All of this seems very scripted by the establishment Democrats.
Joe Biden, who has looked confused and decidedly unhealthy at times during this race, mentally and otherwise (no, I am not trying to be funny) suddenly has jumped ahead in the primary race. He won in South Carolina late last week, and then suddenly, Pete Buttigieg dropped out one day, then Amy Klobuchar the next. Then Biden gets huge wins on Super Tuesday, and he suddenly seems like the establishment Democrats great white hope. Of course, the establishment Democrats are, once again, not taking progressives and especially younger generations into consideration. They are not excited about the middle of the road, politics as usual Biden. They already are disgusted by President Trump, who they cannot relate to. Now, it seems that the Democrats did their best to try and get the closest thing to a Donald Trump that they have as their nominee.
Of course, Biden is now acting like the frontrunner, and he does have a lot of momentum. Sanders is still fighting, and he still has a chance, with an energized base who will hopefully get re-energized and refocused now, sensing the urgency, knowing that the nomination was not a virtual automatic, simply because they had the early momentum.
However, I have to say that I am sick and tired of these kinds of results. It is not surprising, this sense of disappointment and disillusionment with so many of my fellow Americans. Frankly, America seems too often to be like a political basket case. There are so many aspects of the American political reality today, that I feel completely and utterly disgusted. It feels like I am watching a country effectively making mistake after mistake, as it accelerates the self-destructive tendencies. Already, it has made us a laughingstock of the world by voting in a clown into our highest office.
Now, it seems that the establishment Democrats and their supporters are cheering wildly in celebration of a candidate who seems t me to be the closest thing to Hillary 2020 that the Democrats could have come up with. Someone who is a longtime Washington insider, a very familiar face, and an elitist one, at that.
There are all sorts of inconsistencies and elements of alarming conservatism in the long political history of Joe Biden, that one cannot help but roll one’s eyes. Late last year, he said that he would be open to picking a Republican as a running mate. He once voted to allow states to overturn Roe v. Wade, and also once said that this famous Supreme Court decision went too far. He supported the war in Iraq. He supports big banks and big money politics. Throughout his political career, he has made strange comments that certainly seem to suggest a bit of racism. And he has been prone to strange moments where he seems completely incomprehensible, seemingly rambling about nothing that makes any sense.
And this is the man who is best suited to defeat Donald Trump?
Really?
The establishment Democrats are, predictably, trying to play it very safe. Just like they have in the past, such as in 2016 and 2004, when they were scared of supposedly radical candidates who seemed to threaten the established and accepted political order. And look how well that worked out for them.
My concern is that the Democrats are still living in fear of past failures. It feels to me that, ever since Ronald Reagan, they are deathly afraid of certain things, and have become paranoid of being labeled certain things. Their biggest fear is being called “socialists,” and to avoid that at all costs, they have cozied up to big banks. This really all started with the rise of Bill Clinton, the first Democrat to break through and defeat the Republicans and win the White House after the Reagan-Bush era. Yet remember, Clinton was called “Republican lite” by some at that time. He was a conservative, and decidedly not progressive. But Democrats sick of losing to Reagan were so thrilled by Clinton breaking through after three lopsided losses in presidential races, that they forgave him all of his trespasses.
They should not have. Clinton was known as “Slick Willie” for reason. He has a troubling past with racism, having been a member of a de favto “whites only” private golf club, and according to Ted Kennedy, he once said of Obama that just a few years earlier after he became president, he would have been carrying their bags. He also created the current prison system, which has spiked in numbers ever since, and which had given the United States the dubious distinction of having more people behind bars in this supposedly “free” country than any other nation in the world. Clinton repealed Glass Steagall, and generally continued the whole “deregulation” trend that Reagan popularized. Plus, he was a political trickster, trying to make sure that, officially, he had the rights on his record to look good on paper and sound good in speeches, but which lacked any meaning in reality. He claimed to have paid off most of the national debt, but most of this was because he paid this deby off with short term loans. That would be the same as someone claiming that they paid all of their outstanding credit card debts, when in reality, they just transferred those balances to other, new credit cards. Yes, technically, a huge part of the national debts were paid, but we still owed the same amount of money. He did the same thing with the environment, passing the bulk of his most impressive environmental legislation in the final three days of his eight year presidency, so that it looked good, like he really accomplished something, even though he knew full well that Bush would waste no time repealing all of that legislation and looking like the bad guy. In other words, he did not seem so much to care about the environment, as he cared about being able to claim that he cared about the environment.
That’s pretty slick. But it lacks any real meaning.
Barack Obama was different, and yet, in many ways, he was not. He rode the whole “hope and change” thing to an election win that seemed to energize the country. He had a chance to do something special. Instead, his first term was sometimes referred to as George W. Bush’s third term, because he basically took a similar approach. Yes, he was a bit better during his second term, but not nearly good enough to justify all of the hope that people had placed in him. He did stabilize the economy, and took some stronger action on the environment, although some environmentalists felt that it was not nearly enough (myself included). Obama was a bit too timid, and relentlessly believed that he should compromise with Republicans, even though they never seemed to feel that same way or extended the same courtesy. And he kept the elitist, pro-corporate policies in place. He pretended to sip the water in Flint, Michigan, and then claimed that it was safe to drink, even though this was a transparent lie that turned off a great deal of his support locally. Again, like with Clinton, it feels like Obama was more interested in maintaining an image that would make him look better on paper and in speeches than he actually was.
The Democrats have chosen some “safe” candidates like this for other elections, as well. There were so many similarities between Al Gore and George W. Bush in the 200 election, that they were cynically dubbed “Gush” and “Bore” by some. In 2004, the Democrats nominated John F. Kerry, who was critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the war, yet had voted in favor of the war, and was not for pulling out. He took some other overly safe positions, as well. And not surprisingly, he was defeated in the general election.
Then, there was Hillary in 2016. We all know what happened there, and I have mentioned it numerous times, to the point that, frankly, I am sick and tired of rehashing it. It still sickens me, perhaps more than any election before or since, incredibly.
And now, the Democrats have chosen Biden, who really feels like Hillary for 2020.
Can anyone legitimately claim to be surprised if he goes on to lose in the general election? One thing for sure: the establishment Democrats will not be able to legitimately claim that no one warned them. They have been warned. They had a real chance to pick someone who legitimately excited masses of people, much like they did in 2016. And much like in 2016, they turned their back on that candidate and his supporters, and did everything they could possibly do to stop his momentum. It did not work in 2016, when the Republicans had (reluctantly) allowed an unconventional political outsider to win their nomination.
I doubt that it can work in 2020, when a very well known Washington insider will, once again, try to take a conventional Washington insider approach against a very unconventional politician who happens to have the advantage of being the incumbent in the race.
Hope I am wrong, but I just do not like the way that this thing is going. Again.
Will the Democrats ever learn?
I think the Democrats have given their answer, and it is a solid no.
They never will learn. Maybe they really are ideologically conservative, and prone to insulting people who disagree with them, rather than engage in any kind of meaningful, thoughtful, intelligent and respectful debate. If someone expresses their displeasure about how rigged the system really is, they are called "crybabies" and told to suck it, but make sure to "Vote Blue No Matter Who".
But you know what? Pardon the strong language, but there were some Bernie supporters who took to the saying "Fuck around and find out."
Well, they are fucking around. So let's find out.
I have not voted "blue" (nor "red") for a long, long time when it comes to the White House, other than voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary in 2016. I had to officially become a Democrat at that point, but never again. Two parties that both cater to big money interests simply do not express the political will, much less the interests of a nation of 320 million people. We got lucky with very decent presidents in the mid-20th century, but a return to some kind of glorious era is unrealistic, and we need to face the facts.
It is time for a third option.
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