The great 2020 election thread....

[clearspira]

On the subject of the election, is Joe Biden dead or what? The man has all but disappeared from our news. I can't help but think that he hasn't shown the best leadership during Covid-19 and this may hurt him in the long run.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

He just had a debate with Bernie Sanders

[LittleRaven]

You're saying that they had some sort of vested interest in him shaking up things for new voters?

I'm not sure who the "they" is in this statement.

The Democratic Party's interest in Sanders is in him going away. He has made it quite clear he wants nothing to do with them. The feeling is now mutual. It's not that the DNC dislikes progressives....they love Warren, after all. But they've had quite enough of Sanders.

Now, the argument was that the DNC needed Sanders, because he was the man who could mobilize the voters. And honestly, that argument looked pretty strong up until Super Tuesday, when the great Sanders army proved to be a complete illusion. I don't know anyone who is genuinely excited to vote for Biden, but his coalition did at least show up to vote, which is more than the BernieBros did. And what started on Super Tuesday was effectively finished in Michigan, where Sanders got crushed in a state he took from Hilary in 2016. Now Sanders has no leverage, no friends in the party, (even WARREN won't endorse him) and no path forward.

C'est la vie. Time to pick a new champion for the progressive cause.

[LittleRaven]

On the subject of the election, is Joe Biden dead or what?

He is not dead, but he HAS been very, very quiet since the debate.

I suspect he mostly channeling his inner Napoleon: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

[Darth Wedgius]

Indeed, if we had universal health care the situation here would be no worse than the UK's.

The NHS's central problem is that it is old - 1946 to be exact. It was designed for a fraction of the population that it caters for today and it was designed for a population that died a good thirty years younger. What once worked spectacularly well now huffs and puffs as it tries to keep up.

A health system designed for TODAY - which is what a USNHS would be - would not face many of the same institutional challenges.

I'm not throwing shade at the NHS. I'm just pointing out that universal health care would not necessarily have prevented this.

[CmdrKing]

Never let a crisis go to waste, eh?

Invoking the New Deal was not accidental. Because 1) that's what Sanders is, not some far left radical but more importantly 2) the New Deal was what was necessary to establish a sustainable floor under the great depression, and we are staring down the barrel of a disaster of that scale no matter what at this point. Ignoring that reality is delusional at this point and Democrats must get on board figuring that out now, with or without Sanders.

[LittleRaven]

Ignoring that reality is delusional at this point and Democrats must get on board figuring that out now, with or without Sanders.

I suspect we agree on this point. As I said, Democrats have a problem with Sanders, not with progressive policies. The man is finished, his ideas are not.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

You're saying that they had some sort of vested interest in him shaking up things for new voters?

I'm not sure who the "they" is in this statement.

The Democratic Party's interest in Sanders is in him going away. He has made it quite clear he wants nothing to do with them. The feeling is now mutual. It's not that the DNC dislikes progressives....they love Warren, after all. But they've had quite enough of Sanders.

Now, the argument was that the DNC needed Sanders, because he was the man who could mobilize the voters. And honestly, that argument looked pretty strong up until Super Tuesday, when the great Sanders army proved to be a complete illusion. I don't know anyone who is genuinely excited to vote for Biden, but his coalition did at least show up to vote, which is more than the BernieBros did. And what started on Super Tuesday was effectively finished in Michigan, where Sanders got crushed in a state he took from Hilary in 2016. Now Sanders has no leverage, no friends in the party, (even WARREN won't endorse him) and no path forward.

C'est la vie. Time to pick a new champion for the progressive cause.

So what have the Democrats done that's indicative of their disdain for the guy?

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

On the subject of the election, is Joe Biden dead or what?

He is not dead, but he HAS been very, very quiet since the debate.

I suspect he mostly channeling his inner Napoleon: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

For me at least, it's impossible to gauge what the general populace is actually going to think about a president's "crisis management." I never would have guessed that 60% would think Trump's doing a good job and that he'd equal his highest approval rating, but here we are. I have no idea if it's going to wreck his chances or propel him to a second term, but if the Coronavirus deaths and economic recovery numbers end up being anywhere close to what Trump's hoping (they very well might not) then I would bet on the latter.

[LittleRaven]

So what have the Democrats done that's indicative of their disdain for the guy?

Rank and file Democrats have failed to vote for him. Party insiders have made sure the party unites around a single candidate instead of leaving him against a crowded field, and failed to come to his aid when his campaign was flagging.