Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

Actually Biden has been working hard for the independent votes and he has been having some problems from some because he is not far left enough. Luckily, however, the Dems seems to have toned them down some.

Between this, and Trump's mouth, I am starting to feel better about the Democratic chances. Its REALLY important to get rid of the Jackass! Then all we have to do is worry about the infighting of the Democrats. Hopefully they can control that too.

I hope toning down works. At least until after the election. Then let the in-fighting begin. Even when the Democratic Party was the big tent party, there were quite a lot of in-fighting. But they always were able to come together at election time.

I still remember the battles fought when Obama was trying to get the ACA through the Democratic House and Senate. They fought tooth and nail. I followed it but, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out, for the most part, what it was even all about!

Strangely enough the Republicans didn't really fight all that much and actually wrote about half the bill.

If the Dems have a blowout, this time, it will be interesting. I fully expect them to fight each other with a will.

No...the "Dems" have toned no one down. The truth is that Joe has indicated he's willing to go pretty far left if that's what people want. Even an avowed socialist, such as I can see that getting rid of Trump is more important at the moment than some sort of battle for the soul of the Democratic Party.

The nation is literally at the brink of a civil war. Joe won't spin the wheel to the left towards a distant ideological shore but he'll stop the rightward shift to some extent and perhaps quell the flames of fascism before they roar out of control.

We leftists must play the long game...Joe is a net gain over Trump. He's a single term placeholder and represents four years of calm reasoned leadership during which we will be able to plead our case again among voters. Harris will be his obvious successor but rest assured that we will field a leftist opponent against her.

I hope you're right my friend. All I'm looking forward to seeing is Biden providing sane leadership, a return to normalcy. I'm fine with little steps left, but no lurch. Harris is basically an unknown quantity to me.

The one I'll be pushing for 2024 is Tammy Duckworth. But perhaps we're getting ahead of ourselves here. I like little steps at a time, doing nothing to take the people out of their comfort zone and them getting angry at Biden and company whereas 2022 turns out to be another 2010. That would bring an abrupt halt to any movement left except via EO's which in theory can be overturned, repealed, canceled, ended by the next president.

Patience is a virtue or so I'm told. I think the difference between you and me, our perception is that outside of the ACA I really didn't see any leftward movement from Obama and I haven't seen any rightward movement from Trump. Then again, there's a lot of issues that I'm plain not interested in that others hold a very high priority in.

But it sure will be nice for a return of sanity to our government. Right now, I'll settle for that and only that.

You haven't noticed the jackbooted thugs and the authoritarian fascism that's rising under his rule? The armed insurrectionists growing bolder by the day? The only good democrat is a dead democrat rhetoric?

I think he can be likened more to Mussolini than any previous president.

And no, there was no leftward movement under Obama. Oddly, Hillary would have nudged the ship of state farther that way than Obama ever did.

I think Obama was consumed by being too polite and statesman-like. As a Black man, he was certainly aware of all the animosity simply because of his skin color. So he tried to be inoffensive and above it all. Still had Republicans pull all sorts of terrible stuff. Should have just gone ahead and said "time is up" and sent Garland to the Supreme Court.

Obama might have been consumed with many things but moving the nation leftward from the Bush years was not among them.

He did write a lot of fairly progressive Executive Orders, which was all he could do after two years in. He should have been able to appoint Garland to the Supreme Court, which would have made it 5-4 Liberal right to today, but Mitch opposed that.

The last 10 years has been the Great Project by Republicans to pack the courts with Conservatives, but they only have 5-4 so far. If Ruth Bader Ginsberg can hold out until February, and Biden wins, their Great Project will be in tatters. They pissed off a large swath of voters for nothing. Lets see if Thomas can wait until February to die from Covid-19.

I never understood why McConnell didn't allow a vote on Garland. McConnell had a 54-46 majority and could have easily defeated Garland's nomination. That was PPP in my book. (Piss Poor Politics). Vote or not, Garland wasn't about to be confirmed.

Perhaps it was sort of payback for Schumer stating he wouldn't allow Bush to appoint another SCOTUS justice in his last year. Paybacks happened.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/schumer-in-2007-dont-confirm-any-bush-supreme-court-nominee