HomeActivismgrassroots4/14 Recession– is it here already? Bernie Talks Up Biden to AP; Afternoon/Eve OT
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orlbucfan

It’s party time. 🙂

T and R, Ms. Benny!!

LieparDestin

jcitybone

Stub
Stub

It will be interesting to see if there’s any third party talk there.

jcitybone

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/politics/bernie-sanders-joe-biden-democrats.html

The space between candidate and movement, between figurehead and the political revolution he inspired, exposed a key element of the relationship between Mr. Sanders and his supporters.

They are loyal not to the man himself, but to the revolution he talked about. While opponents dismissed the crowds and donors as a cult of personality, the lock step of Mr. Sanders and his supporters is a marriage of ideas — many of which he has championed for decades.

And it’s going to take more than a live stream, even one with their beloved democratic socialist from Vermont, for Sanders supporters to fully get on board with the idea of Biden for President.

Ms. Jayapal, who backed Mr. Sanders and is a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a phone interview that “Mr. Biden will have to step up” if he wants enthusiastic support from the left wing of the party. She was one of several close allies of Mr. Sanders who were informed over the weekend that he intended to endorse Mr. Biden, according to people familiar with the discussions.

“This is a party that very much wants to be unified, but that will not be as easy as turning a switch and Bernie Sanders says vote for Joe Biden or Pramila Jayapal says vote for Joe Biden and everybody votes for Joe Biden,” Ms. Jayapal said. “There has to be real movement from Vice President Biden.”

Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who also endorsed Mr. Sanders, said: “The progressive movement has never been about one individual. It is about issues.”

“Our focus now should be on ensuring that we get the most bold, progressive agenda possible from our Democratic candidate — because that is what Americans want,” Ms. Omar said in a statement.

Young people were a key part of President Barack Obama’s winning coalitions, but they did not support Mr. Biden in the primary. Polling has consistently shown that Mr. Biden’s voters skewed older and Mr. Sanders had more support not only among Gen Z voters at the far end of the spectrum, but also among millennials and voters up to 45.

The legions of activists who backed Mr. Sanders will also be important in state and local races, as Democrats seek an all-hands effort to win back the state and local seats that they lost during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

This is why progressive leaders still believe they have leverage to negotiate with Mr. Biden’s team for more policy concessions, even now that he is the presumptive nominee and has secured the endorsement of Mr. Sanders. They argue that Mr. Biden must recognize that even though they were defeated in the primary, the left’s energy is important for any general election coalition. They also believe the coronavirus pandemic has exposed cracks in the economy and public sectors that may lead voters to embrace left-wing solutions once seen as fringe.

“I don’t feel entitled to be paid attention to,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent interview with The New York Times. “But normal Washington politics has a disdain for advocates and activists and grass-roots community organizers. And, you know, we have an opportunity to change that and to really take these people seriously.”

In nominating a candidate without robust support from young people, Democrats are already “playing with precedent,” she added, “because nominees who have not had youth support do not fare well historically in November.”

Still, skepticism persists on the left. And the words of progressive leaders not named Bernie Sanders provided Mr. Biden with a much more ominous warning. Without real concessions of power, they said, the endorsement of Mr. Sanders will have small political coattails and endanger the party’s chances in November.

“We have the potential to move this country to unity and to move Democrats to unity,” Ms. Jayapal said. “But it will require not only progressives saying, ‘OK, we’re ready.’ It will require Joe Biden stepping in and saying, ‘I welcome you and here’s what I’m doing to inspire you.’”

wi65

Today marks the 50th aniv. of “NASA’s successful failure” Apollo 13. The world was on edge to see if America could pull off getting the astronauts home alive. This was probably the last act of American exceptionalism in action live for all the world to see. This was a real as it gets with no scripted outcomes or fake drama like so many reality shows today. America is no longer up for meeting these type of challenges anymore when you look at Katrina and the CV-19 virus responses. We’ve failed in the leadership department big time. If trumpcorp or Bush would’ve been in charge of NASA at the time those 3 astronauts would be dead.