Obama will stop Bernie from being a Dem nominee

[Morphine Prince 109,729]

 

[Whispering 18,865]

7 hours ago, ItsTommyBitch said:

1) Party identification is a matter of self identification, not a strict adherence to being entirely inline with a party's positions across the board.  Nothing Bernie Sanders is running on is against the values of the Democratic party at all, so there is no reason to oppose him on the basis that hes running as something undemocratic. For that matter, he along with other candidates signed a pledge declaring himself a Democrat who will uphold Democratic principles and values and positions, run for the Democratic nomination only, and serve as an officially Democratic president if elected.

Quite literally though, the DNC cannot determine if someone is a Democrat or not, there's no legal rule or apparatus for this at all. Bernie is a Democrat because he says he is one, and he can also have a history of being an Independent that does not contradict this. Furthermore, if someone were to run as an independent on paper, the Democratic party can still nominate them. It's really not *that* unusual to have mixed filings, and Bernie has been both Democratic and Independent many times in his 40+ year career. Even people who are elected to Congress can change their party affiliation after being elected. It's only a big deal if you buy into the idea that Bernie's past Independent status cost Hillary the election or whatever  

Also, about Obama not being able to decide who the nominee is... That's just really naive, sorry.

He has massive political standing as one of the most popular presidents in recent history, especially amongst Democrats and Older African American Voters... If Obama came out and said anything official and intentionally disparaging about any specific candidate he would be effectively helping to sink that candidate's campaign... This would hurt people like Bernie, Yang, less than people like Pete or Joe because significant portions of their current support comes from people that were rightfully critical of Obama, but independent voters, people that aren't politically engaged (yet, or who just vote on instinct when it comes time) will certainly take into account what the last guy they voted for has to say. It's him tipping the scales at the bare minimum. 

If Obama came out tomorrow and said "Look, Joe is an old out of touch white guy that doesn't care about Black people. He referred to me as "articulate" in 2007 and is lowkey racist, I only picked him to help secure the white vote in the south-midwest. " would you not classify that  as Obama stopping Joe Biden from being the nominee? The reason he hasn't been explicit in any of his statements is because he knows the sway he has. Most presidents have this power. It's literally been Trump's entire strategy in all elections for the Republican party. If multiple people are running in any state election in one party, whoever Trump says "I support" to IS the candidate that is chosen. 

In a situation where no candidate is able to reach 51% of the delegate requirement to be the nominee next year, Obama and Obama democrats have massive power in picking essentially whoever they want to be the nominee. If Bernie won the most delegates and the popular vote in aggregate and Biden won the 2nd most, and Obama came out and said "I endorse Joe Biden" - he would become the nominee. If your point is just that Obama doesn't literally cast the deciding vote and isn't officially the person who declares the nominee is, why is something so specific worth distinguishing at all?

Bernie isn’t a registered Democrat. Most people don’t care. Some see it as a good thing, some as a bad. 

Obama’s influence has been the same for three years then. This is nothing new. He’s not going to come out and say “this is the person we need to vote for” until the voters have decided. 

I do believe he would probably come out and try to persuade people against a Democrat version of Trump, if we even had that...which we don’t. Even then, that rarely works if voters have made up their minds on someone. Remember how both Bushes, and their wives, came out against Trump? (after Jeb dropped out) That didn’t keep Republicans that had voted for them voting for Trump. 

More than anything, I think Obama could have the power to introduce an unknown type candidate to part of the electorate, but then that person would have to earn and keep their vote. There is already so many candidates, a little something for everyone...and many who are alike. 

[LilyLark 10,213]

19 hours ago, ItsTommyBitch said:

2) I Literally have never ever heard of this trope before. Is there some established stereotype about black men opposing socialism somewhere and I've just missed it? (For that matter, since the majority of the country are anti- socialism, wouldn't such a thing be accepted into mainstream as a positive depiction of blackness, not a negative... ? Food for thought  ) Upon doing brief research, I found no such thing, but there were some tangentially related few historical studies and academic papers about how older forms of socialism tended to be headed by white people and ignore issues of gender, race, etc. That's a given though, capitalism and communism were also quite unforgiving of diversity in the 20th century and continue into modern times as well... like everything everywhere tbh I don't think this is persistent enough of a thing to say that the visual or perception of a black man talking up to old white socialists is a racist caricature or anything though. 

That being said, Bernie Sander's campaign is very diverse, and his supporters are as well. As for the 10-15% thing, that's true. Older AA voters basically only support Biden, but of those that don't support Biden, they support Sanders over other candidates and hes a second pick for many Biden supporters as well  He does beat Joe Biden pretty heavily with young AA voters as well. He's easily got the 2nd most approval from black people as a whole. That this only translates to 10-15% of self defined "registered, likely voters" by pollsters in the primary season is a symptom of our broken approach to primaries, voter suppression, and political disengagement. Thankfully, he's reaching out and trying to get new young people (especially of color) to vote  He needs to improve on his support with older AA voters though, everyone does. I disagree with it, but one of the ways to do so is to win or get close to winning in the early 4 states because this voting bloc attached to Biden is only with him because they think he is reliable and electable and will win easily. They can be shaken if this idea is destroyed, combined with active outreach to their communities ofc.

Anyway, the anger at Obama re: socialist ideas is about his constant flip flopping to appease the establishment, not that he's a big bad black man that hates socialist white people... Just last year Obama called M4A and several of Bernie's other proposals that he has known of for decades exciting new ideas  and ideals he was proud that the Democratic party believed in, now he's telling people to not go "too far left" and implying that progressivism is mostly on twitter and not in the real world   Obama and Bernie also knew each other lol, Obama supported single payer with Bernie back in 03 and still supported the idea up until he began considering running for President, and not because he didn't think its what should happen, but because being in the senate made him think it would be hard to pass with corporate weight on the scales.

4) Let's not be revisionist about the ACA.
Obama quite literally campaigned against the individual mandate provision that marked the main goal of Romney's success in Massachusetts when he ran against Hillary Clinton. It was successful in reaching near universal coverage (about 98%), but he turned against his promise to not support it once he was in office. Then, quite literally as soon as it became a tenant of the ACA, Republican's swore that they would oppose it, and called it unconstitutional. It wasn't about the proposal, it was about who suggested it. That the ACA was better than what we had before is not the debate, what is being said is that Obama should never have spent his immense political capital by giving into something he didn't even personally believe in just because he thought it might appease Republicans and the Private Health Insurance Industry. He could have been absolutely insistent on a single payer transition, or more likely a public option back then, since as you say, the political climate wasn't where it is now. (Fun fact, a public option was on the table in the first drafts of the ACA - it was removed after massive Republican and Democratic backlash on the behalf of private insurance lobbyists!  )

It isn't a "conservative" goal, the intent of it was to increase the amount of people who are covered drastically and to also drastically reduce spending overall. An Individual Mandate is only necessary in a private insurance dominated market to protect people with pre-existing conditions, and marginally help poorer people be able to afford insurance when the market works against them by subsidizing premiums.

In Massachusetts it succeeded in increasing coverage, but failed to really reduce costs. The ACA partially succeeded in the first and also failed in the second. People forget that despite political parties having differing opinions on policies, there are many ways in which both parties want the same goals when they do not become politicized or partisan. Everyone wants healthcare to be for everyone, and everyone wants healthcare to cost less (and to spend less overall). Republicans acting brand new about it doesn't make an individual mandate system a regressive or "conservative" concept ideologically - it is conservative because it doesn't guarantee universal coverage, it doesn't drastically reduce costs/spending, and it does not ensure quality of coverage. Democrats support equal access to opportunity and inclusivity in Democracy, Republicans do not. 

That being said, as long as we agree that a single payer system like M4A has to be the end goal, I'm not upset at the rest  

@Guillaume Hamon

To be honest, I don't want to argue further on here (especially as I suspect you'd be fine with Warren becoming the nominee and I'd be fine with Bernie being the nominee)...so we're not that different—but I strongly disagree on several angles.

The one thing I will discuss is  I never said it's racist for white socialists/progressives to disagree with Obama or there's some racist trope of white socialists and Black men. There are obviously plenty of legitimate reasons to disagree and criticize Obama, especially from a progressive POV, and plenty of white and POC progressives make legitimate cases.

I said it's racist to think he's lurking in the wings prepared to try and destroy Bernie. That's partially what the HIll and members of the TYT tried to sell, and even Politico (although they admitted people denied it). That is a VERY common racist trope, that POC, especially Black people, are out to "destroy good white people," and it's something I'm seeing pop up quite frequently on social media nowadays. Read half of the twitter accounts for writers of Jacobin, Current Affairs, Chapo, or people like the Bruenigs, Matthew Stoller, and Walter Bragmam, and they absolutely play into that sh*t. And frankly, I find it frustrating when progressives pivot whenever one points out racism among (mostly) white progressives (most POC progressives aren't racist in their criticism although some NBPOC progressives are) to say "well, are you saying it's racist to criticize him?"—no, not one single person is saying Obama is above criticism. I'm saying the gross low key dog whistle racism needs to be done away with and this "Obama is out to destroy Bernie" is just one more instance of SOME, not all, white and NBPOC progressives engaging in a racist critique. And before you go off on those people not being racist, the Chapo guys name is inherently racist, they made fun of the MOVE  bombings, and they've straight up said racial slurs so yeah, I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt and I absolutely find their criticism of "big bad Obama lurking in the wings" to be racist. I have more receipts for the others, but again I'm not going to spend time dragging it all up. If you want to do the research, go browse through the Root (which has several good pieces) on frustration with how some progressives approach Obama and how it alienates progressives who are POC and especially some Black progressives, follow Dr. Jason Johnson or Imani Gandy on twitter, etc.

 

[ItsTommyBitch 12,640]

2 hours ago, LilyLark said:

@Guillaume Hamon

I said it's racist to think he's lurking in the wings prepared to try and destroy Bernie. That's partially what the HIll and members of the TYT tried to sell, and even Politico (although they admitted people denied it). That is a VERY common racist trope, that POC, especially Black people, are out to "destroy good white people," and it's something I'm seeing pop up quite frequently on social media nowadays. Read half of the twitter accounts for writers of Jacobin, Current Affairs, Chapo, or people like the Bruenigs, Matthew Stoller, and Walter Bragmam, and they absolutely play into that sh*t. And frankly, I find it frustrating when progressives pivot whenever one points out racism among (mostly) white progressives (most POC progressives aren't racist in their criticism although some NBPOC progressives are) to say "well, are you saying it's racist to criticize him?"—no, not one single person is saying Obama is above criticism. I'm saying the gross low key dog whistle racism needs to be done away with and this "Obama is out to destroy Bernie" is just one more instance of SOME, not all, white and NBPOC progressives engaging in a racist critique. And before you go off on those people not being racist, the Chapo guys name is inherently racist, they made fun of the MOVE  bombings, and they've straight up said racial slurs so yeah, I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt and I absolutely find their criticism of "big bad Obama lurking in the wings" to be racist. I have more receipts for the others, but again I'm not going to spend time dragging it all up. If you want to do the research, go browse through the Root (which has several good pieces) on frustration with how some progressives approach Obama and how it alienates progressives who are POC and especially some Black progressives, follow Dr. Jason Johnson or Imani Gandy on twitter, etc.

 

I thought you were saying there is some well established trope or stereotype of black men opposing socialism, which I have never seen. I'm a black progressive and I mostly exist in between black progressive and full on socialist circles in social media, so the suggestion of that struck me as odd. I didn't say anything was or wasn't racist, just that I hadn't heard of this.

But I think I see your point - socialists and progressives who aren't black sometimes fall into the trap of painting Obama as a scary black man coming to attack white folk when they criticize him. That's fair. The more socialist my follows get, the whiter they get, and even though I personally think they are definitely less racist than like... liberals or neoliberals ( ) and would rather settle for this crowd than the alternative, I agree that they aren't beyond reproach. I'm no fan of groups like Chapo either  

Also yes, I initially supported Warren because she was more enthusiastically and explicitly pro social justice in her form of reform, an issue I had with Bernie in 2016,  but I've since shifted because I think that 1) her messaging is kind of messy and paternalistic, which isn't conducive to get the strong, sustained grassroots support she needs to be a populist president under our current system and 2) Bernie's campaign and outreach has become a lot more diversified and he's a lot better on this because hes surrounding himself with better people. I would vote for her in a Heartbeat, and would much rather she be the Media darling again than Pete Buttigieg, who I find to be Dead on Arrival ideologically and policy wise.

At the end of the day though, I ultimately prefer Bernie's worldview on reform vs revolution. "A Capitalist to my bones" I am Not. Thanks for the suggestions of people to follow.

[LilyLark 10,213]

1 hour ago, ItsTommyBitch said:

I thought you were saying there is some well established trope or stereotype of black men opposing socialism, which I have never seen. I'm a black progressive and I mostly exist in between black progressive and full on socialist circles in social media, so the suggestion of that struck me as odd. I didn't say anything was or wasn't racist, just that I hadn't heard of this.

But I think I see your point - socialists and progressives who aren't black sometimes fall into the trap of painting Obama as a scary black man coming to attack white folk when they criticize him. That's fair. The more socialist my follows get, the whiter they get, and even though I personally think they are definitely less racist than like... liberals or neoliberals ( ) and would rather settle for this crowd than the alternative, I agree that they aren't beyond reproach. I'm no fan of groups like Chapo either  

Also yes, I initially supported Warren because she was more enthusiastically and explicitly pro social justice in her form of reform, an issue I had with Bernie in 2016,  but I've since shifted because I think that 1) her messaging is kind of messy and paternalistic, which isn't conducive to get the strong, sustained grassroots support she needs to be a populist president under our current system and 2) Bernie's campaign and outreach has become a lot more diversified and he's a lot better on this because hes surrounding himself with better people. I would vote for her in a Heartbeat, and would much rather she be the Media darling again than Pete Buttigieg, who I find to be Dead on Arrival ideologically and policy wise.

At the end of the day though, I ultimately prefer Bernie's worldview on reform vs revolution. "A Capitalist to my bones" I am Not. Thanks for the suggestions of people to follow.

Oh god Mayor Pete or Biden lol. I'm seriously a bit afraid they may win the nomination—I know the chance is close to nil for Pete, especially with his numbers with voters who are POC, but I'm still scared....more of  Biden since he has a rather significant lead in most polls. Bernie and Warren really, really need to do more reach out to Black voters—both are doing great things, but they need to ramp it up by a hundred. Plus, I hope their campaigns keep registering young voters and both should do more big ad buys in Iowa, imo, and NV. SC is out of reach for them (I don't even think they'll make the 15% tbh, there, to get delegates), but NV can definitely be won (or at least one can place second) and I've seen one or the other lead in NV in a few polls.

Obviously, I'd still vote for  Biden or Pete—probably even donate, tbh—but I would be disappointed. I can even find things to be semi-excited about with other candidates (Booker's criminal justice reform plans are amazing imo, Yang has some interesting thoughts on industry, etc.), but Biden and Pete just fill me with a bit of despair.

Anyway, apologies if I came off as a bit touchy, earlier, too. I just saw several obnoxious tweets from journos I low key respect (not on this occasion, tho) on twitter the other day about this "story," and one of my (allegedly) progressive white colleagues has been going down the racist trope lane when it comes to Obama and I was just like...on edge and a bit oversensitive.