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

I consider myself a political realist. Although that can be debated. The fact is first one must win an election. All the idealistic ideology, wants, policy means nothing if you don't win. Nothing will can accomplished by a loser of an election.

I agree that Biden has a lot of goodwill, from both Democrats, quite a lot of independents and a few Republicans that Hillary didn't. Biden is just plain disliked a whole lot less than Hillary was. Especially by independents. Biden was a safe choice to defeat Trump. He'll most likely win by somewhere between 6-10 points in the popular vote. Between 340-360 in the electoral college.

Perhaps more important if Biden approaches the 10 point margin of victory, he could or his coat tails could bring along a decent margin in the senate. My recent takes on the senate.

Fairly safe bets switching parties
Alabama to the Republicans
Arizona to the democrats
Colorado to the democrats

Likely to switch parties
Iowa to the democrats
Maine to the democrats
North Carolina to the democrats

Tossups
Georgia 1
Georgia 2
Kansas
Montana
South Carolina

All are held by Republicans with the exception of Alabama. As of today I see a net gain for the Democrats between 4 to as many 9. A lot depends on how long Biden's coat tails are. But take a good look at the tossups, all 5 should be safe Republicans. I think the above reflects more on Trump than on the GOP incumbents or candidates for the senate. So far Trump's poor showing in the presidential race has had a filter down effect. This election is all about Trump which includes the senate.

As a political realist and sometimes strategist, I say ideology be darned, just win first and the rest will begin to fall into place.

Doesn't matter. Trump supporters believe Democrats were born from the loins of Satan and are baby eating pedophiles, intent on destroying Christianity and turning America into a Socialist haven.

Try working with people who are delusional ...

I guess we would have to understand what 'winning' means. It would not be a win to have Biden as president for me but may be for others.

If all that concerns some is to get the bad man to go away and have no real problems that only a state can solve then, yeah, Biden's that persons guy.

If you do have real problems that only a state can solve, such a getting healthcare, then no, Biden's not your guy.

The latter has no real way of winning and no interest in the outcome. Winning is a moot point and the focus, if any, has to shift elsewhere.

That brings you back to the very real question of how to win and going forward. Looking at polls is like looking at the stock market as Buffet describes it. In the short term, it's a popularity contest. In the long run its a weighing machine. I won't vote for either of these parties as there is to much on offer and plenty against.

For some, several decades of economic and civil regression under the two political right wing factions precludes any winning. It's all improvisation while descending the retrograde political economy for now.

Would it be a win for you to continue on with 4 more years of Trump? Here in America to win an election you have to do better than your opponent. If you don't win an election you have no way to influence the future.

But what is a win for you? To be able to make every single citizen 100% reliant on government? Or is it to lose if you can't take gigantic leaps in the direction you want government to go whether than a few little steps at a time. What happens if you do take a gigantic leap, I think you just need to look back at the house election of 2010. Fact is one needs to be able to take the people as far as they're willing to go and no further until they're willing to go further.

I think sometimes keeping the status quo is a win, if a loss means taking steps backwards that has to be gain back again. It's like 1st and 10 in a football game, you get stopped at the line of scrimmage for no gain. That's better than having your quarterback sacked for a 15 yard loss. You begin the next play or perhaps the next election at 2nd and 10 instead of 2nd and 25. You were much better off with the status quo, no gain, no loss than with the 25 yard sack. Barring a fumble or an interception, you can't score on defense or losing an election.

This is the political realist talking, the turtle in a long distant run instead of the hare in a sprint who tires out and sits besides the road. Biden better than Trump, a win. Trump is gone, a win. What Biden and company will do after he wins, that's an open question. But I'd much rather have Biden fulfilling those open questions than Trump. So the election of Biden is a win in my book.

Of course there is always a third option here. Vote third party.

Winning would be not what we have had for a political economy for decades now.

Spare me the 100% reliant on government stuff. If you want to discuss how resources get divided between both political parties and how they could be different then I'm down with that conversation. Capitalism is 100% supported by government. No one in either party cares to address that reality or insinuates a morality to it.

Keeping people bare arse broke over medical debt while racially targeting other areas of the world with weapons systems for no reasonable purpose except making money would be where I would start that conversation. Propping up the MIC by maintaining forever wars for stock market returns seems to be a path towards fascism we are heading down. Trump has paused that progression. I see that progress restarted under Biden. Where would the win be with either of those two candidates with this state funded violence?

Remember when the liberals rolled their eyes and belittled the 2 trillion price tag over 10 years to do health care in the country, during the primary? AKA Medicare for all? What Joe Biden had pledged to Veto if it should get near his desk as president?

Not so much as a whimper throwing out 5 trillion dollars from a helicopter over the Hamptons to make several thousand families whole during a predictable pandemic. Sound like a rational distribution of resources? Backstopping Exchange Traded Fantasy Football Funds and Taking all the bad loans off the mega banks books? Again?

But yeah, making people reliant on gubmint? Heavens!

No, there's no upside to a restoration of murderous neoliberalism or neoconservative. You could even make the argument that, much like you need a democrat to deregulate finance and media or criminalize poverty, your going to need a republican to pass some kind of humane, rational health care system or end the ethnic murder abroad bythe MIC. I would not rule out the possibility of Trump doing that. That's what helped get him elected IIRC.

Come back in about 30 years, and maybe there might be a chance for a majority of the American people to get to your point of view. They are nowhere near it now.

We have had almost four years of lawless autocratic rule, and most people want to go back to being a nation of laws. You may not like some of those laws, but at least there is a procedure for changing them and people in charge who follow them.

If you want change, I think a Democratic government permits that. We know from recent experience that a Republican government resists that every way possible, including murdering opponents.

Would you please share with us any example of you, PIA, suffering under autocratic rule? I would be curious to know what you think autocratic rule is.

If there has been lawlessness what was it that is distinct from previous Dem administrations?

There was lawlessness within the DNC during both primaries but I never heard a peep from Liberals. Wassup with that?

Obama killed U.S. citizens without trial... Crickets.

Your boy Biden passed him some laws. What a money maker those laws have been for some...

Liberals sense of indignation over legal transgressions are variable at best.

The popular will of citizens have had almost no effect over what laws get passed in this country for some time. For your future reference, it's the donors who craft laws, not voters.

Ballot initiatives may make it thru but that, too, is no guaranty the will of voters will be carried out in good faith by legislatures. Florida's felon voter right recently undermined is a handy example.

Sorry, not buying your imagined change within the two party structure. Change will only come from outside,IMO.

I agree with PIA estimated 30 years. Fact is most folks don't like to be taken out of their comfort zone with rapid change. They're fine with slow steady change, but not gigantic leaps. Slow steady change gives them time to adjust.

2010 proved that up seating the apple cart with rapid change to the health care system. The majority of people weren't ready for it. It taken 10 years for some to adjust and now, barely, just a bit over 50% now approve instead of oppose it. But now after 10 years they had a chance to adjust to it. Now it's here to stay unless we get another rapid change which once again upsets the apple cart by taking folks once again out of their comfort zone.

Biden will win because he's seen as a candidate who will not force folks out of their comfort zone. No rapid or instant change in other words. Change, slow and steady will always win the day or at least give those who want the change more time to accomplish it.

Medicare has popular support. More since Covid hit. Your slow and steady rational is a bit of projecting, I’m guessing. It may feel comfortable to your sensibilities but I would point out that Trumps insurgency campaign was neither slow nor steady yet won anyhow. He understood some truths that the complacent class was and still is unwilling to recognize.

History is littered with sudden fits and upheavals. I like your relaxed confidence Perisota. It would be more convincing to me if I was not paying attention to the world around me and accepting where it is.

Democrats scuttled a way out in the primaries. The addled Biden, having authored so much of our current situation, will not solve the current and enormous problems. I guess we’ll see how it goes, a boomer interregnum period where their golden years go undisturbed? Possible, but there’s a lot of tinder out there with 40 years of neoliberal asset stripping and austerity. I don’t see the current operating system going another thirty without crashing first.

Massive overleveraging in the financial sector. High levels of personal debt. Widening income inequality, growing poverty and deaths of despair. The needles have been going into the red.

And that right there is why I'm selling out and downsizing right now.

Check your facebook Chunks, I need to pick your brain about my kitchen.