If you look at 2020, the party and the media both waited to coronate Biden as soon as he declared. He had name recognition and he was Obama's VP and supposed best buddy, which yielded a lot of (I think unearned) trust from voters. Because of that, he could raise lots of money from traditional Democratic donors. There was also a lot of fear that only an old white man could defeat Trump given the white backlash to Obama, which shot down half of the primary field essentially from day one.
So yeah, I wouldn't exactly call that process fair or equal, although it was fun watching Bloomberg spend a shit load of money only to discover that nobody liked him.
A lot is made of Biden's support from Black voters, which is true, but it's rarely mentioned that Sanders had strong support from younger Black voters and he was typically the second choice of Biden supporters as well, perhaps pragmatically.
There was much less acrimony between those camps than was made out to be.
Biden had obvious weaknesses. He was not an inspiring speaker, he was cantankerous, he bickered with voters, and his Senate history raised big red flags, which Kamala Harris dared to bring up at the early debates.
But you know, if you're someone like Julián Castro, for example, you don't stand a chance against this guy no matter how great a politician or candidate you might be. Especially when a returning Bernie Sanders is sucking the rest of the air out of the room.
We are undoubtedly stuck with Biden unless he dies suddenly. A late change of heart isn't his style, and he's got an ego to protect.
VP Kamala Harris is the obvious successor but I don't get the impression the leadership likes her very much and she's been mostly sidelined for 4 years.
Unless he dies, too, Trump isn't going away anytime soon either. So aside from COVID, it looks like a rehash of 2020, only Biden's standing is weaker and Trump's negatives apparently aren't as salient to voters.
Here we are in 2024 and everybody cleared the field for Biden except RFK, Jr., who's just a Republican shit stain hoping to play spoiler.
But some people are apparently having second thoughts.
Whether you think there's a difference between 2020 Biden and 2024 Biden depends, I guess, on whether you think he's declined due to age.
I think he's the same guy he ever was, but he was never even close to being my preferred candidate and he's turned out only slightly better than I expected.
Some college students doing peaceful sit-ins at their local universities shouldn't get much attention, but because they were protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza, which has bipartisan support, they got the riot cops called on them and the Democratic president referred to them as antisemitic terrorists.
The problem, like all hybrid regimes, is the inflexibility of the system promotes widespread disillusionment, anger, and frustration and if the lid ever does blow off -- who fucking knows?
I don't know where that tipping point is in the US. Nobody does. And nobody knows what would happen afterwards. But a lot of people are afraid of it.
You're more likely to see the fascists doing pogroms and death squads in the street first anyway.
The US is a bit like a hybrid regime where the "regime" are white wealthy elites regardless of party affiliation. There are elections, etc. but power, protest, and violence flow in one direction only.
If you don't want to get shot, you make yourself seem as harmless and apolitical as possible, at which point you're obviously ineffectual at creating change, which is entirely by design.
And if you don't, you get demonized by the entire system.
So you have to understand, you can protest all day long as long as you're harmless, i.e., you don't threaten the white supremacist power structure and its money. Hell, if you're a fascist, you almost have permission to do political violence in this country.
So when people ask me what it would take to get an effective mass movement in the streets, they don't understand how beat down the left, young, and marginalized people are in this country and how severe the reprisals would be.
Meanwhile, heavily armed white supremacists can march down Main Street all day long, masks on and everything, and receive full police escorts, protection, and support.
They can occupy state capitols and the police response is a yawn and "LOL, I hope they fuck somebody up."
The January 6 attack on the US Capitol was known about by federal law enforcement well in advance and there was zero preparation for it, leaving a handful of capitol police and Secret Service to defend Congress.
The US is a country that looked at the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War protests and decided it was never going to allow that again, even if it has to kill and jail everyone involved.
"Why don't Americans protest more" is a funny question because Americans have nothing and no one to rally around, no coherent ideology beyond a vague sense of patriotic duty, a lot of them are ignorant by design, many more are exhausted by design, protesters are universally portrayed as violent terrorists, they get no political support or protection (unless they're Nazis) and they get brutalized by cops with military gear whenever they do show up in numbers, no matter how peaceful.
"Most pro-labor, pro-union, pro-climate," etcetera all have to be taken in the context of how much this country and every previous president has sucked on all of these things. Like, I appreciate some progress but the bar is literally in the earth's core at this point.
People talk about the Democratic presidential nominating process like it's straightforward and fair.
It's not true that the DNC picks the nominee nor that voters have a free choice. Name recognition, money, party support, media, and yes, charisma all factor in.
The establishment white guy usually wins because they have support lined up and are deemed "viable" compared to progressive, non-white, or women candidates. And against someone like Trump, voters are scared of "unviable" candidates.
Primary voters don't reflect the electorate very well either, mainly due to systemic factors. They tend to be older, whiter, and more affluent and therefore more conservative. This is especially true in the traditional early New England primaries, which are extremely white. Caucuses also demand a lot of time and engagement. And depending on where you live, the race may effectively be over already by the time your state's primary election rolls around.
Exceptions occur if there is no "obvious" establishment candidate or "heir apparent" -- 1992 was a free-for-all, for example, which Clinton handily won as a skilled campaigner -- or if they're seen as inherently weak. Obama won over the party apparatchiks in 2008, for example, who switched from Clinton.
But sitting presidents are rarely primaried even when they're vulnerable, and the party can effectively shut down that process to protect their candidacy. Everybody is scared of 1968.
Formerly from Twitter and Mastodon.lol. Trans, bi, she / her. Writing, dreams, politics, science, metaphysics.Blocking and muting you is the easiest thing in the world if you mouth off at me.