Thom Hartmann is one of the best political bloggers in the nation and a superb journalist. This is a very important article. In 2016, I pleaded with readers not to vote third party because Trump was clearly unhinged and ignorant. Jill Stein siphoned off enough votes to elect him. I’m still haunted by the infamous photo of Jill Stein sitting at Putin’s table with Michael Flynn before the election.
We can’t afford any more George W. Bush’s or Donald Trump’s, who were both brought to us by Democratic-leaning voters thinking they were doing the right thing by voting for third party candidates…
One of the most fashionable statements these days among progressive-leaning voters who pretend to great political insight is:
“I want to vote for the person I like themost, not some party or candidate that I only half-agree with.”
Its corollary is:
“You’re just trying to get me to vote Democratic because you support that party’s corruption. I won’t be intimidated: I’m going to vote for the best person to run the country!”
Often these types of statements are followed by:
“People in France and Israel can vote for any one of a dozen parties and nobody complains that they’re ‘throwing away their vote.’ This is America: we’re even better! So, I should be able to vote for anybody I want!”
Some people pushing this line simply don’t understand the difference between thepolitical systems of France/Israel and theUS.
Others are cynical hustlers (this is true mostly of the talk-show and YouTube hosts trying to differentiate themselves by pushing this), trying to grab and hold an audience by being “edgy,” “iconoclastic,” or “a rebel with a cause.”
So, let’s review some political basics.
Whatever its genesis, this opinion — that ignoring our two-party system and “voting for the best candidate is a good thing” — is widespread. After all, intuitively it seems to make perfect sense.
In a rational world, who would want to vote for anyone less than the best candidate? Unfortunately, though, America’s political system is not as rational as that of countries with proportional representation or ranked choice voting.
A 2022 Pew poll found people’s unfavorable view of both parties has gone from 6 percent in 1994 to 27 percent today. Similarly, 38 percent of Americans “wish there were more political parties to choose from in this country” and may be persuaded to vote for a third-party candidate.
So why is it that third parties don’t work in America, but they do in France?
The United States, in 1789, became the first modern democratic republic founded on thenotion of the leaders of a government, through elections, “deriving their just powers from theconsent of the governed.”
The Framers of the Constitution had never heard of proportional representation or themodern parliamentary system (more on that in a minute), so they went with a simple strategy that’s today referred to by political scientists as “first-past-the-post winner-take-all” (FPTP) or, sometimes, as “majoritarian” or “plurality” election systems.
Whoever gets the most votes becomes theelected politician, and everybody else gets nothing. If you voted with the majority, you’re represented; if not, you’re not at all represented by a person or party that shares your view.
America was an English-speaking country and, as a result, this system spread mostly throughout the English-speaking world and in former British or American colonies. Majoritarian FPTP systems like ours are used in Canada, the UK, India, Jamaica, Liberia, Singapore, Philippines, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Bangladesh.
As a result, most all of these countries are dominated by two parties who tend to pass control of the nation back-and-forth over time. (Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland use Ranked Choice Voting, an even more recent innovation which allows for more political parties; more on that in a moment.)
In such a system, third parties almost always act as spoilers, drawing votes away from the major party to which they’re most closely aligned. People who vote Green, for example, generally would have voted Democratic, thus reducing that party’s vote; people who vote Libertarian would have voted Republican with the same effect.
For example, in Florida in 2000, Ralph Nader on the Green Party’s ticket got 97,488 votes, while George W. Bush “won” Florida by 537 votes.
It strains credulity to assert that the majority of Nader’s voters would have either voted for Bush or not voted at all, which is why when David Cobb ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2004, he explicitly told people in swing states not to vote for him but to cast their ballots for John Kerry instead.
Jill Stein had no such moral compunction with her Green Party candidacy in 2016. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin provided Trump’s margin of victory in theElectoral College over Hillary Clinton, and, in each of those states, Stein pulled more votes than Trump’s margin.
(In Michigan she got 51,463 votes and Trump won by 10,704; in Pennsylvania she won 49,678 versus Trump’s margin of 46,765; and in Wisconsin Stein carried 31,006 votes but Trump only won by 22,177.)
In other words, had liberals not voted for Ralph Nader in Florida in 2000, Al Gore would have become president and we never would have been lied into a war; had people in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin not voted for Jill Stein in 2016, Hillary Clinton would have become president and America would have been spared thetrauma of 500,000 unnecessary Covid deaths and the ongoing assault to our democracy.
This is apparently not lost on sour-grapes Jill Stein, by the way; she’s reportedly helping run Cornell West’s 2024 Green Party candidacy. It’s also not lost on the Democrat-hating folks at No Labels, who have pledged to put up a candidate for president (presumably Joe Manchin) in 2024.
In the 1950s, French sociologist Maurice Duverger published several papers on this odd quirk of FPTP systems and the way they turn aligned third-party candidacies into agents for the opposition party.
This simple reality — apparently unknown to those who advocate third party candidates — has since come to be known as Duverger’s Law.
So, why can France have so many political parties without damaging their political system but here in America third parties harm those they’re most closely aligned with?
This goes to the invention of what’s called “proportional representation.”
It wasn’t until the year the Civil War started, 1861, that British philosopher John Stuart Mill published a how-to manual for multi-party parliamentary democracies in his book Considerations On Representative Government.
It was so widely distributed and read that nearly all of the world’s democracies today — all of them countries that became democracies after the late 1860s — use variations on Mill’s proportional representation parliamentary system.
In Mill’s system, if a political party gets, say, 12 percent of the vote then they also get 12 percent of the seats in that country’s congress or parliament. A party that pulls 34 percent of the vote gets 34 percent of the seats, and so on.
The result is a plethora of parties representing a broad range of perspectives and priorities, all able to participate in thedaily governance of their nation. Nobody gets shut out.
Governing becomes an exercise in coalition building, and nobody is excluded. If you want to get something done politically, you have to pull together a coalition of parties to agree with your policy.
Most European countries, for example, have political parties represented in their parliaments that range from the far left to theextreme right, with many across the spectrum of the middle. There’s even room for single issue parties; for example, several in Europe focus almost exclusively on the environment or immigration.
The result is typically an honest and wide-ranging discussion across society about the topics of the day, rather than a stilted debate among only two parties.
It’s how the Greens became part of today’s governing coalition in Germany, for example, and are able to influence the energy future of that nation. And because of that political diversity in the debates, the decisions made tend to be reasonably progressive: look at thepolitics and lifestyles in most European nations.
In our system, though, if a party gets 12 percent of the vote — or anything short of 50 percent plus one — they get nothing. Whoever gets 50-percent-plus-one wins everything and everybody else gets nothing, which is why we always end up with two parties battling for thehigher end of that 50/50 teeter-totter.
Pretty much every democracy in the world not listed above under the FPTP label are using Mill’s proportional representation. But we don’t, which is why we’re stuck with a two-party system.
Australia and New Zealand have diminished the damage third parties can do to themain, established parties, by using a voting system called ranked choice voting. In a system like that I could have voted for Ralph Nader as my first choice in 2000, with Al Gore as my second choice. When it becomes apparent that Nader isn’t going to make it, my first choice is discarded by thesystem and my vote for Gore becomes theone that gets counted.
Over 300 communities in America are now using ranked choice voting (including Portland, Oregon) and it works great. Moving from FPTP to proportional representation would require amending the Constitution, though, so that’s not going to happen any day soon: ranked choice voting is a nearly-as-good alternative.
At the national level, though, the best way to solve the problem of some Democratic politicians not being as progressive as we’d like is to get active by joining theDemocratic Party and becoming a force for positive change within it. To stand up for public office and elect more progressives, something that can only be done within theDemocratic Party.
To not “throw away your vote,” but to help rebuild the institution that brought America Social Security, the minimum wage, the right to unionize, Medicare, Medicaid, free college, regulatory agencies that defend and protect the environment and working class people, support for people in poverty, and that built America’s first real middle class.
Yes, there are corrupt and bought-off politicians within the Democratic Party. Ever since the Supreme Court fully legalized political bribery with their Citizens Uniteddecision and its predecessors, there have been more than a few Democrats who have enthusiastically put their hands out. The most obvious and cynical ones call themselves corporate “Problem Solvers.”
But voting for a third-party candidate and thus handing elections to Republicans won’t solve that problem: if anything it will make it worse, because the entire GOP has committed itself to being on the take and, as we saw with Nader and Stein, third-party candidacies often simply hand more power to the GOP.
Try to find, for example, even one Republican who isn’t benefiting from the billions in oil dollars that have flowed through the Koch network over the years and is thus willing to do something about climate change. Republican governance and their fealty to the fossil fuel industry is literally destroying America.
This is why real progressives like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and Pramila Jayapal stay and work within theDemocratic Party. For progressives to take over the country, we must first take over the DNC.
In other words, get inside the Party and take it over! It’s what hard-core conservatives did with the GOP over the past 20 years, starting with the Tea Party movement, and it’s what progressives must do with the Democratic Party.
Cornell West is a great guy, but with our FPTP election system a vote for him for president in a swing state is effectively a vote for theRepublican nominee. No third-party candidate has ever won the White House, and none ever will until we have nationwide ranked choice voting.
So, the next time somebody tells you how they’re going to only vote for “the best candidate,” you may want to give them this little Civics 101 lesson, along with the phone number, website, or email address for their local Democratic Party. And get behind themovement to bring ranked choice voting to national elections.
We can’t afford any more George W. Bush’s or Donald Trump’s, who were both brought to us, in part, by Democratic-leaning voters thinking they were doing the right thing by voting for third party candidates
You have never addressed my question about the Libertarian candidate pulling votes from Trump.
BTW, if sitting at a table with Putin is a sign of Russian control, what do you make of this? https://twitter.com/deaf258/status/1576596211142131713
In any case, if Biden can’t win without the left, then it’s high time he drops out and endorses Cornel West.
Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. That was her job. Why was Jill Stein sitting at Putin’s table with Michael Flynn at a dinner honoring RT, the Kremlin’s propaganda outlet? What was her job? Who paid her way?
BTW, Diane, if Ranked Choice Voting would protect Democrats from third-party “siphoning”, why do you think Democrats oppose Ranked Choice Voting?
I have no idea why anyone supports ranked-choice voting. It can produce a winner who did not get a majority. Like Mayor Adams in NYC.
I’m still mulling whether I like ranked-choice voting (“RCV”), but the arguments in favor of it are pretty straightforward.
https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/
True, Adams didn’t get a majority on the first round of RCV in the primary, but neither did any other candidate. And he did get a majority on the last round of RCV, which you can think of as a runoff.
One upside to ranked choice voting is that it allows people to vote for “third party candidates” without (a) “throwing their vote away” or (b) spoiling the election.
If it’s true, for example, that Jill Stein voters would have voted for Hillary if Stein wasn’t on the ballot, then all those Stein votes would have turned into Hillary votes in later rounds of ranked choice voting.
People often argue that rank choice voting will drive candidates to the middle because being a voter’s second choice has value.
Btw I noticed you didn’t answer Diane’s questions….
“Hillary Clinton would have become president and America would have been spared thetrauma of 500,000 unnecessary Covid deaths”
Wow, that’s some precise epidemiological modeling!
Easily 500,000
And how many were necessary Covid deaths?
Come on, Flerp. You know good and well what the intention was there. Donald Trump encouraged the idiot half of our country not to socially distance, not to avoid crowds, not to wear masks, to use fake medicines, and even not to get vaccinated (despite his claims later to have been responsible for creating the vaccines), and as a result of this, lots and lots of people died who otherwise would not have, if, instead, he had urged all these precautions like a sensible, science-driven leader dealing with a deadly airborne pandemic. But you know all of this and are too smart for this kind of Dienne-level disingenuousness.
And so these morons crowded into churches, where they spread the disease among themselves, and a lot of them died.
cx: precautions
I don’t know how much of a difference it would have made. Cuomo probably would have still stuffed elderly Covid patients into nursing homes if Hillary were President. Bill de Blasio and other local politicians probably still would have encouraged people to go out and fill up restaurants in February 2020 because the risk of infection was “low.” The Chinese authorities. still would have covered up that there was a potential pandemic coming out of Wuhan in December 2019, allowing the virus to spread like wildfire internationally until it was impossible to stop. When schools and businesses closed in March 2020, people still would have stayed in their apartments and houses and infected family members. And there probably still would have been a huge anti-vaccination movement, perhaps even stronger than the one we saw, since the vaccine would have been “the Hillary shot.”
Well, that sounds frankly preposterous to me, Flerp. I suspect that with proper leadership, hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved. I know that here in Florida, our hospitals were chock full of people, but no one was distancing or wearing masks, and I met lots and lots of people who refused to get the vaccine even after it was available because Trump.
This is all counterfactual and speculative so I won’t belabor it more than to say that I definitely disagree that it’s preposterous to think that Florida’s response to Covid would have been not only the same, but even more lax under a President Clinton. Oppositional politics. “The Hillary shot.” “The Hillary lockdowns.” Etc.
Where I get hung up is on the President Hilary part of your counterfactual. I would put it this way, what if Jared hadn’t gone to Donnie and counseled him to downplay the pandemic so as not to slow down the economy in an election year? What if THESE TWO ASSHOLES HAD NOT MADE THAT GRIM CALCULUS, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans?
Flerp, your assumption that half the country would have recoiled if Hillary had been president is truly speculative. We don’t know.
But we do know that Trump misled the public, advocated crazy “cures,” and ridiculed mask mandates and taking the vaccines. Imagine telling people to inject bleach! He and his family took the shots but they never admitted it. Yes, there were unnecessary deaths.
I am shocked that we are even arguing about something this obvious.
From the New York Times, Feb 1, 2022:
Two years into the pandemic, the coronavirus is killing Americans at far higher rates than people in other wealthy nations, a sobering distinction to bear as the country charts a course through the next stages of the pandemic.
The ballooning death toll has defied the hopes of many Americans that the less severe Omicron variant would spare the United States the pain of past waves. Deaths have now surpassed the worst days of the autumn surge of the Delta variant, and are more than two-thirds as high as the record tolls of last winter, when vaccines were largely unavailable.
With American lawmakers desperate to turn the page on the pandemic, as some European leaders have already begun to, the number of dead has clouded a sense of optimism, even as Omicron cases recede. And it has laid bare weaknesses in the country’s response, scientists said.
“Death rates are so high in the States — eye-wateringly high,” said Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who has supported loosening coronavirus rules in parts of Britain. “The United States is lagging.”
Some of the reasons for America’s difficulties are well known. Despite having one of the world’s most powerful arsenals of vaccines, the country has failed to vaccinate as many people as other large, wealthy nations. Crucially, vaccination rates in older people also lag behind certain European nations.
The United States has fallen even further behind in administering booster shots, leaving large numbers of vulnerable people with fading protection as Omicron sweeps across the country.
U.S. vaccinations lag behind other large, high-income countries
Despite beginning Covid-19 vaccinations months earlier than countries like Japan and Australia, a smaller share of people in the United States are now fully vaccinated.
The resulting American death toll has set the country apart — and by wider margins than has been broadly recognized. Since Dec. 1, when health officials announced the first Omicron case in the United States, the share of Americans who have been killed by the coronavirus is at least 63 percent higher than in any of these other large, wealthy nations, according to a New York Times analysis of mortality figures.
In recent months, the United States passed Britain and Belgium to have, among rich nations, the largest share of its population to have died from Covid over the entire pandemic.
For all the encouragement that American health leaders drew from other countries’ success in withstanding the Omicron surge, the outcomes in the U.S. have been markedly different. Hospital admissions in the U.S. swelled to much higher rates than in Western Europe, leaving some states struggling to provide care. Americans are now dying from Covid at nearly double the daily rate of Britons and four times the rate of Germans.
The only large European countries to exceed America’s Covid death rates this winter have been Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic, poorer nations where the best Covid treatments are relatively scarce.
“The U.S. stands out as having a relatively high fatality rate,” said Joseph Dieleman, an associate professor at the University of Washington who has compared Covid outcomes globally. “There’s been more loss than anyone wanted or anticipated.”
As deadly as the Omicron wave has been, the situation in the United States is far better than it would have been without vaccines. The Omicron variant also causes less serious illness than Delta, even though it has led to staggering case numbers. Together, vaccines and the less lethal nature of Omicron infections have significantly reduced the share of people with Covid who are being hospitalized and dying during this wave.
In Western Europe, those factors have resulted in much more manageable waves. Deaths in Britain, for example, are one-fifth of last winter’s peak, and hospital admissions are roughly half as high.
But not so in the United States. Record numbers of Americans with the highly contagious variant have filled up hospitals in recent weeks and the average death toll is still around 2,500 a day.
Chief among the reasons is the country’s faltering effort to vaccinate its most vulnerable people at the levels achieved by more successful European countries.
Bob and Flerp: It is certainly a fact that Trump decided to downplay the pandemic. What his intentions were is a matter of wonder and opinion since truth is not a strong part of Trump’s makeup.
My question is why he chose to do the anti-mask and all the craziness thing. He had the opportunity to get himself elected easily with some moderate policies. That is what all the republicans thought he was going to do. He was goiing to be like them, sounding radical but then behaving somewhat moderately. Trump could have ridden that strategy to the White House. His base was in his pocket. Just a little reason in his walk and he goes back in for another four years.
So why didn’t he? His subsequent war with medical reason laid him open to attacks like Tom Hartman’s, whether you believe him or not. Could he not see?
It’s impossible to know, and your speculation is not irrational, but my own speculation is that it didn’t matter that much. A swift, harsh, early response to Covid before there were many infected people would have led to a lot of resistance and backlash, particularly in blue states where anything Trump had to be resisted. (We saw this happen to some extent when Trump restricted entry to the US by people coming from China in February 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/health/coronavirus-travel-ban/index.html.) By the time it was clear that the threat was massive and real, it would have been too late, and we would be positioned more or less where we were on the timeline that actually happened.
Again, speculation.
Let me be clear about this: Trump was riding an uptick in the business cycle. So, he decided that he was going to base his reelection campaign on the great economy that he had created (because that’s what he does–he takes credit that doesn’t belong to him). But Jared came to him and said, if you respond as is needed to the pandemic, if you close things down, if you stop people from gathering, that will slow the economy and you might lose.
So, they made the calculated decision to allow Americans to die rather than hurt in the slightest his reelection chances.
Evil. Pure, unadulterated evil.
“Flerp, your assumption that half the country would have recoiled if Hillary had been president is truly speculative. We don’t know.”
LOL, I am absolutely speculating, that’s undeniable, but let’s not act like it’s out of left field to suggest that red state “deplorables” would not have reacted well to public health edicts perceived to be coming from President Clinton (or President “Killary,” as one commenter in this thread puts it). They didn’t even like the edicts coming out of a CDC in a Trump administration, and they didn’t like a vaccine developed under Warp Speed.
And the idea that blue states would have rejected strong protective measures from Trump re the pandemic is absurd. If he and Fauci and Brix were all saying the same thing, there would be no argument. As it was, the latter two had to try simultaneously to fight the pandemic and pretend that there was not problem in keeping with the party line established by Donnie, who has the blood of a lot of Americans on his tiny hands.
But I know, Flerp, that from the beginning you had these bizarre notions that somehow it’s just fine for people to come together in large groups in the middle of a deadly airborne pandemic. Because the lockdown inconvenienced you. Aie yie yie.
And no amount of argument or science is going to move you from that predisposition to interpret the facts of the pandemic in these utterly bizarre ways. It’s like trying to talk to Dienne about Ukraine.
THERE IS ONE REASON WHY THERE WAS WIDESPREAD COVID DENIAL IN THE UNITED STATES: TRUMP
One reason
Because this ignorant and evil man doesn’t care about anyone but Trump. It was just fine by him if a lot of people died if this meant that he had a better chance of being elected.
And the damage he wrought goes far, far beyond just this–the hundreds of thousands who died unnecessarily. He reinforced the science denial on the Reichwing–among uneducated Trumpanzees–to the point that it will be a long, long time until these morons in places like West Virginia and Indiana and Tennessee and Texas and Florida believe anything that a scientific body tells them about anything. That’s so dangerous and idiotic. And it’s Trump and Jared’s fault. Those utter bastards.
They made science denial the default position of the Republican party.
Bob, I agree with some of what you’re saying and I disagree with some of what you’re saying. I’ll let it die at that. I’m trying lately to disentangle myself and move past some of the more bitter disputes in America over the last few years. It hasn’t been healthy for me, or the country.
I’ll just add this: It’s true that I much preferred the European approach to Covid and schools than the blue state US approach. But the idea that I opposed extended school closures simply because it “inconvenienced me” is wrong. It’s the kind of bullsh!t mischaracterization I expect from Greg Brozeit, but not from you. But now I’m doing what I said I wouldn’t do. I want to move past this.
Fair enough, Flerp.
Sorry about my anger, Flerp. I am so, so furious at Kushner and Trump for the damage they did. This is a hot button issue for me. These two creeps, these jerks, managed to convince 40 percent of the U.S. adult population that all actual science was bogus and what Donald Trump or Ted Cruz has to say about, say, nuclear physics, is just as valid as what is said by, say, Ed Whitten.
Bob: You might be absolutely correct that the decision to open the economy back up was a bet on economics overpowering other fears in his upcoming election, but I would very much like to know how any competent strategist could have missed the vote dividend associated with a moderate response that tried to make him look compassionate. I think he deliberately tried to divide the country over the issue of the pandemic, betting that more people would think like he did if he threw shade on his opposition. Hence the snipping at Fauci and the memes about pansies who wore masks. Another politician might have had it both ways.
Bob Woodward has reported about all this. Kushner counseled Trump to downplayh the pandemic to keep the economy running on high until the election. Would Americans die? Of course. BUT THEY DID NOT CARE.
Woodrow Wilson also downplayed the Spanish Flu. And just as science-denying Trump caught Covid, Wilson caught the flu.
Read this, Roy:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/trump-lied-about-covid-market-panic.html
These bastards made the conscious decision to let Americans die. To keep the stock market high.
Kushner hasn’t a clue about compassion. It’s not a phenomenon he is familiar with or that enters into his thinking, as far as I can tell. The man is a freaking slum landlord, for crying out loud. Slender Man, married to the Sparkle Princess, who once chastised her friend, saying, “Why would you tell me to read a book about poor people?”.
FLERP!
The vast majority of deaths that happened after the vaccine was readily available were unnecessary deaths. That includes a lot of people who were not Trumpanzees. But the hype mostly from the right made it more difficult to convince them of the need.
As many as 18 million Hospitalizations and 3 million deaths may have been prevented by the Vaccine. How many more could have been prevented had their not been an organized effort on the to make sure it failed once Trump Lost the election.
https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/news/2022/COVID-Vaccines-Prevented-3-Million-Deaths-in-the-US-New-Analysis-Finds.html
Bob: Thanks for the article. I knew about most of this, but put it closer to the time when Trump was wanting to declare the emergency over for Easter. I had not realized some of that was happening in February. That was actually before I knew about it.
My introduction to Covid was actually just a couple of days before the shutdown. News reaches teachers slowly when they are busy. I think I do better now, so long as I keep off the carpentry thing. That keeps you even busier, if you can believe it.
It is still fascinating that he received no advice to take a moderate course. I guess he was surrounded by people who would accept a bribe to downplay the murder of an American journalist. No, surely not.
haaaaa!
The two billion was doubtless for something much bigger than that, don’t you think? All those boxes of documents at Mar-a-lago. . . .
There not their
FLERP!
You fault Cuomo for completely the wrong reason. With low wage immigrant workers in and out of those Nursing Homes. Workers coming from neighborhoods with not only high population density but high household density. Neighborhoods where people were lining up at emergency rooms dropping dead like flies before even seeing a physician….
The Health commissioner was right that sending recovering patients on average after 7 days of Hospitalization back to nursing homes was not the cause of those deaths . Most were no longer infectious probably 11 days into their infections.
And you are wrong on Big Bird as well. In February there were no known cases of Community Transmission in NY State .
The first documented case of community transmission was the lawyer from Westchester Co. Now how can we blame deBlasio for being ignorant when NY Patient 1 sat in a Teaching Hospital a division of the Presbyterian Hospital system for 5 days not in isolation with double pneumonia. He had to be sent to Columbia Presbyterian on the 5th or sixth day to be diagnosed on March 4th. That is how unprepared we were.
(Confession I came up the stairs from Grand Central at the end of the 3rd week of February and said to myself : Self why are you grabbing the handrail. )
Yet you are right on both Cuomo and deBlasio for the wrong reason. It took Dr. Oxiris Barbot the CEO of the Cities Health and Hospital Corporation threatening deBlasio that she would walk out of a Cabinet Meeting and go right to the Press about Covid already spreading NYC , to get deBlasio to put down the bagel and get off his ass. To get him to declare a Public Health Emergency and shut the Cities School System. To which Cuomo the maniacal egotist he was puffed his chest and said ” He don’t get to close City Schools only I the great and omnipotent Andrew get to close city schools ” The 5 or so days they spent puffing their chests probably caused 10s of thousands perhaps 100s of thousands of infections and God knows how many deaths.
Yes Big Bird did not take it serious till it was too late. Going to the Gym right before he shut them.
“not to vote third party because Trump was clearly unhinged and ignorant. Jill Stein siphoned off enough votes to elect him.”
Horse manure! No, not the part about the “tRump being clearly unhinged and ignorant.”
I do believe that rank choice voting is a good thing.
So,
let’s review some political basics.
A strategy that DOESN’T lead
to meaningful change, is no
solution.
If the advice of those, that cry
for us on the way to the bank,
really worked, why do they have
to repeat it year after year,
book after book,
essay after essay?
What “new” powers enable
an alumni to undo what
happened under their
watch?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/chris-murphy-class-divide-populism-rich-men-north-of-richmond/675142/
Good article explaining the current political situation. Sorry, it’s from The Atlantic (paid subscription), but I believe they allow a certain # of free readings per month.
Yes! I’ve written about this in my columns and elsewhere, too. I’ve tried to talk to Green friends about it, but for whatever reason they don’t seem to budge on how they vote. I fear this factor may be our undoing, in 2024. Also, Democrats’ support of the military industrial complex and the eschewing of negotiated solutions to problems like Ukraine will drain off votes of people who support the progressive ideas in the Democratic agenda, but abhor and fear the steady push to Americanize the world through dollars and force.
What “negotiated solution” is out there? The only ones I see the AOC haters on the left and the Republicans on the right offer is to be Neville Chamberlain agreeing that Hitler can take over a country if he wants.
It is shocking that Ukraine went from being a right wing autocracy to a far more progressive democracy and the left is angry that we didn’t let Putin make Ukraine a far right autocracy again.
In fact, Biden’s solution is probably the best of many bad choices. Ukrainians are fighting their own battles, but the US is supporting them in fighting the TRUE evil regime of Russia, where anyone who disagrees just gets murdered.
How or why is it our business to run the world–including Eastern Europe? All wars end with a treaty of some kind–better sooner than later. In 1945 WE set up a United Nations structure to settle disputes between nations. Why do we not use that structure to mediate this dispute? And there are different views on the previous Ukraine government vs. this one. We–US agents and politicians (McCain, Nuland, etc.)–helped overthrow the previous government. Why? Because we’re nice guys? If we’ve such nice guys why did we invade Iraq in ’03? How would we feel if Russia constructed a counter-NATO of Mexico, Cuba, etc. on our border?
Jack Burgess: We aren’t “running the world” by supporting the preservation of a democracy. Your POV lacks this nuance.
We weren’t “preserving democracy” when we helped the current, pro-western, government overthrow the fairly elected, previous, pro-Russian, government in Ukraine. Look closely. You’ll see that various actions were taken by our State Department and important US officials, such as Sen. McCain, to help overthrow the duly elected government. Again, how would we feel if Russia set up an alliance of Cuba, Mexico, etc., with lots of troops, missiles, and war games, right near our border? (Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis)? But regardless or all that, does anyone reading this think Russia will finally give up and let the West run the Black Sea? And as you mentally castigate Russia (I’m no fan either), what about our own record on overthrows all over the world–especially the super violent one in Iraq, where we took down Hussain who had done zero to us–was apparently wanting to get along? Does anyone smart enough to follow this blog think that Putin hasn’t noticed the leaders/dictators we’ve taken down or had killed? Will he give up on controlling the Black Sea area and resign himself to overthrow, prison, assassination? I think he’ll fight to the end–which could be the end of the world, as we know it. Peace, Jack the veteran, whose seen men killed by war machinery.
Forgive me, Jack—who has seen people die at work so he believes he has the expertise of a foreign policy-maker—but this statement is fraught with misleading rhetoric:
“ We weren’t “preserving democracy” when we helped the current, pro-western, government overthrow the fairly elected, previous, pro-Russian, government in Ukraine.”
“Fairly elected” is not exactly in the pro-Russian playbook. Putin is a dictator who will murder the very people he claims “belong to Russia” just for Russian control over the country. But what do I know about people being killed? I’m just a two-bit citizen who hasn’t served in a war…
In regard to our country’s past military atrocities, I am in full agreement. But take a moment to see the motivations of these wars and who was in office at the time. We all knew that GW Bush and his cronies lied about WMD so he could get revenge on Hussain and his family. It was personal and should never have been sanctioned by Congress. As well, this country’s many incidents of political and military interference in Latin American countries in our sordid past were also wrong. Seems it was the other Bush president who sanctioned yet another international scandal, and all were pardoned for their abuses of power, from my recollection.
Ukraine is different as they hold the line from an invasion of our NATO allies. Putin’s is a direct attack on democracy, and despite the sins of the past, our current elected officials are working to strengthen democracies for the good of the world—not just for our favor.
Putin is a murderous dictator who will stop at nothing to amass land and power. He doesn’t care about people if he’s willing to kill them in order to “bring them back to Russia.” He is without scruples and is very dangerous.
If the Ukrainian people “fairly elected” a pro-Russian leader, why are they now fighting so hard to stop Russia from taking over?
First, the ad hominem: I do have a degree in History & Government from Ohio State, where we were fortunate to have professors from various countries and cultures (and our Dept. was run by a brother of the Sec. of State). I’ve traveled abroad, and have relatives living abroad, so though I’ve never lived in NY (my wife has) or Texas (my brother-in-law did) I feel I have a pretty good grasp of history and reality. And, yes, I’ve seen our military from the inside, where human life is sometimes not as valued as it might seem from movies or other fiction.
Meanwhile, my main points are being evaded: 1. Russia will NOT give up Crimea and the Black Sea–they need the area MUCH more than we need the Carribean–for which we came close to WWIII. 2. Putin will not–can not–back down, politically or psychologically. 3. Our hands are not clean in Ukraine, where we helped overthrow a duly elected government (as we have many countries–read “Overthrow”). 4.Biden, for all his domestic successes has been a strong supporter (tool?) of the military-industrial (Ike’s term) complex, supporting the horrible invasion of Iraq, when most folks didn’t, etc. 5. Wars end in treaties. Various countries have offered to mediate, negotiate, arbitrate, whatever, to help end it. Again, Russia and Putin will NOT likely give up. Let’s don’t blow up the world (they have 6000 nukes) over our hubris or our pretend and new-found love of the Ukrainian people. From where I sit out here in Flyover, it looks like we’re just mad because the Russians, the Chinese, and their allies won’t let us run the world. Oh, and check out the HUGE profits the war-folks are making off of this latest bloody fiasco. Peace, Jack
Jack: At first, it appeared that you used the veteran card as clout for your comments (and I would be remiss if I did not thank you for your service). However, I can see why—it actually does explain your POV about avoiding war. I could not possibly know what it’s like to see people die in war as I, like a lot of Americans, have been spared the experience. I watched my father pass away, and it wrecked me. Could not imagine how I would handle being in your situation. I hope you did not nor do not suffer any PTSD.
To your points:
“1. Russia will NOT give up Crimea and the Black Sea–they need the area MUCH more than we need the Carribean–for which we came close to WWIII.”
The Russian Federation will only give up this war effort in Ukraine over Putin’s dead body. The promise of power that comes from wrestling control over that region is too rich for a dictator to abandon. He’s already wanted for war crimes by the ICC. I suspect he won’t be turning himself in anytime soon.
“2. Putin will not–can not–back down, politically or psychologically.”
That is no reason to stop supporting Ukraine. It sounds as if the strategy you are proposing is, “Oh, he won’t give up? Ok, then. Let’s just forget it and let him invade our NATO allies…you know, because he won’t give up.” I’m no General Milley, but I would give our military strategists and foreign policy officials a little more credit than to lay down before a bully. Biden seems to have mastered the art of the compromise, however Putin isn’t a person with which anyone could effectively compromise. I fear that the only way this war ends is with Putin dead. So far, we have not crossed the line into WW III. The NATO allies are banking on Ukraine being successful in pushing back tired Russian Federation forces for as long as it takes for someone in Russia to either stage a coup or an assassination. At least, NATO is going to help fortify Ukraine from behind the scenes.
“3. Our hands are not clean in Ukraine, where we helped overthrow a duly elected government (as we have many countries–read “Overthrow”).”
If you’re talking about Yanukovych, he was a political pawn of Russia and was rightfully overthrown. He also was responsible for the deliberate deaths of hundreds who protested his decision to go back on signing the free trade and association agreement with the EU. He was bullied by Russia and he caved. The Ukrainian people did not take too kindly to this. I don’t see how the US support of removing him from office was a bad thing, but perhaps you could shed some light?
“4.Biden, for all his domestic successes has been a strong supporter (tool?) of the military-industrial (Ike’s term) complex, supporting the horrible invasion of Iraq, when most folks didn’t, etc.”
The horrible invasion of Iraq was supported by Congress, in general, after a president and his useful idiots lied to them and the American people. To blame Biden for this solely and use that as an example of his support for the military-industrial complex is not telling the whole story. We were all told that we were under threat from Saddam Hussain. It was a lie.
“5. Wars end in treaties. Various countries have offered to mediate, negotiate, arbitrate, whatever, to help end it. Again, Russia and Putin will NOT likely give up. Let’s don’t blow up the world (they have 6000 nukes) over our hubris or our pretend and new-found love of the Ukrainian people. From where I sit out here in Flyover, it looks like we’re just mad because the Russians, the Chinese, and their allies won’t let us run the world. Oh, and check out the HUGE profits the war-folks are making off of this latest bloody fiasco.”
Darn straight we don’t want to let authoritarians run the world. Not sure what you think will happen to Democracy, on the whole, if democracies do not support one another, but it will be the end of all of us.
I have words to express my feelings about supposed progressives who vote for candidates with no chance of winning, but Diane does not allow such language on her blog. I do love the fact that the English language is so rich in these.
Those people are bat-Trump crazy. They have Trump for brains.
Come join me on my Union Facebook page. I use those words all the time. It doesn’t do anything to change minds but it’s better than a stress ball when dealing with those who have not mastered bi pedal motion.
Haaaa!!!
Link, Joel?
Would you be willing to provide the link to others, Joel? I’ve been in a union since age 17. Now a member of two.
Sadly I asked once before for a activist retired member of a different NYC trade union and was told yeah Dons a great guy but the group is restricted to our Unions members It isn’t an official Union page but they don’t want air our dirty laundry to the public.
Sadly there is a lot of dirty laundry between ignorant Trumpanzees and a Union Leadership that some would say are going down like the Titanic with no viable plan to rescue members
Thanks, Joel
We got Bill Clinton when Ross Perot ran his ego-filled campaign against free trade. We got Woodrow Wilson when Teddy Roosevelt ran as the Bull Moose. Third parties have often influenced presidential elections. The difference today is that the presidency itself has become the government due to the right-wing refusal to compromise on anything. This lack of statesmanship has produced an almost imperial presidency. The check on a presidency of the right has evaporated with the appointment of the three latest judges, and the presidency seems to be the only entity that can govern, albeit by fiat instead of legislative settlement of differences.
I have not voted for a person to be president since Carter ran in my first foray into being directly involved as a citizen. Thereafter, my vote has cheifly been cast to oppose a particular candidate by virtue of the march to the right on which our country has been engaged since 1968 (the year Nixon was elected by calling demonstrators “bums”). I have always considered that voting for a third party says very little, but I have thought it was a way to make a statement when the possibility of your vote counting as a part of a state that always goes a different way from your own ideas. I live in such a state. My vote against Trump is as meaningless as a match struck in a gale.
Nor am I really happy with a democratic establishment that refused to remedy the problem of narrow margins during the Gore-Bush era. I have always argued that there should be a division of electoral votes in states where the margin is thin. That, along with attempts to disenfranchise voters in urban places, has rendered both parties content to ignore huge parts of the country or pander to them. It lets both parties shower money in the strategic places rather than to have to appeal to all of us.
That said, I am in agreement with the suggestion that if you do not like Trump, and you live in a swing state, you better vote for his nearest rival. Otherwise, your vote is cast for Trump. That is easy to figure out. I get it that some people feel tied down by that logic, but you could always move to Tennessee, where a vote for a Democrat is lost in the wind. Here you can vote for Nader, Stein, or even Eugene V. Debbs. Your elector is going to vote for Trump.
“We got Bill Clinton when Ross Perot ran his ego-filled campaign against free trade.”
Remember all the comments in the comments section here during the 2016 campaign inveighing against NAFTA (the “giant sucking sound”) and the Obama administration’s push to enter into the Trans Pacific Partnership — which was killed as both Trump and Hillary turned against it? You don’t hear much talk these days about trade deals.
from Robert Reich’s Substack today. The Democrats love of free trade is about over! Bad for consumers (less cheap goods from slave labor in other countries) but good for manufacturing jobs in the US.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/globaloney-why-the-democrats-love
Flerp: I assume you are not questioning the truth of my assertion. I take your comment to diverge in a new direction from the present conversation (i.e. third parties).
As for trade, the glorious days of free trade are gone like the jobs that left, especially in the manufacturing sector. Ironically, barely after Perot went down in defeat (without an insurrection, which is notable) the introduction of greater automation was making more inroads into the traditional jobs for most folks. People, even in China, began losing jobs to robots in the late Twentieth Century.
Thus modern trade agreements are fraught with a lot of questions as China, Russia, and other authoritarian states begin to assert their strength assets in world politics. We live arguably in a much more dangerous place today than we did in 1992.
Correct, not challenging your assertion.
Roy,
You make very good points that are rarely brought up.
Many people (including Thom Hartmann) simply say categorically “don’t vote for a third party candidate because it will lead to a Trump” but it is only in a very few states where that has any significant potential of being the case.
The problem with the whole discussion about third party candidates is that it is fraught not only with lack of nuance but also with unsupported assumptions and claims (to say nothing of the fact that it treats third party voters like little more than idiots and fools)
“Lack of nuance” in regard to your point that in the vast majority of states, the chance that a third party candidate is going to swing the vote is about as large as that a space alien will land a flying saucer on the White House lawn in the next ten minutes. (I added “in the next ten minutes” in light of the recent rash of alien spacecraft sightings by our Navy pilots) And as you also point out, it’s easy to tell if you live in one of those states and to simply refrain from voting third party if there is a significant chance it might elect a Trump.
And “unsupported assumptions and claims” like Hartmanns categorical assertion (with no indication of uncertainty or hesitation) that “had people in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin not voted for Jill Stein in 2016, Hillary Clinton would have become President”
Hartman and others are guilty of the basic logic failure of equating “Stein voters not voting for Stein” with “Stein voters voting for Clinton” and simply assuming that if Stein got enough votes to overcome the Trump/Clinton differential in the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, she necessarily made the difference in the outcome of the election.
Alas, there is no certainty on the latter point (nor can there be) because it is impossible to know with absolute certainty how people would have voted had Stein not been on the ballot “or, indeed, whether they would have voted at all.
The best one can do is make an educated estimate of how Stein voters would likely have behaved had their candidate not been in the race (based on polling).
Researchers who actually performed such an analysis concluded that Stein likely did NOT cost Clinton an electoral college majority and hence the election.
Not incidentally, they concluded that the majority of Johnson and Stein voters would actually have abstained from voting entirely had they been denied the opportunity to vote for their preferred candidate.
https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=848111097086113110103080093082112096032042072006036091011093021091112095122120085065023097018011121012001114095110031025004091025009038044078113028068073103077091027038050071029093109110019014023102106064093029077113091100010089102121010005091121097112&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE
The finding that most Stein voters likely would not have voted at all had Stein not been on the ballot also makes it very unlikely that Stein voters were responsible for Clinton’s electoral college loss because in Pennsylvania alone (which was one of the three states in question where Clinton needed for the win) fully 88.7% of Stein voters would have had to have cast a vote for Clinton. of course, if half of Stein voters had stayed home and not voted, the latter (88.7% voting for Clinton) would not only have been “unlikely” but actually an impossibility
And while one can question the specific probabilities that the researchers arrived at (and the poll results that the probabilities were based on) the one thing that is actually NOT open to debate is the fact that **there can be no certainty that Stein caused Clinton’s loss.*
The outcomes of counterfactuals that involve people are never certain and effectively claiming that they are (as Hartmann has done) is simply irrational — (and disingenuous, if Hartman actually knows his assertion is unsupported)
Thanks, SDP, for the analysis. It’s certainly true that in deep red or deep blue states, third party candidates don’t change the outcome. The Bush-Gore count in Florida, however, is a different story. Bush won Florida by 537 votes. Nader, the Green Party candidate, received 97,488. Did Nader cost Gore the election? Would Green Party voters have all stayed home? Would they have voted for Bush? We will never know for sure.
you guys are sick in the head wanting killary clinton,who has given away our secrets, sold uranium , had so many people killed around her. OMg Trump is the worst we had 0 wars in 4 years, we had 2.20 gas, 2.30 oil, we had lowest unemployment, we had companies come back to the USA, we were energy independent, we taxed other countries, we did not pay for the world, we had much safer border , ohhhhhhh my goddddd trump was terrible!!!! This admin is doing wonderful, ww3 coming, recession here, everyone is broke, cocaine in white house, obamas chef dying. OH man you guys are a trip!!!!
Not sure what planet you hail from, but your “alternative facts” are very entertaining. We were still occupying Afghanistan during Trump’s “regime.” Gas prices are based on the greed of oil barons which is tied to politics. Biden has brought jobs in manufacturing back to the US and unemployment is currently the lowest it’s been since the 1960s. The border was a haven for crimes against humanity under Trump—there is no evidence of more border safety when he occupied the Oval Office. None. Zero. Zip. Tucker Carlson has lied to you yet you make a big deal about Biden’s tennis shoes. The right wingnuts who spout these conspiracies are truly off their rockers. Q-Anon much?
Richie Rusky: Your gaslight trolls will fail here. There are intelligent thoughtful people here not brainwashed and softened up by years of Putin/Murdoch disinformation. Maybe you should try Stormfront or War Room. That’s more your speed.
Yes. The MAGAt crowd is going around social media with the same exact list of “Trump accomplishments” almost verbatim as if someone told them to do it. Hmmm…
The puritanical purists screeched and bleated that Hillary was just as bad as Trump and that we should have voted for Jill Stein. Stein was a guaranteed loser who was polling in the single digits, worse than the Libertarian maniac. Hillary won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes but of course this country is ruled by the insane arse-backwards electoral college system.
Comey’s last minute revelation of ‘more emails on Hillary’s server’ hurt her as well. Instead, we got the bloated kleptocrat that hides classified documents in his bathroom.
Popular my ass, california and new york who are heavily populated went with Clinton over TRump, NOBODY CARES about the two third world states new york and california think. Now new york and california are turning more red to TRump.
Imagine seeing 20 of the 30,000 emails she destroyed, I am sure you would all be shaking your heads because she is s big of a traitor like her husband and biden and obama.
taking your meds, Richie?
Good call, Bob. It would appear he missed his meds altogether.
The mention of Jill Stein made me curious to take a trip in the wayback machine back to July 2016 on this blog.
Thanks, FLERP. That’s a great column.
The comments are a wild ride.
The comments sound just like the comments today.
Stunning to me that people don’t believe their “lying eyes”, and they don’t believe Bernie Sanders. There were so many comments back in 2016 about how Bernie was deceiving everyone about endorsing the Democrat because he secretly believed that defeating the Democrat was the way to a progressive nirvana.
And today the same folks say not to believe Bernie and AOC when they endorsed Biden because neither of them is trustworthy.
Those 2016 nihilists are still blaming everyone else for the fact that they empowered a far right Supreme Court and Congress and we are still suffering from their choices. They are even now scapegoating and demonizing Bernie Sanders and AOC — implying that they are untrustworthy politicians who would lie to the public and throw progressive ideas under the bus for their own personal gain.
Such predictable comments. Unbelievable.
Yeah, I agree.
Totally.
I’m chortling at how many of you all are missing the irony of telling people that the only way to save democracy is to vote for exactly who you’re told to vote for no matter how poorly that person represents you.
That’s silly, Dienne. Do you think it didn’t matter who was elected in 2016? The man who won appointed justices to the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade. That may not matter to you—or other reactionary decisions—but it does matter to women who think they had the right to control their bodies.
It’s silly to say that there is no democracy if you have to tell people who to vote for? If people can’t vote for the person who best represents them? I can think of many adjectives that describe that situate, but “silly” is not one of them. “Undemocratic”, “abusive”, “gaslighting” and “appalling” come to mind.
It’s silly to say that it’s “undemocratic” to tell people whom to vote for. So you oppose endorsements by other officials and respected or disrespected people? You oppose editorial endorsements? You oppose campaign ads that tell people whom to vote for? Nuts. Do the people of West Virginia vote in their own best interest when they elect a billionaire as governor and as senator? Do the people of Mississippi vote for their interests when they elect hard-right Republicans who want to abolish federal programs that help their constituents? I can’t follow your line of thought. I won’t try any more.
What’s your definition of democracy if not the right to vote for the candidate who most represents you? Isn’t that why you say that Russia is undemocratic? Because people are forced to vote for Putin?
The US election system is in no way like Russia. No one in the US is “forced” to vote for a candidate. We have a secret ballot, remember. How many Presidential candidates in the US have received 99% of the vote. In what way is Russia democratic?
Exactly, Diane. Thank you.
Trump’s mug shot is being circulated with a talk bubble added, MAGA- my ass got arrested
“But Trump!”
If that’s all you’ve got, prepare to lose next year.
No, Dienne. That’s not what Dems have to run on. Dems have a level-headed shrewd and very experienced statesman who is slowly rebuilding the middle class and fortifying our international standing in support of democracies. Maybe pay attention a little?
LG – maybe you could pay a little attention to the people in the gutter you are stepping over? Under Biden, cumulative inflation is over 15%. Real wages have decreased by 3%. Foreclosures and evictions have skyrocketed, resulting in an increase in homelessness of at least 11% (much greater if Chicago is anything to judge by, and the west coast has it a lot worse). Bankruptcies, primarily due to medical debt, are at an all time high, as are suicides. Drilling, fracking and pipelines have all increased under Biden, as has the military budget, not even including the hundreds of billions we are sending ukraine. I don’t known what “middle class” you are privileged to be part of, but enjoy it while you can – it’s fading rapidly, certainly not rebuilding.
Dienne, all of what you are saying is Biden’s fault is not. If you’ve actually been paying attention, four decades of side-supply economics have gutted the middle class and caused an economy that brings massive wealth to the richest on the backs of the middle class and has put far more people into poverty than prior to the 1980s. So your diatribe of ills are not Biden’s doing—they started with Reagan manipulating economic conditions by cutting regulations and taxes on the top earners. Before Reagan we didn’t have billionaires and we would not have them even adjusted for inflation if the tax laws weren’t changed in favor of the wealthy. The Citizens United SCOTUS decision put further political power into the hands of the wealthy by permitting corporations to buy elected officials. You are barking up the wrong tree, but facts and reality don’t suit your narrative, do they?
LG – Biden has been in office for over 50 years. His record is clear. Throughout his career he has sided with Republicans on their supply-sided economics. He authored the bankruptcy bills that favored the banks and made student debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. He authored the Crime Bills that have led to millions of mostly Black men locked up for petty drug crimes. He authored the precursor to the Patriot Act that has led to gross loss of civil liberties. He fought against desegregation because he didn’t want his kids “growing up in a racial jungle”. He was one of two primary Democrats (Hillary Clinton being the other) who pushed the lies of the Iraq War. He has repeatedly targeted Medicare and Social Security for elimination or privatization. He has consistently supported the fossil fuel industry. I could go on and on and on. His record is clear. Please review it. I’m not the one who doesn’t understand.
Why not judge Biden by what he has done as president for the past three years? That means far more than what he did 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago. He has governed in the style of FDR and LBJ with big domestic goals to improve the lives of everyone.
(A) Everything Biden did in the last fifty years has led us to this point.
(B) What makes you think he’s actually changed from the last 50 years? Has he ever repudiated any of his segregationist ideas? Has he apologized for the Bankruptcy Bill? The Crime Bills? The Iraq War?
(C) I know you think he’s done great things as president and apparently evidence doesn’t persuade you otherwise, but it’s objectively true that wages are down in real terms, medical bankruptcies are up, foreclosures and evictions are up, suicides are up, there is more drilling and fracking, and we are spending greater and greater percentages of our GDP on the world’s greatest source of pollution, death and destruction – the U.S. military. So, no, I see nothing to celebrate in Biden’s three years in office. Giving money to corporations and calling it an “infrastructure bill” or an “inflation reduction act” doesn’t make it true.
Biden has been an outstanding president. He inherited an economy devastated by a once-in-a-century pandemic. He inherited a government where key personnel were absent. He inherited a radical rightwing Supreme Court. But he did not inherit the Congressional majorities he needed to pass the bold social programs he proposed.
Do you have a better candidate?
“Do you have a better candidate?”
As a matter of fact, I do, thanks for asking. A man of unquestionable compassion, integrity and intelligence, acknowledged many times previously on this very blog: Cornel West. His supporters will not vote for Biden, so if you don’t want Trump, I’d suggest you encourage Biden supporters to switch to West.
Cornel West is a friend of mine. I admire him.
He is not qualified to be president.
But a demented, racist, gropey corporate-owned warmonger is qualified to be president. Understood – you’ve made yourself quite clear.
Biden has been an excellent president.
Bernie and AOC have made themselves perfectly clear when they endorsed Biden.
It is sad that people don’t trust those who have spent years – decades – fighting for progressive causes but they now claim they trust an Ivy league academic/public intellectual because he says what they want to hear now and Bernie Sanders and AOC don’t.
If Cornell West realizes he is wrong, then I suspect that these folks will suddenly say he has no more credibility that Bernie and AOC and find someone else like Jill Stein saying what they want to hear.
It’s rich that liberals are so eager to trot out Bernie now that he’s toeing the Democrat line. Especially after they spend four years blaming and excoriating him (and Russia, and Jill Stein and Susan Sarandon and, and, and….) for Hillary’s loss even though Bernie campaigned harder for Hillary than Hillary did.
Anyway, the one thing I will credit Bernie for is that he told us that the time would come when the left would have to stop following him. That time is long past. And it never was there for fake “socialist” AOC.
If a 17 paragraph outraged response will make you feel righteous, knock yourself out. I won’t read it. I’m done with this very sad thread. I hope all of you have the day you deserve. Over and out.
Borrowing-
If Cornel West can’t (won’t) stand up to Robert P George,
why would we assume he’ll stand up to China or Russia?
Perhaps that’s the point?
“fake “socialist” AOC…”
This person is now demonizing AOC as a liar. Enough said about where her loyalties lie — it isn’t with progressives. The only “fake” here is this person.
Agree NYC
Dienne’s Cornel West will be funded by Republicans as a spoiler for Democratic chances.
No woman, nor person who is LGBTQ, nor male Democrat should vote for West.
Dienne, your characterization of Biden is disingenuous. He has had far more accomplishments than most people know, and all of these can easily be found in the congressional record. As president, he has shown to be more progressive than his Democratic predecessors. He has always been a smart negotiator who understands that he cannot rule with an iron fist—he understands the power and necessity of compromise because not everyone is represented by Democrats. He is probably the most qualified statesperson on the planet to take up the mantle of the presidency. They should rewrite the rules to reflect the type of leader he is as a requirement for running.
Biden’s Accomplishments as a Statesperson
As Vice President, oversaw implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009, then the biggest economic recovery plan in our country’s history.
Helped rebuild the American economy and save the American auto industry, lifting us out of the Great Recession
Brokered Senate negotiations between Democrats and Republicans to pass the Budget Control Act of 2011 and avert a federal government shutdown
Led a review in 2014 of federal employment and training programs that reach more than 21 million people per year, retooling $1.5 billion in grants to align with job-driven training best practices (** I actually co-led a few national evaluations for DOL of these training programs, if you have any questions about some programs and how the funds were used.)
Biden served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for three decades.
Biden received the Congressional Patriot Award from the Bipartisan Policy Center in recognition of his work crafting bipartisan legislation with Republicans and Democrats.
Other work against IPV
In 2004 and 2005, enlisted major American technology companies in diagnosing the problems of the Austin, Texas-based National Domestic Violence Hotline, and to donate equipment and expertise to it in a successful effort to improve its services.
Established the first ever White House Advisor on Violence Against Women during the Obama-Biden administration.
Launched a national campaign to change the culture surrounding campus rape and sexual assault.
As Vice President, launched the 1is2many initiative which uses technology and outreach to get the message out and to help reduce dating violence and sexual assault among students, teens and young adults
Blasted Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the administration’s support of South African leadership’s continued practice of apartheid.
When the Bosnian War broke out, among the first to call for the “lift and strike” policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes.
Pushed a reluctant Clinton administration first to arm Serbian Muslims and then to use U.S. air power to suppress conflict in Serbia and Kosovo.
January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later.
As vice president, oversaw the 2011 withdrawal of the remaining 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and then the return of U.S. forces to fight the Islamic State in 2014.
Advocacy for a middle ground, negotiations with Mitch McConnell, and persuasion of Democrats in congress were instrumental in passing the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.
Played a central role in the negotiations that secured the Budget Control Act of 2011, bringing to a conclusion the 2011 US debt-ceiling crisis.
Negotiations with Mitch McConnell secured the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which focused on averting the impending fiscal cliff and raised tax rates on upper income levels
Instrumental in passing the Brady Bill in 1993, establishing the background check system that has kept guns out of the hands of millions of dangerous individuals.
In 1994, authored the bill banning weapons of war — assault weapons and high capacity magazines — for a decade.
His Kids 2000 legislation, signed into law by the president in October 2000, established a public-private partnership that authorized $120 million over six years to provide computer centers, teachers, Internet access, and technical training to young people, particularly low-income and at-risk youth
In 1997, Senator Biden led the successful effort in the Senate to approve ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
In 1998, Congressional Quarterly named Biden one of “Twelve Who Made A Difference” for playing a lead role in several foreign policy matters including NATO enlargement and the successful passage of bills to streamline our foreign affairs agencies and punish religious persecution overseas.
In September 2007, the Biden Plan, a nonbinding resolution which proposed dividing Iraq into three autonomous nations (split among the three predominant ethnic groups in the region), passed in the Senate by a vote of 75 to 23.
He was the primary sponsor of the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008, enacted to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 to provide assistance to foreign countries to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and for other purposes.
As vice president, led the successful administration effort to gain Senate approval for the New START treaty, bringing deployed strategic nuclear weapons by the two countries to the lowest level in history.
Do you need more?
You can look up congressional records online through Thomas
https://www.congress.gov/search?searchResultViewType=expanded&q=%7B%22congress%22%3A%5B%22114%22%2C%22113%22%2C%22112%22%2C%22111%22%2C%22110%22%2C%22109%22%2C%22108%22%2C%22107%22%2C%22106%22%2C%22105%22%2C%22104%22%2C%22103%22%2C%22102%22%2C%22101%22%2C%22100%22%2C%2299%22%2C%2298%22%2C%2297%22%2C%2296%22%2C%2295%22%2C%2294%22%2C%2293%22%5D%2C%22source%22%3A%22all%22%2C%22search%22%3A%22Biden%22%7D
(Thomas is an online congressional library)
Sponsored the original Violence Against Women Act in 1994, leading to a major decline in intimate partner violence, from 2.1 million victims in 1994 to 907,000 in 2010
Cosponsored proposed legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions in 2007
Called for American participation in UN climate negotiations in 2005
Introduced one of the Senate’s first climate change bills, in 1986, leading to the creation of a task force on global warming
Utilized his experience working across the aisle to establish a pragmatic plan to cut carbon emissions and secure a sustainable future
Oversaw dispersement of $90 billion for clean energy as part of the 2009 Recovery Act. solar power increased 20x between the years 2008 and 2016
Secured the passage of arms limitation agreements in 1979 between the United States and the Soviet Union, reducing the risk of global nuclear disaster
Advocated for economic sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid government
Pushed for U.S. intervention in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, ending ethnic cleansing and bringing peace to the region
Supported expanding NATO to include Warsaw Pact nations Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, advancing the cause of an undivided, democratic and peaceful Europe (**Because of this my friends could FINALLY travel safely to Hungary and Romania to see family who lived under communist rule for decades)
Served as primary sponsor of the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008, helping law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute child predators
Sponsored and introduced the Criminal History Background Checks Pilot Extension Act of 2008, allowing volunteer organizations – such as children’s sports groups – to obtain national and state criminal history background checks on their volunteers
Biden has been a LEGISLATOR for most of his political career. And was known for consensus building and compromise – essential to legislative work.
Legislative work is not easy, it’s messy and can take months or years to write policy and get the needed bipartisan congressional support as well as support from the executive branch.
Biden’s legislative history is markedly different than four years of writing EOs as Trump has done. Trump has sought very little coordination with the legislative branch and shown poor ability to work across the aisle.
Dienne-
When do you project the Koch/ Catholic powerbrokers’ candidate, Glenn Youngkin, will announce?
How long after that, will you be singing his praises or, do you just have an assigned role of bashing Biden?
What do you think about Putin’s anti-woman Vivek?
Linda, check carefully and tell me where I have said anything about any Republican. Reading is fundamental.
Dienne doesn’t promote any Republicans. Her mission is to bash any Democratic nominee.
My mission is to break people out of binary, duopoly thinking. Our founders were opposed to political parties because of exactly what has happened to this country under the two party system. I don’t need to convince anyone here not to vote for Republicans. I’m trying to convince you that Democrats aren’t any better. But I guess as the mushroom clouds erupt in the skies, your last dying words will be “But Trump!”
Back in the day, Dienne would have bashed opponents of Hitler?
Does she complain about Fathers Against Moms for Liberty?
Largest investment in public education ever- $170 bil.- Thank Biden
With state Republican leaders in Ohio, it’s reported that there are half as many students completing teacher education programs this year as contrasted with 2011.
Anyone who doesn’t encourage Democratic voting (exceptions like Sinema and Manchin who are GOP), doesn’t want American democracy to survive. They want the tyranny of Koch’s social Darwinists including the Catholic Church.
Dienne
Check my 3:22 statement – it had an “or.”
Are the constraints you apply to your comments, of your choosing? If so, there’s a reasonable expectation in a democracy that people who express political opinions factor in the reality of viable political winners.
No, Linda, if you do your research, you’ll find it was the socialists (the actual ones, not the “National Socialists”) who were standing up against nazism. It was the liberals who were just going along to get along. But nice try and thanks for playing!
Dienne
You champion groups you present as on the real left as long as, or when, they don’t succeed i.e. the “actual” segment that failed in Germany?
The GOP’s destructive successes are either your goal or, they are of little import to you?
About “playing”- instead of a stab at petty snark, move into the lane of wit or cleverness?
So I guess my only choice is to vote for someone not likely to siphon off votes from the neo-liberal democrats or not vote. The idea that the democrats will allow a progressive to run for president is absurd.
I was not a fan of Status Quo Joe Biden, but he turned out to be a better president than I thought he would be. Now, he needs to step down and be replaced at the top of the ticket by Reverend Warnock.
For example:
Warnock lol the same person who ran over his ex wifes foot, his kids camps had many issues like throwing piss on each other. Was not even elected, another fraud.
https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/warnocks-ex-wife-calls-him-great-actor-in-police-footage-of-disputes-aftermath/GWFKO4XDFBBG7ANUU7WFQ6F54M/
https://nypost.com/2020/12/11/warnocks-arrest-for-interfering-in-child-abuse-probe-surfaces/
https://nypost.com/2020/12/28/warnock-church-camper-opens-up-about-camp-abuse/
Wow…look at the right winger actually concerned about the so-called morality of an elected official. Oh, the irony.
LG
Good point.
You cannot throw out the baby with the bath water. Rebuilding and restructuring our economic and social systems takes time. Progressivism is built on the idea of progression, not overnight policy change. I consider myself a Progressive, but it’s not difficult to understand that politics is about negotiation. I learned this from negotiating contracts—you aren’t going to get everything you want, but you also have to understand how to wield power to get the most important things. This takes time and many steps to construct. My biggest complaint with my fellow Progressives is that they are looking for Superman to come and fix everything right now and exactly the way THEY want it. You aren’t going to ever get a Progressive elected in this extremely divided country, so why throw the election to the hard right because you cannot find perfection in a Democrat? That’s not how politics works.
Psst, hey Chuck,
“Sanders, who challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, praised Biden for sitting down with Sanders and his team after the primary to put together a platform…Sanders said that some of the early goals that the Biden administration and a Democratic Congress were able to accomplish in the first two years of Biden’s presidency were progressive victories, including the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan…’I think the American Rescue Plan that we passed early in his agenda, in the midst of the terrible pandemic, the economic collapse, was, in fact, one of the most significant pieces of legislation for the working class in this country, in the modern history of America,’ Sanders said.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3865355-sanders-biden-a-more-progressive-president-than-he-was-as-senator/
“The Inflation Reduction Act represented one of the most consequential pieces of economic policy in recent U.S. history — though still far smaller than the $3 trillion the Biden administration initially sought…The law devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to combating climate change and bolstering U.S. energy production through changes that would encourage nearly the whole economy to cut carbon emissions. With the planet rapidly warming, Democrats say the bill would reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030, close to President Biden’s goal of cutting U.S. emissions by at least 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/28/manchin-schumer-climate-deal/
Perfectly stated and researched, democracy.
Third party candidacies are valuable in that they pressure Democratic and Republican candidates and influence policy. Instead of telling voters what must be done to beat the opposition, tell candidates what must be done to run effective campaigns that will beat the opposition. The responsibility for winning elections is entirely theirs. President Biden isn’t going to win doodley squat in 2024 if he runs on trade deals, selling weapons, privatization, and deregulation. Doesn’t matter how educated voters may or may not be. Doesn’t matter if Cornell West runs. It’s up to Joseph R Biden Jr to win. It’s certainly not up to me.
Clinton lost because too many people hated her. That’s on the Democratic Party, not the Greens.
Agree.
Hillary received nearly three million votes more than Trump.
No, David. You’ve not been paying attention.
“Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, since 1993, has directed the Annenberg Public Policy Center and in 2003 she co-founded FactCheck…She is widely respected by political experts in both parties…her conclusion is that it is not just plausible that Russia changed the outcome of the 2016 election—it is ‘likely that it did.’…Russian trolls created social-media posts clearly aimed at winning support for Trump from churchgoers and military families…according to exit polls, Trump outperformed Clinton by twenty-six points among veterans; he also did better among evangelicals than both of the previous Republican nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain…During the weeks that the debates took place, the moderators and the media became consumed by an anti-Clinton narrative driven by Russian hackers.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump?mbid=social_twitter
I really like representation by proportion of votes Hartmann mentions. That system seems to bring more voices to the table. Reminds me of the caste voting of the Grey Council from the sci-go epic story, Babylon 5.
Jill Stein never took a single vote from Hillary Clinton. Clinton didn’t own any votes, so no votes could be stolen from her. Most voting for Jill Stein wouldn’t have voted for either candidate offered by other political parties. As Eugene Debs said, “I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what don’t want and get it.” I’m voting third party in 2024.
“not a single vote” – wrong. I personally know a union worker in Michigan who voted for Jill Stein. He said he’d never vote Republican. He said, Facebook info. led him to vote for Stein. He said, otherwise he would have voted for Hillary.
Russian disinformation was on Facebook.
Given the implication of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Michigan, his 2016 vote was not a singular incidence.
I heard folks like you in 1980. In fact, I WAS folks like you in 1980, quoting Eugene Debs and spewing nonsense about how defeating Jimmy Carter was the way to a progressive future. Just like you, I was just so very proud of myself for helping to achieve the progressive future I wanted by making sure that Jimmy Carter went down to defeat, along with lots of Democrats in the Senate. Because I knew Eugene Debs would be very proud of me because Eugene Debs agreed with me that having Ronald Reagan as president with a Republican Senate would be no different than having another 4 years with the evil, neo-liberal, anti-universal healthcare Jimmy Carter.
I was wrong. In defense of my ignorance, I was also young.
And, unlike many folks here, I could admit I was wrong. I saw what Reagan did and chose truth, not arrogance.
I opened my eyes and saw who Jimmy Carter was — a flawed, but perfectly ok candidate who would have prevented the worst excesses of the Reagan era — and realized how brainwashed I was by people who kept telling me that being true to Eugene Debs meant defeating Carter instead of defeating the right wing, union-hating, anti-socialist Reagan.
Anyone who believes that the harm done to the progressive movement by those who worked so hard to defeat Jimmy Carter in 1980 and the Democrat in 2016 was really a “great victory” for progressives should be marginalized as no more truthful than a Republican. We would have a progressive Supreme Court if the Democrat won in 2016, and the “evil Jimmy Carter” was far more likely to support universal healthcare in his second term and certainly having Reagan set that goal back many,many decades.
Eugene Debs would never have told you to defeat Jimmy Carter and other Democrats when they were running against the most right wing anti-democracy candidates in history. Eugene Debs would have told you that in the right wing candidates’ ideal future, he would have been jailed forever.
Eugene Debs died before Hitler, but I have no doubt that there were “progressives” citing him to German voters, telling them that there was no difference between a fascist and someone who believed in democracy but was not progressive enough for their liking.
Eugene Debs would never have been a useful idiot for the fascists who want to destroy democracy.
Bernie Sanders and AOC already endorsed Biden. When you trust some quote from a century ago over the folks who are even now fighting for a progressive future, you are simply helping to destroy Bernie and AOC themselves.
People who believe Bernie Sanders and AOC do not have the best interests of this country in their hearts aren’t progressives and should be marginalized as nihilists willing to sacrifice progressives.
Not to mention that Carter, who had a degree in physics, was a champion of climate-friendly initiatives, and we could have been in a very different environmental position had he gotten a second term. He installed solar panels at the White House which Reagan immediately removed upon taking up residence there. Carter was not given a chance to do the good he had intended to do and was a victim of politics.
LG,
I sounded just like many people here sound when I talked about Carter in 1980. I was absolutely, positively certain that Jimmy Carter was the one preventing America’s progressive future and I was spewing the same nonsense about third party being the way to achieve the progressive future.
Like the people here, I could only see what Jimmy Carter did NOT do and not what Carter did do. Like the people here, I believed I had every right to throw a tantrum and demonize Jimmy Carter because the “truth” was on my side.
What’s sad is these folks are basically saying they don’t trust Bernie Sanders and AOC. They would rather believe that Bernie and AOC are untrustworthy useful idiots for the Democrats than to admit that maybe it is them being the useful idiots for the fascists.
Rest easy. Neither you nor Eugene Debs lost the 1980 Election.
LCT,
Not sure, but it seems like your point is that Jimmy Carter — and all the people who voted for Carter in the primary — are to blame for Carter losing in 1980, which ushered in the Reagan era.
Thank you for not blaming me. I was absolutely blameless, because I was simply doing what dienne77 does now and amplifying the “truth” about how evil and corrupt Jimmy Carter was, how Jimmy Carter was the reason we didn’t have the progressive nirvana I wanted, and that defeating Carter was absolutely necessary for the good of the progressive movement. Voting 3rd party and defeating Carter was absolutely necessary to help usher in the progressive era I wanted.
Then, when Reagan won, I sounded a lot like dienne77 with my “I told you so” crowing, chiding people who didn’t listen to me and voted for Jimmy Carter that it was all their fault for not nominating a candidate who was not as evil, corrupt and anti-progressive as Jimmy Carter. I kept saying that Jimmy Carter’s loss proved that I was right about how corrupt, evil and anti-progressive he was. Do you think I was right about that? I appreciate that you don’t think Jimmy Carter’s loss was the fault of people like me who spent so much time normalizing Ronald Reagan (“Reagan is no worse than Carter”), and working hard to get people to vote third party in the hopes of defeating the evil Carter. Does that mean that it was the fault of the people who didn’t agree with me about how evil Jimmy Carter was? Was it the fault of people who didn’t vote for the candidate I wanted in the primary who I knew with 100% certainty would defeat Reagan? I certainly told them it was their fault often enough. I had to blame everyone else so as not to admit that I could have been wrong about Jimmy Carter. But it really didn’t take all that long before I did realize I was wrong about Jimmy Carter. No doubt there are still folks on the left out there who still self-righteously hate Jimmy Carter for not being progressive enough and are still glad that he lost even if it ushered in the destructive Reaganomics. No evidence will ever convince them that it was better to defeat Carter than to defeat Reagan, and they scapegoat everyone else rather than admit that maybe they were wrong.