The DNC gets to pick any replacement. To them, that's far better than rolling the dice on a progressive winning a primary.
It's come to the point where the risk of changing the candidate has to be weighed against the risk of not changing the candidate.
It's hardly unthinkable. Half the party has been thinking it, now the other half is waking up.
a tepid but smart, compassionate leader.
Is that really what you saw on that stage tonight? I saw a guy who lost his car keys because he was so angry at those kids on his lawn. Whether or not the narrative on Biden is fair, he just totally legitimized it.
I get what you're saying about debating with Trump, or any Republican really. Debate is a lot easier when you care nothing for the truth. Overcoming that is the Democratic candidate's job. That's what Biden signed up to do. That's what the Democrats picked him to do. A candidate who can't function in that situation has no business on that stage. There are a great many Democrats who could have wiped the floor with Trump.
I like the part of the election cycle when some good things are allowed to happen.
I don't even blame Biden for waiting. Americans have such short memories that getting elected means having to hold some things in reserve, and getting reelected or passing the office on are genuinely important factors. It just sucks that people had to wait.
Congrats to everyone helped by this!
Dems also changed their minds one actually supporting the incumbents here.
This has never been a standard they apply to progressives.
With Hillary weighing in on the side of AIPAC to endorse the challenger, I'd say that the establishment is pretty comfortable taking AIPAC's money.
Not everyone was a D, at least not the voters. There was a massive push to reregister a lot of Republicans and Independents as Democrats.
I am so damn tired of the bad guys winning. Voters in this country are ignorant as fuck so money beats all.
Of course they will go right on supporting them too.
Sarah Palin was really a trend setter for congesional Republican women.
Republicans are working on it in the US.
There would have to be some kind of currently unforseen breakthroughs before something like that would be even remotely possible. In all likelihood, quantum computing would stay in specialized data centers. For the problems quantum would solve, there is really no advantage to having it local anyways.
If you are unaware of the massive changes the department of labor has made under Biden, then you don't care all that much about unions. Biden has been great on labor issues.
He has been forgiving student debt piecemeal to get around Republican obstruction, so far forgiving around 10%. It's not what we want, but it's also targeted to the people needing it most.
Biden isn't the leftist firebrand I want him to be, but he's been way better than I anticipated. He is easily the furthest left president since at least Carter, though that's a low bar.
Unfortunately the most I can say on Palestine is that Trump would be a whole lot worse. Biden has been putting a lot more pressure on Netanyaho than he gets credit for, but that's understandable given the rhetoric he uses publicly.
I think you might just be a time traveler from the 90s. Everyone expected Biden to run further to the center but he did the opposite. Here is a partial list of his left leaning promises.
- Free community college
- Universal Pre-K
- Student debt forgiveness
- Double Pell Grants
- Expand Social Security
- Increase refugee admissions
- Expand path to citizenship
- Raise taxes on the wealthy
- Raise corporate tax rate
- Strengthen unions
- Bring back manufacturing
- Expand broadband access
- Voting rights for felons
- Eliminate mandatory minimums
- Eliminate cash bail
- End private detention centers
- Decriminalize Marijuana
- Lower cost of prescription drugs
- $15 federal minimum wage
- 12 weeks paid medical leave
- 7 days paid vacation
- Rejoin Paris Agreement
- Green energy assistance for disadvantaged communities
- Block new fracking
- Offer a public option
- Create public health jobs corps
- Restore engagement with Cuba
- Constitutional amendment to eliminate private funding of elections
- Reverse transgender military ban
The thing is, that the left-right spectrum isn't the only axis that voters use to evaluate politicians anymore. A mich more important axis is now pro/anti establishment. Americans almost universally despise the DC establishment. Hillary represented that establishment, while Trump mocked it. Trump was a message in the form of a molotov cocktail.
She did so some campaigning early in those states. It turned out that the more they saw of her, the less they liked her. Her campaign kept her out of those states because she was a liability to her own campaign. Trump ran on fighting for average Americans. (Bullshit of course). Hillary ran on scolding the candidate offering change.
Let's try the more recent history again.
Obama ran on "hope" but, more importantly ,"change" and won in a landslide. Then he governed from the center as a status quo technocrat. He lost a Democratic super majority and almost the presidency to a slice of white bread.
Hillary Clinton was the most establishment centrist candidate the Democrats could have possibly run. Her campaign thought they could sweep the country by choosing a radical clown for the Republican opponent. They helped the Trump campaign get free media attention to win the primary, then they lost to the clown.
After 4 years of the clown, the country would have elected a ham sandwich. Even so, it was looking a bit close, so Biden did what most Democrats do in a close election and leaned left, almost sounding like Bernie lite at times. You can chart his popularity through his presidency and every uptick coincides with a move to the left, and every downtick with a move to the right.