Definitely cringe. It's times like this where in like "they couldn't have picked someone like Pete"? Like I get it, it was Biden's turn in the establishment circle but they really couldn't think ahead about a 79 year old dude being president? I will never by this fake narrative that Biden was the "only man" who could heal the country. There is no such thing as a "only man that can do x". That was pure media propaganda.
"Only man" among the choices presented. "They couldn't have picked someone like Pete?" No, because a huge chunk of their voting base wasn't going to nominate a gay person. And considering the vitriol in this country around LGTBQ issues and "indoctrination" BS you are nuts if you think that would have been an acceptable "healer" in the general. "What about Bernie?" A branded socialist? "Yeah but Kamala..." Yeah people REALLY like her. Biden was the worst best choice. The only mistake was thinking ANYONE could HEAL the country. The country can't be healed. But Biden could win the general and the nomination and that's what was necessary.
MSNBC fell all over themselves to try to prop up Mayor Pete and considered it taboo to discuss black primary voters not voting for a gay person. CNN treated the Kamala Harris announcement like the second coming. Both outlets fawned all over Elizabeth Warren. Both outlets held funerals for Joe Biden after the first primary.
When Americans vote for Biden against the backdrop of a Trump implosion while split ticketing the downballot, yeah I don't think the Democrat/Liberal brand is as strong as some pundits want it to be.
Yeah, the idea that the country was ready to lean into the hard left is pure nonsense. The very liberal portion of the party is convinced that the nation is dying for a Bernie Sanders type but the establishment keeps propping up DINOs.
It's some of both? Are you saying corporations have no influence on what the media highlights/ignores etc? Like none at all? You think trillion dollar industries will not do everything in their power to prevent a government full of legislators willing to pass significant changes to our tax system, our campaign finance laws, or investment trading laws for politicians etc? They dont want to maintain influence over our law making bodies?
I'm saying the media was not propping up Joe. MSNBC loved Mayor Pete and loved Elizabeth Warren. Kamala Harris was the darling of CNN and MSNBC when she announced. MSNBC regularly had pundits on who called for Joe Biden to leave the race before South Carolina. He was out of money and was getting more "sad" attention than anything else. The narrative was "he won't get out until after SC" because his friend was there. And then he curbstomped. Kamala Harris actually called it racist that she was getting out and he wasn't lol.
Progressives just can’t figure out the messaging, that is they have a hard time turning support of some of their policies into getting their candidates elected to meaningful positions.
He was never the only man that could heal the country.... hell a lot of the country doesn't want to be healed. It is very possible he was the only major candidate that could have beat Trump in the GE though.
It's this and only this. However horrible you think Trump is/was, he still "barely" lost. Biden pieced together a pretty diverse coalition INCLUDING disaffected Republicans and independents. That bloc wasn't a guarantee to be there on election day.
The country isn't ready for a very liberal candidate like Bernie Sanders to be President, at least not yet. If things get bad enough we could have someone like Roosevelt emerge, but we are not there yet. There are pockets or demographic groups in the democratic party that are ready for Sanders but not a majority of the country. The very religious wing of the Republican party runs into the same issue, they think that the country is ready for "In God We Trust" signs in public schools, and the removal of abortion rights under any circumstances. Both parties are trying to cater to these extremes in their party and not alienate the middle 80%. The problem is that the 20% sometimes live in an echo chamber. Americans in 2022 don't want to be told that the proper term is "pregnant person" or that it is bigoted to not want to use specific pronouns. Likewise, Americans don't like the idea of religious indoctrination in schools. Times and attitudes change, it is quite possible in 20 years that a majority of Americans are happy with abortion not being an option, or with having more social programs... but by then, they will have likely been incorporated into the wider platform.
I hear this a lot, and I don't think that is the case. I think that there are extremes on both sides of the aisles and they don't represent the majority of Americans. The best bet for Progressives is to influence the culture and their party and make it part of the mainstream. We say that with mar1juana laws, somewhat with prison reform and student loan forgiveness. The hard part about being to the far left or far right, is that you never get close to what you want, when you want it.
Yes, Trump looked like he would win early on in election returns and while the electoral college numbers make some feel better, the reality is had the election been held 10 days earlier, Trump very well may have won. There was a lot of anti-Trump fatigue and even with that, he almost pulled it off. Trump has charisma and he has the ability to keep enough Republicans and also add an outside group of voters to make him a very dangerous candidate. I am surprised that he has been able to toe that line as well as he has, but he has been doing it for years now.
Progressives tried to influence the culture wars and it backfired spectacularly as it went from something like gay rights and mar1juana reform to this whole gender identity and cancel culture mantra. Did the social conservatives amplify that message and use it against the progressives? Yes, but progressives seem to have a hard time reigning in their messaging and it gets applied to the democrats as a whole.
