Bernie thinks Trump could win a second term

lizkat

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I agree, but with a twist. I think Trump was the only candidate she loses to. Her campaign didn't take him seriously, but enough voters in a few states, ones that she didn't bother to visit, did.

The problem for Dems in 2016 was that there were so many in the DNC and out in the field from 2008 who never accepted the idea that the baton had really been handed on to Obama's generation. He was viewed by the Clintonistas as an upstart when he won the primaries that year. So there was from the get-go a sense of entitlement there, that "her turn" had been wrested from her, and so --"obviously"-- after Obama was re-elected in 2012, the next time out things should pick up where they'd left off in 2008 before Clinton lost those primaries.

I have sometimes wondered what would have happened in 2016 on the Republican side if a blue dog Dem like Jim Webb had stayed in for the Dems that year. It might have switched up how people saw the viable alternatives in the GOP's then huge array. And even though it seemed a year for populists, if there had been a blue dog on the Dem side, then the Rs might have thought more than twice about running with Trump.

A a handful of Dems were tentatively tossing their hats into the ring early, way before Bernie decided to take Clinton on. Bernie might not even have gone for it, if Clinton had had any serious contenders meanwhile. But they were all soon gone when it became clear that Clinton would run. And that was DNC pressure for sure, because anyone looking around at that point (as Bernie was doing) could see that it was indeed shaping up as a year for candidates with appeal to populists whether right or left. Clinton can be a chameleon on her lean, whenever necessary, but she would always have been hard pressed to end up a successful candidate for a populist-leaning electorate. Webb on the other hand being a genuine blue dog, might have appealed to some of the independent voters who simply did not like Hillary Clinton and hadn't liked Obama either.

In a year more favorable to traditional candidates, if the Rs had run John Kasich against Clinton, that could have been an interesting match. But it was in fact a year for candidates who could come off as populist. The eternal question will be whether Bernie could have beat Trump.


As for Senator Cruz...

The most hypocritical Mexican in all of politics.

Well, he isn't Mexican. He's Cuban.

He's.... most recently prior to landing here, Canadian, via the immigration to there of his parents... but ethnically Cruz is part Irish, part Italian, and his dad was Cuban by immigration but ethnically a Canarian (Canary Islanders originally hail from North Africa and Europe).

So Ted is a mutt like a lot of us in the USA, ethnically from various places and with ancestors who made the most of their mobility as necessary. But he's not as friendly as some of the rest of us mutts.
 

SuperMatt

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The problem for Dems in 2016 was that there were so many in the DNC and out in the field from 2008 who never accepted the idea that the baton had really been handed on to Obama's generation. He was viewed by the Clintonistas as an upstart when he won the primaries that year. So there was from the get-go a sense of entitlement there, that "her turn" had been wrested from her, and so --"obviously"-- after Obama was re-elected in 2012, the next time out things should pick up where they'd left off in 2008 before Clinton lost those primaries.

I have sometimes wondered what would have happened in 2016 on the Republican side if a blue dog Dem like Jim Webb had stayed in for the Dems that year. It might have switched up how people saw the viable alternatives in the GOP's then huge array. And even though it seemed a year for populists, if there had been a blue dog on the Dem side, then the Rs might have thought more than twice about running with Trump.

A a handful of Dems were tentatively tossing their hats into the ring early, way before Bernie decided to take Clinton on. Bernie might not even have gone for it, if Clinton had had any serious contenders meanwhile. But they were all soon gone when it became clear that Clinton would run. And that was DNC pressure for sure, because anyone looking around at that point (as Bernie was doing) could see that it was indeed shaping up as a year for candidates with appeal to populists whether right or left. Clinton can be a chameleon on her lean, whenever necessary, but she would always have been hard pressed to end up a successful candidate for a populist-leaning electorate. Webb on the other hand being a genuine blue dog, might have appealed to some of the independent voters who simply did not like Hillary Clinton and hadn't liked Obama either.

In a year more favorable to traditional candidates, if the Rs had run John Kasich against Clinton, that could have been an interesting match. But it was in fact a year for candidates who could come off as populist. The eternal question will be whether Bernie could have beat Trump.


As for Senator Cruz...





He's.... most recently prior to landing here, Canadian, via the immigration to there of his parents... but ethnically Cruz is part Irish, part Italian, and his dad was Cuban by immigration but ethnically a Canarian (Canary Islanders originally hail from North Africa and Europe).

So Ted is a mutt like a lot of us in the USA, ethnically from various places and with ancestors who made the most of their mobility as necessary. But he's not as friendly as some of the rest of us mutts.
Here is what Nikole Hannah-Jones had to say about why we got President Trump:

But what I think that then did, when Obama was able to win with a white minority but a heavy majority of every other racial group, that sent kind of a frightening message I think to even some of the white people who voted for him. That you can ascend to the presidency as a person of color, as the person from the group that is the bottom of American racial caste, and not have to get most white people to vote for you. Now this was true with most Democrats I think since the late 1960s that they haven’t won a white majority, but they were still white people who were ascending to the highest office of the land, to the symbolism of American power. So to then see Obama fall with Trump I think was the most predictable thing in the world, because a message needed to be sent about what this country was.
A white supremacist President was the inevitable response to Obama in her opinion. That was from her appearance on the Ezra Klein show.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447
 

Alli

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I’m concerned about the midterms. If the Rs take back either House, the Biden administration will never accomplish anything and voter suppression will become the norm.
 

Herdfan

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The problem for Dems in 2016 was that there were so many in the DNC and out in the field from 2008 who never accepted the idea that the baton had really been handed on to Obama's generation. He was viewed by the Clintonistas as an upstart when he won the primaries that year. So there was from the get-go a sense of entitlement there, that "her turn" had been wrested from her, and so --"obviously"-- after Obama was re-elected in 2012, the next time out things should pick up where they'd left off in 2008 before Clinton lost those primaries.

This needs to stop. And both sides do it, Clinton is the most recent on the D side and McCain on the R's. Also Dole on the R's.

Clinton's time was 2008, but she got beat by someone who campaigned better than she did, spoke better than she did and connected with the voters better than she did. Fast forward to 2016 and it was Rinse, Repeat.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Did Trump win or did Hillary lose?

You could just as easily ask did Biden win or did Trump lose? Many feel it's the latter and in a way that means there is a higher success bar set for Biden if he wants to be seen as anything beyond a temp president just there to get Trump out of office. Also the point of this thread is many won't be satisfied just returning to pre-Trump years. They don't want just a downgrade from worse to bad.
 

Eric

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You could just as easily ask did Biden win or did Trump lose? Many feel it's the latter and in a way that means there is a higher success bar set for Biden if he wants to be seen as anything beyond a temp president just there to get Trump out of office. Also the point of this thread is many won't be satisfied just returning to pre-Trump years. They don't want just a downgrade from worse to bad.
A majority of Republicans, based on zero actual evidence, still believe that Trump won. You can't reason with people this out of touch with reality, let alone ask them for an objective opinion around Trump and the last election.
 

lizkat

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A majority of Republicans, based on zero actual evidence, still believe that Trump won. You can't reason with people this out of touch with reality, let alone ask them for an objective opinion around Trump and the last election.

Seems like the die-hard Trump supporters (and the congressmen they managed to elect) have totally bought into the idea that Trump won because the party he hijacked is the only legitimate source of political power in the USA... and so Trump and the GOP get a pass from that piece of the right-leaning electorate on whatever they propose or try to do, just because they're not Democrats.

A reckoning is coming, just not sure how long it's going to take.
 

lizkat

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This needs to stop. And both sides do it, Clinton is the most recent on the D side and McCain on the R's. Also Dole on the R's.

Clinton's time was 2008, but she got beat by someone who campaigned better than she did, spoke better than she did and connected with the voters better than she did. Fast forward to 2016 and it was Rinse, Repeat.

It doesn't speak well to confidence in how "the system" prepares a next generation of US leaders, if current leadership of both major parties) keeps playing that card that goes like "well maybe next time for the young'uns... they're not really ready yet."

I guess the top guns know that money talks and the older the players, the more connections they have, thanks to the interplay (not to say revolving doors) among industry lobbies, elected officials and think tanks.

Money figures in there all over the place, even to how grassroots donor money gets spent by whoever runs the committees or the PACs that receive those funds.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Seems like the die-hard Trump supporters (and the congressmen they managed to elect) have totally bought into the idea that Trump won because the party he hijacked is the only legitimate source of political power in the USA... and so Trump and the GOP get a pass from that piece of the right-leaning electorate on whatever they propose or try to do, just because they're not Democrats.

A reckoning is coming, just not sure how long it's going to take.

That’s the thing. The Republican party is offering nothing other than Trump or Trumpism. It’s the only thing they offer that is remotely popular. They’ve handed everything else that isn’t welfare for the rich to the Democrats.

Sooner or later the voter is going to realize that sticking it to liberals means they’re also sticking it to themselves.
 

Thomas Veil

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I’m concerned about the midterms. If the Rs take back either House, the Biden administration will never accomplish anything and voter suppression will become the norm.
This.

History teaches us that it's "normal" for at least one house to return to the other party during the mid-terms. But I keep going back and forth on that.

On the one hand I think there's a chance that we could see even more Democratic turnout in 2022--a reaction to all the attempts at voter suppression, just as Dems turned out in reaction to Trump in 2020. If this happens it will have to be very well organized. All these new rules aren't "technically" keeping Dems from voting, they're just making it that much harder for them. But in 2020 Dems didn't let Covid stop them, they simply learned how, when and where to vote by mail. Now they'll have to learn new, even more restrictive rules. And I think they're eminently capable of that.

On the other hand, if redistricting makes things even worse than they are now, that will play a factor. And the real wild card is if these states actually get to do something like take the certification power away from the secretary of state and give it to someone else (not coincidentally a Republican). Then they can probably declare just about anything they like.

So yeah, if this happens and/or Trump or a Trump surrogate wins the presidency, I'm afraid it's game over for this democracy. We'll become an oligarchy...just another one of those countries that looks like it's still a democracy but in which realistically only one party has a chance of winning.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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All these new rules aren't "technically" keeping Dems from voting, they're just making it that much harder for them.

I think it's important to remember that for a lot of these races they don't need to make it harder for millions of people to vote, just thousands in some cases, in order to win.

I said in another thread that Democrats should hope for more Trump news coverage, not less. Without it people will quickly forget how insane he is while also not seeing their life improving under the current administration.
 
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It's certainly possible that Trump could pull a Grover Cleveland for the first time since, well...Grover Cleveland. I think Trump's success was in part due to following a Democratic president. That raises the level of "grievance" among voters that his grievance politics appeal to. And I really think a significant part of Trump's loss in 2020 was due to the turmoil caused by the pandemic. If the pandemic is largely over by 2024, enough of those "purple" voters who voted for Trump in 2016 but switched to Biden in 2020 might be willing to vote for Trump again in 2024.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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It's certainly possible that Trump could pull a Grover Cleveland for the first time since, well...Grover Cleveland. I think Trump's success was in part due to following a Democratic president. That raises the level of "grievance" among voters that his grievance politics appeal to. And I really think a significant part of Trump's loss in 2020 was due to the turmoil caused by the pandemic. If the pandemic is largely over by 2024, enough of those "purple" voters who voted for Trump in 2016 but switched to Biden in 2020 might be willing to vote for Trump again in 2024.

Despite data over decades, a lot of people thought things were great under Trump before the pandemic. While Trump's handling of covid screwed him in many ways, it also buried any negative fallout from his policies. When in doubt, blame covid. That has shifted for many to when in doubt, blame Democrats. We'll just ignore successful GOP obstruction.
 

lizkat

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It's certainly possible that Trump could pull a Grover Cleveland for the first time since, well...Grover Cleveland. I think Trump's success was in part due to following a Democratic president. That raises the level of "grievance" among voters that his grievance politics appeal to. And I really think a significant part of Trump's loss in 2020 was due to the turmoil caused by the pandemic. If the pandemic is largely over by 2024, enough of those "purple" voters who voted for Trump in 2016 but switched to Biden in 2020 might be willing to vote for Trump again in 2024.

Still, Trump did prove he was soooo unfit for the office. Some of that must have stuck with more than a few voters.

meme don't blame Trump he proved he was unfit.png
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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I believe the children are our future….I acknowledge a kid born today may save my life or the planet in the future.

Having said that, Democrats are hammering hard on all the legislation (if passed) that will help families and single parents. What about the millions of people that doesn’t apply to as less people are having kids and are diverse (for good reasons) to relationships? All the freedom that gets associated with not being responsible for another human being doesn’t compensate for the fact that we’ve manufactured a dual income world just to get basic needs met. IMO this is just further elitism that started with “Get a college degree and then we’ll talk”. Now it’s been expanded to “Get a degree. And get married. AND have kids. And then we’ll talk.”
 
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