Well of course he won't beat Trump if he's persistently white-anted by his own party, but that's a party issue, not an issue with his candidacy.
It's clear he'd have a compelling message and differentiation from Trump come November if he were backed, and polls show him performing strongly head to head.
Burnwinter wrote:If the focus was on getting Trump out then Sanders would be the nominee.
This is a stone cold fact. I'd go as far as to say they prefer Trump to Sanders.
They don't want a social democrat for President, because they don't want economic redistribution or the institution of new public goods. It's extremely short-sighted even for the capitalist and managerial classes given the bleak horizon of America's society, economy and environment.
I feel like I'm reading a chilling exposé of the plight of low paid workers in the US every day.
Not a peep about the jesse jackson endorsement anywhere on tv. Just non stop scepticism of the bernie campaign all day at best and straight up dismissive insults at worst.
It'll get nasty after the next round of primaries. I hope bernie performs ahead of what the polls are saying, just to make them squirm a bit more
You'd think the middle of a stock market correction, an engineered oil price crash and a public health crisis wouldn't be a bad wicket for an orthodox social democrat. Timing off by about a month, unfortunately.
Someone has to make a voting app and get it tested way before the general elections.
Suspect this corona virus is going to be very influential when it comes to turnout.
Could have just had people mail in their paper ballots if citizens had been automatically registered to vote.
That's far too democratic for the US of good ol' A.
Coombs wrote:Get in the game, Burnsy. Run for office.
"Join the Labor party" is the last thing I'll do, it's a shit show and I say that with earnest respect for labourist parties in history. I would simply make myself miserable and help the cause of awful people.
Michigan going for biden pretty much slams the door on sanders. Its sad but most of his historically flaky target audience once again just didn't show up to the booth. Plus, he's not up against a widely disliked figure like hillary so he's also lost a chunk of the 'not-hillary' vote
Looking at the turn-out figures, biden atually looks decent in the key swing states so far. Not an inspiring candidate by any stretch and the country basically spins its wheels under him, but the medias fear-mongering over who can beat trump is probably be enough to prop him up in the general
Bye bye Bernie. Fought a good fight.
Couple months late, this, but it goes back to what we've been saying in the thread and what I think most people have known all along.
Genuinely begs belief what a complete character assassination this primary has been.
If there is a debate, the one first question bernie should ask biden- list the states you just won this last two weeks joe and i'll drop out.
People really hated Clinton in 2016
Klaus wrote:Couple months late, this, but it goes back to what we've been saying in the thread and what I think most people have known all along.
Genuinely begs belief what a complete character assassination this primary has been.
The media over there has been nothing short of a disgrace throughout the primary. I've never seen the kind of naked hatred for a democratic candidate that i saw after sanders swept nevada. There was a sense that many of these people were starting at the abyss of irrelevance, and it felt satisfying seeing the masks slip even for a short time
Corporate media are always going to oppose any sort of left wing candidate. We seen in the US with Sanders, we seen it England with Corbyn, its been in overdrive here in Ireland since SF did well in the elections. Its pretty obvious the establishment media and especially the media owned by rich people is always going to come out against the left.
I like Ro Khanna. He’s a California congressman and surrogate for Sanders. Great command of the issues, and also one of the few people I’ve heard who is thinking about how to tackle the tech giants.
If I was Biden, I would tap him up for a cabinet role.
The "National Democratic Training Committee" (full disclosure: I have no real idea what they do) has been emailing a national list of party members push-polling them on whether Clinton should run in 2020.
Progressive 
The current results should suggest to these people that in 2016 Bernie was buoyed by Democrat antipathy towards Clinton. She should remain in the shadows.
I wouldn't credit the email particularly, and have no idea what that organisation does. With Biden the presumptive nominee now there's gotta be some chance of a fix going in, either just because, or because his gaffes get worse than losing his temper or failing to finish one or two sentences per public appearance.
You have to respect Bernie’s style. He’s the most consistent politician I’ve ever seen and is going to die with his boots on. Just did a press conference and gave Biden the key talking points for Sunday’s debate, challenging Biden by asking why he is opposed to
Many of these are just common sense issues. You just need to be transparent to about the cost and the financing mechanism (typically raising corporate, income and consumption taxes) so that society accepts that they need to make trade offs in order to have a more just environment.
I think the billionaire point is a distracting red herring but everything else is spot on. Over to Biden.
Obviously from a biased subreddit, but it's not at all acceptable that this is what you have to do to vote. People claim to have stood for hours waiting.
How does voting work in other countries?
In Australia it's always on a Saturday. Polling booths are set up in primary schools - where the P&C sets up a BBQ / cake stall to raise funds at the same time.
Voting is still done on a piece of paper and the vote slips stuffed into a big box for counting. In my experience it takes between 1 and 15 minutes standing in a queue before you get to vote.
We only vote for local, State and Federal government elections, but voting in all 3 is compulsory. At least, it's compulsory to turn up and have your name marked off and to collect your ballot.
i know it's not compulsory in the US, and they hold the general election and most of the primaries on weekedays. as an aussie i was scratching my head at US pundits fawning over states that held saturday voting like 'huh, why's that not done everywhere?'
Voting is not mandatory here, but people are automatically registered to vote if they're citizens and get their voting card sent home per mail in advance, and then they just bring it to the designated polling place where voting takes place. We vote on paper ballots that are counted both manually and by machine. It's done on weekends here too. I've never waited for more than 5 minutes. You can vote by mail in advance too free of charge.
We usually have an 85-87% turnout in the elections. I always thought that was low for some reason.
Ah that's smart to register people automatically. We have to register ourselves. But then we get fined if we don't turn up at the polling place, or mail in our vote ahead of time. So the onus is on individuals to register.
Klaus wrote:Voting is not mandatory here, but people are automatically registered to vote if they're citizens and get their voting card sent home per mail in advance, and then they just bring it to the designated polling place where voting takes place. We vote on paper ballots that are counted both manually and by machine. It's done on weekends here too. I've never waited for more than 5 minutes. You can vote by mail in advance too free of charge.
We usually have an 85-87% turnout in the elections. I always thought that was low for some reason.
We'd around 63% turn out in our election this year. It was the first time it was held on a Saturday and the turnout was down 2 or 3% over all from the last general election. There were storms in the west though that probably effected the turnout there.
Fairly decent bounce for Sanders in the latest national polling, he's gained about 8 points on Biden.
He also got drubbed in big contests last night, losing by 12 to 40%. It’s over unfortunately.
Actually listened to a good discussion with a senior Policy Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center saying that Sander’s campaign knew how to mobilize but not organize voters. The last part required lots of repeated Face ho face interactions to drive maybes into definitelys. Good discussion.
Americans are insane. In the face of a pandemic they reject a move to medicare for all. And these are supposed to be the more left leaning Americans.
Liberals deserve four more years of Trump if they think the answer to a single issue in American politics is Joe Biden.
Was the turnout low?
Seemed fine in high mail-in and early voting states. Lower in states that emphasized in person voting.
That said, it might not be fully clear how much of that is corona versus this contest being a walkover.
For the Medicare for all issue, Biden rightly pointed out that Italy and other European states are devastated. So having state care won’t prevent a virus.
I think the important thing now for Bernie is to see if he can turn his fan club into a permanent movement. I’ve been critical of how his most fanatic supporters vilify anyone who is slightly opposed to him or runs against him. He’s made a great start. But now his ideas need to penetrate the base. That means building a coalition with lots of left leaning leaders, and focusing on drumming this mediate home everyday. And then working towards the policies. Bernie still lives in a fairytale land where this shit magically materializes. He needs to build the policy that shows Flobaba will go from paying 40% tax to 44% tax, but the will be increased benefits from removing waste from profiteering and superfluous private healthcare operators. I think this is the job of the next generation of left leaning leaders, and he needs to build that infrastructure quickly. Otherwise this movement will have been for naught.
Claudius wrote:Seemed fine in high mail-in and early voting states. Lower in states that emphasized in person voting.
That said, it might not be fully clear how much of that is corona versus this contest being a walkover.For the Medicare for all issue, Biden rightly pointed out that Italy and other European states are devastated. So having state care won’t prevent a virus.
Not having state care will? How is it right to point out something out that nobody ever claimed?
State insurance
Claudius wrote:For the Medicare for all issue, Biden rightly pointed out that Italy and other European states are devastated. So having state care won’t prevent a virus.
What a moronic thing to say. How can anyone take that sort of thing seriously? All the people who'd agree with him on that now would be calling it idiotic if Trump said it.
Having centralised state care cuts alot of red tape from the private sector. I don't see how the impact of the coronavirus can be used as a case against universal health care, but I'm sure biden and his ilk will spin it that way
The timing of this virus has been a month behind what Sanders would have needed to make an impact.
But this is Trump's year to preside over, anyway. The rate of case growth in the US, even with inadequate testing, looks higher than in most countries at the same stage. It's a huge human catastrophe in the making.
