The crux of this is that these people feel sincerely entitled to a president who fits their personal preferences, rather than just trying to get the least fucked-up and harmful option in a busted system where bad interests have lots of power
The reason pundits like the contested convention thing is that it plays to their vanities: what if the smart people made a meritocratic decision about who’s best?
This is driven, in part, by being mostly isolated from negative reactions to their opinions over the years.
One of my main takeaways from the debate is that anyone can beat Trump if they can make a halfway case against him. These delusional people think they can have their dream candidate and they're gonna get us all killed.
It’s possible to be angry at the Democrats for fielding Biden and believe a second Trump term will be a disaster. But progressives who think there is some path toward a progressive utopia on the other side of a second Trump term aren’t worth debating.
The GOP spent fifty-some years breaking their party well enough for trump to get away with the nom in 2016, and managing that broke other things in the country, as well.
It’s easier to break than build.
Can we even get the kind of sustained effort it would take to fix, let alone make it better?
Trump is horrible, but, he’s also a symptom.
The rot has been going on for decades.
Without doing something about the cultural issues we are all soaking in* it’s going to be hard to securely fix anything.
(*Prosperity gospel, purity culture, fear, corporate “need” for exponential growth, etc)
All you need to know about pundits is that Bob Shrum, who went 0 for 7 as I recall in Presidential campaigns, ultimately became a pundit. Failure is not a barrier to success, it’s a fucking prerequisite. I think that’s why people were briefly excited about 538, until it was exposed as just as phony.
At least 538 had the potential to be something other than some pointy headed nerd who could not manage a campaign for student council opining about what people who eat at Applebees look for in a president. Now, it turned out to be the same thing, but it was briefly exciting to think it wasn’t.
I wonder how much of this is just them not letting Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal go. Or Biden not sitting for an interview with the Times. "He doesn't want to listen to us? We'll get somebody who does"
I feel entitled to be heard and represented by whoever earns my vote. Both sides have made clear they do not intend on doing that. Big ask for in a democracy, I know.
You read this kind of hypothetical nonsense about contested conventions, and you wonder why so many people think booking the fate of our country the same way that WCW was booked in 2000 was a good idea.
I feel entitled to exist without being hounded and enslaved by the capitalist class and their enforcers. They feel differently. There's more of us than them, and you don't need a majority on board to start making things better, by making things worse for a select few.
Or just hear me out the campaign was stupid enough to think they could appease them by dog-whistling one term and then just wowing them into adoration. Screw the press but Biden coddled them
I don't think it's much vanity to think that one can pick someone who can speak in complete sentences, and that person may have a better chance at beating Trump.
“Refusing to vote for then President arming a genocide of 40k and counting” is now a “personal preference” I guess. The vast majority of our votes are captive (like mine). It literally does not matter, so I can take my stand.
Are you on the New York Times editorial board or one of the other national pundits this discussion is about or did you just want to pop in here and talk about your super principles
Him: "pundits" -> Me [building on the reference to pundits]: "these people" -> You: [Getting huffy on your own behalf because of what I said about pundits, who aren't you]
And if you think what I've been posting about today is telling people to vote for Biden, you should probably just mute or block me because the meaning of the words isn't working for you
Oh, it's a personal preference. If your goal is stopping the genocide then your not voting doesn't make a difference in that, it just makes you feel better about yourself.
Oh, it'll make a difference. Trump urged Netanyahu to - and I quote - "finish the war fast" so he (and Kushner) can pave Gaza and built hotels. Some people are simply unable to imagine that things can get a lot worse.
This is what's so infuriating to POC and (pragmatic) progressives - FOR DECADES we've been told to "Vote for the Dem we push on you OR ELSE!"
Now the nominee is someone these fuckers are uncomfortable with and they are losing their absolute shit.
They can't handle being the 2nd class Dem.
