Tag Archives: Joe Biden

4/27 Jayapal Endorses Here’s the Deal Joe; Sanders TH on COVID-19 & OT

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What if she were being vetted? Long shot for sure.

“As progressives we all understand that the essence of what we believe in is the concept of solidarity,that we’re all in this together. No matter what our color may be,no matter where we were born,no matter what kind of work we do. We are human beings, and we are in it together.”

I wish he would address the NY ballot issue, but don’t believe if he will. Meantime, there’s been push back from Bernie’s team, but we’ll put those in the comments section. Consider this an open thread. BYOB tonight.

Earth Day Late Nite Entertainment & OT

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Joe Biden’s Climate Change Insights Originally Authored by Gore or Someone Else TH for Earth Day.

Not anywhere as funny as Blazing Saddles, but parts of it may remind you of it.

I got this from a newspaper:


(credit: WSJ)

Potential stimulus effects on multinationals.

Hope everyone had a nice day considering the earth is not terribly healthy at the moment, especially its humans.

Jibber jabber in the comments. This is an open thread.

Thurs Night Video Jukebox and Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Evening Birdies!

First, let’s do one jibby jab at the consultant class, which now with Biden’s ascension, all of them want a job with the DNC:

#NeverBiden Isn’t “Privileged”, Supporting The Status Quo Is

MSNBC’s Joy Reid recently made headlines by teaming up with Al Jazeera‘s Mehdi Hasan to dogpile progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski on Twitter for saying he refused to support Biden and was fine with Democrats blaming him for a Trump re-election.

“What this kind of thing says to me is that these are not ‘left-wing’ voters. They are privileged white voters who demand to be bowed down to, no different than Trump’s voters want those who are not white and Christian to take the knee for them like in the ‘good old days,’” Reid tweeted Monday evening. “These are voters whose primary concern is that everyone else kneel. That’s it. Kneel. Or they threaten the rest of us with the endless torment of Trumpism. Caged children. Viral death. Poverty. Want. Voter Suppression. Muslim bans. Of course none of this harms or impacts them.”

“Well here is [reality],” Reid continued. “No one is going to kneel. Those who get the danger of Trumpism are going to vote and find enough fellow voters committed to doing the right thing. The danger to living, breathing people is real. Most don’t have the luxury to pout over their preferred candidate.”

There are two problems with this “privileged” narrative, the first being that it is objectively false. As The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald explained in an article published last week, those who participate in America’s two-party voting performance are overwhelmingly richer and whiter than those who decline to participate, with a comprehensive Pew Research Center survey finding that “Nonvoters were more likely to be younger, less educated, less affluent and nonwhite.”

Which makes sense. Wealthy Americans have two mainstream parties which represent their interests to an extent that is directly proportionate to their wealth, while everyone else is aware to a greater or lesser extent that they do not.

And that is the second problem with the “refusing to support Biden is a sign of privilege” narrative: not only is it objectively false, but the exact opposite is true. Refusing to participate in a system you know doesn’t serve you is not a sign of privilege, a sign of privilege is feeling that you can afford to continue to suppoberrt a status quo which murders, exploits and oppresses disadvantaged groups at home and abroad regardless of which party’s sock puppet occupies the White House.

Video Jukebox, more tweets and jibber-jabber in the comments. See you at Benny’s Bar. Drinks are on the house Nest. It’s a co-op!

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4/14 Jill Karofsky’s Win In WISCt Was Powered by Progressives & Moderates; More about the Path of the Biden Endorsement; Morning OT

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Looks like Ms. Karofsky got a lot of Dem and some indie support to bolster her to victory over incumbent Justice Daniel Kelley. Great story is emerging from this set of tweets by Ben Wikler, the WI Dem Party Chairman

Yet these same voters couldn’t vote for Bernie. I digress.

Alright, more about election day results for Karofsky:

Good for Wisconsin. Hopefully the SCOW will better serve the needs of all people, not just the corporate interests.

The communications between Sanders and Biden camps indicate engagement as teams are forming to discuss issues and strategies. The NYT has some more superficial but still interesting reporting on the relationship-building transition process of the two entities.

That news of the endorsement did not leak beforehand was another signal of the growing unity between the campaigns. Only a small group of people on each campaign knew it was happening, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Ms. Warren and Mr. Biden have also spoken multiple times since her exit about policy issues, including the plan that Mr. Biden has developed to respond to the pandemic. At the staff level, Ms. Warren’s chief campaign strategist, Joe Rospars, and Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Mr. Biden, have been engaged in talks bridging the two camps.

Ms. Dunn, along with Ron Klain, another longtime Biden adviser, played a central role in negotiations with the Sanders camp in recent weeks, while a top Sanders political adviser, Jeff Weaver, and campaign manager Faiz Shakir, represented the Vermont senator.

The scene on Monday was a striking example of the ways the coronavirus has upended traditional campaigning. In normal times, both men most likely would have appeared onstage together at a rally — or at least done so at an event with more pomp. Instead, they appeared at their homes, as they have been doing for weeks.
When Mr. Sanders officially declared his endorsement, Mr. Biden seemed visibly moved. “Oh!” Mr. Biden said, before dropping his head as if he hardly saw it coming.

The two men said they would form “task forces” on issues including the economy, education, immigration, health care, criminal justice and climate change. Mr. Biden’s campaign said that the groups would include “policy experts and leaders that represent the diverse viewpoints of the Democratic Party,” and promised updates on the groups’ progress.

Two senior Biden advisers, Cristóbal Alex and Symone D. Sanders, who both have relationships in the progressive sphere, have been reaching out to leading liberal organizations, including groups that focus on immigrants’ rights and on climate. And Representative Cedric Richmond, Mr. Biden’s campaign co-chairman, has spoken with his counterpart on the Sanders campaign, Representative Ro Khanna, about the need to unite the party.

Still, Mr. Sanders’s endorsement surprised many of the progressive grass-roots groups that had endorsed his candidacy and that are struggling with the prospect of the more moderate Mr. Biden becoming the nominee. Some worried that it undercut the leverage Mr. Sanders might have to persuade Mr. Biden to make policy concessions.

“We want those task forces to be given real power in the campaign and in the party apparatus,” Mr. Weber, of the Sunrise Movement, said. “Not just gestures but real commitments.”

It is unclear how much sway Mr. Sanders would have over Mr. Biden’s campaign decisions, including his potential cabinet or vice-presidential selections. In a Friday interview with PBS NewsHour, Mr. Sanders acknowledged a preference for Mr. Biden to pick a more progressive running mate but said he had not weighed in on the choice.

“Joe is going to have to make that decision himself,” Mr. Sanders said.

Throughout the campaign, Mr. Sanders had often referred to Mr. Biden as his “friend” and the two men have a personal relationship that has remained intact. Even as the field dwindled, Mr. Sanders was reluctant to attack Mr. Biden directly and largely did so only for a brief spell near the end of his campaign that included the last debate — and only on policy.

That comity was on display Monday in an appearance that at times resembled a slapdash buddy skit, with levity that offered a brief respite from the seriousness of a national health crisis. The two men seemed to delight in talking to each other — bantering away on subjects that generally sounded as if they had been cleared with campaign aides.

“Do you have any questions for me, Bernie?” Mr. Biden said.

“I did, Joe,” he said. Both gushed their effusive praise.

Near the end, when Mr. Biden asked Mr. Sanders if there was anything else he wanted to do, Mr. Sanders quipped that they should “play some chess.”

“I’d like to play chess!” Mr. Biden said.

But Mr. Sanders was out of moves.

As Mr. Biden’s live stream drew to a close, a message popped up on his one-time rival’s video screen: “You are muted by host.”

The same article says that Warren is supposed to endorse sometime soon.

More news in the comments.

4/10 TGIF : TYT Viewers’ Poll on GE Indicates Biden has Work to Do to Earn Progressive Votes & OT

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Cenk Ugyur said the poll, while unscientific, indicates that most progressives aren’t voting for Trump. As you see from the graphic, Biden didn’t get 50%. Over half were voting for someone else or not voting for the top of the ticket. Now, this is strictly a snapshot. No cross tabs.

If TYT or Democracy Now were watched more than just progressives, this contest could have been different. But it is what it is.

Bloomberg set to bid for campaign management (perhaps ads) for Team Biden. I don’t recall open bids like this before, but maybe this is just new to me.

Ryan Grim at The Intercept writes:

Hawkfish, which ran the presidential campaign of Mike Bloomberg, is in serious talks to serve the presidential campaign of Joe Biden, according to sources with knowledge of the ongoing negotiations. Along with Biden’s campaign, the firm is courting a wide swath of other progressive and Democratic organizations, opening up the possibility of Bloomberg gaining significant control over the party’s technology and data infrastructure.

The digital consulting firm has had little political experience outside of the Bloomberg campaign, a trial by fire in which the former New York City mayor burned through nearly $1 billion in less than four months. Hawkfish, which Bloomberg founded in 2019 to be the operational backbone of his campaign, is not yet able to sell its track record or quality of service, since it has no other major clients and few, if any, minor ones.

But instead it comes with other enticements to clients. Democratic operatives who’ve been pitched by Hawkfish say that the firm is able to offer extraordinarily low prices by operating at a loss subsidized by Bloomberg, whose wealth dangles as an added benefit that could come with signing the firm. A Hawkfish insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize employment, confirmed that the company is willing to operate at a loss in order to grab control of the party infrastructure, explaining that the firm hopes to offer a fee that would be small enough to entice the Biden campaign while passing muster with federal regulators. (If a firm offers services for less than fair market value, the discount is considered under campaign finance laws to be an in-kind contribution, and thus subject to legal limits depending on the entity collecting the contribution. A presidential campaign can’t accept more than $2,800 from a single individual per election, or any contributions at all from a company.)

“When the objective isn’t money but control, $18 million is incredibly cheap to become the center of gravity for all Democratic political information, which we would be if both Biden and [House Democrats] have to come through us,” the source said, referring to the amount of money the Bloomberg campaign transferred to the Democratic Party last month, in a reversal of his earlier pledge to create a Super PAC in support of the party’s nominee. “And in the current environment, the public sees this as generosity.”

Downsides: Bloomberg will gain even more access to contracts etc in a Biden administration, and I suspect Liz is no longer on the VP short list.

The upside is that perhaps Team Biden knows now the clock is being reset.

Bernie made an appearance this evening on PBS Newshour:

When the full interview is available on YT, that will be posted. Other snippets from twitter will be in the comments. Update: here’s the transcript of the interview.

Judy Woodruff:

This week, the Democratic primary election took a momentous turn, as Senator Bernie Sanders announced he is suspending his presidential campaign.

The senator from Vermont joins me now.

Welcome to the “NewsHour.”

Senator, you said on Wednesday, when you made the announcement, you were doing this in part because of the pandemic, and, as you said, it would be difficult to continue under the circumstances.

Today, you announced a proposal to guarantee health care during this period. Who is this aimed at?

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.:

Well, it’s aimed at the tens of millions of workers who are losing their jobs, Judy.

And when you lose your job, you lose your health care. So, on top of 87 million people who were uninsured and underinsured before the crisis, you got tens of millions more who are not going to have any health insurance.

And it’s my view that, in the midst of this terrible, terrible crisis, when people have so much to worry about, the least we can do is to say to all of those people, you know what? You go to the doctor when you’re sick. Don’t worry about the health care bills. Medicare will fill in all the gaps and cover those people who are uninsured or underinsured today.

Judy Woodruff:

And do you have support for this among Democratic colleagues?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Yes, we do.

There’s support in the House, and I think you’re going to see growing support in the Senate. And I think that the cost is reasonable. It will be about $150 billion over four months, which, given everything that we’re dealing with, is not a lot of money.

But to say to every American that, don’t worry about the costs of health care, you’re not going to have to pay it out of your own pocket, you’re not going to have to pay for prescription drugs, I think that will take a huge burden off the shoulders of so many of our people, and that is the very least that we should be doing right now.

Judy Woodruff:

Senator, let’s talk about this election.

What, after 15 months of pour-your-heart-out campaigning, and this after you spent, what, years campaigning in 2016, you had to make this announcement that you didn’t want to make. This is not where you wanted this to end up.

But, as you look back, what went right and what went wrong?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Well, look, I think that what went right is that, for all intents and purposes, Judy, I think we have won the ideological battle.

I think ideas that I fought for four or five years ago which everybody considered to be radical and extreme are now part of the mainstream discussion. And, in fact, many of them are being implemented across the country, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, making public colleges and universities tuition-free, forgiving student debt, guaranteeing health care to all people as a human right, focusing on climate change as an existential threat, immigration reform, criminal justice reform.

Many of the ideas that we brought forth which were initially rejected are now moving forward. And I think that is the best thing that we have accomplished.

Furthermore, we have won the generational struggle. We did very poorly — and I don’t know why, to tell you the truth — with older people, but we have done phenomenally well with younger people. And by that, I mean people 45, 50 or younger.

And the truth is, that is the future of America. So, the ideas that we have fought for are gaining momentum among younger people and will be the policies that guide America in the future.

Judy Woodruff:

Senator, I think that — I was just going to say, I think the numbers show you didn’t do as well with young people as you had in 2016.

But what I want to ask you about is, you are supporting — at least you acknowledge Joe Biden will be the nominee, and yet you’re going to compete against him in the primaries to come. What is the value of that?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

No, we’re not competing against — we don’t — there’s no active campaigning. There’s nothing to compete about. Joe Biden will, everything being equal, be the nominee.

But I think our — my name will be on the ballot. That’s the way it is in all of the remaining states that hold primaries. We would like to get as many delegates as we can, so that we have a stronger position at the Democratic Convention to help us shape the new platform of the Democratic Party and the other issues that the DNC deals with.

Judy Woodruff:

You say you want to shape the platform, and yet, I think, it appears, from the many last conventions, it’s what the nominee wants that ultimately matters.

And, right now, Joe Biden has moved in your direction. He’s talked about lowering the age for Medicare eligibility to 60. He’s talked about making free college tuition more available.

But, at the same time, he has not endorsed Medicare for all. Senator Sherrod Brown, liberal Democrat, was on the show two nights ago, said he doesn’t think that Joe Biden is going to do that. Is that sufficient for you?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Well, look, Judy, what I said on the very first day that I began my campaign, I said that, if I lose, I will be there to support the Democratic winner, the nominee, the person who wins the nomination, because I think that Donald Trump is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country.

And we all have got to rally around the winner to defeat Trump. And that’s certainly what I will do. But I hope, in the coming weeks and months, I will be working and my staff will be working with Joe Biden and his team in making the point that, if Joe is going to do well against Trump and is going to defeat Trump, then he is going to have to reach out effectively to a whole lot of people where he has not had the kind of support that he needs.

And that’s lower-income people. That is younger people. And he’s going to have to give those people the understanding that he hears them and he’s moving to respond to their concerns. And that deals with climate change. It deals with making public colleges and universities tuition-free.

In my view, it deals with — you’re right. He is not going to support Medicare for all, but I think there is a significant path forward for him to make sure that, when so many people are losing their private insurance, that the federal government will be there for them to cover their health care needs.

Judy Woodruff:

You have said that you campaigned enthusiastically for Hillary Clinton four years ago. Will you do exactly the same for Joe Biden? Will you be more enthusiastic?

Because, as you know, many Democrats look back and say they wished you had done more.

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Well, many Democrats opposed me from the Democratic establishment from day one.

All I can tell you is, in 2016, I worked as hard as I could to see that Trump was defeated and Clinton was elected.

(CROSSTALK)

Judy Woodruff:

And will this year be different?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Well, this year, I will work as hard as I can to make that sure Donald Trump is not reelected and that Joe Biden becomes president.

But I hope, in the interval here, what we have got to do is to — is — and I think Joe Biden is a — not only is he a decent guy. He is a good politician. And he understands that, for him to win, to get the votes that he needs, he’s going to have to listen to and respond to the needs of a whole lot of people who have not been overly enthusiastic about his campaign up to now.

Judy Woodruff:

But you are saying you will be enthusiastically supporting him.

A key decision that he’s going to have to make, of course, is for vice president. He has said he will choose a woman. Let me ask you how your supporters would view it if he chose Elizabeth Warren?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Well, I think — I can’t speak for all of my supporters.

All I can say is that I think the more progressive the vice presidential candidate that he nominated, the better it would be in terms of the kind of response that our supporters would provide him.


Judy Woodruff:

So, if it were Amy Klobuchar?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

I can’t speculate on that.

Judy Woodruff:

Or Kamala…

Senator Bernie Sanders:

You know, Joe is going to have to make that decision himself. I have not been involved in that discussion. We will see what he does.

Judy Woodruff:

Republicans, Senator, this week in Wisconsin, as you know, took steps to prevent measures that would have made it easier for people to vote, to either delay the election or to make it — mail-in ballots possible.

That view is also held by Republicans at the national level. How concerned are you right now about November and access to ballots, access to voting for Americans across the board?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Judy, I will tell you I don’t know that I have ever, within a political context, seen anything as ugly as the role that the Republicans in the legislature in Wisconsin and their Supreme Court played in terms of this primary.

What they essentially said to people is, you’re going to have to put your life on the line in order to cast a ballot.

And that is just unbelievably disgraceful. And that is not what we can allow to happen in future elections. So, it is a very, very high priority for me, and I think for many other Democrats, as we go forward on the new piece of legislation — and I have got a lot of ideas on that one — but certainly one of the highest priorities must be to make sure that every American in this country is able to vote through a paper ballot in November.

And the Republicans, I must say, have been pretty clear. They understand that, if there is a large voter turnout, they are not going to do so well. And they’re fighting us. But I hope their respect for our Constitution, for our democracy will prevail.

And they will understand that people shouldn’t have to die or get sick in order to cast a ballot.

Judy Woodruff:

Very quickly…

Senator Bernie Sanders:

I should also tell you — I should also tell you that, in terms of the new legislation, we’re working very hard, not only to make sure all people have health care, but that people will continue to get their paychecks.

I think that is the easiest, most efficient way to get us out of this economic disaster that we’re in right now. Just making sure that every American continues to receive his or her paycheck will go a long way to allowing Americans to have a decent standard of living, so long as we’re in this crisis.

Judy Woodruff:

Final question.

And quickly, Senator, who leads the progressive movement that Bernie Sanders started next? Who are the next leaders of your movement?

Senator Bernie Sanders:

You’re asking me to speculate. I’m not much into speculation.

But what I will say is, right now, literally, as we speak, I have been on the phone with progressives all across this country figuring out the best way that we can keep our kind of unprecedented grassroots movement strong and growing.

So, we are a strong movement. And history will determine what happens in the future. But, right now, we are working hard to build that movement.

Judy Woodruff:

Senator Bernie Sanders, joining us tonight from Vermont, Senator, thank you very much.

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Thank you, Judy.

We miss Bernie not rallying us on weekends. Here is a precious moment captured by Shaun King.

Bar is open and budtenders are available for cocktails. This serves as an Open Thread.

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I think this song, listened to broadly, is a good way to start our weekend.

4/1 Former Comic Relief Co-Founder Berates Bernie Sanders for Being A Democratic Socialist; Is there a POTUS AOC in the Future? Evening OT

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Bernie 1, Whoopi zero, The View no longer most-watched show on milquetoast DNC topics. I’m sure Joy will cry about it tomorrow.

In keeping with the earlier thread’s April Fool’s theme, here’s an interesting farcical piece about a POTUS AOC, written by a libertarian. But it’s eerily close to what progressives wish for if we can’t have Bernie as the first democratic socialist POTUS in the 21st century. Perhaps the Daily Kos will fold under Biden as well because they don’t have Trump to kick around. (h/t to TomP, who is on permanent TO at TOP)

A column from 2025, when President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez takes office

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2025 — President-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s rise to the top has been as rapid as it once seemed improbable. But the New York Democrat’s inauguration today should remind all of us how quickly political paradigms fall when political elites fail.

In hindsight, the failures that brought the first socialist president to power seem obvious. The rapid collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s made the United States the world’s only superpower. Presidents from both parties used that power to usher in a regime of global neoliberal economics backed by U.S. military power. As the Greek historian Thucydides wrote two millennia ago, the strong do what they can while the weak do what they must. The rest of the world fell into line, and the 21st century was born.

Cracks in the edifice soon appeared. The United States could conquer countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, but it lacked the will and the means to hold them. Insurgencies in both countries cost trillions of dollars without bringing victory. At the same time, vast swaths of the U.S. homeland were falling apart, hollowed out as firm after firm left communities small and large to invest elsewhere. America’s house still had curb appeal, as witnessed by the large numbers of migrants streaming to get in. But the foundations were slowly subsiding.

The financial collapse of 2008 was the first clear sign of endemic failure. No elites saw it coming, and its arrival was clearly the result of failed policies that encouraged finance and housing to spur economic growth. It took trillions of dollars in bailouts to prevent a second Great Depression, but little of that money went directly to the people whose lives were upended the most. Banks were saved, but neighborhoods were lost. Recovery was slow when it came, and popular resentment grew. Twin populist challenges in 2016 — Bernie Sanders among Democrats and Donald Trump among Republicans — was the result, culminating in Trump’s shocking election.

Trump proved incapable of leading the reform movement he birthed. A divisive, unserious man, his administration lurched between trying to remake the global neoliberal order and enacting the standard Republican economic agenda. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, he did what he had always done in office: gyrate wildly between populist bluster and meek submission to elite advice. In the end, that meant he held his future hostage to the very swamp he said he would drain.

Those elites said they could put the economy into an induced coma and restart it with massive injections of cash. But they were wrong. There was no V-shaped recovery. Instead, the country remained mired in depression on Election Day. Joe Biden’s landslide victory swept Democrats into power.

But the 78-year-old Biden was not up to the task. He had always been a man of consensus and restoration, not vision and boldness. Like Herbert Hoover after the crash of 1929, Biden sought to preserve a system with half-measures rather than embrace dramatic reform. The economy did not fall, but it also did not rise. After three years of misery, Americans had seen enough.

The 2022 midterms sealed Biden’s fate and foreshadowed Ocasio-Cortez’s rise. Her successful primary challenge of another septuagenarian Democratic establishment paragon, Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, made her the heir to Sanders’s progressive army. Many other Democratic establishment figures lost their primaries to progressive challengers, shifting the party’s gravity sharply to the left.

Democrats kept power, however, because of Republican weakness. They were hindered both by Trump’s divisive legacy and their leading role in crafting the failed bailout strategy. They were also fatally hobbled by their own internal civil war. The dominant faction thought the current crisis was a rerun of the 1970s experience with stagflation, and thus sought to fight the depression by cutting taxes and spending and expanding global trade. But saying neoliberalism hadn’t gone far enough was not what most Americans wanted to hear.

Ocasio-Cortez easily defeated Biden in the Democratic primaries as he looked as feeble as his policies. Republicans, meanwhile, put up their own woman of color, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. But she failed to catch on as party orthodoxy prevented her from assuming the mantle of change Americans desperately wanted. Ocasio-Cortez’s extreme youth — she only turned 35, the constitutional minimum age to become president, in October of 2024 — also helped her. This new leader was clearly untainted by discredited old policies she had always loudly opposed.

The new president has long been known by her initials, AOC. Perhaps not coincidentally, that places her in the long line of Democratic presidents also known by their initials: FDR, JFK and LBJ. As the first woman, the first Latina and the first socialist to become president, no one doubts that she will seek to transform the United States more dramatically than any of her predecessors dared to attempt.


(credit: Getty images)

In other news…

This unfortunately is not a joke. They are nominated as FDA: future Darwin Awardees.

More tweets, videos, and jibber-jabber in the comments.

Bar is open. This serves as an Open Thread.

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Bar is Open.JPG

3/31 Sanders to Appear on The View Tomorrow; To Briahna With Love; Evening OT

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

So how much grief will Whoopi give Bernie this time.

This op-ed in LAT deserves some attention. Kudos to a birdie for retweeting this piece.
Black voters pragmatically support Biden to beat Trump — but we deserve Sanders’ big agenda

Just as in the civil rights movement, black people are the moral vanguard, clarifying our national purpose at a key moment and breaking a paralysis of consensus. The South Carolina message was clear: The racist must go. We must beat Trump, and we’ll beat him with Biden.

Biden was the loyal sideman to the first black president, Barack Obama, who gave rise to massive white resentment that Trump successfully harnessed in 2016. That alone was more than enough reason for many black voters to give Biden the go-ahead in South Carolina. What has happened next, Biden’s much-analyzed momentum, is the domino effect of black voters’ certainty.

This may all work out just fine as far as ending Trump’s reign, a goal that the coronavirus pandemic only makes more urgent. And yet the black certainty that will have saved us in the short term is a problem in the long term.

Black folk are too certain. We vote pragmatically. We vote not for the candidate who will do us the most good but for the one who will do us the least damage. We choose politicians who won’t create solutions for our many legitimate crises but who will put the brakes on the worst offenses that already exist. (Trump certainly qualifies as such an offense.) We don’t vote ideology because we usually can’t: United States history has been so hostile to black interests and racial equality that there usually aren’t mainstream candidates who truly represent the way we think, what we believe. Politically, black people have to be on the defensive — voting for what someone isn’t, not for what he or she is.

Voting defensively is not always a waste; in 2020, it has never felt more crucial. But the desperation fueling black defensiveness is obscuring something important. In 2020 we could be choosing ideologically at long last. Bernie Sanders mainstream candidacy, and its socialist-friendly agenda, addresses much of what black people prioritize, from ending mass incarceration to tackling homelessness. His campaign has proved that electoral politics can represent a deeply held belief system: ideology.

Sanders’ unwavering progressivism is also supposed to be his fatal flaw: He’s not practical or realistic. But where has realism gotten us? I think of Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from Birmingham jail in 1963, which he wrote to white liberals — his putative civil rights allies — who were counseling patience and incremental change in the face of fierce Southern resistance. King was having none of it. For him, dramatic change was practical , demanding it was the only choice if segregation were to be defeated. Call that unrealistic and revolutionary, but it was utterly necessary.

In the decades since King’s death, many black people have lost touch with the necessity of idealism and imagination. They have forgotten that those are the only things that ever worked for us.

After South Carolina, the black vote — secured by the Voting Rights Act, one decidedly revolutionary thing King forced into law — was tracked from state to state, almost fetishized. The scrutiny was all about the horserace and how black folks might get Democrats across the finish line in November. Beyond the Obama connection, no one talked about Biden as a supporter of black voters’ interests.

No one mentioned the former senator’s troubling record on school busing (not even Kamala Harris, who famously took him to task on the debate stage last year, but who endorses him now) or how he cleared the way for Clarence Thomas’ retrograde hijacking of Thurgood Marshall’s seat on the Supreme Court, or how he embraced the Clintonian approach of talking empathetically about race and equality but tacking right in order to compete effectively with the white majority Republican Party. That strategy worked, but with black people as the biggest losers.

As for Sanders, the tenets of racial equality are baked into his agenda. He has weathered criticism from black people that, like most white progressives, he emphasizes economic problems over racial ones. But his ideology is worth our consideration. Another complaint is that he isn’t a Democrat, but that’s the point — in order to maintain his agenda, he can’t be. I heard a black man in a grocery store line loudly decrying Sanders’ socialism; I couldn’t help responding that government policies for and about the common good —socialism — have been the only thing that’s come close to helping black people on the scale we deserve to be helped.

I am not officially endorsing Sanders, a position that is almost moot. I am saying that black voters have the rare opportunity to consider the change his candidacy has offered and how that change could finally make the Democratic Party accountable to them, its most reliable and potent bloc.

But Democrats won’t be held accountable — again — because the overwhelming fear of a Trumpian future, intensified by the way COVID-19 painfully lays bare our crisis of national leadership, is making pragmatists of us all.

For black voters, pragmatism is familiar, a default position. But it should never be mistaken for all of who we are, or what we

Just as in the civil rights movement, black people are the moral vanguard, clarifying our national purpose at a key moment and breaking a paralysis of consensus. The South Carolina message was clear: The racist must go. We must beat Trump, and we’ll beat him with Biden.

Biden was the loyal sideman to the first black president, Barack Obama, who gave rise to massive white resentment that Trump successfully harnessed in 2016. That alone was more than enough reason for many black voters to give Biden the go-ahead in South Carolina. What has happened next, Biden’s much-analyzed momentum, is the domino effect of black voters’ certainty.

This may all work out just fine as far as ending Trump’s reign, a goal that the coronavirus pandemic only makes more urgent. And yet the black certainty that will have saved us in the short term is a problem in the long term.

Black folk are too certain. We vote pragmatically. We vote not for the candidate who will do us the most good but for the one who will do us the least damage. We choose politicians who won’t create solutions for our many legitimate crises but who will put the brakes on the worst offenses that already exist. (Trump certainly qualifies as such an offense.) We don’t vote ideology because we usually can’t: United States history has been so hostile to black interests and racial equality that there usually aren’t mainstream candidates who truly represent the way we think, what we believe. Politically, black people have to be on the defensive — voting for what someone isn’t, not for what he or she is.

Voting defensively is not always a waste; in 2020, it has never felt more crucial. But the desperation fueling black defensiveness is obscuring something important. In 2020 we could be choosing ideologically at long last. Bernie Sanders mainstream candidacy, and its socialist-friendly agenda, addresses much of what black people prioritize, from ending mass incarceration to tackling homelessness. His campaign has proved that electoral politics can represent a deeply held belief system: ideology.

Sanders’ unwavering progressivism is also supposed to be his fatal flaw: He’s not practical or realistic. But where has realism gotten us? I think of Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from Birmingham jail in 1963, which he wrote to white liberals — his putative civil rights allies — who were counseling patience and incremental change in the face of fierce Southern resistance. King was having none of it. For him, dramatic change was practical, demanding it was the only choice if segregation were to be defeated. Call that unrealistic and revolutionary, but it was utterly necessary.

In the decades since King’s death, many black people have lost touch with the necessity of idealism and imagination. They have forgotten that those are the only things that ever worked for us.

After South Carolina, the black vote — secured by the Voting Rights Act, one decidedly revolutionary thing King forced into law — was tracked from state to state, almost fetishized. The scrutiny was all about the horserace and how black folks might get Democrats across the finish line in November. Beyond the Obama connection, no one talked about Biden as a supporter of black voters’ interests.

No one mentioned the former senator’s troubling record on school busing (not even Kamala Harris, who famously took him to task on the debate stage last year, but who endorses him now) or how he cleared the way for Clarence Thomas’ retrograde hijacking of Thurgood Marshall’s seat on the Supreme Court, or how he embraced the Clintonian approach of talking empathetically about race and equality but tacking right in order to compete effectively with the white majority Republican Party. That strategy worked, but with black people as the biggest losers.

As for Sanders, the tenets of racial equality are baked into his agenda. He has weathered criticism from black people that, like most white progressives, he emphasizes economic problems over racial ones. But his ideology is worth our consideration. Another complaint is that he isn’t a Democrat, but that’s the point — in order to maintain his agenda, he can’t be. I heard a black man in a grocery store line loudly decrying Sanders’ socialism; I couldn’t help responding that government policies for and about the common good —socialism — have been the only thing that’s come close to helping black people on the scale we deserve to be helped.

I am not officially endorsing Sanders, a position that is almost moot. I am saying that black voters have the rare opportunity to consider the change his candidacy has offered and how that change could finally make the Democratic Party accountable to them, its most reliable and potent bloc.

But Democrats won’t be held accountable — again — because the overwhelming fear of a Trumpian future, intensified by the way COVID-19 painfully lays bare our crisis of national leadership, is making pragmatists of us all.

For black voters, pragmatism is familiar, a default position. But it should never be mistaken for all of who we are, or what we want.

Shall we lighten up a bit with some music, art and other tweets, news, et Brie has been catching all kinds of hell on twitter.

We need to lighten up.

Good! See you in the comments!

3/24 Hell No DNC, Bernie’s Not Going to Drop Out; Sanders Campaign Hosting Another TH on COVID; Evening OT

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Lotsa stuff going on. At 7 CT, Bernie is hosting a COVID TH with Pramila Jayapal and public health experts, such as Abdul El-Sayed, and a few others. Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter, Sara Lee Guthrie, is the guest artist.

Bar is open to celebrate Bernie’s continued and much-needed presence to bring attention to issues. We practice physical distancing, not social distancing (unless one is a Shill) at our place. See you in the comments!