Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Is it wrong to ask and help Biden to be better? He can't win without us so he has to listen.

By Marc Bochner
04/14/20


Biden can win a primary with only Democratic baby boomers... but do you honestly think he can ride that same limited base to a general election win? If you think so, encourage him to run the same campaign he ran in the primary. Tell donors nothing with his administration will fundamentally change any of the systems. Tell younger voters that he doesn't sympathize with their challenges that he helped create. And offer up no solutions for the massive challenges most Americans face. Challenges that didn't start 3 years ago, challenges that have been on an unaltered trajectory regardless of which party is in power. 

It would appear this will no longer be about Bernie (unless Biden does the right thing and make Bernie his running mate for the win), but it is very much about the policies that Bernie ran on. Stop pointing your fingers at Bernie supporters and pre-emptively blaming us for the latest incarnation of a losing neoliberal candidate. Start talking to Biden about what it would take to win. Make Biden a better candidate. Make a world with Biden as President worth fighting for... that's when he goes from a guy who can't win to one unlikely to lose. 

We have a unique opportunity to change the trajectory of the county and planet or we can keep circling the drain figuring out if we got to rock bottom yet. Anywhere in the ballpark of rock bottom is not a time when you settle for incrementalism or marginally better than the worst ever. Go in and start fixing the problems that led us to Trump. Make people's lives better, make sure every American has healthcare and saves money on healthcare at the same time. Make sure that the younger generations can have legitimate roles to play in the American economy (homeownership, business ownership, starting families, housing security, making a living wage, saving money and expanding the economy)

There are a lot of policies that help build that better world... Medicare for All, Free public college/ trade school, wiping the slate clean on student loan and medical debt that never should have gotten so out of control. Paid sick and family leave. A minimum wage of $15/ hour which raises all incomes above the minimum. Housing security with higher incomes paired with federal rent control and the construction of affordable housing. Unwind the free trade agreements that outsourced millions of good-paying American jobs, stagnated the wages of the jobs left behind, crushed labor unions and made it easier for the rich and corporations to hide their income and profits from taxation. Convert our energy policies to clean renewable ones to both boost the economy and make the planet inhabitable longer. What kind of a monster would choose losing an election over adopting a compassionate agenda like that? It's my sincere hope that Joe Biden is not the answer to that question. 



Let's operate in a win-win... Biden gets to be the President for the baby boomers while Bernie's policies uplift everyone including Joe's voters who never really asked him for anything on policy anyway so won't likely hate that agenda (even if their hatred for Bernie and the left drives them to say they do).

Those compassionate policies give us a more fair economy, more inclusive government. Biden kept telling us he can beat Trump and with a progressive agenda he can or he can lose with an agenda that more closely resembles his money over people record. He already has blind loyalty from boomers, but will he reach out to win the support of everyone else by being a better person?

So which Biden shows up for the general election? The one who gets all up in his ego and concedes nothing because he won a game he entered with a 10 run lead, home-field advantage and both the umpires and announcers on his payroll... or the one who is running to be different than Trump and undo the damage?  Will try to bring fairness for the majority of Americans that 40 years of corporatism has left behind?

There is really everything to gain and nothing to lose by adopting the Bernie agenda, as Biden was winning primaries, Bernie's agenda was winning all the polling on what policies the people supported. Biden crushed it with Baby Boomers and Bernie won nearly every other demographic even in the states that Biden won. Bernies supporters supported him for those policies not a cult of personality. Adopt the policies, bring in Bernie or other legit progressive as the running mate and the voter support moves with that, even with Biden's record. 

When we tell Biden to come earn our votes, we are doing him a huge favor. We are making him better whether he likes it or not. We are giving him a path to victory, a victory that will be consequential rather than 4 more years of status quo which drove the country into a ditch even before Trump. It's not much of an ask even if the media in the tank for Joe will clutch their pearls and try to pretend that making America actually great again is in fact too much of an ask.  We win together or we all lose if he is incapable of reading the room... a room filled with people living paycheck to paycheck, one illness, accident, missed paycheck or unexpected expense away from losing everything.








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Friday, April 10, 2020

Joe, you want our votes? Show us you understand what we were fighting for & don't offer us crumbs

By Marc Bochner
April 10, 2020


Biden doesn't get it... Sprinkling crumbs on the Sanders supporters is not the way to win us over. I mean he based his entire campaign on telling Bernie supporters all the reasons the things we wanted. and needed were not pragmatic. So now that he or his policy consultants understand that his future depends on us, the very people he has treated as less than, he is trying to appear as though he is reaching out to us. His voters are the "Blue No Matter Who" crowd who vote blindly with the party, so the voters he needs to win are us, the very people who rejected him, his record, his worldview and his agenda. His supporters think he holds all the cards, he and his advisors understand they don't.

Remember these policy positions he has rejected are the compassionate positions, positions that make people's lives better. They are worth fighting for if you care about the American people and fairness... but therein lies the biggest problem Biden will have winning over Sanders voters. His default position has never been compassion or fairness. And he doesn't even know how to pretend that it is.







Reaching out with crumbs shows not only does he not care about the people who will benefit from those programs but he also doesn't really believe in the reasons he opposed them in the first place. He opposed the policies, not the size, or the impact. He opposed them as goals. He said they could never work and could never pass... but now he thinks he can pass token donor approved versions of them. What changed for him? Well, he now has to pretend to care about us long enough to get our votes... votes he knew he would never get in the primary and never with his agenda... we were the afterthought, the others.

There is a pathway to getting our votes Joe. Show us you will fight for us? Show us that you understand what we were fighting for and why we fought so hard (giving Sanders our time and money not just our votes). Show us you have bold ideas for undoing the damage of the last 40 years of neoconservative/ /neoliberal governance? (or 3 if you are of the belief that a rigged economy and government just started with Trump).


What can Biden do to win Bernie voters? Ryan Grimm (Rising)

Biden to Bernie Supporters - I know I need to earn your votes - Humanist Report

Biden courts Sanders supporters with student loan and healthcare policies - Reuters



Show us you can lead us back from the devastation of this pandemic and will prepare us for the next one and the one after that. The pandemic showed that the costs of not having a universal Medicare For All plan during a time of crisis far outweigh the costs of getting healthcare to everyone. This COVID-19 crisis showed Bernie and the healthcare experts were right, the people without coverage cost society way more in the long run (in addition to their personal unnecessary deaths, pain, and suffering. People without reasonable access to healthcare take longer to go to a doctor and are infecting others. They also go into work sick exposing still more people without the healthcare coverage they would have with Medicare For All, along with paid sick leave and a living wage (also parts of the Sanders plan but rejected by Biden). The people living paycheck to paycheck are not only suffering themselves but have secondary and tertiary negative impacts on society as a whole. Even if you are among the selfish who lives by the motto of "I got mine, get your own", even you will benefit from lifting the rest of your community up with you along with your kids and grandkids.

So you can see Joe misses all the points of the policies along with their personal and societal impact. But he is probably now being told that to get elected he needs to pretend to care about our policies. He is now offering us something that addresses none of the big issues our policies seek to fix but has the word Medicare in one of the policies and it seems to be about access to healthcare so stop complaining (cue Whoopi saying poop all over us). What he is proposing is not for society, it's not for everyone, it's for a very thin slice of people (of his existing voter base). It does not expand Medicare to the more comprehensive version, it only offers the current version with major gaps in coverage and only for people a few years before they were getting it anyway, at or nearing retirement. Even as reality keeps making the case for why Medicare For All is better, more compassionate and cost-effective, Joe comes to us offering crumbs, not actual policy solutions, proving he doesn't understand the purpose of the policy or why we are willing to fight for it.




But that's not all, Joe really wants us to think he is trying to reach out to us, so he has some crumbs to sprinkle over the issue of student debt as well. Again his proposal proves that he doesn't understand the spirit of the policies or what they offer. He wants to offer limited debt relief... but only if means-tested and only if you got the debt at a public college or historically black colleges. Not for trade school, not for private extension schools, night schools or online classes, not for specialty grad schools which often are trade or specific career-related. Not for native colleges. His argument is always that we shouldn't have to pay for rich people to send their kids to school... but rich people don't take out loans to go to school so that isn't a real argument and the policy he is offering leaves most student debt in the categories not covered.


Why we should cancel all student loan debt - ActTV

Should we cancel all student loan debt - economist Stephanie Kelton (Thom Hartmann Program)

The free public college/ trade school and eliminate student debt policy was so important and well-received not because it was Bernie offering free ponies. It was based on the premise that a better educated and trained workforce makes society as a whole better and our country more competitive in the global market. It is something that every citizen gets with their citizenship (like healthcare). Further justification for getting rid of this debt is that this education and training should have always been free or heavily subsidized and thus the debt should never have been incurred. If Joe can't understand why the policy is important and popular then he will never fight for us. His offer of crumbs proves he truly has no understanding of the policy and his offer is nothing more than pandering.




The bottom line is if Biden with his record and what we know of him and wholly rejected wants our support, he needs to first understand why we thought these policies were important enough to fight for and join us in those fights. Throwing us some scraps while he high fives his donors for blowing up the bigger policies and stopping a movement will not result in the unity he needs to win. We are waiting Joe... the next move is yours. Do you really want to beat Trump or are you already making plans on how to blame us for your loss? Do you have real policies to address these needs/ concerns? Do you have real progressives you plan on including in your administration as your running mate, in your cabinet and advising you on policy? You may have ridden the "Blue No Matter Who" crowd and 4 primary contests that should have been postponed to an apparent primary win, but you won't win the White House without us and our votes are attached to real policy, not empty promises, feckless proposals or platitudes.

Bernie remains on the ballot in upcoming primary states, might he close the delegate gap with focus now on Biden and his feckless argument for being President?

Has Bernie really thrown in the towel or is shifting focus to Biden a winning strategy?
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Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Biden's refuses to debate so he can win the primary, even if it re-elects Trump.

By Marc Bochner
4/1/20

The 12th and final debate was scheduled for today. But obviously, that isn't going to happen and maybe shouldn't have on this date. But Joe Biden agreed to 12 debates and given all the new information with the crisis and how policy agendas look in this new COVID-19 world it should happen, perhaps a 13th even. Despite what the media and party goons would have you believe, more debates where the Democrats lay out their visions could only help whoever becomes the nominee because it lays out an alternative vision for the best pathway forward. Otherwise, people are getting all that information from Trump.

Joe Biden claimed to be a big play by the rules guy. Remember when Biden joined everyone but Bernie on the debate stage declaring that the party bosses should be allowed to choose someone other than the frontrunner if nobody gets to 1991 delegates? He declared that we should follow the rules that we all agreed to in the beginning. So refusing to appear at a 12th debate goes against that play by the rules commitment... More than that, it denies voters a chance to process what it would mean to have each of the candidates as the person navigating us through the new world with the new realities. A possible 13th probably should happen as well because while the debate moderators wasted everyone's time through the first 10 with nonsensical questions, including many of the same ones over and over again as if they were never answered or those answers would change (like how are you going to pay for it?), we rarely if ever got to meaningful discussion of what each candidates presidency would look like, how they would be different and how capable is each one for one of the most important jobs on the planet.

As a jumping off point for this conversation it must be noted that since the last debate nearly everything in the world, our lives and the race has changed. Nobody is wanting to rehash everything that has been done wrong so far. Nobody wants dishonest media pundits and party bosses playing gotcha with the populist and trying to talk the working class out of policies that will make their lives better. The crisis has definitively shown us that all those times Biden declared we couldn't afford like Medicare for All, paid medical leave, free public college and wiping out both student and medical debt he was wrong. Everytime he declared all of those policies to not be pragmatic along with a living wage, affordable housing, federal jobs guarantee he was wrong. Remember Hillary claimed Bernie was just trying to bribe people with free ponies? Throughout the campaign the media repeated all these disingenuous narratives and during the debates framed the questions from the perspective of Bernie and his crazy ideas will never come to pass, now let's have the others act like the adults in the room and tell us how things really work. the first 10 debates wasted everyone's time with that framing and what can only be described as journalistic malpractice from the moderators. The 11th debate was better questions, more policy discussion but featured Trump like dishonesty from Biden about nearly everything with no fact checking til days after 3 states went to the polls with those lies.

The 12 debate schedule for Democratic primary

Well, now the current crisis showed us a few things that have never been allowed into the national conversation...  Bernie's ideas are doable, the money to make them happen is there when you shift priorities and had we already implemented Bernie's policies we would be infinitely better equipped to handle this disaster, the next disaster, and people's personal disasters. And that his policies are the most pragmatic, not the least pragmatic. So now with all this new information, the people need one or two more debates to process all of this. If we are to choose our next president on who will be best for the American people and the nation as a whole, we need to have all these conversations again... and have them in a productive way without dishonest framing, and with all the new information that has come to light in the past few weeks.

Bernie is anxious to have these conversations. Joe Biden is not. People should both be concerned with not having them be a part of the electoral process AND why Joe Biden is refusing to have them. (Artwork by Humanist Report)

Debate Bernie you coward - Humanist Report

Joe Biden Desperately tries to shut down debate - The Hill TV Rising

The embarrassment of treating our electoral process as a team sport where the only things that matter
are who we are told can win, and what letter is next to the name on the ballot need to end. We need to be having real conversations with real facts and context. We have seen nothing good comes of ripping honest and meaningful conversations from the process. It has instead led us to an endless string of lesser evil elections where each election cycle what we are willing to settle for as lesser gets worse. It has led to two broken parties both of whom work for the people with all the money and power and nobody is really representing best interests of the people, the country or the planet. It has given us a swamp on both sides of the aisle that is allowed to persist simply because our votes we are told have to be cast to stop the other team, not to actually improve our lives or the country in any meaningful way. That old system has led never led to fixing any problems, because populist solutions are virtually never the goal and nobody is held to account.

It took flipping our whole world upside down to expose these realities... and now that we know, there is no going back. These conversations have to happen now, shut up and fall in line is no longer an option. These elections can not stay red, blue and purple or twisted ideas of conservative, moderate, liberal and progressive. The conversations need to be about putting the needs of people ahead of money, evening the playing field and letting honesty and trust into the process.

Now I get it. The past few weeks have been an utter disaster for Joe Biden. After the party orchestrated a coup on his behalf to secure him the nomination, Biden built a sizable lead that the media declared as insurmountable even when it was still pretty close. That lead grew solely on the narrative that Joe was winning and we need to fall in line so he can beat Trump. It got quite large after the last three primaries which should have been postponed but were forced by team Biden and the party anxious to put Biden into hiding before people noticed what a train wreck he was.

Then the pandemic hit our shores and life as we knew it changed within a week. Everything we thought was important was shown not to be. Everything we were told was possible, probable, pragmatic or even desirable was turned upside down. The compassionate policies turned out to be way more than pie in the sky, they turned out to also be the most pragmatic and the ones that could have eliminated a lot of the fear, desperation and lessened the severity of the crisis to begin with.

Bernie has led through the crisis laying out plans for moving forward that were later repeated by others on TV (remember the media doesn't like to cover Bernie so all his solutions, planning and comforting was done online). He then added a very significant amendment to the final bill to allow gig and freelance workers to qualify for unemployment and not be left as collateral damage, while tipped workers can include the tips in their income for determining how much they qualify for. Then there was Bernies epic floor speech when he shamed the Republicans into agreeing to the worker aid parts of the bailout which is what ultimately helped it pass. Sure there was a lot of terrible corporate giveaways and an unaccountable slush fund, but the people had to get aid immediately for survival and let's not kid ourselves to prevent the economy from collapsing without consumers or bills getting paid. Bernie isn't done as he continues to fight for more aid to the working class along with systemic change moving forward.

While Bernie was leading Biden was in hiding. The only calls he was making was to donors. He made no public appearances, put out no ideas on how to move forward, made no statements to help people understand the gravity of the situation. He didn't interview experts, doctors or scientists to help people understand why this is so significant and how they can help protect themselves and their community. (While Biden did none of these things, Bernie did all of them). When Biden finally surfaced he took a few shots at Trump but still offered no plans, no vision, and no leadership. He repeated a couple things Bernie had called for days earlier like shifting production from non-essential items to essential items like medical supplies, test kits, ventilators, etc. Then came a series of really bad TV and internet appearances where he seemed lost, gave confusing and disjointed non-answers to important questions and put his apparent dementia on full display leaving people to wonder if he was fit to even campaign any longer let alone to serve in the office of President. But his historically bad week didn't end there. His #MeToo problem resurfaced this time with a credible former staffer accusing him of sexually assaulting her and then demeaning her when she pulled away from the assault.

So we get why that Joe Biden would not want to make are another debate let alone for people to have another look at his plans next to Bernie's for which were the best and most pragmatic. We understand why he would want the rest of the states to cast their votes based upon what they believed pre crisis without having new conversations with the new realities to base their decisions on moving forward. He wants the primary campaign frozen in time to that time when he was winning and people were falling in line behind him.

Biden's last 5 appearances embarrass him and the Democratic party

Biden's terrible TV appearances show he is unfit for office - Hill TV, Rising

But let me explain why this is a terrible idea for everybody... for him, for the Democratic party, for the country and for the people. If he doesn't allow these new conversations we as a people will not have any power in holding our government to account in fixing them in a way that benefits all of us, not simply the people with all the money and power already. If we don't get to judge the candidates on their policy positions, what they will and won't fight for and who we trust most to fight for us then we will not be able to make good or informed choices which is more critical than ever given the enormity of the work the next President will have to do.

Specifically why this is a terrible idea for Biden and the Democratic party, sure putting him into hiding and backing into the nomination is the most likely path for him, in fact, becoming the nominees. But it would also guarantee his loss in November. By not having these conversations now with Bernie who will treat him gently and with respect, he would be leaving them to be had with Trump who will not be so nice and will not be honest with his answers and assertions. Biden will look terrible, unfit, weak, without leadership skills and with a mind that is failing. Nobody will want to vote for Biden who left all those conversations on the table to be had with Trump instead of with Bernie.

Another reason why this will make Biden unelectable is that over 40% of the voters have not had a chance to participate in the nominating process yet. Cheating them of the opportunity to participate in the nomination process and I promise you, they will not be motivated to support the nominee. A big part of participating is 1) not declaring the race over before it is. While Bernie needs 62% of the remaining delegates to get to the 1991 delegates needed to win the nomination, but Biden still needs to get 46% of them. Neither of those outcomes is a guarantee despite what the media and party would have you believe.  So refusing to discuss important issues AND denying the remaining states the ability to help decide who will be the nominee and ultimately who will be the President is the surest way I know to build resentment rather than goodwill.

Finally, if you want to unify the party, don't tell the half of the party you will need to win a general election that you don't intend to go along with any rules that might not benefit you. And that you no longer feel we need to let their half of the party participate in any policy discussions. I promise you, that is how your declaration that we don't need any more debates landed with practically every voter under the age of 50 and most independent voter. If you think you can win without them, your dementia is even worse than we the people think it is... and yes we are talking about your dementia. If you don't want us having that conversation then debates might be a good time for you to make the case that you don't.

Why Younger Voters Are Overwhelmingly Rejecting Biden - FiveThirtyEight

Biden slaps Sanders supporters in the face with rejection of Medicare For All - Hill TV Rising

Should the Bernie supporters stay home in November if populist policy continues to get blocked by Democrats? - Prof. Harvey Kaye? 

The most electable is not who the party and media tells you it is. They are simply telling you who they want to be the nominee. The most electable is the one who inspires confidence that they will make the best President. The one who inspires the most voters is your winner. The one who shows the most leadership is your winner. And speaking in terms of the current broken party politics game, the one who can get the best voter turnout from their base and win the independent voters. Bernie wins the independent voters by HUGE margins, he makes the best case to voters what he will do to help them and inspires the most voters... that is your most electable... If Joe Biden wants to have a chance in the general he needs to do a much better job of building those relationships and that excitement. That can only happen if he doesn't prematurely claim victory and shut down the rest of the primary without debate and without meaningful discussion of the problems we face and how to best address them.

Do the right thing. Even if you don't want to do it for us, do it for yourself. Because you really don't want to be the guy that gave Trump 4 more years at one of the most crucial times in history. All that death, destruction and insanity that would result will forever be linked to your legacy. Fight a fair fight and if you win, good for you, if you lose but Bernie stops Trump then good for everyone, especially the working class you claim to care about.









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