I will vote for whoever the democratic nominee is in 2020. If Hot Barf/Herpes had a (D) after their name, I would crawl over broken glass just to vote for that ticket.
A lot of the more progressive among us disagree with this strategy. I don’t care. At this point, with all the corruption, malfeasance, embarrassment this country has had to endure, there isn’t a single person on this planet that could convince me to sit out 2020 or any election, or vote for someone other than a Democrat. We live in a two party system, we have a single, binary choice for president, house and senate. There are two parties, two ideologies — one of sanity, good governance and healthy debate; the other a dark xenophobic, racist, proto-fascist authoritarian regime. This choice is easy for me.
But what I will not do is temper my criticisms of democrats running in our primary elections. This is the time where we, as a party, must choose who is fit to take on this would be dictator. Outside of impeachment, this is our one shot at ensuring that our national nightmare ends. The person who we, as voters, select here will ultimately decide the fate of the country going forward. We have to nominate the person who can not only face Trump in the general, but sell their version of America to its people.
I do not know who this person is. I do not know who among our 20+ candidates can truly defeat Trump in a general election. I hope, with every bone in my body, that every single one of them (including Williamson) would absolutely crush him, given the absolute shit of a job he has done running this country.
One thing I do know is that the primary process is a long, complex vetting process by which we as voters evaluate candidates. Yes, its a dog and pony show, beauty pageant, high school debate and popularity contest all rolled into one, but it is also more than that. It is where we discover strengths and weaknesses of potential candidates, where we see whether or not someone truly has the guts to deflect an attack, or go on the offensive, or answer a question truthfully. Most of all, it is where we discover daylight between our candidates, differences in policy, nuances in personal histories, quirks in personality that may have a huge effect on the general election as a whole.
I absolutely DISAGREE with the notion that no one may attack in a primary and the person who does “opened the door” and is thus to blame for the tone of the primary campaign going forward. Honestly, with 20+ candidates vying for oxygen, it was a foregone conclusion that one of them was going to go after the one making the giant sucking sound.
And so far, given VP Biden’s reaction and subsequent stumbles since the debate, its A GOOD THING we are seeing this now as voters. I am not saying that Joe is out of the race now, no, it would be far too hasty for that. But what we are seeing now is Joe through and through to his core: a complete gaffe factory. His advisors knew that, tried to keep him quiet, keep his positions vague. If you ask me, Sen. Harris did us a great service — she showed VP Biden to be the person he really is: inarticulate at very, very best. This gives him the chance to right the ship NOW before damage is done to the party, or quietly be knocked out early and free up some breathing room for other dems.
I respect and like Joe Biden, I am proud of his time as Veep, think he and Obama made a hell of a team. My estimation of him went way up when he destroyed Paul Ryan in the 2012 cycle Veep debates and lit a fire under Obama’s ass after his dreadful first performance. But this is not about the Obama administration or its accomplishments. That ended in 2016 with our national nightmare and disgrace. This is about who can defeat Trump in 2020. And I think on that point Biden is proving to be a complete and total dud. Again, he ain’t out but he HAS to turn the ship around, rhetorically. Its up to HIM to save his own campaign by really thinking about the words coming out of his mouth. The media will not give Biden near as much leeway as Trump, he will have to be everything anti-Trump at every moment to avoid turning off and depressing the base. As it stand now, all Joe’s mouth is going to do is is make democrats think “do we REALLY want another president who cannot control his tongue?”
The answer is no.