I am seeing a certain amount of panic on the part of the punditry over the prospect that Sanders will become uncatchable — after only two primaries from states that are not exactly a broad cross section of the country. There seem to be several scenarios that are freaking them out.
1- If Sanders gets the nomination he won’t be able to beat Trump because Socialism! The horror.
2- Sanders will not have enough delegates on the first round to get the nomination. He and his followers reject a brokered outcome and refuse to support any nominee that isn’t him — and Trump wins.
3- A brokered convention produces a nominee, Sanders pledges to support him/her — but the voters are turned off by the “disarray” — and Trump wins. (Or the perception is that it was rigged, etc.)
There’s several things at work here at a guess. For one, the media seems more terrified over Democrats going too far left than they are over Trump going full fascist with Russian help.
If the pundits put more effort into reporting on Trump and GOP corruption, if they reported how unhinged Trump is at his rallies, that would be more to the point than painting rational Democratic policies the rest of the world has as radical. Democratic prospects might look brighter by comparison.
But no — can’t be mean to Republicans. They don’t like it. It’s safer to beat up on Democrats.
The idea that Sanders and his followers might blow up the convention is a little more concerning. Sanders is talking about rejecting the voting rules that he negotiated and agreed to; he is, after all, not a Democrat. If that’s the case, his ego could hand the election to Trump.
There are still months to go, and cooler heads may prevail. No one should be able to delude themselves a second Trump term would be survivable. Never underestimate the power of stupid though.
Frankly, there seems to be a real hunger among the punditry for a ‘safe’ moderate to prevail. They want ‘normal’ again so they can pretend the GOP hasn’t gone insane — and so they don’t have to talk about all the other things at crisis level and risk turning off their audience.
Biden isn’t making headway though and Buttigieg and Klobuchar seem determined to knock each other out.
Warren terrifies them. She’s sane, scary smart, and has the skills to put her agenda into action. She eviscerated Bloomberg, and left a mark on the other candidates too. They prefer not to even mention her. She doesn’t seem to know her place and they can’t handle that. She persists.
Which leaves Bloomberg as the fallback. Rich enough to flood tv with ads and pay people to work social media. Determined to save America from Sanders. Still a fascist, but not insane, reasonably housebroken, so preferable to Trump.
With all this, there are still multiple primaries to go, no one knows what random event or gaffe will shift things around, and stuff happens.
(Trump is reported to be worrying a coronavirus outbreak in the US will cause the economy to tank and cost him the election — never mind the body count.)
The punditry concern about the Democrats is a kind of double-think. On the one hand they are aware Democrats are the only alternative to the existential threat the GOP has become. On the other hand they don’t dare admit the threat, so they focus their anxieties on team blue — transference.
Look — Democrats are sane, believe in the rule of law, have no shortage of candidates who can beat Trump in polls, and no one can reasonably claim there’s no difference between the parties this time around. The punditry really needs to stop obsessing over what the Democrats might do and start worrying about what the Republicans ARE doing.
Trump is visibly deteriorating. He’s purging government of anyone with a shred of competence and integrity, he’s going after his ‘enemies’, and he’s left the country wide open to Russian interference with the full cooperation of the GOP. Worry about show trials. Worry about him refusing to accept the results of the election and refusing to step down. Worry about the Republican Party running wild while they still can.
And don’t worry about hurting their feelings by telling the truth about them. Just do your damn jobs.
Saturday, Feb 22, 2020 · 5:30:55 PM +00:00
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xaxnar
Update: It appears there is some uncertainty over how the convention rules work. From Charlie Pierce.
Parameter One: The rules are the rules. You all agreed to run as members of the Democratic Party and, as such, you all agreed to abide by the rules that party set down for nominating its candidate.
Parameter Two: The number is 1,991. The number is not 34 percent of that, or 25 percent, or even 50 percent of that plus one. You need the votes of 1,991 delegates to become the party’s nominee. I am willing to concede that, if you come in with, say, 1,500 pledged delegates, the other candidates ought to feel duty bound to get out of your way. But here’s the thing: none of them have to, just as none of the candidates who have dropped out of the nominating process had to do so. And that means that, on a second ballot, the dreaded superdelegates have to come into play. Got a problem with any of that? Please consult Parameter One for details.