The state of the race, 1 of a series
I have no goddamned clue how this presidential election will churn out. Somewhere between a Democratic landslide, or probably just short of something that could proper!y be called landslide, and a Trump landslide, or probably slightly short of landslide proper. This is as opposed to 2016 when it became evident it was Trump as the nominee, anything between a Clinton landslide and narrow Trump triumph. And on election night it was good on tight with the one silver lining at the result… at least we weren’t stuck with Hillary.
I’m listening to old radio broadcasts from 2007 of a prominent radio figure — a figure I consider you tick off as part and parcel to the last “old portland”. The glib personality full and issue less political analysis I considered crap then, as you do more so from the vantage point of it being wrong an toto. Obama’s ultimately just playing for the vice presidency and Hillary is inevitable, the screwy Republican primary is perhaps landing on the party giving up until 2012. Or maybe the too cute analysis that 2008 will answer the question after two polarizing presidencies — are we as a country Bush People of are we Clinton People? The answer is neither. The mention of the odd Ron Paul supporters is interesting — “The crazy thing about them is they’re probably Democrats.”. So powerful the pull of the Iraq War as an issue, a smattering of liberal ( white men) could be pulled to a funny libertarian ideologue. I have no idea how to parse out vote samples on whether they split three full to Stein and Johnson, Trump, and No vote as against Hillary in 2016, but it seems possible.
The thing I recall with Obama in 2007 and 2008 in his campaign was being impressed by now he moved ahead when the chips were down, at that point at the time of these radio broadcasts when Hillary was swamping him in the polls. To put it mildly the batch of Democrats here in 2020 are the opposite. Today we see Biden, now the ipso facto black candidate, delaying for the first time ever being imprisoned by the South African apartheid government while trying to meet with Nelson Mandella, a rewritten history for the one for “proud slave stater” that brings a whole new wrinkle to the Mandella Effect.
The travails of Elizabeth Warren, and how she ended up embarrassing herself, demands a book length analysis. The funny thing is we are stuck with two competing concepts that refuse to deal much with the other. From the Democratic party liberal, it falls apart when implicit sexism inherent in demanding full details of plans not demanded of Butgigieg or Sanders reared its head on health care policy shifting. Political a analysis demands a staring of what people who are not you think they think and I have given up on such a thing. The other analysis the wamo or newrep crews will not touch with a ten foot pole — except maybe to confirm what they buy on the sexism of the electorate in not jumping in with Elizabeth full hog — some confluence of the fight and picked with Bernie over some private statements, the refusal to shake his hand, the shipping of vetting privileges to a trans gendered teenager, and her online supporters getting hot and bothered that Bernie highlighted Joe Rogan’s support. Actually the time I tossed her aside was when she gave a Trump like answer to a gay marriage opponent for the easy applause of the rest of the crowd. (Yes, she may as well have been doling out the tiny hands meme.) This pc troubles with intersectionality political analysis is skipped over by the liberal magazines, but gets good play in the comments section of American Conservative and Reason magazines. For Warren, we seem to have passed that point found about 2011 — 2012 when the likes of In These Times and The Nation could kvetch on Warren’s rhetoric on income inequality heeding too much to a breadwinner male in job market with allowance for stay at home mom model overtones of Union nostalgia — an abandonment of inability to move to new rhetorical framing dashes the meaning of an editorial that she unlike Bernie being a one time Republican can speak a language he can’t for some segments of the electorate.
Apparently Sanders, just like McGovern and Carter, and for that matter Shirley Chrisholm weren’t too much into knocking George Wallace voters. That, I doubt, means anything to anyone. More politically unpalatable, this has a Dukakis question and answer on what ylu’d say if your wife was raped written all over it.
Even the Boston Marathon bomber?
interesting thought, this…. If you ponder something beyond d v r fighting… Bernie following Trump may force Congress to start doing more than that bare minimum.
Consider the haunting possibility as calls chime in wanting Bloomberg to jump out — why, he’s a carbon copy of Trump! — and spend his billions on marginal congressional races — the kind that see congress critters endorse the man seemingly for that very reason– so… Bernie wins and is met with a Democratic congress ful? Of Bloomberg clients?
Funny, huh?