Best Way To Defeat the Right?

[Zardnaar]

There's no way to know but I doubt it. Harris was unpopular. Certainly a few people were happy about the pick but I'd suspect more weren't. I held my nose and voted but if I didn't think it would've been close in Florida I wouldn't have.

Why not Sanders? Certainly would've been a move fun pick. Likely some voters would've gotten turned off but he'd have gotten Biden more votes overall (Sanders is orders of magnitude more popular than Harris) and it would've created a more entertaining administration, one that would've gotten more attention to progressive politics even if it would've been stymied.

Optics. Two old white mean as President and VP.

Ideally sanders needed to be 30 years younger and Biden was someone else.

 

[Narz]

Optics. Two old white mean as President and VP.

Ideally sanders needed to be 30 years younger and Biden was someone else.

Democrats worry too much about optics. They figured a woman would win cuz a black guy won & got beaten by two old white men no one should lose to.

I'd vote for 97-year old Jimmy Carter over most of those clowns (the president when I was born & as far as I can tell the last American president w much integrity).

 

[Zardnaar]

Democrats worry too much about optics. They figured a woman would win cuz a black guy won & got beaten by two old white men no one should lose to.

I'd vote for 97-year old Jimmy Carter over most of those clowns (the president when I was born & as far as I can tell the last American president w much integrity).

Alot of Americans say that about Carter. Heard that from GoP types even. Well former GoP types.

 

[RobAnybody]

I initially thought you were saying "The Party picks the candidate & The People don't matter", then it seemed like you were saying The People's Vote Is What Matters despite The Party (something I agree with, & so thought we agreed), but now I hear read in the above quote you saying The Party chooses The Candidate, even though though The RNC clearly didn't pick Trump.

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Normally I'd try to explain the point you're missing, but if this is the kind of jab you're settling for, I guess it's not worth the time. Have a nice day!

I mean, OK, that was on me for adding that line at the end, & I apologize. But my point still stands, if you want to address it: Does The Party pick the candidate, or does the people's vote count more than The Party's Choice? Ignoring my petty comment, if you are willing to, which is it?

 

[Gorbles]

I mean, OK, that was on me for adding that line at the end, & I apologize. But my point still stands, if you want to address it: Does The Party pick the candidate, or does the people's vote count more than The Party's Choice? Ignoring my petty comment, if you are willing to, which is it?

The Party backs the candidate, which can include backing a candidate that obviously has popular support. However, it's not always as simple as one candidate enjoying popular support and the Party then backing that candidate. Trump faced moderate to significant competition in the primaries (for example, from Cruz). That support for Cruz didn't vanish. Nor did any support for other candidates. Some of these may have continued to oppose Trump, but the party as a whole put its weight behind Trump, and as such influenced opinion over time. That's what the resources provided (by the Party) can achieve. I'm not exactly saying "conspiracy theory", this is basic advertising in a nutshell. Of course you want your voter base on board with your candidate.

However a common alternative is "better this jerk than the other person (from the other party)". It's logic frequently thrown at leftists in order to support more centrist or even right-leaning candidates, depending on context. It's used a lot across the spectrum, but it's rarely used leftwards; i.e. to generate support for a leftist candidate against a common enemy (which I find interesting, but it's a bit of a tangent).

So the real question, to me, is whether or not the popular support enjoyed by a frontrunner more important that the Party's choice to invest in that frontrunner and align themselves with them. And obviously this has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. I don't think you can generalise. It depends mainly on the candidate, which is where I think you and I might differ. You might think that popular support is what seals it, but I think if the candidate threatens the establishment, then the establishment will go out of its way to (attempt to) reduce support for that candidate.

You can even see it now, with Hillary Clinton cautioning about "going further left". US politics hasn't gone left. Sure, there are some course corrections from Trump's Republican tenure vs. Biden's current Democratic leadership, but if the end point is still "centre-to-right", citing it as an example of moving leftwards (as some conservatives will claim) is kinda disingenuous. The results are what matter, right? The results are what the Republicans are going to hammer the Democrats with, even if the Republicans are a key part of why the results are what they are. What Clinton is doing is shaping public opinion. And that's just one example.

So a tl;dr would be: the peoples' vote often counts, except when the candidate is enough of a threat to the establishment players who prefer the current status quo (and that, ironically, is bipartisan). The Overton Window in this regard only ever seems to move rightwards, and not leftwards.

 

[Farm Boy]

Alot of Americans say that about Carter. Heard that from GoP types even. Well former GoP types.

Most people who seem to have been paying attention like President Carter as a man. Opinions of his administration aside, he's almost certainly the best ex- president we've had. Seems a class act, too.