It's quite staggering that the two front runners for the Democratic nomination are 2 white guys in their late 70s. Is there really no one with charisma, intelligence and policies who can stake a claim? Apparently not. Well, I guess Bernie fit's those criteria but you know what I mean.

Trump will win again in November I'm quite certain.

Gazza M wrote:

or the market tanks, or trump woefully mismanages the coronavirus outbreak (or both) the dems will have an avenue to exploit.

I think border and public health paranoia are more likely to win Trump the election if anything. He has all the means at his disposal to appear to be "fixing" a coronavirus crisis with special measures, more travel bans, or a state of emergency. We're already seeing how the coronavirus discourse is splitting nations into "good" and "bad" under a racist lens.

And if the market tanks that will also probably return the focus to the economy, which he will be able to present as a strength.

Specific crises will help Trump, only a holistic perspective on the state of the US, austerity, the need for diverse public goods, the social harm of inequality, is likely to hurt him.

we're at the point where the avenues of attack will be largely superficial from both sides. your last point about a holistic assessment of the US and the conditions that allowed trump into office in the first place has basically been thrown in the bin. no-one in a position of major influence will talk about those things between now and november, and sadly, for the 4 years beyond that

And yet polls show majority support for M4A (around 57%) in all 16 of states polled on the question during the primaries … and that's without anyone with influence treating it as credible.

What is there to talk about? It’s been going on 30 years. These are the conditions that gave us Gingrich, Bachman, Palin, and finally Trump. The key is to look at Trump not as some anomaly but as a systemic outcome. He’s only unique in his (social) media manipulation.

Burnwinter wrote:

And yet polls show majority support for M4A (around 57%) in all 16 of states polled on the question during the primaries … and that's without anyone with influence treating it as credible.

Give it another twenty years. Will take the population turning or the Republican Party reforming in anticipation for this issue to shift. Or revolution.

Lot of shit's going to go down in that twenty years the way things are currently headed. Be nice if some it were good.

Oh and on Sanders, I’d worry. He won his home state of Vermont with 50% , but his other 3 victories of California, Colorado and Utah were all with around 33-35% of the vote. Biden had 60% in Alabama and 50% in Virginia, plus a couple of 40% states to go with a few 30% victories. He was clearly able to get much bigger numbers. Bernie seems to have a ceiling.

One thing I’m not hearing from analysts on why Bernie is suffering so much relative to 2016: more men. The networks spent the last year talking up electability, which is code for vote a white man. Three White men ran. And I think this made life harder for Bernie than being one man running against a woman. Is this a crazy idea?

A proportion of the electorate really disliked Clinton. Though it bears remembering that a very large number of people supported her in the general, more than did Trump in fact.

"Anti-politics" as they call it, in addition to being a woman (which should be no hindrance, but seems to still be a problem in the US in 2020), she was as rusted-on establishment as it gets.

In the general she also suffered from front runner status, with a lot of centrist columnists implicitly calling the win for her in advance of polling day.

The one advantage of the field clearing out is I think the democrats will stop playing morality Olympics and get to issues now. It was getting a bit tiresome watching these guys compete for who is least racist and sexist of them all. I think it all sparked with Biden’s hugging. People didn’t notice how much that got conflated with metoo, and from there a free for all ensued, where the candidates, media and twitter sphere went over every candidate with a fine tooth comb.

to be clear, i don't think the centrists are overly enthused with joe either. they're moreso happy that they've curbed the progressive threat. there was a palpable feeling of terror after nevada that bernie could actually be the nominee, and it prompted them to act. now that they have, they'll have to work overtime to keep biden upright, respectable and out of the lime-light as much as possible for a presidential nominee

When the race began, you could’ve picked 5 or 6 better centrist nominees. But inertia is strong in US politics

jones wrote:

He's seriously showing signs of dementia

Genuinely. He should retire and enjoy time with his family, not being a zombie candidate for an establishment that can't offer a viable alternative to what was popular 20 years ago.

Claudius wrote:

One thing I’m not hearing from analysts on why Bernie is suffering so much relative to 2016: more men. The networks spent the last year talking up electability, which is code for vote a white man. Three White men ran. And I think this made life harder for Bernie than being one man running against a woman. Is this a crazy idea?

Not just more men, more candidates. We've already discussed Warrens effect.

As for places like Alabama I'd be wary of seeing these places as important, they're going to go big for Trump anyway. Virginia fair enough but lets see where the other swing states go. If Biden can beat Bernie in the rust belt maybe he has a shot against Trump.

Claudius wrote:

When the race began, you could’ve picked 5 or 6 better centrist nominees. But inertia is strong in US politics

They did try. They were pushing Mayo Pete hard but no one cared. Before that Kamala had a lot of media backing but couldn't get the support to keep going. Not sure any of them were much better, obviously they weren't strong enough to come in like Obama and win people over.

Remember: Biden is the moderate candidate

That right column would literally look exactly the same if instead of Democratic nominee Biden it showed the face of Pinochet or Videla.

Doesn't matter anyway two possible outcomes on the horizon now. Either Biden chokes on his cornflakes and has to bow out shortly before the elections. Or Trump dubs him Retard Joe with the American public cheering and howling and wins a landslide

jones wrote:

Remember: Biden is the moderate candidate

Policy has never been something voters pay close attention to. I saw a tweet where exit polls in maine said most of bidens voters chose him because they thought he was for M4A.