how much the Progressive Left can argue the merits (and there are a few) of that Revolution. Biden offers the nostalgia of the more sane, more calm Obama years, not the uncertainty and possible chaos that Sanders offered.

One last thing was how Bernie Sanders and the Progressives overall were hoping for a large Youth voter turnout to secure enough primary wins. For all the talk and even solid evidence that the younger, Millennial-age bloc was solidly Far Left on major issues... not a lot of them turned up at the primaries when it mattered. This is less a criticism of Bernie than it is a criticism of our nation's failure to treat voting rights serious enough. Unlike other nations that employ Universal Voter Registration, the U.S. - supposedly the Home of Democracy - makes our voting voluntary, you have to go out of your way to register. And in that regards, not enough young voters do (a combination of decades of failed civics lessons in school, the reality of young people moving enough times to not keep a current address to register which also adds to GOP voter suppression efforts, and perhaps a sense of futility among the young that they will never be taken seriously as a bloc anyway).

Put that all together and you have Bernie Sanders being disastrous in 2020 where he did better in 2016, even without any changes to his persona or his platform, even if his platform could have appealed to enough Democratic voters if only Bernie made himself more amenable about his Idealism.

Now it's all pretty much Biden vs. trump.

Right now with Biden there's not much of a platform, but then again 2020 isn't going to be about the issues. This election cycle for Democrats is about one thing: Getting rid of donald "Shitgibbon" trump. It's going to be about the mismanagement, the corruption, the inaction in the face of crisis, every last failure of trump's regime. It's about trying to rise above the open voter suppression the Republicans are bound to use as obstacles across half the states, not just hacked ballot machines but voter roll purges and negative social media psych-ops stuff.

For all the cheating the Republicans are bound to do this November, the best solution to stop them is to overwhelm them with turnout. They can only deny so many voters, they can only undercount (or even override) so many ballots. If the Democrats can jump the voter turnout up by 8 points compared to 2016 across every state - the way they were able to in 2018 - the Dems ought to clear enough Electoral College numbers to win.

This is where Biden - with the help of Harris, and Warren, and Buttigieg, and Klobuchar, and Booker, and Beto, and Castro, and Bernie - needs to step up the voter turnout efforts. He may not be good at it but he better hand off that job to someone - someone like Howard Dean who pushed the successful 50 State voter drive in 2006 - who CAN ensure every left-leaning Moderate/Centrist and every solid Liberal and every Far Left Progressive are united in showing up and kicking trump and Mitch and every other Republican bastard out.

Turnout matters, people.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND FOR EVERY LOVED ONE YOU HAVE, AMERICANS - especially today as trump crows about a COVID-19 body count that a more competent leader WOULD HAVE avoided - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REGISTER TO VOTE and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE VOTE DEMOCRATIC STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN THE BALLOT.

The Post-Florida Democratic Primary Blues

For Sanders supporters, I mean. There were three states this mini-Super Tuesday although they're three major states: Illinois, Arizona, and my home of Florida.

And oh Lord was Florida a bloodbath for Bernie. Via John Whitesides and Ginger Gibson at Reuters:

Joe Biden coasted to a blowout victory over Bernie Sanders in Florida’s Democratic presidential primary and was projected to win Illinois on Tuesday, edging closer to the nomination to face President Donald Trump in November’s election.

Biden rolled over Sanders by nearly 40 percentage points in Florida, the largest of the three states voting on Tuesday, and beat Sanders in every county in the traditional political battleground state.

Edison Research and television networks projected Biden also won in Illinois, where he opened a huge lead of more than 20 percentage points over Sanders with 41% of the precincts reporting...

The easy Biden wins appeared to be a sign Democrats were ready to unite for the campaign against Trump, and could increase pressure on Sanders, 78, to end his presidential bid. Democrats have worried about a possible repeat of 2016, when they believe his long, bitter primary battle with Hillary Clinton played a role in her upset loss to Trump, 73.

In somber remarks broadcast from his home in Delaware, Biden, 77, said the coronavirus outbreak demanded leadership from the White House and appealed to the many young supporters drawn to Sanders, a democratic socialist U.S. senator.

“Let me say especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders: I hear you. I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do,” he said. “Our goal as a campaign and my goal as a candidate for president was to unify this party and then to unify the nation.”

Young voters between ages 18 and 44 were the only major demographic that backed Sanders in Florida and Illinois, the Edison polls showed...

Thing about Florida was, Bernie didn't do so hot back in 2016 either, but he at least won 33 percent versus Hillary and a number of counties. This time, he was under 23 percent and every county went for Crazy Uncle Joe.

And while Bernie is doing his best to appeal to young voters, a strong and growing demographic for liberal-leaning votes, his turnout is still meager at best. It's not enough to foment the revolution in the Democratic Party he's hoping to achieve.

Also, Bernie, it really doesn't help you to say nice things about Fidel Castro in Florida, even to Democratic voters. It's just not sane. But that's Bernie for you, sticking to his ideals but not out of practicality more like ego...

Twitter is awash of Bernie supporters screaming about the unfairness of it all, how Biden is a lying monster, how the Dems are backing a loser when it will come time to stop trump. However, it's not convincing anybody I know. It's all petulant sour grapes now, and it's the kind of self-harm that this nation doesn't need. And yet... sigh.

Personally, I was hoping Warren would still be in the race by now, but she wasn't and there's my Blues for you.

I'll have more to say later, but for now I have to cope with the Coronavirus crisis my own way. Translation: My library finally closed to the public and we've got a lot of cleanup work to do.

With Warren Out, Seeking Shelter on This Thin Raft

I think I know why I'm having a problem blogging lately.

It's that, more and more, I am not writing anything remotely close to good news to share with the rest of you. The same overwhelming nightmare of crazy trumpian disasters day after day, combined with a paltry and thinned-out sense of relief we need to find at the end of all this madness.

The craziness of the Coronavirus pandemic notwithstanding, the thing that's been troubling me since last week - something it's taken me this long to write about - has been Elizabeth Warren's ending of her Presidential campaign.

It's heartbreaking for me. Above all, she was the only major candidate I viewed as an Active-Positive character with Adaptive and Gameplanning (all those plans!) skills. She showed better organizational skills than Bernie or Biden or Harris - Warren's campaign had events in Florida months ago, something I still haven't seen out of the remaining two big names - and she was giving inspirational speeches and appearances wherever she went.

As the candidates thinned out across a large - was it like 22 or 24 people running at one point? - stage, Warren remained one of the few who represented a shrinking diversity for the Dem party to support. We went from a number of Black candidates (Harris, Booker, even Deval Patrick) and Hispanic (Castro) and Women (Harris again, Klobuchar, Williamson (yeah I know), Gabbard (sigh), Gillibrand (yes for like one week), and Warren) among the White Men (Biden, Bernie, Beto, Inslee, Bennet, Hickenlooper, Bullock) and even a Gay White Man (Buttigieg) as the most diverse field ever to... well, almost no minorities and two (okay if you include Gabbard which you shouldn't, three) women candidate alongside the White Guys Biden Bernie and Buttigieg. Still...

The Democratic field even included the one ethnic group Democratic voting base doesn't like: Rich White Guys with Steyer and Bloomberg. Granted, Steyer is reasonably okay (he actually donates to charities!) and Bloomberg *is* still willing to put his money where it matters (helping the down-ballot races), neither of them were going to win over a party base that wants those billionaires to STFU and pay their damn fair share of taxes.

When Bloomberg finally made a debate appearance just before the Super Tuesday vote he had put all his hopes into, Warren was the one who gutted him onstage and finished him off Mortal Kombat style with a Flawless victory. It should have made her more popular with the Democratic voters, it should have translated into more support...

And yet when the actual primary voting happened, Warren could barely get enough voters from enough Democratic voters to qualify for delegates. Super Tuesday alone she couldn't even get past third place in her own state of Massachusetts (given how I ragged on Rubio in 2016 for being perpetually in third place, this was a painful karmic blow).

Unable to gain enough traction to play dealmaker at all for the Dem convention, Warren had no choice but to drop out. And it was just... hard to accept.

And it's not just me. My circle of friends - the socio-political bubble I admit I live within - both online and at work were mostly Warren fans, and they were broken up by it as well (is it telling that nearly every librarian I knew was cheering Liz forward?).

One of those in the circle was Emily L Hauser, who's been a published writer/pundit here and there over the years. She'd been the biggest fan for Warren since the start of her campaign, practically lived for every daily tweet and motivational message. The day that Warren announced the end of her campaign, Emily wrote this op-ed for the Chicago Tribune. It's a must-read, people, please check it out.

When Elizabeth Warren announced her 2020 candidacy, I was immediately all in, because she was the single most extraordinary candidate I’d ever seen. I’ve been a Democrat and activist my whole life, volunteering, protesting and organizing since high school, around myriad issues and across countless election cycles. I had been deeply moved by the opportunity to vote for Clinton.

I can’t say, however, that I found Clinton particularly inspiring. Warren, on the other hand, brought to American politics both a depth of knowledge and what race studies and constitutional law authority Kimberlé Crenshaw has termed “intersectionality” unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. Able to identify and articulate the ways in which, for instance, racism informs maternal mortality rates and sexism informs student debt, Warren understood that the problems facing our republic didn’t begin with Trump, and the aftermath of his presidency will require careful policies that grapple with all of it, all at once. She had a plan...

But Warren’s campaign — for which I have canvassed across state lines, made calls, live-tweeted speeches and raised more than $10,000 — faltered and finally ended Thursday. Despite her wisdom, compassion and proven success in establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, unseating an incumbent Republican in Massachusetts and destroying the campaign of a billionaire with a history of sexual harassment complaints (bye, Mike Bloomberg) — Democrats, the ostensible party of progressive values, have decided they prefer one of two near-80-year-old men: Joe Biden, who oversaw the shameful railroading of Anita Hill in the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings, or Bernie Sanders, a man who was unaware that his 2016 campaign had been roiled with complaints of sexual harassment and gender pay disparities and when later asked about it by Anderson Cooper, responded that he hadn’t known at the time because he was “a little bit busy running around the country...”

But as we attempt to salvage our republic from the destruction wrought by a president actively seeking to unspool our democracy and placed in office by an electorate that didn’t care that so many women have reported suffering at his hands, I am consumed with grief and anger that my party rejected a woman of such unassailable caliber as Elizabeth Warren...

I'm with Emily on this. Warren was a great choice. She was intelligent, articulate, motivational, charismatic, humorous, focused, dedicated. The worst scandal on her was that she mislabeled her ethnicity as Native American in her college days, and she'd already explained that and apologized for it (of course, Republicans and trump especially still take to calling her "Pocahontas" as an insult). She took every policy issue seriously, she took every greeting and selfie line with grace, she did everything you'd expect from the candidate that ought to win the damn nomination.

And yet it was still not good enough. As hard as she worked at appealing to the Democratic voters, she still had to work past the problem of "she."

There is a stark realization as the Democratic nominating process narrows down to two main choices of Biden (Old White Male moderate) and Bernie (Old White Male socialist) that no matter what the Dems are bound to put an Old White Male at the top of the ticket. Having broken the barrier of African-Americans reaching the White House with Obama, the Dems are now terrified of "diversity" against arguably the worst Old White Male of all time in donald trump. As though the Dems are convincing themselves that Old White Men are the only offerings to win over enough American voters to win in November.

Never mind the reality that a woman Hillary Clinton WON the Popular Vote in 2016. Never mind the reality that Democrats are going to need voter turnout among minorities AND women to exceed last cycle's numbers.

I'm a guy, White Male, getting to be 50 years old, and yet goddammit I have no problem with a woman as President. I've worked alongside enough women, had women bosses as much as men bosses, met women smarter than me (my high school valedictorian and salutatorian were both women!) and met women more spiritual than me. Women have brains and souls and heart and ambition just like men. Why the hell aren't other White Guys able to accept that?

And yet the horrifying thing: The Democratic base might be right. There's still far too much misogyny in the mainstream media, still too much fear of women in power across our culture and boardrooms and homesteads.

It's just... it's painful to watch a party that's SUPPOSED to stand for diversity to succumb to that pressure and not fight the good fight. I understand the fear: trump is too dangerous to gamble on appealing to the better angels of our nation's nature right now.

But it's going to prolong the problem. We're going to run into this roadblock NEXT election cycle, and the one after that, and so on. At some point, we as a nation HAVE to address the reality that women can be capable as men when it comes to leadership.

Emily argued this too:

Anyone who hasn’t had those experiences, or known what it’s like to plan an entire day and an entire life around the possibility of sexual assault or harassment, or what it’s like to be the only one of your gender in a room marked by power, or what it’s like to have your reproductive freedom legislated by people with different reproductive organs — simply brings a different sensibility to the issues that shape the lives of 164 million Americans. It matters that women are so often absent from the halls of power, and it’s well past time for one to be in the White House.

At some point, the legacies of Victoria Woodhull and Margaret Chase Smith and Shirley Chisholm and Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren ought to lead to a woman candidate standing there on Election Night celebrating the broken glass ceiling to end all glass ceilings.

I'm tired of the heartbreak. I'm tired of running into stuff like this. I'm not the only one, I know, and this isn't going to hurt me the way it's hurting millions of women still lacking that representation. Where would my compassion and hope and humanity not be while there is something as painful as this still happening? This doesn't help me (other than competent leadership for the United States again), it would help all of them, and that would have been something happy to root for.

I wish I had better, happier things to write about anymore.

Predicting Character: Bernie As Constant Curmudgeon

Okay, this has taken me a little longer to write than I'd hoped, mostly because I am trying to keep a promise to myself to make this as unbiased and professional a review as possible.

SO CAN YOU BERNIEBROS SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR PRECIOUS FEE-FEES ABOUT NOT GETTING YOUR WAY WITH THE DNC RULES FOR A MINUTE HERE?! Ahem. Sorry. Let's try to keep it cool, okay self? Okay.

Next up on the candidate reviews - based on James David Barber's model of Presidential Character - is a fellow we've have guest-star before, this Senator from Vermont by the name of Bernie Sanders. (Insane amount of cheering from Facebook rises up) For heaven's sake, BernieBros, can I get through this without ANY interruptions?! (boos echo through the blog) Too bad, shaddup, and read on.

This is what I wrote before in 2015 during the build-up to that election cycle:

Positives: Has electoral experience for decades serving as a congressman and then Senator.  Has a political agenda that pushes hard Left after decades that most agendas pushed hard Right (the Age of Reagan), meaning a decent chance to shift the goal-posts of the national dialog back to the center.
Negatives: As much as the Far Far Right candidates like Cruz, Rand Paul, and Huckabee (announcing very soon) are poison to the general voting electorate, Sanders is too Far Far Left.  Half of his platform will reek too much of a Socialist agenda too many Americans still despise.  Comes from a small-population state that will not help as a base of voter support.   There is a question that as an independent (not really in the party) that he may not qualify on enough state ballots to count (his campaign is going to have to work overtime to make those ballots).
Chances: Slim.  He's determined, and has a reason to run this thing as far as possible.  But the Democratic Establishment types would be horrified if he gets the nomination: the Wall Street forces will rally like mad for the pro-business candidates like Hillary and could well swamp Sanders' campaign with too much money/power (which ironically will prove Sanders correct about the corruption of campaign money). And he may not appeal across the individual states - especially the more centrist, Red/Purple states in the South and West - he'll need to win primaries.
Character Chart: Sanders' socialist agenda is aggressively behind using the powers of the federal government to the fullest extent of the law, and that government can be used to improve the economy, improve jobs and wages, and uphold broad civil liberties.  On that, Sanders has the look of an Active-Positive (views government as an effective means of change).  However, Sanders displays many of the Active-Negative traits of being Idealistic and Uncompromising: he will not bend on the issues.  The only thing I can be certain of: he will be an Active President if elected.

Ever since I put up that Character assessment, I got to see more of Bernie in action. Or to be more specific, I got to see more of his followers in action.

This is where my ire and distrust about them kicked in...

Here's the deal, Bernie followers: Hillary's supporters are NOT sheep nor sheeple. A majority of Hillary's followers have solid reasons to side with her this 2016 election, and they have reasons not to share the worldview you've got that make you side with Bernie with such fervor.

In your pursuit of defending your candidate, you're going out of your way to insult fellow Democrats and Left-leaning centrists who are still a vital part of the Democratic party's chances to win big this 2016.

As much as you feel alienated from having a Far Left / progressive agenda get shot down for 40-plus years since the rise of Nixon and the Republican Southern Strategy, you're not helping by alienating the more moderate, pragmatic party members who aren't going to be in the mood for your denunciations and scorn...

Look, you can argue for Bernie Sanders. Argue on the merits, argue about the need to fight income inequality. Get ahead on the issue about the growing crisis in rental and homeowning costs for a majority of Americans. Go loud and strong on dealing with the massive personal debt crisis that got ignored by the Big Banks and Wall Street.

But stop with the insults and dismissal of your fellow Democrats. THEY ARE YOU AND YOU ARE THEY both on the same side of social justice and economic fairness, despite all the stuff about Hillary being in bed with Wall Street. At the end of the day, Hillary is still talking about making things work the way Democrats want things to work...

My ongoing exposure to the Bernie fanbase has been a continuing spectacle of a fervent group who believe THEY are the true voice of Dem voters fighting against an "Establishment" party that's trying to retain enough cohesion to fucking win a Presidential election. Again. Yet it's that failure of purity that's already driving some of the more publicly-known pro-Bernie supporters to say they won't support any other Democratic candidate in 2020. Just like they promised not to for Hillary in 2016. Essentially, they're extorting the Democratic party into accepting Bernie or else suffer low turnout guaranteeing a second trump term.

In other words, the BernieBros are promising to be assholes. Again. (Booing increases from the corners of the Internet where they reside) I'm not WRONG, you jerks. Look at yourselves... Sheesh, anyway...

The current drum-beating from the BernieBro elements are that the other major candidates - Biden, Harris, even Warren - are insufficiently Progressive enough to win them over if they get the nomination. Worse, they're convinced that none of the other candidates can appeal to the coveted "working whites" voting group that went for trump in 2016, as though that voting bloc is ever attainable for Democrats in 2020. Never mind the facts - same as in 2016 - that a Democratic administration if they win would support - and even pass - enough of a Far Left platform to make the United States more secure on key issues for progressives like better wages, repairing the damage of climate change, ending trump's human rights abuses on immigration, and more.

The Bernie voters - like any Idealistic extremist world-view - want their Utopia. To them, "Merely Good" is NOT "Perfect". And only Bernie can deliver "Perfect".

So what the hell IS "Perfect" for a Bernie supporter? In short, a radical redesign of American political and social philosophy, away from Capitalism and fully attuned to Socialism (based on what Bernie calls a Democratic Socialism akin to Scandinavian nations).

I can re-argue the problem of Utopian thinking in detail (Again), but the most obvious argument here is that a majority of Americans - many of them AREN'T as Left-leaning as the Progressives want to believe - are NOT going to support a Bernie agenda that on paper looks to change everything we know about how America works. 

When people vote For or Against anything, the biggest concerns they will always have are What do I gain from this, and What will this cost me? A massive revamp of even healthcare away from the Obamacare system (which supports the current Capitalist view) to a Medicare-For-All system (which forces wholesale changes that even its supporters can't fully explain) will scare enough honest voters (even the ones who would benefit the most) away from supporting that.

This is where Bernie differs from much of the primary field. Even Warren - who is closest to Bernie when it comes to Progressive issues - is more focused on reforming the systems we have instead of massive change. In this regard, Warren is more an FDR New Deal supporter - which kept Capitalism but heavily regulated it - than an outright Henry Wallace-type of Far Left candidate.

And if you know your history, Henry Wallace really did not appeal to most Americans when he had his chance. For all the changes to how Americans view full-out Socialism today (especially among younger voters), there still are a lot of voters who won't accept it. Even among solid Liberal Democratic voters sympathetic to those goals.

This lack of actual support for an openly Socialist agenda is leading into the other problem: Bernie is not doing so great in the primaries this time. Last time, against Hillary and minor candidates, Bernie was the clear alternative to the juggernaut that was the Hillary campaign. But that was then. Today, Sanders is part of a field of 24 - no, wait, it's dropped down to 16 finally thank the Gods - to where there isn't a dominant Establishment figure (Hillary) against whom a single candidate could run (the Not-Hillary). This time, there's one dominant Establishment figure (Biden) against whom there are three viable Not-Bidens (Bernie but also Harris and also Warren) to split the opposition vote. Bernie cannot rely on a solid 40-45 percent of Democratic voters in the primaries, he has to fight for them vs. Warren and Harris.

Just to repeat meself: Bernie's not doing a very good job of winning over that voting base this time. Sanders' Uncompromising behavior is a big reason why (via Peter Hamby at Vanity Fair):

Sanders might be 77 years old and “salty as ever,” as CNN’s Kate Bolduan said on-air Tuesday after his announcement, but he’s still a central figure in the dialectic of the Democratic Party, its most uncompromising ideological figure, and best fund-raiser. Like Trump, Sanders didn’t get there by climbing the ladder in Washington like his fellow senators now in the presidential race; he did it by tapping into common-sense ideas about economic fairness and raising oceans of small-donor cash online in the process. He delivered his message using non-traditional media and waited for the green-room journalism crowd to catch up. A democratic socialist, Sanders might have chosen to run in 2016 as a third-party liberal in the mold of Nader. But instead, he smartly decided to disrupt the Democratic Party from the inside by seeking its presidential nomination, all while never calling himself a Democrat. Sanders became the liberal folk hero of the last campaign, the subject of graffiti murals, hipster endorsements, and D.I.Y. merch, the cool grassroots signifiers that swirled around Nader a decade and a half earlier...

Sanders’s biggest failure in 2016 was not building coalitions. He found it difficult to expand his reach beyond liberals, white workers, and young people, to win over the older women and African-Americans who eventually gave their votes to Clinton. But on CBS, Sanders told Dickerson that unlike in 2016, he can plausibly win the nomination without cobbling together a majority of Democrats. “In some ways it makes it easier,” Sanders said. “When you’re running against one person you know you gotta have 51 percent of the votes. Now who knows what you need? Thirty, thirty-five percent...?”

Sanders seems like he’d rather watch a 10-hour Bachelor marathon, Clockwork Orange–style, than do the same. He is permanently averse to playing the inside political game, gabbing with power brokers on the phone, or charming the media off-the-record. His sequel campaign will test whether those choices matter anymore, whether big speeches, lofty policy ideas, and social media alone can carry the day. This might be a Very Bill Simmons Hot Take, but Sanders is the James Harden of politics. He’ll get you 30 points a night, but it’s hard to see how he wins a championship without getting his teammates involved. Either way, he’ll still be in the conversation...

The short gist: Sanders will lead the Democratic Party but he won't work with it. Compromise is a dirty word to him. If I need to say something positive about this, I could call him an Idealist deeply committed to an alternative world-view of America as a Socialist Utopia. As much as an Idealist Bernie is, we've seen Idealists in action before: Of previous Presidents, Sanders IMHO would follow in the footsteps of Woodrow Wilson, whose ambitions and agendas surely capped the Progressive Era of early 20th Century... only to have everything crash and burn due to his stubborn ideology. And if you've read my blog enough, you know what I think of Utopias...

Add to that this bit from a Jeva Lange article I dug up from The Week back in 2015:

"Bernie's an a--hole, but he's our a--hole," one unnamed Vermont politician explained to Boston Magazine. Sanders' campaign field director put it more gently: "Bernie is a very demanding guy. He has very high expectations, and he expects people to meet them."

Chris Graff, a journalist who has covered Sanders for the past two and a half decades, expressed similar sentiments. "Bernie has no social skills, no sense of humor, and he's quick to boil over," he said. "He's the most unpolitical person in politics I've ever come across." Likewise, following Bernie's threats to walk off the stage when Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted him in Phoenix, Vermont's Seven Days newspaper described the move as "exasperating and classic Bernie... Man of the people treating the people like tiresome children, telling them what the issue is, instead of listening to what their issue, our issue, America's issue is right now."

"Bernie is so certain that what he represents politically is unquestionably correct, therefore everyone should agree," Susan Boardman Russ, the former chief of staff for Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords, told Boston Magazine. "Not much room for compromise... it was, 'Play in my sandbox, or get out.'"

If you've read this blog enough - especially the Presidential Character stuff - you'll know the second I apply Uncompromising to describe someone I'm labeling that person Active-Negative. It's the key trait for A-Ns - just as Adaptive is for Active-Positive and Congeniality is for Passive-Positive and Duty is for Passive-Negative - where their ambition to achieve their goals outweigh their ability to actually reach those goals. Or if they do reach those goals, they fail to realize the costs - before AND after - those goals require.

If I had to redraw the Character description for 2020, it'd look like this:

Bernie Sanders - Senator, Vermont
Positives: Has electoral experience for decades serving as a congressman and then Senator. An engaging and driven personality. Aggressively pushes for a Left-leaning populist agenda that may appeal to key voting blocs. Has developed a dedicated fanbase that should provide a solid voter base in the primaries.

Negatives: Even in an election cycle where the Democratic candidates are more Progressive than ever (outside of Biden and a handful of other second-tier candidates), Sanders is still too far a Far Left figure. For all his years - since the 1990s! - at the federal level, does not have an extensive success track record with legislation: Very few sponsored bills getting passed or even voted on. Still does not show many signs of playing well with others. .

Chances: Slim. Bernie started off as the marquee name this primary cycle but was eclipsed by Biden the second Joe threw his hat in. Bernie's also been overtaken by Warren whose progressive bona fides - and more positive campaign style - has claimed a lot of the followers he had in 2016. He's determined (as already noted), and has a reason to run this thing as far as possible. But this time he doesn't have the Outsider cachet, he doesn't have the Progressive Warrior banner to himself, and this time he's worn out his welcome.

Character Chart: Before, I had little awareness of Sanders' performance and world-view outside of his stated platform. I couldn't tell then if he were Positive (politically engaged and viewing Presidential power as a means for helping others) or Negative (dedicated - obsessed even - with a particular agenda as a form of personal success). Having seen him in action since 2016, I've gotten a better understanding of how his Uncompromising stances on his Democratic Socialist agenda makes him too Active-Negative a figure to be Adaptive to the challenges any President will face. Sanders wants to be the one to turn the United States away from a Capitalist political-economic society towards a Socialist one. That's one hell of an ambitious agenda, but speaks to a world-view that will chafe against the restrictions of a Federalist system. A Sanders administration - even with a Democratic-controlled Congress - will be a bar brawl every step of the way.

The United States cannot afford four more years of trumpism. It can't even afford one more DAY of Mitch McConnell selling out our Senate to the NRA and Putin. The only way this can get solved is by backing the Democratic Party across all ballots, all elected offices. THAT'S how this nation can recover and rebuild. If the candidate is Biden, so be it, VOTE. If the candidate is Harris, so be it, VOTE. If the candidate is Warren, so be it, VOTE. If the candidate is Bernie, so be it, VOTE. If the candidate is Gabbard... okay, fucking thing's been rigged, WTF Putin even THAT would be too obvious a hack.

But here's the problem: I am not hearing from a lot of Bernie supporters that if the choice ends up being Biden or Harris or Warren they'll still vote Dem. I'm getting the vibe, hearing too much feedback that the pro-Bernie faction will - again - sit out the vote in protest and let trump and those crooks continue destroying our world.

"I will vote FOR the Democratic nominee for President in 2020." That's an easy thing to say and do, Bernie supporters. Recognize and support the Democratic candidate most likely to fulfill an agenda that makes the world close to what you want it to be. It won't be PERFECT, but it'll be better than it is now. Please and thank you.

Next up on the Presidential Character preview for 2020: Oh you better believe there's a plan for that.

Predicting Character: Getting Ready for 2020

To the seven followers of this blog - can any of you just kinda, you know, raise a hand so I know you're still alive? - we're officially at the start of the Democratic primary race for the 2020 Presidential cycle, which means another round of me applying what I've learned from James David Barber's Presidential Character to predict which major candidates will end up on the Active-Passive Positive-Negative scales.

I won't need to do one for the Republicans as trump is running as the incumbent Loser of the Popular Vote, and his primary challengers are swamped by a rabid voting base that is literally worshiping the Shitgibbon as Jebus. I've already predicted trump would serve as an Active-Negative, and he has performed as Uncompromising, Compulsive, and Self-Destructive as A-Ns tend to perform.

But what about the field of Democratic candidates lining up to oppose him? Considering there's about 24 (or 26, hell make it 37) of them with hats in the ring, I may not have time to cover all of them before the actual primary counting starts happening six months from now.

So at first I'm going to plan on covering the Big Four - the names that have essentially claimed the top ranking on the roster - with enough detail to establish their characters and predict - with wild inaccuracy - which one will end up securing the nomination.

One thing to make clear: Of the four Character traits Professor Barber created, there's not really a clear favorite of "Oh, we MUST vote this one into office above all others." The traits themselves are not necessarily bad, they merely warn us what we should expect from the nominee's world views and likely behavior in office.

For example, an Active-Positive type may seem the best option but many A-Ps commit sins like overreach and most often fail to achieve goals because they're too Adaptive to stick to an agenda. Meanwhile, Active-Negatives are angry, self-destructive types but do have the drive to achieve their agenda (for good and for ill) and in some cases can be more successful at policies than an A-P ever could. And Passive-Positives may be prone to scandal-plagued administrations but are also effective deal-makers and managers during relative calm periods on the global stage. (Funny enough, very few Passive-Negatives run for President: They have to be drafted into it, so we'll rarely see one in a competitive field of candidates...)

So it won't matter, at least not right now, if our top four names - Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren - will be Passive-Positive, Active-Negative, or Active-Positive (I can tell you right now none of them are outright Passive-Negative). What will matter is "Which personality traits do Democrats think can outperform trump in November and secure victory in 2020?"

P.S. I did cover Biden back in 2016 (as well as 2008) but very briefly and without in-depth evaluation of what Character he'd be (although the title of my article should be a giveaway). I shall go into greater detail when the time comes...

P.S.S. to make it fair I rolled a 4-sided die, alphabetical order, best of three. Harris is up first.

It's Just a Formality At This Point Now, So Let's Show Our Contestant Some Lovely Parting Gifts

Tonight is the second-to-last (good God, who's last?) round of Primaries for the major parties, and while the Republican campaign was already called about five six weeks ago the Democratic campaign has pretty much gone to the wire.

But tonight is a big one: Two large population states including AT LAST CALIFORNIA (also New Jersey) from which Hillary Clinton can secure enough "hard pledge" delegates among the "soft" delegates to pretty much clinch the nomination.

Although the AP Newswire claimed last night that enough Superdelegates came out in favor of Hillary to cross the threshold, it matters more that the threshold be claimed tonight by the ballot counts, so yeah, New Jersey is going to be the wafer thin mint that tips the scales. Hillary's got 62 percent of the vote with 88 percent of the precincts reporting: at this rate she's got Joisey in the bag, man.

And with that, Hillary's got 2469 soft delegates (with a 1825 hard count, 400 ahead of Bernie) where the cutoff to win is 2383. She's there.

Hillary won the delegates, Hillary will earn the party's nomination in Philadelphia next month. It's done. Anybody arguing for shifting the Superdelegates around, or talking the normal delegates into bolting from any pledge to vote Hillary on the first ballot, is just in painful denial right now.

Still and all: it'd be nice to see if Hillary can dominate this night with winning the rest of the roster. Getting a majority of states looks good heading into the convention as well as the delegate count.

Hillary's leading Bernie in South Dakota at the moment: it's too close to officially call, but barring a massive outburst for Sanders in the bigger precincts it's gotta be going for Clinton.

Lets see about New Mexico: Hmm, Hillary's up 53 to 47 percent over Bernie, it's still too early to call but it's getting there.

North Dakota: Bernie's winning that with a wide margin of 62 percent to Hillary's 26 percent... which is odd except for this being another crazy Caucus where the rules are whack. 10 percent haven't committed, which means the final results might not be known until 2018. And what the hell, Dakota: 253 people TOTAL for Bernie, with 101 for Hillary? We're talking hundreds, not thousands, and I'm pretty sure you Dakota states have more people than that. Where the hell are they? Seriously folks, Caucuses have to go.

It's too early to call Montana even with Hillary in a decent-sized lead there, but then again it's Montana, I never been there so who cares? :) UPDATE 6/8: Bernie wins Montana. Congratulations. I'm sure it can fit somewhere on the trophy case...

All that's left is California, and there's no results in yet for that (West Coast votes are SOOOOOO late in the evening). UPDATE 6/8: Morning has revealed that Hillary dominated Cali 56 to 43 percent over Bernie. That is a double-digit win in the largest state of the nation.

What does all this mean?

It means Bernie needs to bow out gracefully and let Hillary (and Obama, who's itching to get out campaigning for his successor) run the national campaign to the general election now.

No more back-biting... no more questionable accusations about "stolen" elections... no more dissing southern states for "not counting"... no more sore loser stuff.

Let it go, Senator Sanders.

Work on this: You've got access towards setting the Democratic Party's platform, which you can use to set key agenda points on economic policy and Congressional reforms. No, you'll probably not get your universal healthcare idea approved, but there's a lot of other things Hillary and the Centrist factions of the party will back.

This doesn't have to be a divided Party, Senator.

I understand - I sympathize a little - that your Progressive idealism makes it hard for you and your followers to support a "moderate" Center-Left candidate like Hillary. That you don't trust her enough to even placate you on issues. I understand you hate her for being too cozy with Wall Street and the Banks, and granted that is a troubling relationship considering how much more work our nation needs to prevent those same banks and investors from causing another crippling economic collapse.

But here's the deal:

TRUMP IS A GODDAMN MANIAC ONE STEP AWAY FROM DESTROYING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.

I am not exaggerating.

The Democrats as a whole need to unite as one party now... The Democrats need to appeal to the Independent voters with coherent policy points and common sense and confidence... The nation, the entire world needs the Democrats to present a solid, worthwhile choice for a majority of voters to ensure the likes of Trump does not win in November (or EVER again).

You can disagree with Hillary. You can argue for the need to keep her honest especially if she wins the White House, you can push for enough Left-leaning Liberals and Progressive allies into key Cabinet positions to make sure Hillary stays honest enough to your measures.

But you gotta let go of that hate, BernieBros. You gotta recognize that we've got a lot of elections to win, not just the Presidency but the US Senate and the US House and a ton of state-level elections as well. The whole ticket needs your vote, needs your support, needs you period.

Let go of that hate, and look to hope. Hope that you can get enough Moderate and Independent voters to side with you against Trump and his tainted, dying Republican Party.

Hope that this nation can unite behind the first serious woman candidate from a major political party to officially run for President. Under this banner, the Democrats can rally to wins in the Senate and break that logjam... and if the Republicans implode as predicted there's a good chance of turning the power of the US House back to Democrats too.

This is a major election. All hands on deck, get the vote out, and do what we can to Stop Trump and Save America.

That means voting for Democrats all across the board. That means voting for Hillary.

Update: so of course Bernie is saying he's gonna fight this all the way to Philly. /headdesk

The Thing I Don't Get About The Bernie Supporters Who Say They'll Never Vote Hillary

(Update: Hello again, Crooks & Liars readers visiting via Mike's Blog Round-Up! Thank you, Batocchio for all your support! Oh, and Infidel753 added a link to here as well. Danke!)

Actually, there's several things I don't get.

There's a very noticeable online faction of Bernie voters - yes, the BernieBros - who'll say they'll vote Trump instead of Hillary when the time comes this November.

To which I say ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MINDS.

Part of their argument is that they can never support Hillary as she is untrustworthy, a liar, too far Right in her politics for their tastes, a War Hawk who'll bomb other nations.

And Trump isn't any of that already?! Every argument these anti-Hillary voters have applies just as well - no, worse - to what Trump will do in the White House.

Trump will clearly - he's openly promised to these things - bomb "enemy" nations, push for a return of an illegal torture regime, start trade wars with China, disrupt our foreign allies to the point of chaos. Trump foreign policy would be a disaster beyond the pale of what happened under Bush the Lesser.

Trump's economic policies would favor the elites far worse than anything a pro-business Hillary will offer up to Wall Street and the banks. And Trump will clearly create an economic crisis - just on his trade protectionism alone - that would rival the Great Depression.

Trump's domestic and civil rights policies will be complete disasters for everyone - yes, white folk included - as his anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies will be on scales far worse than our shameful internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, than our mistreatment of Native tribes since the 1800s, than our decades of Jim Crow segregation.

Do you really think Hillary will commit even a tenth of the sins a Trump Presidency will inflict on our nation, on the world? Do you think Hillary is a worse candidate, a bigger liar than Trump?

You'd be wrong.

Hint: Hillary is nowhere near the liar Trump is. So take that excuse for voting Trump and shove it up your collective ass, BernieBros.

Hint Number Two: If it gets to be Hillary vs. Trump, Hillary is the candidate most likely to NOT commit massive civil rights abuses here at home, and is the most likely to NOT leave nuclear craters in places like Gaza, Iran, and Atlantic City (I am not joking). Will Hillary be a War Hawk? Compared to Obama, probably. Compared to Trump, she'll be a f-cking Pacifist qualifying for the Nobel Peace Prize For Not Being a Republican Neocon.

For all the claims on Hillary being a weak candidate who can lose to Trump, she's been consistently hitting Trump on his failed business practices, his terrible rhetoric, his sexism and racism. She will not flinch against him the way the Republican field of nobodies who quit this primary season. I can't see why this is an argument.

For all the claims that Bernie can do better, that's barely a point made from the current polls. Both Hillary and Trump can beat him, and the polling is better for Bernie (now) only because the polling for Hillary is artificially skewed by fake scandals the Far Right is STILL shilling 25 years on. Hillary's Unfavorables are high now only because there's a sizable faction against her among Dem ranks. Once she gains the nomination - much like for Republicans lining up (painfully) behind Trump - it's a good bet the polling for her will improve (Trump's Unfavorables remain high even after securing the GOP nomination... because Trump IS THAT BAD).

There's one more thing for the anti-Hillary voters among the Far Left to remember: there is more at stake here than just the White House.

Whoever wins the Presidency this November is going to be the one who gets to fill the Supreme Court vacancies (among all the judicial seats still vacant because of Republican obstruction).

Right now, the damned GOP Senate is refusing to seat Obama's pick Garland for the current vacancy. The Republican argument is that they'll hold off for whomever wins this November so that "the voters" can have a say in who takes that seat (the real reason is to hope for Republican election wins and stop the Court from shifting Center-Left).

Do you WANT to give Trump the power to fill that SCOTUS vacancy (if he wins, it will likely mean the Republicans keep control of that Senate)? You do that, say goodbye to Roe, say goodbye to Obamacare, say goodbye to civil rights, say goodbye to gay marriage or gay rights of any kind, say goodbye to voting rights, say goodbye to prison reforms, say goodbye to public education and clean air/water and unions and safety regs and fair wages and birth control and food stamps and Medicare and Social Security and everything else our nation's achieved since the New Deal era.

Your vote for Trump will likely give the Republicans a chance to fill more than just one SCOTUS seat: Ginsburg and Breyer for example are in the same risk as Scalia was dying in office. Even Kennedy (also same age risk) dying would take away the "moderate" Justice with a likely Far Right judge who will make Scalia look like Holmes. We'll be at the mercy of a Far Right - not even a Center-Right - Supreme Court for two decades or more.

Just on this alone, I'm voting Hillary over Trump. I'd vote Bernie over Trump.

And that's just it: there's more than the SCOTUS - our entire Constitutional system - at stake when it comes to Trump. Trump will be the massive wrecking ball to our nation that WE DO NOT NEED NOR DESERVE.

If the progressive Far Left among you who feel that our nation needs a revolution to break the system, this is not how you fix things. Trump is how you break things. And once broken it is very hard to put it all back together or even improve upon the remnants.

Do you think ANYTHING Trump has left in his wake has survived his meddling? He's wrecked a football league, he's wrecked airlines, he's wrecked casinos and left Atlantic City in the dumps, he's wrecked food services, he's wrecked planned condo towers, he's wrecked people's lives with a fraudulent academic scam, he's wrecked business deal after business deal and nothing has survived him except himself and his precious trademarked name.

We cannot afford as a nation to waste any vote - yes, waste - on this con artist.

Is Hillary the best possible candidate? I'll be honest, I'd have hoped for better (like oh a third Obama term. DAMN YOU 22nd AMENDMENT). I'm not there for Bernie because I disagree with the Far Left agenda - I can't see the nation accepting single-payer just as they're getting used to Obamacare working, and the expense of his plan is scaring even progressive economists - he's offering.

Compared to Trump, however, every minor - and yes, they are minor - sin of Hillary's soul still makes her the better choice. Compared to Trump, Hillary is at worst another LBJ... and that's at worst, considering all of Johnson's work with civil and voting rights, that's not too bad. At best, Hillary can be another Truman.

Trump can be the next Strom Thurmond, the next James Buchanan, the next John C. Calhoun. Just no. No. A million times No.

If it's Hillary winning the Democratic nomination, please for the love of God find the sanity and logic of backing her over the disaster Trump will be. If it's Bernie, fine so be it, Bernie is a better choice over Trump. But so's Hillary. Try to see that, people. Please.

P.S. And it will really help if you all turned out in spite of the Republican suppression efforts and vote for Democrats in ALL available races, okay? Everything is at stake here: The Senate, even the House is up for grabs despite the gerrymandering, even some state elections and governors' races are vital. Elections matter, people. Get the damn vote out.

This Is What the Constant BernieBro Backlash Has Brought Me To

(Update: Big hello again to the Crooks & Liars audience visiting via the Mike's Blog Round-Up link! Thank you again, Infidel753 for the promotion!)

What I'm seeing in the Twitter feeds and on Salon.com - that site has gone so far in for Bernie and so against Hillary that when Hillary wins I'm afeared they'll go full Trump on us - that "we" need to blow up the Democratic Party to save it has driven me to break out the trout and perform the most epic of put-downs:

Breaking out poorly edited Monty Python snark.

Overheard at a Bernie Sanders Support Meeting

Bernie: All right, Shaun King. Don't labor the point. And what have the Democratic Party ever given us in return?

X-Man fan: Civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Bernie: Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.

Guy Fawkes Mask Guy: And the unionized sanitation workers!

Shaun: Oh yes... sanitation unions, Bernie, you remember what the city used to be like whenever they'd go on strike.

Bernie: All right, I'll grant you that the civil rights and the sanitation unions are two things that the Democrats have done...

Jeff: And the roads bills they keep pushing so we can fix our aging highways and bridges...

Bernie: (angry) Well yes obviously the roads and bridges... the roads and bridges go without saying. But apart from the civil rights, the sanitation unions, and the roads...

Another Activist dressed like a Ghostbuster: Climate change activism...

Other Cosplay Voices: Cheaper Medicine... Public Education... Frank-Dodd regulations... Obamacare getting 90 percent of the population covered...

Bernie: Yes... all right, fair enough...

Anime Fan near the front: And Obama does his own crafted brewing! I've shared some recipes with him!

All of the Mob: Oh yes! True!

Pope Francis: Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Democrats broke up, Bernie.

Stan Lee (cameo): And the crime rate's dropped during the last eight years.

Pope Francis: Yes, they certainly know how to keep order... (The crowd nods)... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a nation like this.

Bernie (frustrated): All right... all right... but apart from the civil rights and the sanitation unions and Obamacare and education and climate change issues and microbreweries and roads and a regulated financial system and public order... what have the Democratic Party done for us?

Jeff: Nobel peace prizes?

Bernie: (angry) What!? (scornfully) Peace... shut it!

(The previous has been ripped shamelessly from Life of Brian)

I have a little too much MegaCon conventioning on my mind right now. Apologies for that.

Just to note, this is post No.999 on this blog. So the next one I do has got to be a biggie. Keep alert.

The Sound And Fury Of a BernieBro

There's been a lot to write about online about the more vocal defenders of the Bernie Sanders campaign, AKA the "BernieBro". (points of fact: not all of them are bros, and not all of them are named Bernie) Especially after this New York primary when Hillary thumped Bernie.

The Twitterverse and Facebook newsfeeds are full of the angry, adamant, and argumentative progressive followers who are fully backing the Senator from Vermont. Some of them are standing with him because he's pushing for breaking up the Big Banks, some of them are standing with him because he's arguing for universal health care, some of them are in love with how Bernie can summon birds to his will.

It seems though, from the ones I see on my feeds, far too many of those BernieBros are simply hating on Hillary.

It ties into that Hathos that revolves around her. The level of mistrust, of which barely a quarter of it - her secretive nature - is justified. The fact she has ties to the Wall Street and major corporate entities that Sanders is railing against. The - in my opinion wrongheaded - view of her as a drag on the Democratic ticket. That she is not sufficiently Liberal enough.

We've had this problem before, and I've seen it happen down here in Florida. Twice. A sizable faction of Democratic voters turning away from their own candidates for office because of that "questionable" Centrism. Never mind the facts that Betty Sink and Charlie Crist were experienced pols: they just weren't the perfect progressive paragons to save us all. And as a result, we've ended up with two terms of one of the worst governors of modern times: Rick "No Ethics" Scott.

And yet, here we are, lessons unlearned: a good portion of Sanders' supporters are online insisting that they won't vote for Hillary if she wins the party's nomination. Like Susan Sarandon, they've gotten it into their heads that there's no real difference between Hillary and a Republican candidate, and that it might be "better" to let the Republicans get back in charge to wreck things all over again (if only to spark the One True Revolution of Absolute Utopian Progressivism).

It's frustrating as hell around here. And it horrifies me to see it happening in the media for an election that's really going to matter. Because 2016 does matter: this is an election where Obama's entire legacy is on the line, where key political reforms and efforts need protection from the possibility of a Republican takeover of the White House to grant them the ability to take us back to the Dark Age of the Dubya years.

But I need to pay attention to other things, instead of the noise chambers of the Intertubes.

Despite all the wailing and rending of prayer vests and pulling of hair, the facts are that a very large set of Democratic voters are just happy with how things are going this primary season. If we go back to that Atlantic article about Sarandon's hope for revolution, the reality is that the voters are shiny and chrome:

For example, take a Quinnipiac poll released last week. In that poll, 78 percent of Democrats said they had a favorable view of Sanders. But 80 percent had a favorable view of Clinton. Now, more had an unfavorable view of Clinton than of Sanders—15 to 9—but that doesn’t suggest there’s a huge groundswell of anti-Clinton Democrats.

The latest CBS News/New York Times poll suggests something similar. There’s a definite enthusiasm gap between Clinton and Sanders. Forty percent of Democrats said they were “enthusiastic” about a Sanders candidacy, versus just 34 percent who felt the same way about Clinton. But add in the number who say they’d be satisfied with Clinton and the gap shrinks to almost nothing: 81 percent would be enthusiastic or satisfied with Sanders, while 79 percent feel the same way about Clinton...

Those are good numbers, and shows that for all the open and public hostility a lot of voters are actually level-headed about this election cycle. Not everybody is screaming about things. Not everybody, after all, is on Twitter or Facebook (they're on PornHub instead... well, BLOCKED in North Carolina anyway).

One thing keeping Democrats - and a lot of Moderates - grinning from ear to ear is the realization the Republicans are gonna wake up post-convention to either a Trump or a Cruz. Per MisterMix at Balloon Juice:

Like most New York Democrats, I’m perfectly happy with the choices, have no real concerns about the party falling apart, and I’m enjoying watching the Republicans crumble. I like the fact that we have a contest that gets us free media coverage – why should that f-cker Trump get all of the attention? As far as I’m concerned, the minor dust-ups on the Democratic side are nothing like the foundation-shaking disaster we’re witnessing on the Republican side...

...Yeah, there’s some nastiness, but remember that Republicans are fighting over how many hard-working immigrants to throw out of the country, how best to deny women abortions and birth control, and how to make sure that millions of people lose insurance they gained through Obamacare.

Keep that in mind when worrying about what some dumb Bernie Bro said on f-cking Twitter.

Happy Thoughts, People.

Conclusion: The BernieBro is a lot like the Moral Majority, a very loud and very over-hyped minority. It's up to the rest of us to, know you, let them vent a little when the time comes and the inevitable happens. But then we gotta keep them focused on the Big Game: getting the DAMN OUT VOTE for the entire Democratic ticket. 

YOU BernieBros that seem to make up about 15 percent of the Hater Club don't wanna vote for Hillary? Fine. But PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET THE VOTE OUT FOR THE REST OF THE BALLOT. We need votes for getting the Democrats back in control of the Senate so we can seat Garland and future SCOTUS nominees to the bench. We need votes for taking the Republicans down a notch or twelve in the US House, and maybe even breaking their gerrymandered control of the House with a large enough turnout by enthusiastic, ENERGIZED voters.

All those elections matter in some ways more than the election for the President. As long as there's a solid, respectable, intelligent candidate in either Hillary OR Bernie for the White House that leans either Centrist or Leftist, as long as it's a candidate that will honestly build on the work Obama has done rather than knock it all down out of spite or fear, as long as it's a candidate we know will not blow up the nation and the planet the way Trump or Cruz will, we've got something to VOTE FOR.

Voting for Bernie or Hillary doesn't need any sound or fury. It needs focus, and it needs each one of us showing up this November to get it done.

Okay, BernieBros, You're Starting to Piss Me Off (w/ Update)

Update: Thanks again for the link on Crooks & Liars Mike's Blog Round Up, Infidel753!

I know that primary seasons bring out the worst in the partisan splits between intraparty factions, but I had hopes the Democrats would at least behave themselves as the (mostly) sane national party out there this Presidential cycle.

But the Bernie Sanders followers are starting to get on my nerves here.

One thing bothering me is how they're discounting the states where Hillary had decisive wins - mostly in the Deep South - as "meaningless", as though those states - which tend to have large populations of registered Democrats - don't matter.

Comes across as sour grapes to these No-Party-Affiliate ears.

And having actor Tim Robbins come out in a stump speech to say:

"We've all been fed a steady stream of simplistic propaganda that furthers the establishment's narrative that Hillary's the presumptive nominee," Robbins said during a rally in Green Bay.

"And if we were sheep, if we had gotten in line, there'd be no problem now," he continued, saying "establishment figures would get elected" and figures like Sanders would be "marginalized."

"Times have changed," Robbins said. "We are done with compromising our ideals."

He can argue against the Narrative that Hillary is the presumptive nominee, except he'd be flying in the face of numbers that have her ahead in delegates and total voter turnout so far. Fine, he's stumping for his guy.

But using the word "sheep" to describe the other side of his argument is a huge turnoff for me.

That's the language of the Internet Troll, the contrarian naysayer with the conspiratorial mindset. Whenever that Troll is confronted by a majority of people who argue against the insanity that Troll defends, said Troll tends to call everyone else "sheep"... "sheeple"... and then a slew of obscenities that shows how that Troll lost that argument. It's a sign of how that Troll is dismissing the value those other people have.

Granted, my calling a Troll that derogatory term is dismissive as well, but I'd like to think when I do so it's because that Troll's actions deserve such scorn. Getting called "sheep" or "sheeple" usually happens just because the person accusing others of being that is no longer capable of defending his/her argument, and is reduced to condemning the other side without proof of it out of spite/hate/fear.

Here's the deal, Bernie followers: Hillary's supporters are NOT sheep nor sheeple. A majority of Hillary's followers have solid reasons to side with her this 2016 election, and they have reasons not to share the worldview you've got that make you side with Bernie with such fervor.

In your pursuit of defending your candidate, you're going out of your way to insult fellow Democrats and Left-leaning centrists who are still a vital part of the Democratic party's chances to win big this 2016.

As much as you feel alienated from having a Far Left / progressive agenda get shot down for 40-plus years since the rise of Nixon and the Republican Southern Strategy, you're not helping by alienating the more moderate, pragmatic party members who aren't going to be in the mood for your denunciations and scorn.

You've got bigger fish to fry than worrying about the Judean People's Front (splitters). You've still got Trump and Cruz sitting there a election cycle away from getting into the Oval Office and pretty much undoing not only Obama's legacy but also pretty much every positive step our nation's made since 1933. You've got votes for down-ballot Senate and House seats to try and break the GOP obstructionists destroying Congress. You've got a chance here and there to switch Red States away from bad Republican Governors and state legislatures passing anti-people laws.

Look, you can argue for Bernie Sanders. Argue on the merits, argue about the need to fight income inequality. Get ahead on the issue about the growing crisis in rental and homeowning costs for a majority of Americans. Go loud and strong on dealing with the massive personal debt crisis that got ignored by the Big Banks and Wall Street.

But stop with the insults and dismissal of your fellow Democrats. THEY ARE YOU AND YOU ARE THEY both on the same side of social justice and economic fairness, despite all the stuff about Hillary being in bed with Wall Street. At the end of the day, Hillary is still talking about making things work the way Democrats want things to work.

Okay? Just play nice with others, please. For the sake of the nation and our future.

And to all you Hillary followers: same deal. Congeniality among your ranks goes a long way towards being in a state of grace.

Just remember, both of you lot can crack all the "Republicans are batsh-t insane" jokes you want. It's cathartic and a great way to bond over crafted brews at the beatnik bars.

Just When You Think the Democrats Are Gonna Be The Sane Ones In This Election

Last night my Twitter feed exploded.

Two things happened:

Campaign strategist Ted Devine argued the Sour Grapes theory that Bernie Sanders didn't seriously campaign in certain - Deep South - states, basically arguing that "they" let Hillary have easy wins in the states she did win in big blowouts:

“[Hillary Clinton’s] grasp now on the nomination is almost entirely on the basis of victories where Bernie Sanders did not compete,” said senior strategist Tad Devine. “Where we compete with Clinton, where this competition is real, we have a very good chance of beating her in every place that we compete with her.”

Devine named eight states where he said the Sanders campaign did not compete with a big presence on the ground or much on-air advertising: Texas, Alabama, Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and Arkansas...

Rachel Maddow and her crew kind of blew that story out of the water, showing that Sanders did indeed set up offices in those and made serious efforts, and still got stomped. This hindsight "Oh we COULD have won if we really really REALLY really tried harder" is a lame-ass excuse. As Steve Benen notes in his article:

...But as a rule, presidential campaigns don’t get to lose a whole bunch of key primaries by wide margins and then declare, “Yeah, but we weren’t really trying.” If these eight nominating contests have left the Sanders campaign at a disadvantage they’re unlikely to overcome, it’s actually incumbent on his top aides and strategists to explain why they didn’t make more of an effort in these states.

It’s easy to imagine folks from Team Clinton saying they weren’t exactly going all out to win in Idaho and Utah – states Sanders won easily – but competitive candidates for national office don’t get to use that as an excuse when things aren’t going as well as they’d like.

At its root, Devine’s argument is that Team Sanders identified a series of early, delegate-rich states, but they chose not to bother with them. That’s not just a bad argument; it’s the kind of message that’s probably going to irritate quite a few Sanders supporters who expect more from their team.

A lot of sniping - from the Bernie backers defending Devine's statements and the Hillary backers calling for Devine's resignation - ensued.

The other thing that blew up on my Twitter feed was Leftist celebrity Susan Sarandon dissing Hillary Clinton yet again while being interviewed by Chris Hayes for not being "pure" enough to be the Democratic front-runner, and suggested this:

“I think Bernie would probably encourage people, because he doesn’t have any ego in this thing,” Sarandon told him. “But I think a lot of people are, ‘Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to [vote for Clinton].”

“How about you personally?” Hayes asked.

“I don’t know. I’m going to see what happens,” Sarandon said.

That bit of honesty prompted Hayes to stop in his tracks. “Really?” he asked incredulously.

“Really,” Sarandon said, adding that “some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately if he gets in, things will really explode...”

From that statement, I'm inferring that Sarandon is thinking a Trump victory would get the Left-wingers of the nation so outraged that they will FINALLY rise up in anger and finish off where all the Iraq protests of 2002-03 and the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2008 and the Black Lives Matters protests of 2013 onward failed to accomplish.

I dunno if Sarandon realizes how much that mindset explains the poor midterms turnout of Democratic voters in 2010 and 2014. Refusing to show up - or worse voting for the worst possible human being to run for President since Thurmond in 1948 - is not going to lead to the glorious street revolution Sarandon fantasizes having. It's going to lead to more depressed grumbles from the Left about why this country's going to Hell in a handbasket while waiting for the Angels to come down and blow it all into the sea for them (this is a mindset very similar to the Rapture Republicans who WANT bad things to happen so they'll get their Armageddon).

Hate to break it you, Mrs. Sarandon, but the Leftist movement in this country isn't that violent and not that driven to go that far. You're confusing that with the Right Wingnuts who have their militias raid and wreck national parks while their drinking buddies open-carry AR-15s at little league baseball games.

I get the feeling she wants the uprising she craves but wants everyone else to clean up the mess that will happen. These revolutions she's so blithely happy to see happen tend to get messy and bloody and drag in the very people who called for it early on...

Sigh. Just when you want all the stupid crazy stuff to stay with the stupid crazy party in the Republicans, here comes the Democratic Party to show they can dive into the stupid crazy stuff as well. /headdesk

Now let's face it, a primary race is going to get ugly when it boils down to two serious competitors and their more fervent backers are going to fight like war wolves over who gets to win the nomination. And to be honest, when I'm looking at the polls of actual voter turnouts and voter enthusiasm, the Democrats overall are content with the two choices they have with Hillary and Bernie and are emotionally up for the coming general election.

But this brush war bullsh-t has got to de-escalate. Who cares if it's the Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea, the party has to recognize that there's a lot on the line here - not just the threat of Republicans driving this nation backwards to the horrific years of 2001-2009 but falling right into outright authoritarianism under Mussolini-esque Trump - and that the party has to remain civil within its own ranks and focus on November.

Dear Democrats:

Okay, this is coming from a No-Party-Affiliate guy, but I'm siding with you because the modern GOP is batshit insane and because God Help Us if Trump ever even gets an invite to use the White House bathrooms.

STOP WITH THE GODDAMN IN-FIGHTING. I swear I am gonna stop this car and turn right back for home if you kids keep acting up in the backseats like this.

YOU ARE ALL DEMOCRATS. You are all focused on key political issues: Pro-women, Pro-diversity, Pro-family, Pro-education, Progressive. You WANT government to work, you don't want to drown it in Grover's bathtub, you want social services to get better funding so we can stop the downward slide of millions of families crashing into poverty.

Stop dividing yourselves. The enemy isn't Hillary or Bill or Obama or Bernie. The enemy isn't really big business or unions or deep-pocket backers. The enemy is Ignorance, willful and fearful and sexist and racist and VIOLENT, the true power driving the modern Republicans: and it is that Ignorance that is threatening our very lives and future.

We need to remain united against that Ignorance, and against that Fear. We need to back, with a whole heart, the final nominee when the convention in Philadelphia rolls around. I want it to be Hillary. I want it to be Bernie. I want voter turnout for either to be above 70 percent when the November election happens, and I want to see the Senate flip to the Democrats with 68 seats and I wanna see the House flip to the Democrats with Ryan and his fellow safety-net slashers booted out the door.

We can do this, this election cycle, as long as we have enough candidates running in all the races and as long as the Democrats - and the independent voters aligned with you - remain united and focused.

Signed,
Witty Librarian, Second-Tier Officer of the Lost Battalion of the Horde

Update 7/31/16: You know, it's been nagging at me for some weeks now that what I've written above is something I've ranted about before. It wasn't until today that I realized that yes dammit I DID write an open letter - on Emily Hauser's epic blog - to wobbly Democrats years ago, in defense of Obama:

...This is all in spite of the fact that Obama has faced the most outrageous, slanderous, bullshitty wave of personal attacks and hate-on since Abraham Lincoln got slimed by the pro-slavery Confederates. Clinton got off light compared to what Obama’s getting now. The entire Republican Party, led about their collective nose by the far wingnut psychos of the Teabagger brigades, is openly working to make Obama FAIL, and are prideful of that effort. Even if, and especially if, they can make Obama fail and have the nation suffer for it. Right now, the core ideology of the Republican Party is “If Obama’s for it, then we are against it.” Just look at their flip-flopping on Libya for God’s sake.

Dear Democratic base: do not blame Obama. BLAME THE GODDAMN REPUBLICANS WHO ARE STILL SCREWING US AND THIS NATION. The same Republican Party that refuses to compromise on easing up on the Bush-era tax cuts, the very cuts THAT CREATED THE MASSIVE DEFICIT WE’RE IN.

If Obama seems weak because he’s trying to compromise, that’s because as a politician he’s EXPECTED to attempt compromises. A majority of American voters, even the majority of Democrats, expect that. The problem isn’t Obama: the problem is a Republican Party THAT REFUSES TO COMPROMISE AT ALL, AND INSTEAD KEEPS MAKING HARSHER DEMANDS.

The Republicans are at war with the people of the United States: they are at war with minorities, they are at war with teachers, they are at war with unions, they are at war with women, they are at war with anyone under 55 and anyone whose income is under $100,000.

The solution here is not to abandon Obama: any other Democratic leader would be facing the same problem because THE REPUBLICANS DON’T CARE WHO THEY HATE OR HURT.
The solution here is to get the VOTE OUT. YOU GOTTA GET MORE DEMOCRATS VOTING TO ENSURE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES WIN ELECTIONS.

Look at here. Look at Florida. In 2010, we had a choice between a Democrat who uses a Blackberry over a Republican WHO COMMITTED MEDICARE FRAUD. And Florida has more registered Democrats than Republicans (this is true, by 900,000 voters). And yet, voters were so glum or refused to turn out to vote. As a result, Rick “MEDICARE FRAUD” Scott won by less than 5,000 votes. The state of Florida is now getting screwed over by a crook who wants to privatize everything, kill our schools, destroy health care for nursing homes and the elderly, shut down unemployment benefits, force workers to take urine drug tests at HIS clinics, and give massive tax breaks to his corporate buddies… all because not every Democrat turned out the vote...

This was back in 2011. We are still dealing with the same unhappy Far Left people who want their utopia on gilded wings and bathed in shining starlight. Sigh.

Blogging Update on the Florida Primary Night: As We're Waiting for the End of the World

I'm actually going to bug out at some point tonight, as there's a project I'm working on that needs to be done after nightfall and I'll be unable to blog during then. But I will likely have my Twitter going at @PaulWartenberg so you can track me there if need be.

Otherwise, considering all the polling for Florida it's already looking like a good night for Trump (AUGH), a bad night for Rubio (HAHA) and Cruz (AUGH) and Kasich (Meh) on the Republican side, and a good night for Hillary (Ehhhh, Okay) and a not-so-good night for Bernie (Son, you gotta learn not to talk to women that way).

I'll provide a link to a news site that you can follow in the meantime, and I'll add other sites that may liveblog or at least keep a running commentary...

Update: I've got the NBC News tracker linked here for Florida.

Balloon Juice's link finally has a thread going.

The Atlantic has a liveblog link here.

I will see about others.

Be right back.

UPDATE 7:20 PM EDT: The early polls for Florida are in. Trump is decisively beating Rubio and Hillary is decisively beating Bernie. However, the state's Panhandle will be coming in late due to their being in the Central Time Zone, so they won't close until 8:00 PM or so. There's also the possibility of the South Florida turnout swamping the ballot count, so there may be a delay there as well.

I want to see what the overall voter turnout is like. If the Republicans are substantially turning out in higher numbers than the Democrats, I will be worried. One thing I hate about Florida is the terrible voter turnout among Democrats when they're unimpressed with their candidates. If the numbers are within norms - that is, accounting for their being more Republican candidates to vote for - then I'll feel okay. But this is what's going to bother me most tonight.

UPDATE 7:35 PM EDT: Ohio and North Carolina polls are starting to close. We're not going to see serious numbers on them yet, but we'll see. Ohio is a huge state for Hillary to win or lose, because if Sanders wins there that hurts her momentum. Illinois is another potential speed bump, but Ohio is as much a key for her as Florida.

UPDATE 7:43 PM EDT: The number of voters so far are polling within reason, at least in my opinion, between the Republicans and the Democrats. Right about now, Trump has 590,000 or so voters to Hillary's 640,000 or so, with Bernie at 313,000 or so compared to Rubio's 350,000 or so. Where the numbers add up more are for the remaining two Repubicans, with Cruz in Third at 207,000 and Kasich at around 70,000. Carson is out of the race but still polling with 14,000 (likely holdovers from Early Voting and Absentees).

UPDATE 7:45 PM EDT: Alright, I'm going to bug out in a few minutes to run my errand, and I'll be right back. Add comments if you'd like, send me a Tweet at my @PaulWartenberg account.

Be right back!

UPDATE 9:25 PM EDT: Okay, I'm back from my errand..

SO OF COURSE MARCO RUBIO SUSPENDS HIS CAMPAIGN WHILE I'M NOT PAYING ATTENTION.

Losing your home state in a primary run is about as painful as you can get in politics. Losing your state in the general election is a blow, but you can always excuse it by noting the overall political bent of your state was never really in your favor. When it's a Closed Primary and your state DOES bend your way, then you were never really as well-liked as you thought you were...

UPDATE 9:52 PM EDT: I may wrap this up since the Florida stuff is pretty much done for the night and I have other projects to work on.

The big news will be of course the end of the Rubio campaign, which whimpered into the night by failing to win his own state. On the other side of the "Will He Drop Out" question, Kasich won his home state of Ohio, which gives him momentum for the next week or so before Trump humiliates the hell out of him. Cruz is still Cruz, probably in this all the way to the end as need be until he gets a deal he likes.

As for the voter turnout, right now it's looking a little disappointing in terms of overall turnout. There's about 4 million Republicans and 4.9 million Democrats, and yet both parties are totaling up to around a quarter of their registered numbers. There's looking to be about 1.7 million total for the Democrats (with Hillary winning about 1 million), and over 2.1 million for the Republicans (with Trump getting about 1 million himself with Rubio getting over 600,000 and Cruz at 300,000).

What matters is the Winner-Take-All nature of Florida's delegate counts: Trump is now building a serious lead, with Kasich's win the only minor speedbump he's facing tonight. Trump's likely to increase that lead with a win in Illinois, and it's down to North Carolina's final numbers to see if Cruz ekes out a win there to hamper Trump's numbers.

On the Democratic side, Sanders could win Missouri tonight, and maybe Illinois, but Hillary's wins in Florida and North Carolina and now Ohio give her a huge boost in delegate counts as well. I'm not sure if the Winner-Takes-All rules apply to the Democratic side, but still this is a good night for Hillary.

I might check in one more time before midnight, just for another recap or last second thought.

UPDATE 11:39 PM EDT: It bothers me a little bit that Twitter is now chatting up Hillary's likely Veep choices. Settle down, folks. It's still a few months before worrying about that.

There's still buzz - coming out of Politico - that there are a few Republican movers and shakers arguing for a Third Party run against Trump... as though they were even able to beat Trump within their own ranks. It's still a part of the Denial they're facing that their own party has turned against their interests. I doubt it'll go very far. There are few people with any stature who would sign off for this suicide mission.

This is pretty much it for tonight. I'll post something else in the week about my thoughts and fears about the Trumpocalypse. G'night kids.

UPDATE 11:40 PM EDT: At least DUNK CITY won tonight. :)

UPDATE MARCH 16: It's the morning after.

It turns out Hillary won all five states on Tuesday and built a larger delegate lead. Sanders is now talking about trying to rally the Superdelegates to him, but that's unlikely because they're more focused on protecting the party and let's face it Sanders is just a Democrat for this Presidential race (he has little cred within the organization itself). The optics of the Democratic race is now all on Hillary. The best Sanders can do is run an honest race and keep Hillary focused on the key issues.

As for the Republicans... Trump is getting worse. He's making it very clear and very public that he wants his convention and his nomination and he's threatening riots in the streets if he doesn't.

More on this later. There's other news: Obama is announcing his SCOTUS pick to replace Scalia today. The Republican response is going to be such an epic fail, you can tell even before this happens, they've dug themselves into such a deep hole on their obstruction that they're stuck...