Democrats/liberals: Now that Bernie has dropped out, will you vote for Biden?

Cuomo is going to win.
No need for dems to vote for Biden.

I’ll vote for Biden. Voting for a third party is a vote for Trump. Last election showed us that.

I’ll vote for Biden, yes, because I’m hoping Trump will lose. I don’t think he will, but gotta try.

I’m with @ANef_is_Enuf. I’ll vote for Biden.

I’m guessing Trump will win. I think that Trump would be almost impossible to beat, because no matter what he does or says, how fucked up it is, his supporters still love him. When he made fun of the guy with cerebral palsy and made the “grab ‘em by the pussy” comment and his supporters still defended him, it showed me how illogical and in love with him they were and they still are.

I will vote because I feel strongly that since many who came before us fought for our right to vote, and died for our right to vote, I am obliged to exercise my right to vote. I understand that not everybody feels that way and I am not arguing about it.

I’m voting for the Green Party candidate, again. Biden is vile and has no chance. If we get enough Green Party votes, they qualify for federal funding. That would be the most optimistic outcome from 2020 at this point. The DNC is a sewer.

Naturally! I am a team player.
Anyone who fails to vote for Biden now that Sanders has bowed out is just allowing an extra vote for Trump. SO unpatriotic! SO self defeating! SO childlike!

I’m one of those who thought Biden or Bernie would’ve lost to Trump, so doesn’t make a huge difference to me. Not that I would ever vote for Trump, but I’ve long thought his re-election was inevitable, if for no other reason than that it’s very difficult to prevent a second term. Haven’t had a one-termer since I was an infant. It just isn’t likely to happen again. Even the disruption of the coronavirus probably couldn’t prevent Trump’s re-election.

No, I won’t vote for Joe. Of course I wouldn’t vote for Bernie either.

Trump will win regardless. My vote for president is worthless and has been for years. I will only vote local from now on. That’s where my vote matters.

Biden doesn’t give a shit about Wisconsin voters. https://news.yahoo.com/biden-voting-wisconsin-safe-locals-084911810.html?soc_src=community&soc_trk=fb

@Jonsblond I’ve always cared more about local elections anyway. They seem to have more effect on my life.

Trump will win regardless. My vote for president is worthless and has been for years. I will only vote local from now on. That’s where my vote matters.

We can thank when Ruth Bader Ginsburg is replaced by some 40-something hard-right extremist who will be ruling for another 40 years against workers, women, minorities, and LGBTQ, and consumers

.

As I’ve said before, I really don’t care any more. It’s not important. What is important is that people are dying now and 100% of energy should be to that.

But, my opinion is that if the Sanders supporters were to say, “I’d support Biden if he changed his support for this issue and that issue,” they would help push the platform to the left. If the Sanders supporters are going to say, “Fuck you, I’m out” then Biden has no incentive to try to court them, and instead will move to the right to try to attract the disaffected Republicans.

Progressives are in a unique position right now to really affect change and I think by abandoning the Democrats they are hurting themselves.

Unfollowing.

OK, @Jonsblond, honestly curious here. What will have changed between now and November?

I’m much more worried about the fascists that are taking over America than I am a purist about who the Democrats will nominate. My favorite candidate dropped out weeks ago but I really want to stop what is happening in America.

Saying you won’t vote for Biden because he’s going to lose is a dick move IMHO. As is saying the Dems are worse than Trump, whatever you think of them.

So It’s vote for a buffoon (Biden) or clear the path for a certain Trump victory?
That’s Hobson’s choice right there…you have my sympathy :D

@Caravanfan I agree. Ultimately I don’t think progressives have a shot at running this country unless they take over the Democratic party, but they’ve become so disillusioned with it, they’d prefer to simply abandon it. I think that will result in nothing but progressives disappearing from relevance.

@Demosthenes And that’s exactly my fear. I do not consider myself a progressive, but I am sympathetic and agree with many issues, including expanding Medicare for all. I agree with Sanders in that Employee based health care works only if you’re employed and they offer health care insurance—and many do not.

I worry that if the progressives abandon the Democrats then they will be left on the sidelines and not part of the process, and they will lose the ability to help change the system.

But as I stated above, this is all noise until people stop dying from Coronavirus.
Okay, back to work for me.

@zenvelo There’s no joy here. I just see the DNC for what it is, a mechanism to obstruct progressivism while serving its donors. It’s a con, and it’s sad so many people fall for it. If we ever want progressive change, it has become crystal clear to me that it won’t happen via the Democratic Party. Supporting the Democratic Party is supporting a perpetual cycle of getting to choose between being shot in the face or stabbed in the back. For me this election was a test to see if a hostile takeover of the DNC from the left was possible (the way the Tea Party took over the RNC). It’s not and there’s nothing of value in the DNC for me anymore.

@Caravanfan “But, my opinion is that if the Sanders supporters were to say, “I’d support Biden if he changed his support for this issue and that issue,” they would help push the platform to the left.”

There is no mechanism to hold Biden accountable to any promises he makes, nor any reason to believe he would keep those promises. Trump will run to Biden’s left, just like he did to Clinton.

We’ve been told that the path to “electability” in the general is to court moderate Republicans at the expense of progressives. Let’s see if that strategy turns out differently in 2020 than it did in 2016.

@Demosthenes ”...they’d prefer to simply abandon it. I think that will result in nothing but progressives disappearing from relevance.”

I think it will have the opposite effect. Instead of pretending the middle is the path to victory, they’ll have to fear the left. Here’s a quote from Lawrence O’Donnell:

“If you want to pull the party, the major party that is closest to the way you’re thinking, YOU MUST! YOU MUST! show them that you’re capable of not voting. If you don’t show them that you’re capable of not voting for them, they don’t have to listen to you. I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic Party. I didn’t listen, or have to listen to anything on the left, in, while I was working in the Democratic Party, because the left had nowhere to go.” (Video)

I haven’t heard a single cogent case for how Biden can beat Trump. He’s a worse candidate than Hillary was (and that’s hard to do).

Of course I will. Anything else is a vote for trump. Biden is the only shot we have at getting trump out.
God. Did we not learn anything from 2016?

@Dutchess_III “Did we not learn anything from 2016?”

This is so ironic. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetically true—though in a very different way than you intended it.

Now that Bernie has dropped out, I don’t see myself as a “Democrats/liberals”.

Biden to me is a lying corporate tool, Patriot Act scumbag and probable rapist. I’d never vote “for” him, but I might end up ticking his box while voting against the even worse lying corporate tool, criminal scumbag and probable rapist likely to be his rival in the probably-rigged definitely-undemocratic lesser-of-two-corporate-evil-scumbags contest.

I think our country is in an utterly disgusting state of deranged political nonsense at this point. I think COVID-19 is doing good by comparison. At least it has many (if not all – see some deranged Trump supporters) people cooperating, having public interest at heart, and considering health care reform. Too bad Trump & company are using it as an occasion for more corporate giveaways and power grabs.

There ya go folks – throw your toys out of the pram, scream and wail, kick your feet and pound your fists while you hand the regressive party ironclad control over the SCOTUS for the next decade or two. But hey – you stood on principal.

@Darth_Algar It’s not about principle, it’s about strategy. Biden WILL LOSE in November. That’s a fucking fact. So now it’s about how to move forward, accepting that our SCOTUS is fucked for a generation. The people who didn’t support Bernie (most electable in the General) are to blame for the inevitable loss in November by helping the DNC put a guy with dementia at the top of the ticket with a record of outsourcing trade deals, endless wars, segregationist policy, corruption, selling out, scandal and a credible allegation of pinning his former staffer up against a wall and forcing his fingers in her vagina against her will, then firing her.

Don’t you dare try to wag your fucking fingers at us. We were trying to warn you guys from the beginning this would happen. Go get those moderate Republicans.

Doing the same thing. Expecting different results

Oh and if you haven’t figured it out by now, this election was never about beating Trump for the DNC, it was always about defeating Sanders (and maintaining their power). There is no other explanation for why they would prop up such a deeply flawed candidate. You’ve been had.

I’ve asked this before, I ask it again – how is Bernie Sanders “most electable” when he could not even beat the two, supposedly, worst candidates ever in the primary elections?

@Darth_Algar Answer: DNC fuckery.

Right. Any excuse to avoid acknowledging that Sanders just doesn’t appeal to a broad cross section of voters, and that many people find his ‘perpetually grumpy old man’ personality off-putting.

Brain dead or comatose, Biden gets my vote. The question for me is no longer about my preference for President. With Bernie gone, It is about confronting the reality of lesser of 2 evil politics. It’s not about electing Biden. It’s strictly about eliminating Trump. The setup sucks that I am force funneled to Biden. But Trump’s sidelining supplants any and all other considerations. It’s contemptible, but necessary beyond any doubt.

@Darth – Whatever makes you feel better.

It just might be that primaries are…primaries. And the Democratic party has always acted as a firewall that keeps the left from achieving power. 2016 actually happened, as much as you prefer to believe it didn’t.

A candidate can win a primary and have no appeal to the general public (Gore, Kerry, Clinton). Since only ~27% of people are Democrats, winning the primary is not an indicator of success in the general. But someone who can appeal to a broad swath of the electorate, like Sanders, can’t win the Democratic primary despite the fact he would have easily beat Trump.

If you want to be mad – and you should be mad – take a look at the “principled” Dem party, who took a dying Biden campaign and manufactured a “Stop Sanders” coalition right before South Carolina. It paid off. They will now lose with Biden rather than win with Sanders. This was the entire goal.

You should be mad that you’re now forced to vote for a rapist with dementia who has had a hand in supporting nearly everything you find repulsive. It’s not a matter of being “pure” (a cynical political tool). From his pro-Iraq, NAFTA, DOMA, TPP, immigration, Anita Hill, Yemen, Venezuala coup, bankruptcy bill, anti-cannabis, social security cutting, anti-M4A positions, etc all the way to his dementia, his years of publicly groping women and girls, his long history of lying, and his rape allegations – this is the guy the Dem party is using as this cycle’s “well, who the hell else are going to vote for” threat.

The Dem party is the enemy. It’s working to kill me and my family and make sure my kids have no future. If you didn’t know that Biden has a “D” next to his name, you’d assume that senile fuck was a Republican. And that is what people are going to see. A senile rapist who can’t seem to tell the truth against a senile rapist who can’t seem to tell the truth. Trump will be able to run to the left of Biden (like Clinton), and the working class will yet again see that the Democratic party is the party of the educated elites who don’t give a fuck. Trump doesn’t give a shit, but he’ll be able to say he does – because at least he’s not NAFTA/TPP/PNTR Biden.

I’m done. Don’t attempt to vote-shame me into voting for a fucking Rapist/Right-Wing ticket just to beat another. And save the supreme court shit for when the DNC replaces Joe “Scalia” Biden.

I live in California so it doesn’t matter who I vote for, there is no way California goes to Trump.

But I will, ever so begrudgingly, vote for Biden. Ew.

Something to consider: Sanders, Trump & Biden are all in the COVID-19 danger demographic. If something happens to one or more of them the election will shift.

I’m amazed at the number of people who appear to think that we’re going to see an honest count of honest votes in November.

No matter who gets the highest reported vote count, there will be screams of “foul” that won’t die down for years. Faith in the relative integrity of our elections has been one of the biggest casualties of the past four years. In my opinion, the all-around winner of that one is Putin.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

They’re all too old for my liking. Personally I’ve long thought that, just as there’s a minimum age for the presidency, there should be a maximum age limit as well. I think 65 at the time of inauguration is a good benchmark.

I agree with you @Darth_Algar.

You know, people carry on about Demented Joe, giving that as one of the reasons you won’t vote for him (I don’t think he really has dementia, though. I think it’s just age.) Thing is, trump is worse than Joe in the dementia department… AND trump is stupid. I’d vote for a dog over trump.

I have read several times in this thread that Biden can’t beat Trump. If Bernie can’t beat Biden, then he also cannot beat Trump.

I honestly think Biden can beat Trump. I believe he will.

@Hawaii_Jake: “If Bernie can’t beat Biden, then he also cannot beat Trump.”

That’s incorrect. I address this here. The primary voters, and more importantly, the primary process is in no way a process that presents a candidate that is best to face off against an opponent from another party in the general. This should be obvious.

@Hawaii_Jake “If Bernie can’t beat Biden, then he also cannot beat Trump.”

This is not accurate. Bernie absolutely pulled his punches against Biden. (Much to my frustration) he only ever attacked Biden on policy and his voting record. Bernie never attacked Biden for his cognitive impairment, the corruption with his son, his creepy behavior with little girls, the accusation that he sexually assaulted a staffer, his corruption or any other “below-the-belt” attacks.

The reason you’re wrong is that Bernie would take the gloves off against Trump, and Trump will take the gloves off against Biden. Also the DNC had their thumb on the scale and @hmmmmmm also has solid points. Bernie actually does well with working class Republicans.

Also, did you believe that Hillary could beat Trump? What introspection have you done regarding your ability to predict the electability of candidates? In other words, what assumptions were you wrong about then, but are right about now?

I’d LMAO, and party MAO if Bernie was elected via 70 million write-in votes.

One difference I’ve noticed between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans are willing to look beyond and forgive a candidate’s past and Democrats aren’t. Even without the crazy non-political shit that Trump has done, he certainly has not always been a Republican or model conservative (and still isn’t, really) but Republicans didn’t care and voted for him anyway. The fact that he had changed his opinions several times and engaged in all kinds of unsavory behavior didn’t faze his supporters. But Democrats are much less forgiving. They talk more about Biden’s past than they do about his current platform. A similar thing happened with Hillary to an extent. Bernie has an appeal because he’s been so consistent with his positions and values for so many years (at least, far more than Biden or Hillary).

I still insist that it would be better to vote for Biden’s corpse than to tolerate another term of
Trump at the wheel. The issue of a useless moribund Democratic party for all its self serving corruption cannot hold a candle to the damage that will be inflicted on us at the hands of the malevolent psychotic dunce currently defiling the Presidency.

Here’s a hypothetical scenario that may help you understand. Every year you get to make a choice, you can choose candidate from party A, candidate from party B or candidate from party X. Here are the rules:

1. If candidate from party A wins, 3 kids get executed
2. If candidate from party B wins only 2 kids are executed, but candidate from party B is usually a weak choice and will likely lose regardless of your vote, also if candidate from party B gets enough support then the process will continue under the same rules next year.
3. Candidate from party X wants 0 kids to be executed but is very unlikely to win. However, if enough people vote for candidate from party X then the rules of the game permanently change and we can switch between voting for A vs.B and instead vote for A vs. X (who will have a high chance of winning going forward once B is out of the picture).

What’s the rational vote for someone who doesn’t want to see kids being executed? B forever? or maybe voting for X, risking the loss and hopefully changing the rules is a better option? Isn’t B the real enemy to your position in the end? What to you tell someone from party B that says “executing 2 kids is better than 3! You’re a monster if you don’t support us!”?

Is executing 2 kids preferable to killing 3? But that’s not an apt comparison in a society powerfully conditioned to prefer an admitted executioner to an avowed socialist. THAT is the dilemma, and even Bernie is going to back the lesser executioner

@stanleybmanly I don’t think you get it. I really couldn’t care less who Bernie backs. My rage against the DNC is greater than my hate for Trump (which is as great or more than your hate for Trump). The DNC is why we have Trump, and it’s why Trump will win in a landslide in November. They beat Bernie (mission accomplished!), so they’ll go back to their wine caves with their lobbyists and donors and keep partying for the next 4 years under Trump. I’m sure they’ll put on a political show for those too stupid to realize that they were never actually serious about defeating Trump. They’ll make it look like they’re putting up a fight, they’ll say a lot of strong words, rip up his speeches, but they’ll be continuing to quietly vote for his appointees, budgets, wars, and tax cuts all the same.

4 years will roll around, maybe there will be a genuine progressive candidate (who they’ll sabotage), maybe it’ll just be fake progressives like Warren or Booker or Kamala, and the Republicans will again put up someone truly repugnant and the Democrats will lose again and they’ll blame progressives again. On and on and on.

You don’t break that cycle by voting for Biden. You take the rage and energy of a disaffected majority of working class and channel it into an alternative party. It’s not likely to win and may split the vote, but maybe in 4 years I’m not going to get to chose between eating a shit sandwich and a shit sandwich with sprinkles.

So go ahead, wag your finger, lecture, shake your head, but don’t you dare look in the mirror or have any kind of introspection into the role moderates played in this. I suggest you start trying to find the moderate Republicans to bring them into the party (last word I had was they were riding unicorns by the end of the rainbow) because you’re going to fucking need them if you think that walking corpse of a candidate is going to get 270 electoral votes.

@stanleybmanly: “Is executing 2 kids preferable to killing 3? But that’s not an apt comparison in a society powerfully conditioned to prefer an admitted executioner to an avowed socialist. THAT is the dilemma, and even Bernie is going to back the lesser executioner”

Well, I don’t give a shit about Bernie. It’s not about him. It’s about the movements, policies, and principles involved. And more importanly, there is another factor to @gorilla’s 3 choices. What if by choosing the lesser executioner, you hand over the electorate to the party and ideology of the greater executioner?

What if – as predicted – you continue to show the working class that your party is corrupt and willing to kill you? What happens to these disillusioned and vulnerable people? Do they just continue to thank the lesser executioner….even when a right-wing populist swoops in and says just enough to pull them in?

The Democratic party is complicit in Trump and the Republican party. There is no way around it. The lesser executioner is also largely responsible for handing power to the greater executioner.

I wish Tulsi Gabbard had been the nominee. She was the only candidate I really agreed with (I voted for her in the primary even though I knew it was pointless). What to do if you don’t want Trump but you also don’t want socialism/Bernie? I guess Biden is my option but I don’t much like him either and I’m not passionate about his platform. (I obviously am not a Democrat so I don’t care about the future of the Democratic party or punishing the party this November, which seems to be the #1 priority of Bernie supporters).

And if you really care about the role of progressivism in this country, why let Trump be president for a second term and guarantee more conservative justices appointed to the SCOTUS? Okay, I get you think Trump will win either way (I always did), but IF Biden won, wouldn’t be appoint more liberal justices? Why don’t Democrats vote on the SCOTUS the way Republicans do?

@Demosthenes Tulsi Gabbard is a homophobe, and a closeted Republican.

Ex-homophobe. Again, I’m more forgiving of people’s pasts. :)

If you can’t get Democrats to vote for socialism what chance does it have in a general election? Hate is not a winning platform. Maybe someday the Bernie supporters will realize that. Most Americans can see what has happened in Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, and on and on. It doesn’t work. Give it a rest and try promoting policies that can work and stop hating anyone that doesn’t agree with your full blown socialist agenda or run for office yourself.

^^^^^Real Americans know that socialism is only for Corporations, not people.

@Demosthenes ”...punishing the party this November, which seems to be the #1 priority of Bernie supporters”

It’s not about punishing the DNC, it’s about finding a way to make an alternative viable. Before Bloody Monday, I was holding out hope that it was possible to take the party over from within. Now I’m convinced that strategy won’t work. The DNC will keep putting up shitty candidates and we’re going to keep getting shitheads like Trump in office if they retain power. The country needs a serious alternative. There are plenty of working class Americans who are desperate for a populist party. The DNC and RNC are not it.

Bernie has officially endorsed Biden. Sorry Bros. :(

@Demosthenes I’m sorry for the country. 4 more years of Trump is going to be horrible.

@Demo – Changes nothing, just like we’ve always said. Not voting for Biden.

“Bernie Bros” – a term used by condescending fools to try to troll / mock / demonize people who support Bernie Sanders.

Bernie endorsing Clinton and Biden after being cheated out of the nomination by the DNC = of course he endorses them of Donald Trump. As a senator with interest in some level of support from Democrats, a target of desperate attacks by so many people, and someone who sees the obvious that even lying demented corporate tool Biden in better than Trump and utterly-unrestrained corporate giveaways.

“If you don’t endorse the candidate in the race who will, at worst, do less openly malevolent damage to the people you care about, it becomes obvious that you never cared for them at all.

It was only ever about one personality, one way of thinking, and you’ll sacrifice anyone in puerile protest.”

…after being cheated out of the nomination by the DNC

The same crap we have heard for four years about why a Party should roll over for an independent that does not support the Party. While in 2016 the DNC was all Hillary, I don’t think one can honestly say that this year. People claimed the DNC was trying to shape the debates to block Sanders, but that was just more of the same complaining.

@gorillapaws and @hmmmmmm You both complain about the DNC and the Dems being corporate lackeys, yet you wanted Sanders to get the Democratic nomination. Either you see the Democratic nomination as important and valuable, or you don’t but you don’t get to play it both ways.

I’m not sure if we can continue this, because we’ve answered these questions thousands of times, and yet you pretend that we haven’t.

Your party has decided to run Biden because he’s the “most electable”. We’re told that we needn’t be concerned that independents, anyone left of Ronald Reagan, or voters under 45 doesn’t support him. He’d still win.

Now he’s the nominee. You didn’t need our votes then, and you certainly don’t need our votes now.

Good luck!

We do need your votes. If you play the same game you played in 2016 we will have 4 more years of trump…and you will be partly to blame.

^ @Dutchess_III: “and you will be partly to blame.”

For fuck’s sake, stop saying this. You gave us Trump in 2016, and you did it again. This is not opinion. This is pure fact. Own this shit.

But re:needing our votes – You’d better check with your party. They explicitly did not want our votes, and decided again to target mythical “moderate Republicans” in the suburbs. Seems like a good strategy to try again.

Number of individual donors (from a Feb. 1 article ):

Sanders: 1,395,000
Biden: 451,000

Number of people I know who enthusiastically support Sanders for his own qualities: most of them.

Number of people I know who enthusiastically support Biden for his own qualities: Zero. Zilch. Nada. Goose egg. 0.

“mythical “moderate Republicans” in the suburbs”

Plenty of those here, they make up the suburbs in the south near big cities like Chattanooga and Nashville.

Moderate Republicans aren’t mythical, but I don’t know how valuable they really are. It’s white working class voters who won the election for Trump in 2016–the people who seem to vote for whomever promises to shake up the system, regardless of their party. Some people tell me they would’ve voted for Sanders in 2020 but I’m not sure. If they think their lives are better or at least not worse under Trump (which is what Trump supporters always say), they’re voting for Trump again.

Why is it 3rd party voters and non voters like to pretend the problem is much more complicated than it is? If you don’t vote for Biden, you are voting for tr ump. It’s very, very simple.

@Dutchess_III I think the point is that to them, Biden = Trump. Or just about.

@Dutchess_III: “If you don’t vote for Biden, you are voting for tr ump. It’s very, very simple.”

Compelling. Never heard that. Of course, if that’s true then the following is also true…

If you don’t vote for Trump, you are voting for Biden. It’s very, very simple.

But seriously – we’ve gone through this for years. You really should check the calendar – 2016 really happened.

Yes , it really happened. MOST people used their brains and voted for Hillary.

The game is crooked—that’s the single fact on which we all can agree, including those working class white folks at Trump’s base. If Bernie is ready to play the hand he’s been dealt, and advises the rest of us to do likewise, clearly his goal now coincides with my own. The avenue for overturning the corrupt setup is closed AGAIN. The goal then must be the dethroning of Trump regardless of the corrupt shell of a Democratic party. The pressure on the party to change mounts inexorably, and the current crop of “leaders” is fully aware of it. You can see it in their pushing of their candidate to unseat Ocasio-Cortez. If the pigs at the trough have insulated the trough from removal, we must take the alternate path of replacing the pigs with animals adverse to gluttony. Eliminating the entrenchment of the Democratic party is proven less than feasible, which is why both Bernie and OC hold their noses. I therefore believe it better to take over the party as the reasonable alternative to its destruction.

@Dutchess_III “Yes , it really happened. MOST people used their brains and voted for Hillary.”

Fact: Clinton, her team and the DNC encouraged the media to prop up Trump. They believed he would be easy to beat. They called it the “pied piper” strategy. That’s a proven fact. You can read the damn emails and memos yourself. Russia didn’t do that. Bernie didn’t do that. Jill Stein didn’t do that. And Green Party voters certainly didn’t do that. It was Clinton and the DNC.

If you’re looking for blame, look at the DNC and the people who supported Hillary. I’d be more mad at the fools who supported Clinton, but the reality is they’re being pumped so full of corporate media propaganda that it’s understandable that they don’t realize how badly they’re being taken advantage of.

As I said above, Biden has already lost, you guys simply haven’t figured it out yet. I’m not wasting a vote on a candidate who is going to lose anyways. I’d rather use it to help build a 3rd party. Getting 5% of the vote for a 3rd party is an achievable goal. Biden getting 270 electoral college votes is not.

@zenvelo “Either you see the Democratic nomination as important and valuable, or you don’t but you don’t get to play it both ways.”

I thought Democrats might have learned their lesson from 2016 and realized that an establishment candidate would lose to Trump. It was certainly looking that way until the DNC flipped the switch after Nevada. As I said earlier, I was holding out hope that the DNC could be taken over, purged of the corruption and be redeemed. Now I know that’s not possible, so I’m done with it. There’s nothing inconsistent with my beliefs.

Aside from Ross Perot and the Reform Party when was the last time a 3rd party even came close to 5%? I believe the closest, since Perot, was Gary Johnson/Libertarian Party in 2016. It’s certainly not going to be the Green Party. I’m not convinced they have any interest in actually building their party, but rather wish to troll everyone else. Especially after Jill “Russia Today” Stein and Ajamu “Down With the White Man” Baraka.

Bernie is endorsing Biden.

@Darth_Algar “I’m not convinced they have any interest in actually building their party, but rather wish to troll everyone else.”

I’m more confident that the Green party or other progressive alternatives are honest actors in trying to improve the country than I am that the fucking DNC is serious about beating Trump. I think you’re going to see much bigger numbers this time around for 3rd party. “Fool me once…” and all of that. If you think Jill Stein is a Russian asset, I’ve got a tinfoil hat for you.

Obama just endorsed Biden.
I love this video. Obama obliterated the cheeto without ever once mentioning his name.

@gorillapaws I have never seen anyone from the Green Party speak out about the housing crisis in my county or in my region, never heard them talk about the lack of affordable health care in my county (which has two hospitals for an area the size of Rhode Island).

I never hear the Green Party speak up about the local utility and how they should be handled. I never hear the Green Party talking about water apportionment in a state that has huge factions competing for water.

In fact, I never hear the Green Party at all except every four years when they expect the country to vote for them but never give me or anyone else a reason they should get my vote.

@Dutchess_III: “Obama just endorsed Biden.”

Yes. This gets Biden 1 additional vote – Obama’s.

@zenvelo “In fact, I never hear the Green Party at all except every four years when they expect the country to vote for them but never give me or anyone else a reason they should get my vote.”

Maybe that says more about where you get your news than about whether they’re serious?

Getting 5% is a game changer for a 3rd party. It may not be the Green Party, it may be something different, but there is an extremely serious slice of the electorate that is done with the DNC and even some with the RNC. That energy is not getting behind Biden, especially when it becomes even more clear that he will lose.

I find it interesting that the criticism of third parties is both an indictment of the current system and exactly why it’s critical to break it.

Sanders’ project failed. Twice. He rejected offers to head 3rd-party tickets or to run as an independent. His push was to infiltrate the Democratic party in an attempt to fix it. He was wrong that it could be done.

Now it’s time to move on. There has always been much debate on the left about the efficacy of electoral politics. Bernie’s two runs showed that powerful corporate interests have no intention of even allowing the seeds of change or even a slight shift to the left. Voting will not work. 2016 was absurd, but 2020 was completely masks-off.

I’m not a Democrat, and never have been. The Democratic party has always been the enemy, and it has shown itself to be exactly that every single day. I will note vote for Biden, and I won’t defend an indefensible corporate party that brought us to where we are in every sense.

I will likely vote for Howie Hawkins in November, but I’m not sold on the Green party. I would, however, love for the 5% to be met. I’d love a true working-class socialist party that doesn’t eschew electoral politics for direct action – but merges the two. Whether this will happen in my lifetime, I’m not sure. But a lack of a viable third party is certainly not a indictment of third parties.

And save your tired arguments that we’ve all heard before that involve questionable math vote-shaming, and projecting your privilege on me. I’ll never vote for that monster at the ticket of that rancid Democratic party.

* They’re still looking to install a replacement for Biden due to his weakness against Trump and cognitive decline. When I say #NeverBiden, I mean #NeverWhomeverIsInstalled.

And one more time: The DNC and Democratic establishment came together to form the “Stop Sanders” coalition not because they thought Sanders would lose. They did so because they knew he would win.

The narrative was always “Biden is the most electable”, even though his support with those under 45 was anemic. I repeat – Biden was sold as the most electable without the support of the left or people under 45. They just didn’t need our support, and they don’t need it now.

If you are concerned that my vote (a non-Democrat) is needed for Biden to win, you’re telling me that you never bought your party’s sales pitch on Biden being the most electable. And if that’s the case, you have likely done it again – avoided picking the one guy who could beat Trump.

Well, it’s simple. It’s going to come down to Biden or trump. Period. Y’all can stick your head in the sand and pretend by some miracle some 3rd party candidate has a chance in hell of winning, when they don’t.

^ Out of curiosity, do you ever read the comments before typing?

^She does not.

I have decided I will vote for Biden. I am only doing this for my son and all other LGBTQ people.

This does not mean I won’t hold Biden accountable for rape allegations, among other things, but my son’s safety comes first.

I am disgusted with this country and it depresses me. Our current situation shows we need a president like Bernie. I’ve never wanted to move out of this country until now. I’ve lost all hope for the United States.

I read it. It was just more of the excuses for not voting for the only viable candidate who can beat trump.

And I agree @Jonsblond. We need Bernie.

@Dutchess_III In what way is Biden viable? I think the biggest difference is that you have deluded yourself into thinking that fucking guy can actually beat Trump in the Electoral College. He has the lowest enthusiasm numbers for a nominee in US history (lower than Clinton at her lowest point).

I mean, sure he’s going to lose to Trump in southern states like SC by a much smaller number than Bernie would have, but that still gains him 0 votes from the Electoral College. Decades of NAFTA, TPP, and selling out the working class is going to crush him in the rust belt.

I think moderate Democrats are seriously miscalibrated when they try to make electability claims. It’s rich when someone who told us Hillary was the most electable, now claims to have any clue about who is/isn’t viable.That’s like getting drawing lessons from a blind guy.

Krystal Ball just put out a video discussing why the left may not support Biden. It may help explain the reasoning for those who still don’t get it.

He is not my first choice. But at this point he’s my only choice. It’s either going to be Biden or trump. Just like in 2016. No matter who yelled what it simply came down to it was going to be either Clinton or trump. No third party or independent will ever get enough votes to actually pose a threat.
I wish people would quit pretending like it is soooo complicated. It’s not. It’s either A or B.

@Dutchess_III It goes back to something said in the segment I linked. We understand that Trump is the SYMPTOM not the CAUSE. The cause is decades of the Democratic Party embracing neoliberalism. We WILL KEEP GETTING TRUMPs (or worse) forever (maybe Donnie Jr., the head of the fucking KKK, whoever the fuck the RNC puts on the ballot) if we don’t address the ACTUAL CAUSE. Helping Biden lose by a smaller number isn’t an effective use of our votes. Helping a 3rd party hit 5%, unlocking federal funding and pushing forward would.

@gorillapaws: “We understand that Trump is the SYMPTOM not the CAUSE.”

^ This is critical to much of the misunderstanding that plagues much of these discussions. The core ideology underlying “blue no matter who” is that things were good prior to Trump. It’s echoed in the America is already great hats, and the If Hillary had won, we’d be at brunch right now signs at various demonstrations following Trump’s election. It’s in the call to “return to normalcy”.

The problem is that “normalcy” was a brutal time of massive injustice and death that was met with complete silence from liberals. And now that we’re in the Trump era, the only thing that is relevant to them appears to be to get us back to the this nightmare. There is a whitewashing and rehabilitating of war criminals, like Bush and all of the Bush-era war architects. They make up much of the voices in the corporate media who claim to be never-Trump Republicans.

And more importantly, there is that call to a pre-Trump Obama presidency. So, when the left, who has spent decades fighting against the crimes of Obama – and the entire, rotten system – is told that we need to return to the time of Obama, we hear people call for immoral actions to be done more politely. The most compelling case that liberals can make for this return is to argue that the horrors of the Trump era can be slightly reduced and be done with class and kindness.

This sales pitch – a return to a happy time of brunch and silence – is not appealing to those who have been suffering. It’s also not compelling, considering that we know exactly where this leads. Yes, we have Trump now. But can you imagine what we’ll end up with if the supposed “opposition” party continues to hand over the electorate to the Republican party?

So, yes – we see things quite differently. I see a Democratic party that is complicit in pre and post-2016 crimes. I see a Democratic party that gave us the conditions for Trump and quite literally gave us Trump. I see a Democratic party that lost to a game show host in 2016 only to spend years fast-tracking his judges, approving his military budgets, and never providing any substantive opposition at all. It was Russiagate horsesh*t and petty complaints about him being a crude, bumbling leader. Any real principled stances that were taken by the Dem party were usually bipartisan or attacking anything good that was left in that party (Ilhan Omar, anti-BDS, blaming Sanders, etc).

If the sales pitch this time around is going to be to literally return us to the Obama era with the guy Obama ran with to make him less-threatening, that is not going to work. As @gorillapaws points out, Trump is merely a symptom. And that cause has the two corporate parties fingerprints all over it.

@gorillapaws: you’re forgetting that Hillary actually won the Popular vote. It was the Electoral vote that did her in.

Plus there was that whole FBI investigation, which was announced not long before the election, which fizzled out in the end (at which point it was too late), also, for something that Trump and others on his team did themselves (emails and texts on a non-secured server).

@jca2 We don’t elect the President by popular vote. It’s about as relevant to the conversation as which candidate can hold their breath longer.

Clinton lost the Rust Belt because of her decades of support for neoliberal trade policies that have devastated those communities. The email investigation was old news by November.

Also wasn’t Clinton’s housekeeper printing off classified documents for her? If you or I had done what she did, we’d be in prison for years.

“Clinton lost the Rust Belt because of her decades of support for neoliberal trade policies that have devastated those communities”

Exactly, Trump also made it a focal point and promised to help those very people that Hillary’s campaign completely ignored. This is the reason he won the election IMO.

Clinton lost because of idiots out there who chose to believe the utterly stupid conspiracy theories about her and Bill.

@Dutchess_III Be honest, the people who believe those were never going to vote for her regardless.

People who believe that were probably mostly trump supporters. They aren’t known for their intelligence, as is shown in Michigan

“The protest — called “Operation Gridlock” — was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and drew out militias, conservatives, small-business owners and ardent supporters of President Trump, who characterize the governor’s stay-at-home order as an unjust power grab.” They’re just idiots. And I will do what I need to do…whether I want to or not…to avoid another 4 years of complete idiocy.

A good part of that protest that drew out so many people were specific line items in the stay at home order there that did not make sense and were overly restrictive in ways that had nothing to do with virus prevention and everything to do with politics. That Governor is going to potentially be Biden’s running mate. I’ll agree it’s idiotic to congregate the way they did and while there were fringe groups there and the protest got way out of hand the article is not being fair as to the key reasons that sparked it. It just casts them as all Trump supporters which is basically a straw man in this day and age.

There are protests happening in red states as well. It’s not just politics. It’s people getting increasingly frustrated by having to stay home and worried about the economic consequences. That’s just America. We don’t like being told what to do, we value freedom above all else, and these restrictions are seriously hampering that. They aren’t going to be allowed to go on for much longer, even if it means the infection rate soars.

It goes hand in hand with Trump’s populist image as well. He’s pitting “the people” against state governors, blame them, they’re the ones not letting you work. It lets him off the hook.

@Demosthenes I’m not seeing too much of that and I’m all up in the heart of the red states. People are on board with what needs to be done here. It’s the arbitrary, unscientific and “punishing” certain demographic political restrictions that are drawing fire in certain areas like Michigan. That and evangelicals protesting they can’t congregate which I’m perfectly fine with them fining or even arresting people for noncompliance there.

@gorillapaws: I’m aware that it’s the Electoral vote, not the popular vote, which counts. Remember in 2016, one of the big controversies was that the Electoral vote was nowhere in line with the popular vote. The people wanted Hillary, but the Electoral College did not. It had a lot of people asking for the Electoral College to be abolished.

I still don’t understand how the EC works. From what some people who DO understand it said, they did their job.

@Dutchess_III Here’s an example. Let’s say there’s 5 states in a fictional country, the first four have a population of 1000 each with 10 delegates each and one has a population of 3000 with 30 delegates. In this country, there is a total population of 7000 people and 70 total delegates. Candidate A wins 501 votes in the 4 smaller states and only gets 1 vote in the large state. Candidate A gets 40 delegates and a total of 2005 votes in the election. Candidate B loses all 4 smaller states and gets 0 delegates from them but wins the large state with 2999 votes. Candidate B crushes the popular vote with a total of 4995 votes (about 71% of the popular vote) but loses the election with only 30 delegates (about 43% of the total delegates) compared to Candidate A’s 40 delegates.

In a winner-take-all system, coming in 2nd place by a small margin or a huge margin makes no difference. That’s how it’s possible to lose the election while wining the popular vote. It’s also why nominating a guy who will lose by a smaller margin in deep red southern states (if the other guy can pick up wins in battleground states) is a moronic strategy since all of those votes won’t matter anyways.

If Angela Davis can vote for Biden, so can all of you socialists/progressives/social-democrats.

@tinyfaery I’m not Angela Davis. I don’t vote for people that repulse me. Let me put it this way, I hate Trump just as much as you. I hate the DNC and Biden even more. Dems will keep losing and we’ll keep getting Trumps, over and over and over and over again. That’s because at the end of the day the Neoliberal DNC cares more about suppressing populist economic progressivism than they do about beating Republicans/Trump.

Riddle yourself this, why didn’t Biden name Bernie as his running mate? or Nina Turner? He would lock in the party by doing so. Instead he’s going to go with a corporatist like Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren. Biden and the DNC care more about preventing a genuine progressive in office than they do about defeating Trump. That should tell you all you need to know.

I’m pretty sure Biden didn’t name anyone yet. Bernie is too old to be VP, and I am sure his ego would make him say no anyway. Nina is still a Democrat? Well she’s not good enough for you then. She belongs to a neoliberal political party who will keep losing over and over again.

And you are totally correct, you are no Angela Davis so you can sit down.

If ever the excuse for negative campaigning were optimum, this must most assuredly be the the opportunity. There is only a single attribute of Biden worthy of emphasis in the upcoming campaign, and that is that HE ISN’T TRUMP! For my money there isn’t any requirement to mention Biden’s name in the upcoming election. An eighth grade journalism class can compile enough footage and soundbites of the fool to mount a devastating irrefutable portrayal of what is astonishingly true.

@tinyfaery ”...you are no Angela Davis so you can sit down.”

I beg your fucking pardon? Who the fuck made you the political thought police? Look if you want to vote for a demented sellout who was one of the chief architects of sending black and brown people to jail for decades over non-violent offenses? Who offshored jobs? Who engaged in corruptions repeatedly to help out his fuckup of a kid? Who worked hard to protect the health insurance industry’s profits resulting in 10’s of thousands of Americans dying every year from lack of care? Who has help drag the Democratic party so far to the fucking right that Ronald Reagan would be labeled a “liberal?” Who is a major reason why we have Trump in the first fucking place? Who sexually assaulted his staffer, told her she was “nothing” and then fired her?

Go right the fuck ahead and vote for the fucking scumbag. But don’t you dare tell me to sit down.

”....Look if you want to vote for a demented sellout….” Well, it’s either a demented sell out or trump.