The Democrats USA (2018-2020)

No surprise, but this means that the last person with a credible climate change policy is out, and the US will quite likely fail to make serious cuts to its emissions for at least the next 5 years, possibly meaning today is as good a day as any to give up on 1.5C. It will be hard to convince autocratic China and Russia to go further than the US, and there's no evidence that they will, and we now have climate deniers in so many important countries including Brazil and the UK as well.

Humanity's destiny is no longer fully in its own hands. Even if radical changes comes along suddenly from 2025 onwards, there is now a significant chance (10%? higher?) of the total collapse of civilisation due to climate change within this century.

Since we are heading for a bleaker future, this means the negative effects of each individual's actions are going to be greater than previously anticipated (because 2x emissions leads to >2x more negative effects, climate change is not linear) so I hope we can redouble our efforts as individuals since the politicians won't deliver.

On a more positive note, I think that the ideas of the progressive left in terms of a more just society are starting to gain ground. Even though Sanders (and Corbyn) lost that might (in the latter case at least) be more down to personality, and may mean that the type of discussions we'll be having in 2025 might be quite different to today hopefully. More here: Corbynism Will Outlast Jeremy Corbyn Even though he couldn't become President (and presumably now never will), I think Sanders' ideas have left their mark.
 
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It looks like Biden might be moving to the left a little with the Biden-Sanders Unity task force and things like that. BIden has announced $2 trillion over 4 years to deal with climate change compared to his previous announced $1.7 trillion over 4 years.

Still not fully convinced about how much he will deliver, but clearly the progressives can have some influence on him.
 
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I don't think its just Biden. I think the whole democratic party is moving to the left. Some stuff is changing very fast. It reminds me somewhat of a supersaturated solution. One more drop and the whole thing changes in a second.

All of a sudden people are behind Black Lives Matter. the Mississippi flag comes down. Police are being fired and killings investigated. Statues are coming down. Streets renamed. Dairies are closing. The Supreme Court defends abortion clinics.

Of course, there are other worrisome things. But today I am concentrating on the positive.
 
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Jamie in Chile said:
It looks like Biden might be moving to the left a little with the Biden-Sanders Unity task force and things like that. BIden has announced $2 trillion over 4 years to deal with climate change compared to his previous announced $1.7 trillion over 4 years.

Still not fully convinced about how much he will deliver, but clearly the progressives can have some influence on him.
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I really hope it's not lip service. We need real, drastic change.
 
The democratics holding power know are like weak republicans. I'm so angry we're left with Biden as the only choice. Voter suppression sure works for both parties
 
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silva said:
The democratics holding power know are like weak republicans. I'm so angry we're left with Biden as the only choice. Voter suppression sure works for both parties
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Yep, I'm not thrilled with Biden, either. If the Democratic Party were really serious about the progressive agenda, we'd have a different candidate.
 
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If we were still having primaries - it would be Bernie all the way. The pandemic only made Bernie's ideas look and sound better. There are millions of unemployed Americans who now realize that maybe having health insurance tied up with your employment is not the good idea they thought it was.

I do think that Biden is leaning to the left. Part pandemic and part momentum. The progressives in the party have most of the momentum.

Evidence? Biden's plan to make America carbon neutral is part of the Green New Deal's objectives And so is his plan for child and senior care.
 
Jamie in Chile said:
It looks like Biden might be moving to the left a little with the Biden-Sanders Unity task force and things like that. BIden has announced $2 trillion over 4 years to deal with climate change compared to his previous announced $1.7 trillion over 4 years. (Edit: Mistake was ten years not 4.)

Still not fully convinced about how much he will deliver, but clearly the progressives can have some influence on him.
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I made a mistake here.

It was $1.7 trillion over ten years or $170 billion per year (about $515 per person in US per year).
Now it´s $2 trillion over four years or $500 billion per year (about $1515 per person in US per year).

So this is a considerable increase or a tripling. However Bernie was offering $16 trillion for climate change.

To be clear, Biden isn´t some kind of environmentalist. He´s gone from bad to mediocre here, but it´s a step forward, and it puts more clear daylight between him and Trump.
 
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PTree15 said:
Yep, I'm not thrilled with Biden, either. If the Democratic Party were really serious about the progressive agenda, we'd have a different candidate.
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Is this fair? To a large extent the democratic party doesn´t really decide its candidate, the millions of primary voters do. It´s interesting that Biden beat Sanders and Warren and others quite easily in some of the rust belt area and other states that could swing either way.
 
silva said:
The democratics holding power know are like weak republicans. I'm so angry we're left with Biden as the only choice. Voter suppression sure works for both parties
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Biden got 16.6 million votes.
Sanders 9.2 million votes.
Warren got 2.8 million votes.

How many votes do you think were suppressed?

I´m struggling to believe that enough votes were suppressed to make that much of a difference?
 
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Jamie in Chile said:
Is this fair? To a large extent the democratic party doesn´t really decide its candidate, the millions of primary voters do. It´s interesting that Biden beat Sanders and Warren and others quite easily in some of the rust belt area and other states that could swing either way.
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The Democratic Party leadership really drives who the candidate will be. They did their best to undermine Bernie in 2016, putting all their weight behind Clinton. There is too much of an old guard/status quo influence in the party, IMHO.
 
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Jamie in Chile said:
Biden got 16.6 million votes.
Sanders 9.2 million votes.
Warren got 2.8 million votes.

How many votes do you think were suppressed?

I´m struggling to believe that enough votes were suppressed to make that much of a difference?
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I don't know about voter suppression, but I believe most voters in the Dem primaries have to be actual registered Dem voters. So am I right in thinking the kind of voter who is a registered Democrat is on average both older and more conservative than the average of the entire US voter population on the liberal/left side of the political spectrum? Assuming that is the case, then Sanders and Warren would have had more votes in an imaginary primary which included all liberals / left-side / socialist voters.

Also, as the campaign developed and Biden took the lead, I suspect there was a tendency among voters to vote for whoever was in the lead. Some people just want to be on the winning side.

So in reality it's unclear how big Biden's support really is amongst voters who would likely vote for a liberal candidate. Therefore I think Biden has seemingly done the clever thing in adopting some of the legislative proposals by Sanders.
 
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I don't remember the details but there was some Anti-Bernie stuff going on in the Democratic Party in the 2016 primaries.
 
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Indian Summer said:
I don't know about voter suppression, but I believe most voters in the Dem primaries have to be actual registered Dem voters. So am I right in thinking the kind of voter who is a registered Democrat is on average both older and more conservative than the average of the entire US voter population on the liberal/left side of the political spectrum? Assuming that is the case, then Sanders and Warren would have had more votes in an imaginary primary which included all liberals / left-side / socialist voters.

Also, as the campaign developed and Biden took the lead, I suspect there was a tendency among voters to vote for whoever was in the lead. Some people just want to be on the winning side.

So in reality it's unclear how big Biden's support really is amongst voters who would likely vote for a liberal candidate. Therefore I think Biden has seemingly done the clever thing in adopting some of the legislative proposals by Sanders.
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I saw about as much fear of putting up a progressive as there was fear of rump getting reelected. I do believe the neo libs are more against any real change than they are of the current status quo- they just the status quo to go more their way.
The media everywhere was all about scare tactics and that Biden was the only choice to beat rump, like it or not, we have to focus on beating rump and changing his supporters pea sized brains....as if.....

They've shut down voting places in about every blue leaning district and switched them out at the very last minute. Now they're all about prepping to find something wrong with mail in ballots 🙄
Biden isn't more than a republican with a D, but he has my vote....
 
Indian Summer said:
I don't know about voter suppression, but I believe most voters in the Dem primaries have to be actual registered Dem voters. So am I right in thinking the kind of voter who is a registered Democrat is on average both older and more conservative than the average of the entire US voter population on the liberal/left side of the political spectrum?
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I don't have an opinion about your main question.
On the first point, in some states you have to be a registered Democrat to vote, but in many you don't. More here: Here are all the states where you have to register as a Democrat to vote in the presidential primary
One thing to note is that 35 million people voted in the democratic primary vs 65 million voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, so it's not like the candidate is being decided by a small slice of the electorate.

Indian Summer said:
Also, as the campaign developed and Biden took the lead, I suspect there was a tendency among voters to vote for whoever was in the lead. Some people just want to be on the winning side.
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I think there is some truth in it, but it may simply be that many voters, perhaps including working class and less educated voters, simply like Biden's personality or policies better.

It may be that the bulk of voters, including the middle classes, are just more concerned about COVID, the economy and jobs than they are about social and environmental justice which is essentially the main two arguments of the progressive, liberal left at the moment (in that order so social justice first then climate change etc).

I sometimes get the sense that the progressives and liberals win the battles of ideas without actually winning the elections. Usually whatever they are saying today will be a centrist position in the years and decades ahead but it's something the public isn't sure if they are ready for now. Or just focused on other things more.

If only people would look at debates like gay marriage, black lives matter and George Floyd, climate change, feminism, and others, and realize that what are or soon to be mainstream positions were things that the left have argued for, and the right denied, for a long time. I think the left needs to do a better job at asking voters to take the longer view of the record of the left and the right over time.

I bet in 5 or 10 years a centrist democrat candidate will get mainstream support across the party while adopting a number of Warren and Sanders policies and plans.
 
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Jamie in Chile said:
It may be that the bulk of voters, including the middle classes, are just more concerned about COVID, the economy and jobs than they are about social and environmental justice which is essentially the main two arguments of the progressive, liberal left at the moment (in that order so social justice first then climate change etc).
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This.
 
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