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> Likewise this time around, nobody I have talked to seriously voted for Joe Biden on his own merits. They voted for him because he's not Donald Trump. Yeah, s

> Likewise this time around, nobody I have talked to seriously voted for Joe Biden on his own merits. They voted for him because he's not Donald Trump. Yeah, same here, but that's because we live in progressive bubbles. Dem voters chose Biden over many other candidates that progressives preferred. > We need better candidates who generate real support and appeal other than just not being their opponent. Not sure how to get there. You cannot imagine someone actually liking Biden without being soft in the head. And other people cannot imagine someone liking Trump without being racist. But these assumptions prove nothing except lack of imagination. People need to understand how heterogenous the US is...in every way. We have to regain the ability to see the world from other people's perspectives and extract the grain of truth from those perspectives.

Shivetya 6y ago
I disagree, Democratic voters again did not get to choose their candidate. A candidate was selected for them. Even better one of the worst candidates during the primary was penciled in as Vice President; she is a good little party follower having the approved opinion and not one of her own. If anything it shows that the party rules above all. The lesson of Trump is that we have two political parties so immune to outside challenge it took someone of his level of money, fame, and more, to beat both parties and make no mistake, be beat both. Hence going forward, when Congress tells you they want to pass laws preventing certain monies from entering politics always understand it is to prevent anyone challenging their two party rule
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  >>I disagree, Democratic voters again did not get to choose their candidate. A candidate was selected for them. This is quite wrong. Biden crushed Bernie in the primaries.
  - sigzero 6y ago
    But Harris was still a very horrible choice.
    - samiru 6y ago
      A fun fact: ”Kamala” is Finnish for ”Horrible”.
  - 2020election 6y ago
    Bernie, like Trump, had a real backing, by real people, with real policies that speak to the majority. Biden is an empty shell. http://joebiden.info http://joebiden.info
  - dandersh 6y ago
    No, Biden had never won a single primary (while Bernie had multiple during this campaign alone) until SC, when most every other candidate dropped out while endorsing Biden in a span of a week or so in a (successful) attempt to deny Bernie the nomination. And then there are things like the Iowa caucus where Mayor Pete decided to crown himself winner before one was officially declared (gee, sound familiar?) because the Iowa Dem party crapped the bed.
    - evgen 6y ago
      Bernie only won a single primary, Nevada, prior to South Carolina. He lost in Iowa and tied in New Hampshire. Just prior to Super Tuesday several candidates who were polling in single digits dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden. Maybe it was because they agreed with Joe's policies, maybe the party put a gun to their head, and maybe they just didn't like Bernie.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  I would have thought that's clear when Hillary used campaign funds while running against Bernie https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team...
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Democratic voters again did not get to choose their candidate Didn't Joe Biden get most of the votes in the primaries? After Super Tuesday he was leading in delegates, and once the race came down to 1-on-1 with Bernie he did even better. This tells me there is significant support for very liberal policies like those from Bernie, but the party as a whole is still much closer to the center.
  - whateveracct 6y ago
    Biden absolutely dominated the primaries once the voting began.
    - ComputerGuru 6y ago
      The staggered nature of the primaries combined with the inanity that is FPTP makes for poor fairness. ~No one will vote for their preferred candidate if they find out he/she is doing poorly - they’ll vote for the most electable candidate that they can stomach.
  - andrepd 6y ago
    Bernie was the front-runner until the week where every single candidate simultaneously dropped out to endorse Biden. I think this is what people mean when they say the establishment rose to fuck Bernie when it became clear that he could actually realistically win the nomination.
    - chris11 6y ago
      Biden wasn't my first choice the primaries, but if Bernie had more support he could have beaten Biden in a head-to-head race. Though I think part of the cause for this accusation is that Bernie does well among non-voters. Thinking back to 2016 Clinton clearly had more support in the primaries than Bernie, but Bernie had a lot of support from people who didn't normally vote. So it does make sense that when Bernie lost, that group didn't feel represented by the democratic party.
      - 6y ago
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Biden got the most votes. Old people like him. Blue collar people like him. Black people like him. His stutter is endearing to many in a george bush kind of way. Use your brain. He'll be a great president because he knows that the most important job of the president is delegating to responsible people.
rhizome 6y ago
> Yeah, same here, but that's because we live in progressive bubbles. Biden is a stopgap, he was what was required to get rid of Trump, which was job #1, a P1 if you will. A "progressive bubble" or other media-created marketing phrase is not a factor, it's a pure transaction: Trump has to go. People rose to the occasion this time. > You cannot imagine someone actually liking Biden without being soft in the head This isn't a fair interpretation of what they were saying, nor realistic. People are going to lament that a big part of Biden's support was functional, in order to get Trump out, but people complain about unchangeable things all the time. It's not significant.
- shawnz 6y ago
  I think the point is, if everyone agrees Biden is just a stopgap, why didn't they just pick someone better? For him to be a "stopgap" at all must imply that some Democrats today see him as the best end-game option, and we just need to "convince" them to be even more progressive
  - Macha 6y ago
    If the risk is that someone like Romney, or McCain get in, I think progressives would feel more free to take risks and pick a more progressive candidate. To most progressives, while they're not fans of Romney and revisionism aside weren't fans of McCain, having one of them in power feels less dangerous than having Trump in power. If next election they're up against an attempt for Trump to get back in, then yes, you could expect a large progressive turnout for a Biden re-election. But if he's against a more moderate republican, I don't think you'll see the turnout that happened this year repeat, which may turn out to be a problem for his supporters.
    - kibwen 6y ago
      Note that Biden has already indicated that he would prefer to serve only a single term. Of course that doesn't mean he definitely won't be running in 2024, but if true then the race will be more wide open than a typical incumbent candidacy.
nullc 6y ago
I think Biden was well selected to be a candidate that everyone could tolerate. But especially given his age and how much focus there has been on suggesting (perhaps falsely) that his health isn't good, a lot more weight has been given to Harris. Harris did poorly in the primaries and I think even her supporters should be able to see why many people find her to be an extremely undesirable pick (it's not exactly the right political climate to nominate a self-described "Top Cop", and even Biden has a fairly "law and order" voting history, compared to typical for democrats). I know people who hate trump who claimed to have voted for him or just not voted, because they believe that electing Biden/Harris would create a substantial risk of either Harris becoming president or forcing the dems to nominate Harris in the next election (and thus excluding viable candidates that actually reflect their views)... and that for all the find wrong about Trump, he's at least substantially ineffectual.
- kibwen 6y ago
  > Biden has a fairly "law and order" voting history, compared to typical for democrats Keeping in mind that Biden hasn't been a senator since 2009, during his time in the senate he was dead center among senate Democrats in terms of liberal/conservative votes cast (i.e. both more liberal and more conservative than 50% of his fellow Democratic senators): https://voteview.com/person/14101/joseph-robinette-biden-jr https://voteview.com/person/14101/joseph-robinette-biden-jr . Of course as noted this was over a decade ago, and what passed for centrist back then might not today. In case you're wondering how this metric pans out for the most recent Senate: https://voteview.com/congress/senate/115/text https://voteview.com/congress/senate/115/text , which (according to this metric) lists the four most liberal senators (as shown by their senate votes) as, in order, Warren, Harris, Booker, and Sanders.
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    I agree, but I don’t think one needs to be particularly overall right-leaning to be right-leaning in a specific facet, and GP was specifically speaking about (and only about) the law and order aspect.
- ytdytvhxgydvhh 6y ago
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
I legitimately like Biden. I think he was the best candidate for the current moment. People have a tendency towards "visionary" politicians, who arrive with agendas and strive to make them reality. Politicians who "flip flop" are derided, because changing your position is a sign that you never had real ideals. But I think we have this backwards—in a representative democracy, the job of a politician is to represent the electorate! The ideal politician, then, would be an empty vessel, who was willing to move to wherever the people are. And that's exactly who Biden is. He's always been a centrist democrat, but his "center" moves alongside his party. Biden also believes that governing is fundamentally about building coalitions, not smothering the other side. I am worried that Republicans may simply be unwilling to make any deals, no matter how hard Biden tries or what compromises he's willing to make. But, if anyone can do it—and that's a very, very big "if"—then Biden probably can.
- karlshea 6y ago
  Exactly. Would I have loved to see Bernie/Warren as a president? Yes. Do I think a boring centrist president is for the best right now to deal with this pandemic and the upcoming recession? Also yes.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    It’s likely that Biden’s centrism is going to result in him cowing to Republican pushes for austerity or limited, corporate bailouts that further exacerbate inequality and stoke populist discontent. I’m not sure that these impulses will work well in the context of the pandemic or it’s economic effects.
    - karlshea 6y ago
      I agree with the second sentence, I'm hopeful the first isn't true (although I see the worry). The stories I've been reading about who he's using as economic advisors give me hope. But it all has to get through Congress too.
      - 6y ago
joeldg 6y ago
Biden is great... maybe not as progressive as other Dem's would like but I am moderate (D) -- and here is the thing, most voters want to pay their bills and not think about politics. I got really turned off by some of the things Bernie was going for (like voting from prison) which are pointless if you have someone like Trump in office shredding the whole country. I like Bernie as a person but we would have lost Florida by a landslide with him on the ticket. For this moment, Biden is great, I couldn't be happier.
- 3131s 6y ago
  So, expanding suffrage is just so terrible that it disqualifies Sanders? Unbelievable.
frogpelt 6y ago
Correct. It's amazing that in a world where we can all be connected that actual result was we all chose to connect with people who think just like us.
noobermin 6y ago
There was only one candidate progressives preferred. Before Super Tuesday, all other candidates dropped out and endorsed Biden. THAT's how it happened. Bernie maintained a slight chance up until the outbreak of covid where he suspended his campaign specifically out of concern for spreading the disease.

Shivetya 6y ago

I disagree, Democratic voters again did not get to choose their candidate. A candidate was selected for them. Even better one of the worst candidates during the primary was penciled in as Vice President; she is a good little party follower having the approved opinion and not one of her own. If anything it shows that the party rules above all. The lesson of Trump is that we have two political parties so immune to outside challenge it took someone of his level of money, fame, and more, to beat both parties and make no mistake, be beat both. Hence going forward, when Congress tells you they want to pass laws preventing certain monies from entering politics always understand it is to prevent anyone challenging their two party rule

enraged_camel 6y ago
>>I disagree, Democratic voters again did not get to choose their candidate. A candidate was selected for them. This is quite wrong. Biden crushed Bernie in the primaries.
- sigzero 6y ago
  But Harris was still a very horrible choice.
  - samiru 6y ago
    A fun fact: ”Kamala” is Finnish for ”Horrible”.
- 2020election 6y ago
  Bernie, like Trump, had a real backing, by real people, with real policies that speak to the majority. Biden is an empty shell. http://joebiden.info http://joebiden.info
- dandersh 6y ago
  No, Biden had never won a single primary (while Bernie had multiple during this campaign alone) until SC, when most every other candidate dropped out while endorsing Biden in a span of a week or so in a (successful) attempt to deny Bernie the nomination. And then there are things like the Iowa caucus where Mayor Pete decided to crown himself winner before one was officially declared (gee, sound familiar?) because the Iowa Dem party crapped the bed.
  - evgen 6y ago
    Bernie only won a single primary, Nevada, prior to South Carolina. He lost in Iowa and tied in New Hampshire. Just prior to Super Tuesday several candidates who were polling in single digits dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden. Maybe it was because they agreed with Joe's policies, maybe the party put a gun to their head, and maybe they just didn't like Bernie.
thatguy0900 6y ago
I would have thought that's clear when Hillary used campaign funds while running against Bernie https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team...
ineedasername 6y ago
Democratic voters again did not get to choose their candidate Didn't Joe Biden get most of the votes in the primaries? After Super Tuesday he was leading in delegates, and once the race came down to 1-on-1 with Bernie he did even better. This tells me there is significant support for very liberal policies like those from Bernie, but the party as a whole is still much closer to the center.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  Biden absolutely dominated the primaries once the voting began.
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    The staggered nature of the primaries combined with the inanity that is FPTP makes for poor fairness. ~No one will vote for their preferred candidate if they find out he/she is doing poorly - they’ll vote for the most electable candidate that they can stomach.
- andrepd 6y ago
  Bernie was the front-runner until the week where every single candidate simultaneously dropped out to endorse Biden. I think this is what people mean when they say the establishment rose to fuck Bernie when it became clear that he could actually realistically win the nomination.
  - chris11 6y ago
    Biden wasn't my first choice the primaries, but if Bernie had more support he could have beaten Biden in a head-to-head race. Though I think part of the cause for this accusation is that Bernie does well among non-voters. Thinking back to 2016 Clinton clearly had more support in the primaries than Bernie, but Bernie had a lot of support from people who didn't normally vote. So it does make sense that when Bernie lost, that group didn't feel represented by the democratic party.
    - 6y ago
colinmhayes 6y ago
Biden got the most votes. Old people like him. Blue collar people like him. Black people like him. His stutter is endearing to many in a george bush kind of way. Use your brain. He'll be a great president because he knows that the most important job of the president is delegating to responsible people.

rhizome 6y ago

> Yeah, same here, but that's because we live in progressive bubbles. Biden is a stopgap, he was what was required to get rid of Trump, which was job #1, a P1 if you will. A "progressive bubble" or other media-created marketing phrase is not a factor, it's a pure transaction: Trump has to go. People rose to the occasion this time. > You cannot imagine someone actually liking Biden without being soft in the head This isn't a fair interpretation of what they were saying, nor realistic. People are going to lament that a big part of Biden's support was functional, in order to get Trump out, but people complain about unchangeable things all the time. It's not significant.

shawnz 6y ago
I think the point is, if everyone agrees Biden is just a stopgap, why didn't they just pick someone better? For him to be a "stopgap" at all must imply that some Democrats today see him as the best end-game option, and we just need to "convince" them to be even more progressive
- Macha 6y ago
  If the risk is that someone like Romney, or McCain get in, I think progressives would feel more free to take risks and pick a more progressive candidate. To most progressives, while they're not fans of Romney and revisionism aside weren't fans of McCain, having one of them in power feels less dangerous than having Trump in power. If next election they're up against an attempt for Trump to get back in, then yes, you could expect a large progressive turnout for a Biden re-election. But if he's against a more moderate republican, I don't think you'll see the turnout that happened this year repeat, which may turn out to be a problem for his supporters.
  - kibwen 6y ago
    Note that Biden has already indicated that he would prefer to serve only a single term. Of course that doesn't mean he definitely won't be running in 2024, but if true then the race will be more wide open than a typical incumbent candidacy.

nullc 6y ago

I think Biden was well selected to be a candidate that everyone could tolerate. But especially given his age and how much focus there has been on suggesting (perhaps falsely) that his health isn't good, a lot more weight has been given to Harris. Harris did poorly in the primaries and I think even her supporters should be able to see why many people find her to be an extremely undesirable pick (it's not exactly the right political climate to nominate a self-described "Top Cop", and even Biden has a fairly "law and order" voting history, compared to typical for democrats). I know people who hate trump who claimed to have voted for him or just not voted, because they believe that electing Biden/Harris would create a substantial risk of either Harris becoming president or forcing the dems to nominate Harris in the next election (and thus excluding viable candidates that actually reflect their views)... and that for all the find wrong about Trump, he's at least substantially ineffectual.

kibwen 6y ago
> Biden has a fairly "law and order" voting history, compared to typical for democrats Keeping in mind that Biden hasn't been a senator since 2009, during his time in the senate he was dead center among senate Democrats in terms of liberal/conservative votes cast (i.e. both more liberal and more conservative than 50% of his fellow Democratic senators): https://voteview.com/person/14101/joseph-robinette-biden-jr https://voteview.com/person/14101/joseph-robinette-biden-jr . Of course as noted this was over a decade ago, and what passed for centrist back then might not today. In case you're wondering how this metric pans out for the most recent Senate: https://voteview.com/congress/senate/115/text https://voteview.com/congress/senate/115/text , which (according to this metric) lists the four most liberal senators (as shown by their senate votes) as, in order, Warren, Harris, Booker, and Sanders.
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  I agree, but I don’t think one needs to be particularly overall right-leaning to be right-leaning in a specific facet, and GP was specifically speaking about (and only about) the law and order aspect.
ytdytvhxgydvhh 6y ago

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

I legitimately like Biden. I think he was the best candidate for the current moment. People have a tendency towards "visionary" politicians, who arrive with agendas and strive to make them reality. Politicians who "flip flop" are derided, because changing your position is a sign that you never had real ideals. But I think we have this backwards—in a representative democracy, the job of a politician is to represent the electorate! The ideal politician, then, would be an empty vessel, who was willing to move to wherever the people are. And that's exactly who Biden is. He's always been a centrist democrat, but his "center" moves alongside his party. Biden also believes that governing is fundamentally about building coalitions, not smothering the other side. I am worried that Republicans may simply be unwilling to make any deals, no matter how hard Biden tries or what compromises he's willing to make. But, if anyone can do it—and that's a very, very big "if"—then Biden probably can.

karlshea 6y ago
Exactly. Would I have loved to see Bernie/Warren as a president? Yes. Do I think a boring centrist president is for the best right now to deal with this pandemic and the upcoming recession? Also yes.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  It’s likely that Biden’s centrism is going to result in him cowing to Republican pushes for austerity or limited, corporate bailouts that further exacerbate inequality and stoke populist discontent. I’m not sure that these impulses will work well in the context of the pandemic or it’s economic effects.
  - karlshea 6y ago
    I agree with the second sentence, I'm hopeful the first isn't true (although I see the worry). The stories I've been reading about who he's using as economic advisors give me hope. But it all has to get through Congress too.
    - 6y ago

joeldg 6y ago

Biden is great... maybe not as progressive as other Dem's would like but I am moderate (D) -- and here is the thing, most voters want to pay their bills and not think about politics. I got really turned off by some of the things Bernie was going for (like voting from prison) which are pointless if you have someone like Trump in office shredding the whole country. I like Bernie as a person but we would have lost Florida by a landslide with him on the ticket. For this moment, Biden is great, I couldn't be happier.

3131s 6y ago
So, expanding suffrage is just so terrible that it disqualifies Sanders? Unbelievable.

frogpelt 6y ago

Correct. It's amazing that in a world where we can all be connected that actual result was we all chose to connect with people who think just like us.

noobermin 6y ago

There was only one candidate progressives preferred. Before Super Tuesday, all other candidates dropped out and endorsed Biden. THAT's how it happened. Bernie maintained a slight chance up until the outbreak of covid where he suspended his campaign specifically out of concern for spreading the disease.