Bernie, Biden, Battlestar Galactica

BERNIE, BIDEN, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

The word ‘Coronavirus’ will only be used twice in this article…that was one of them. The other one is also right now: we are not going to be talking about the Coronavirus.

 Who is winning? Who is even still in the race? Why is Biden suddenly in all the headlines? Are the primaries important? Do our votes matter or are we just pawns? Are my vitamins making my pee smell weird?

 These are some of the burning questions that, I believe, we have all been asking ourselves. Well I’m here to answer most of them. If you’re having issues with your vitamins you should consult a doctor. As for the history of elections, how they work, and what the hell is going on…I can cover that.  Today we are going to cover how presidential elections work in America, the fallen warriors of the 2020 Democratic race, and the battle of the old white dudes – Gandalf and Saruman…I mean Bernie and Biden.  

Click the buttons below to navigate the post! I didn’t write a Just The Tip section for this post, because I am too lazy to accommodate other people who are also lazy. Just read the whole damn thing, kay?

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DISCLAIMER:

I am not a professional, this is not a legitimate source of news - just an informative and light hearted take on the current state of Democratic politics in the United States. Just enjoy it.

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HOW ELECTIONS WORK

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We are going to step into a time machine and travel back to 1787 – you’re at the Constitutional Convention, it’s hot, you have needed to use the outhouse for over an hour now, Hamilton won’t shut the hell up…*okay, stage is set*

 While you were thinking about almost peeing your pantaloons, and that speck of food stuck in Washington’s dentures, everyone else was arguing about how best to elect a President to the United States. Here’s what they discussed –

Many ideas were proposed, some people wanted Congress to elect the president, another very vocal group desperately fought for a direct popular election (which, spoiler alert, we do not have). Hamilton (our boy) was vehemently against this idea, which may surprise some.

But those of us that have read the Federalist Papers...just me?....well Hamilton spends a lot of time talking about some of his worst fears – mobs, information access, and populist presidents. As usual, Hamilton’s warnings were very astute. First, he worried that most average citizens lacked the resources to be fully informed about the candidates.

His second, and arguably biggest fear, was that an extremist and vocal ‘mob’ could steer the entire country astray.

Lastly, he feared that a populist president that appeals directly to the people could command a very dangerous amount of power. So basically, all three of those things define the Trump presidency.

This is why when historians and democrats say that Trump is threatening our Democracy, though it may sound hyperbolic, what they mean is that he checks all of the boxes that define a force that is capable of having power not previously designed for the presidency.

Hamilton’s fears have been realized despite their attempt at building a barrier between the people and the presidential election. This is where we get to the part that a surprising number of people don’t know: you, as a citizen of The Unites States do not vote to elect a president. *gasps*

Enter: The Electoral College

Every state is allowed a number of ‘electors’ – this number is calculated using the combined total of its membership in the Senate and its delegation in the House of Representatives. Which to sum up means, states all have more or less electors depending on how populated the state is.

This has been a point of contention in regards to U.S. Presidential Elections for decades and decades. It is also why candidates campaign particularly hard for states such as California – they’re worth more points. Your vote elects an elector, who then votes for your candidate…most of the time. I am not going to get into the details of the electoral college, all you need to know is that basically every single state has different rules surrounding it, and if you knew more about it you’d never believe in Democracy again.

“We’re organized as a republic. We’re not a direct democracy, the Founding Fathers set that up to make sure that large population bases do not overrun smaller populations”

– Rose Publiese, leading the effort in Colorado to reform electoral college process.

 There is a history of electoral college members voting against their party. These assholes are called “Faithless Electors”, and here’s how it works. Say you want Trump for president so you vote for the elector who represents the Republican candidate, and then that elector turns and votes for Hillary. Extremely rude.

However, Faithless Electors have never had a real impact on an election. So they just get labelled as dicks and we move on.  If you’re feeling confused because you don’t remember ever voting for an elector, that’s fine. Would it make you feel better to know that you do vote for a presidential candidate, which gets counted in the popular vote that doesn’t matter?! Ya me neither. The popular vote is only important because it tells us when the U.S. elects a president that the majority of people didn’t want         * cough cough *

This actually happens less than you’d think – it has happened in 1824, 1876, 1888…then no one had an issue for a while…and then the 2000’s came around and it happened in 2000 and obviously in 2016. Makes you wonder if those Republicans are up to something….I kid I kid.

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THE FALLEN

 Seems as if the Democratic ‘herd’ has thinned as quickly as it developed.

Some of the biggest drops are Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren. Although I think we were all surprised to find out that Tulsi Gabbard only dropped a few weeks ago…someone forgot to tell her to stop campaigning. Very awkward situation.

So all the dropping out began right before Super Tuesday, if we all recall. That’s about when every headline you read was about Biden (we’ll get to that later). While it may have seemed routine, the few weeks before and after Super Tuesday actually made history and are likely to shape the Democratic party for some years to come.

Why? Let’s start with Buttigieg.

 Was the United States ready for an openly gay president? There is a lot of debate on that, and we aren’t going to answer that question today. However it is worth noting that very few people attribute his fall in the polls to his sexuality – it will always be his inability to appeal to voters of color. Which is an achievement in and of itself.

He ran an extremely legitimate and competitive presidential campaign, and regardless of his loss he has undeniably broken a very difficult barrier.

What any political operative would tell you is that being openly gay and running for president is nearly impossible, you have to find the sweet spot between basing your campaign around sexual orientation or ignoring it and getting a beating for being ‘ashamed of your orientation’.

Pete walked that narrow line between letting it be the center of his campaign and letting it get washed away – and that is an incredible thing. His striking intelligence and military experience catapulted him to the top of the polls. In the end he couldn’t pull ahead of incumbents like Bernie or Warren because he just couldn’t command a diverse enough voting pool. His inability to command many Black or Latino votes was his true demise. He also lost some white votes for his inexperience – many argued that being a Mayor of a small town did not give him the qualifications for the presidency.

But most of all he brought the idea of an openly gay president from the abstract to the concrete and I enjoyed his campaign thoroughly.

Now let’s move on to Trump but Liberal – I mean Bloomberg. The Bloomberg campaign, similar to Buttigieg, was also a courageous test for the American people.

Can money buy the presidency?

Apparently it cannot. His money kept him in the race way past his expiration date, this much is true. But, you can’t put lipstick on a pig…and he really is a pig. No amount of beautiful marketing, creative commercials, etc., can make a pig look like it isn’t a pig. And a lot of people would say that Bloomberg definitely was a pig. With multiple accusations (unverified) of sexual harassment, horribly offensive quotes, past employers that describe their experiences with colorful terms – Bloomberg clearly didn’t realize that the American people aren’t looking away from those things anymore.

Although I do want to thank him for giving us this billboard…

The #MeToo movement has made powerful change in the way that men in power are handled in society. Bloomberg re-entered the public eye in a very different world from when he was mayor, and it showed.

People just aren’t enamored by billionaires or asshole business men anymore.

In the era of Donald Trump I am happy to say this at least once – Bloomberg was unsuccessful in pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people. He entered an already crowded Democratic race with genius marketing, loose platforms, a flaming Trump hatred, and a questionable past – and it just didn’t cut it.

Now let’s talk about what happened to Elizabeth Warren. Was it déjà vu from Hillary? Not exactly.

Hillary was more comparable to Bloomberg in my opinion, she carried a very heavy past with her into her campaign. Warren was the only of the ‘fringe’ candidates who hung in all the way through Super Tuesday (except also for Tulsi Gabbard…which how, and why?).

Warren’s super depressing results after super Tuesday sealed the deal for her, but today we are going to look at what happened to her campaign.

So the Warren kiss of death was that most of her voters looked like her, college-educated white women. Myself included. Although Warren wasn’t able to lasso the moderate liberal or the non-white vote, many would agree that she set the pace for this entire race.

Her policy plans drove the entire agenda and set the pace for the other candidates. She also relied on intensely loyal, small donors which set a competitive trend for the other candidates as well. After her extreme success early in the campaign and serving a beating to Buttigieg and Bloomberg in the debates, she suffered a very slow slide starting early in 2020. The New York Times wrote that her political demise was,

“…a death by a thousand cuts”.

Warren was much more moderate than many give her credit for, in fact her policies most similarly aligned with Andrew Yang (remember him?). Many do not realize the economic genius of Elizabeth Warren. She is a specialist in bankruptcy law, and much of that expertise was channeled into her student debt forgiveness plans and her new bankruptcy restructure plan.

She ran a rational, solutions based campaign. But there is a rule in competition that I’ve found to be almost universally true:

The better team will often stoop to play at the level of the worse team. Elizabeth Warren made this mistake, just as Hillary did in 2016.

When Warren’s numbers slipped she started to lean farther to the left as her campaign went on. By the time she hopped onto Bernie’s “Free College” train, she was grasping at straws. She received major backlash for that move, and it is when she really started to fall behind.

Her promises to take down Wall Street and to create big structural change will now go unfulfilled. But for many that are mourning her loss, that is not what ails them.

There are many women who after 2016, have begun to feel that America will never be ready for a female president. That misogyny runs too deep.

That pushing through misogyny your whole life, fighting tooth and nail to the top of your field, will only result in the world labelling you as bitchy, angry, or untrustworthy.

Many women like myself, are crying at a ceiling we seem unable to break.

But just like the sun rises in the east, the battle goes on.  As A. A. Milne said -

“Rivers know this, there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

Although, respectfully A. A. Milne…we are in a bit of a hurry.

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Bernie v. Biden

Even though the 2020 Democratic candidate pool started out as the most diverse in history, the American people whittled it down to the old white guys yet again.

Despite this disappointment, all of the candidates have played an influential role in shaping the narrative of where the remaining candidates stand today. First I just want to give an overall look at what each candidate stands for. Mostly because while we hear Bernie’s raspy screams about “Healthcahhh” in our sleep…what else does he stand for? And more importantly what the hell does Biden stand for?

Where Bernies fights for free healthcare, Biden wants a mix of that and private healthcare. Where Bernie wants free college tuition, Biden wants to lower tuition. Where Bernie wants a full assault weapon ban and destruction/buy-back program, Biden wants expanded background checks and assault weapon ban.

Biden basically is a more neutral version of Bernie. While they agree on most of the issues, Biden’s plans for legislation are less radical.

Some people think that Biden’s neutrality shows weakness, and that we need radical change.

Some believe that Bernie’s radical ideas divide the Democratic party instead of uniting it against Trump.

But it turns out that the ONLY thing that people care about right now is….ELECTABILITY. And Biden has oodles of that apparently. What is electability, and why are people voting on it?

Electability is not a real thing –

it’s just peoples’ perception of who ‘seems like they could win’. That is why Biden’s accrued accusations of assault, and history of bad policies don’t effect his ‘electability’. Because it isn’t a rational thing. But voting on electability is like the stock market, you’re betting on what you think people are going to do.

Right now, Democrats are voting on what they think other people are going to do. And basically, everyone thinks that people are too scared to vote for someone as extreme as Bernie, and losing to Trump. Which is exactly what happened on Super Tuesday. Biden’s win was so astounding, it blew all the pollsters’ tits off. The New York Times said:

“Biden won in states where he didn’t campaign. He won in states where he didn’t have offices.”

So why did he win so decidedly?

When the pressure hits, history has shown that Americans tend to play it safe.

But don’t be disheartened, because that hasn’t prevented massive social, political, and cultural shifts from happening like the abolition of slavery or women’s rights.

 I think one of the biggest things that represents the brokenness of the Democratic party is the Biden vs. Bernie debacle. It also represents the stark generational divide between the younger generations and Baby Boomers - even within a singular party. So many young people are furious with how the Dem. Party has been run, and we are tired of holding our nose and voting for the ‘electable’ one. All this while we watch our government get further and further entrenched in the assholes of big business. But our older voters hesitate at the thought of a radical movement (they’re old).

I know there are a lot of opinions around Bernie, but he represents something that has belonged to the young generations in all of American history – the desire to change the status quo. This is also what Trump was elected on (and a few other things). But I think it is important right now to *takes deep breath* recognize the similarities between the Trump and Bernie movements.

There is a growing disparity in America. People are hurting, they are fed up, they feel voiceless.

They watch money go into the wrong hands, they watch our government become a swamp. The poor people in America have never had a voice, but now the middle class is losing theirs as well. This is a deep, deep, hurt that both Democrats and Republicans are feeling.

Studies show that as income inequality grows, so does political polarization. Whether you are a M.A.G.A. hat wearer, or you’re camping out on Wall Street – we need to all realize that nobody is listening to us.

This sentiment got Trump elected, and it has fueled the Bernie movement as well. Many have pointed out the similarities in their followers as well – please don’t stop reading, I promise this part is almost over – both Trump and Bernie supporters are FIERCELY loyal and debatably populist. Both movements are built on the same emotions – fear and anger.

We are all hurting right now. Some blame Trump, some blame Capitalism, some blame social justice movements, political correctness, whatever your boogie man is – but we all have something in common. We are being taken advantage of.

That is how Trump got elected, and it is the same flame that has ripped through the hearts of Bernie supporters everywhere. I am not arguing that it is right or wrong or misguided, I’m just saying…it’s there, and it’s there for all of us. And it’s important that we all realize that we do have something in common.

We just disagree on how to fix it.

Why didn’t Bernie have as much success as Trump? Because Biden. Because American Democrats are scared of Trump’s erosion of our democracy, and they are willing to sacrifice a lot of progress for a little. I am here to tell you, that while this may make you angry, this is politics. Many Americans, Republican and Democrat alike, have an idealistic view of politics. That someone like Bernie or Trump can come in and tip over the tea kettle. But that is a unicorn. Many of our most powerful presidents have been mild-mannered men who are just really good at compromises.

But politics is a not a zero sum game, it’s more complex than winners and losers or good and evil.

A good compromise usually means that everybody feels a little good and a little shitty in the end. And that folks, is Joe Biden in a nutshell.

Trump was elected to drain the swamp, basically what Bernie wanted to do – and even if Trump actually wanted to do that, he hasn’t been able to. He is constantly frustrated by having to play by the rules and succumb to small incremental changes. Bernie would have suffered the same fate.

Let’s not pretend that Joe Biden isn’t a stale marshmallow of a candidate who represents so much of what the Democrats are fearful of. But there is a reason he has lasted this long, and there is a reason that Obama, Warren, and Bernie have finally waved their flags of support. It’s because he is good enough, and that right now is the prize. To get anywhere in politics, you have to play the dirty politics game. I don’t mean you have to be corrupt (although that’s a different discussion), I just mean you have to get a little dirty. Bernie was not willing to play the game, he was renowned for turning down talk shows and videos if he thought he wasn’t going to be praised. He was also renowned for rarely speaking or commenting publicly on anything outside of his stump speeches. And is there anyone better at being the butt of a joke than Biden? Ya, probably, but he does pretty well. His high-profile career in politics has trained him not to avoid bad press or hide at any whiff of hostile backlash. Biden isn’t going to expose the underbelly of government or drain the swamp, and for all of us that hoped and prayed for that in 2020, it is okay to feel loss.

It is okay to feel that we are pushing up against an immovable barrier…

…that the corruption in our government is untouchable, and that moderation will never make a dent. But it will make a dent. We have to keep making dents, as exhausting, and disheartening as it may be. Small snowballs roll down the hill to form big snowballs. We can’t cut corners. Biden may not make the big moves that Bernie promised, but he at least won’t let the dial move too far the other way.

Big structural change has happened in the face of much worse – but you just can’t alway come at it waving a big stick like Teddy Roosevelt.

In reality, change is made by every day people pounding and pounding and pounding at the barrier – because it moves a little bit every day. It’s just hard to see unless you take a step back Ferris Bueller style.

If we wait for a savior, we will watch our Democracy fall into pieces. Allowing Trump to continue into a second term while you wait for another Warren or Bernie, is naïve. There, I said it. We are young, and seeing the big picture isn’t our strong suit. But in the big picture, this is a marathon not a sprint. We have to start somewhere or we will never start. Spoiler -  the Savior doesn’t show up – we have to do it ourselves. Our president is a reflection of the people, it isn’t a chicken and the egg. We have to be the change, before we see that change in the White House. There. are. no. shortcuts. I’m not going to leave you with a loud, powerful, inspirational statement. Because this is about incremental change, and incremental change is what it is - painstaking and ordinary.

A little bit, every day. Today, it’s Joe Biden. Tomorrow – who knows? But probably something better.

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THAT’S ALL FOLKS