The quote:
“Given Joe Biden’s incredible record, given Donald Trump’s terrible record: he should be mopping the floor with Donald Trump. Joe Biden is running against a criminal. It should not be even close. And there is only one reason it is close. And that is the president’s age.”
Hillary Clinton ran against a sexual predator. She should have mopped the floor with him. She didn’t.
Any election against Trump will be close. The problem isn’t age. The problem is Trump supporters.
The problem is that Republicans don’t vote for a candidate they vote for a party. The Republicans could run Hitler’s reanimated corpse as their candidate and as long as it had that R next to its name it would get their vote. Democrats on the other hand are much more likely to not vote for or not even show up to vote at all for a candidate they don’t particularly like. It’s why good Democrat candidates always beat Republican candidates of any kind, but bad candidates usually lose. Democrats massively outnumber Republicans, but the Democrat party nearly always runs the worst possible candidate. If Republicans win any election it’s not because they had a good candidate, it’s always because Democrats ran a bad one.
My pet theory is that the establishment wing of the party (that largely controls the DNC) wants to have a specific coalition that keeps them in power within the party. Like, if Democrats wanted to be the party of the working class or appeal to rural voters, they could but would require leadership that isn’t from New York, San Francisco, or other similarly rich places.
So, under the leadership of Clinton, Pelosi, and Schumer, they chose to make the swing voters the ones they appeal to most. Maybe Bernie’s positive populism would have matched up better against Trump’s negative populism than Clinton’s outdated neoliberalism. But leadership and the DNC would rather lose an election and keep control than win but lose their place atop the party hierarchy.
I think it’s simultaneously less conspiratorial and more nefarious than that: the establishment wing of the party likes power and power means control over campaign funding, so they pander to large corporate donors by suppressing anti-corporate populists.
That, and how much the rural vote is overly counted.
No, the problem is democrats refusing to run a real populist against a fake populist like Trump. Instead we get the same establishment garbage, which is exactly what the Trump campaign is geared towards defeating. Schiff is also incorrect - Kamala would be just as bad in this regard.
If Dems run a real populist who is a champion of the people, not the corporations, Trump would be exposed and the whole MAGA movement would fall apart at the seams.
If a populist can’t beat Biden in a primary then they won’t beat Trump in the general
There was no primary in good faith, Biden didn’t even entertain a debate with those running. His admin colluded with state DNC boards to cancel primaries in some states, and remove contenders from the ballot in others. Establishment Dems bullied and threatened major contenders behind the scenes to prevent them from even attempting to run. In light of recent events it’s quite obvious why.
So to me this isn’t a valid argument for Biden’s legitimacy, quite the opposite in fact. And quite ironic in an election where “democracy is on the line.”
Biden isn’t expected to help challengers. If they can’t get enough signatures or polling support to meet debate / ballot access requirements, then they certainly can’t beat Trump.
And if potential candidates couldn’t stand up to other Dems in private, how are they expected to stand up to Trump in public?
Primaries aren’t beauty pageants. It’s survival of the fittest. Candidates have to work to win over other Democrats and build a strong support network for the general. Nothing will be handed to them, because the general will be ten times harder.
What are you on about?
Biden is expected to show up and make his case, which he appears unable to do. His administration also actively worked to subvert the primary process, a wholly undemocratic maneuver.
And now here we have Blue MAGA - blaming the primary contenders who were brave enough to run, blaming the voters, blaming anything and everyone possible except the one man whose ego will cost us the election in November unless he steps down now.
Biden is making his case, the same way he always has.
Trying to defeat your primary opponents is not undemocratic.
When a candidate loses an election, they should take responsibility for the outcome. Blaming the opponent for “stealing” an election is classic MAGA-speak.