If Donald Trump had to face a united Democratic Party in 2020, he’d have little chance of re-election. Trouble is, he won’t, at least not if Bernie Sanders runs agains — and it’s being reported that he’s laying the groundwork for a bigger campaign than in 2016. Is he too divisive? In hockey, they’d settle this by dropping the gloves; in boxing, by taping them on. Why not fight over which metaphor is better instead?
Muellerologists seem to agree that the Mueller probe is reaching its conclusion, though of course they’re just reading tea leaves. Today’s docket calls for something regarding Mike Flynn, who hasn’t been heard from for quite a while.
Nobody wants to call Trump a liar, but they all find other ways to say it. For example, J.P. Morgan warned investors that Trump’s claims about his so-called deal with China “seem if not completely fabricated then grossly exaggerated.” See what they did there? He slid around the tag.
The white nationalist street mobs could be described as terrorists, but these experts disagee. They’re really good, old-fashioned street mobs and should be treated as such by law enforcement. In other words, treat them as if they were black.
Speaking of street mobs, La Belle France just saw its most violent protests since the 1960s, recreating 1999’s Battle in Seattle to the area around the Arc de Triomphe. Emmanuel Macron’s government postponed fuel tax increases until summer, which sounds like the French version of raking the forests.
Meanwhile, in the tax-cutting capital of the world, the good ol’ USA, it appears we’ve finally reached the point at which promising more tax cuts is no longer moving the needle for the GOP. About time.
Have you seen Bernie’s approval number inside the party? Approaching 80%
I think this is overblown because:
1.) The Party leadership is still neoliberal corporate trash
2.) The Bernie haters are very vocal and obnoxious
The energy and the grassroots organizing is with Bernie. The world wide leftist solidarity is there with Podemos in Spain, DiEM25 (Syriza)/Yanis Varoufakis in Greece, AMLO in Mexico, Labour/Jezza in the UK…
Bernie has spoken on behalf of PT/Lula in Brazil as he is the most high profile political prisoner in the world.
This is far bigger than whining bitches on the internet who just have resentments. Bernie on policy is the strongest and always has been. 40 years of consistent arguments versus political games and “evolving” views.
Bernie would have won and he will win. Bernie 2020.
Left is Best.
Also, Lula’s PT replacement candidate, Fernando Haddad (along with Varoufakis) attended the Sanders institute conference this week.
There’s no candidate with the history of these positions. There is no candidate whose policies would more improve the material conditions of the most people.
Speaking of the UK, anyone following Parliament today? 🙂
Corbyn will be PM sooner rather than later. AMLO was inaugurated over the weekend. Our only hope is LEFT.
Love the message, but if I’m designing messengers they wouldn’t be 79 when inaugurated.
Agreed. I think Bernie will end up like Moses–he leads the people to the Promised Land, but someone else leads them INTO the Promised Land. That’s a great legacy in any event.
On the other hand, nobody else who’s running is saying squat about climate change. Bernie just has:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-climate-change-2020-election_us_5c05a321e4b066b5cfa4c686
When the argument used most often is age I get more hopeful. It’s ironic that the younger the person the less they even consider Bernie’s age.
And the older they are the more they do. We’re speaking from experience.
sure
Whippersnapper.
Alby and I well know how royally the politicos of our generation have fucked things up. (It’s especially appalling that the orange shitgibbon spent our first two years of college in the same place, but I learned a hell of a lot more there than he did.) Anyhow, on the basis of experience with the upper end of the Boomer generation, far better too give the kids a turn before it’s too late.
On a different note, it seems the National Republican Congressional Committee had its computers hacked for months before the midterms, but though the committee alerted the FBI, it never told elected officials like Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/04/exclusive-emails-of-top-nrcc-officials-stolen-in-major-2018-hack-1043309
false flag. They probably hacked themselves to gain sympathy.
But they would have had to whine about it before the election for it to have done any good, so I don’t think so.
https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/4424de73-78d9-45f9-ba47-20885ce53146
Democrats, please don’t make me vote for Bernie again.
democrats did all they could to make no one vote for Bernie. It’ll be Bernie pied-pipering “woke” white college students that crashes 2020
crashes
While you all whinge about how the most popular politician in the country with a platform that will improve the material condition of the most Americans since FDR is going to upset you please take a moment to remember that on this very day in 1969 the FBI and the Chicago police assassinated Fred Hampton.
You can slaughter a revolutionary in his bed, but you can’t slaughter the revolution.
Many South American countries have adopted the permanent revolution ideology. How’s that working out for them?
Attention sentient youngsters…
Old people used to say dumb shit like this out of context all the time…
They still do on Fox News…
You may disregard…
Venezuela!!!!!
Disregard Venezuela and it’s still true across much of that benighted continent. Rich people always fight back. Always. And the richer they are, the harder they fight.
Just like the feudal lords before them.
So?
Well, considering they’ve had to face the full brunt of capital schemes and CIA coups and Bays of Pigs and US funded Contra death squads, etc., etc. I’d say they’re doing their best.
Sometimes you’re like an old man cliché machine.
Still afraid of Cuban and shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
You want to pretend they just “fail” on their own because of Socialist circumstances?
Hahahaha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampico_Affair
This list is long, man. How many would you like to do?
Bolivia 1971….
The U.S. government supported the 1971 coup led by General Hugo Banzer that toppled President Juan José Torres of Bolivia. Torres had displeased Washington by convening an “Asamblea del Pueblo” (People’s Assembly or Popular Assembly), in which representatives of specific proletarian sectors of society were represented (miners, unionized teachers, students, peasants), and more generally by leading the country in what was perceived as a left wing direction. Banzer hatched a bloody military uprising starting on August 18, 1971 that succeeded in taking the reigns of power by August 22, 1971. After Banzer took power, the U.S. provided extensive military and other aid to the Banzer dictatorship as Banzer cracked down on freedom of speech and dissent, tortured thousands, “disappeared” and murdered hundreds, and closed labor unions and the universities. Torres, who had fled Bolivia, was kidnapped and assassinated in 1976 as part of Operation Condor, the US-supported campaign of political repression and state terrorism by South American right-wing dictators.
We good, bruv?
Of course. But I could easily reply that revolutionaries have been saying this since the ’60s and before. Judging by current conditions, it seems like slaughtering the revolutionaries in their beds in an excellent strategy for delaying the revolution.
See what I answered above. Rich people will always fight back. If they fight this hard over their South American holdings, imagine how hard they’re going to fight here.
It took feudal peasants thousands of years ..so what?
This argument is dumb.
The battle was not won by feudal peasants. It was won by a disgruntled bunch of aristocrats. As was the American Revolution.
Does anyone wonder why, after sending Lula to prison on trumped up charges while he was ahead in every general election poll, Steve Bannon went to Brazil to advise Jair Balsonaro? The same guy who was part of the right wing military junta…
I don’t.
You’re talking as if these are not the natural consequences of left-wing revolutions, which generally feature poor people taking stuff from rich people without compensating them for it. Do you really think that can happen without retaliatory violence?
This is fucking stupid.
Feudalism was fine because the peasants were always crushed!
The fatal flaw of socialism is that it’ll always draw a violent reaction from the US so it’ll never work.
Dumb circular weak
No, my argument is that survival depends on immediate climate action. It can’t wait for the revolution.
It’s akin to Jim Baker’s approach to gun violence — we can’t fix it until the root problems is to do nothing about the immediate problem.
The fatal flaw of socialism is that people don’t know what it is, and we don’t have the time to teach them. WE have to bend capitalism to the problem because it’s the tool we have at hand.
I’m onboard. One way to bend Capitalism is to fight like hell to break it. It’ll bend.
That I agree with.
Think of it like this. Leftist idealogy and government is so threatening that the full force of capital & the US government will stop at nothing to slaughter anyone who tries it.. Even democratically elected governments.
So to be so fucking glib and say, well how’s that working out, is weak & embarrassing.
Being glib is my way of dealing with our powerlessness. I could argue that it’s weak to pretend that sloganeering will change it.
If you think all I’m doing is talking you’re missing a few tricks.
And if you’re thinking I haven’t seen this all before so are you.
Of course! Like I said feudalism lasted thousands of years. So what?
I’m not going to pretend a feudal state will solve our problem because of how long it sustained.
But it’s not the prevailing system anymore. I’m dealing with capitalism because it’s the thing in place, not from any great admiration for it.
I propose the Great Compromise of 2019: No Democrat over the age of 70 should run for President. Goodbye Warren, Biden and Sanders. Peace in our time. It’s time for a younger generation anyway.
No
Democrats are going to f*** up any chance they have to coalesce behind a candidate that can beat Trump. I’ve already resigned myself to 3rd party or sitting home.
And no, I have no idea or opinion who can beat Trump. It’s more like I doubt anyone can.
Quitter.
It almost 2019 and literally everyone who is a Democratic and at least one who isn’t are running. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were running.
Democrats couldn’t coalesce around one Democratic Party candidate for 2018 and there were only two running. Probability of losing 2020 considering the conflict in the party today? Pretty damn high. In fact, the only hope is that Trump manages to lose.
I call bullshit on this. The only candidate Democrats have ever failed to “coalesce around” was Hillary Clinton, who was flat out terrible.
The progressives always hold their nose. time for moderates to buck up and “coalesce”.
I refuse to be drawn into choosing a horse before looking at the racing form. At this stage we’re not even sure who’s entering the race. Choosing a favorite isn’t much better than drawing a name from a hat.
“The only candidate Democrats have ever failed to “coalesce around” was Hillary Clinton”
And since you teed it up for me, How’s that working out for us all so far?
Regardless, that just goes to the heart of my lament not that the field is wide open, but if the Democrats repeat the internecine warfare of the last election, there won’t be any coalescing. And if you don’t come together, Trump wins.
I don’t know anymore than anyone else who can beat Trump, but I do know that the Democratic Party is sufficiently factionalized that it will be difficult for them to come together. And that’s not even considering the independents.
Everyone may be convinced that the fear of factionalism is overblown. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I happen to think it’s the greatest risk for 2020.
Maybe we should, you now, have the argument now. Do the primary thing. Campaign. Take the issues to the people. All that stuff.
Or are you saying we should skip all that? Just coalesce around whoever you say? Flip a coin or draw lots maybe?
I mean that’d be a new way to do it.
Yes, exactly we should have the argument….
But mostly we should know when the argument is over. Coalesce means coming together. That didn’t happen in 2018 and we now have the consequence. Maybe 2020 will be different.
There’s an old adage about only being able to transverse a bridge once you get there.
Yep. But you gotta know the bridge when you see it.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
I’m not suggesting ending the race before it has started. Just maintaining focus on the objective.
The objective is getting Bernie elected President of the United States.
If you’re scared say you’re scared.
(Also, come on the podcast…)
In the Not Making This Up file, from the student newspaper at the University of Montana:
“Steve Bannon will no longer be speaking at a [University of Montana] event, the latest and third event to be canceled following the announcement he would be a keynote speaker at a joint conference on sex robots this month.”
http://www.montanakaimin.com/news/breaking-bannon-unavailable-missoula-debate-cancelled/article_027611f2-f7dd-11e8-94d6-d3994d81b475.html
Not even a Democrat, you say?
This is how it’s done.
https://mobile.twitter.com/chunkymark/status/1070304952118075392
“The Prime Minister may laugh at this, but it’s the reality of people’s lives!”
Jezza. PM soon.
website
Dec. 4 Open Thread: Ready for Another Bernie-Brawl? : Delaware Liberal