11-08-2024, 05:33 AM
https://www.resetera.com/threads/who-would-you-pick-to-be-the-2028-democrat-candidates-for-president.1029090/page-8#post-131309559
Thought this was an extremely rare good poli-era post. Does lack nuance but so does every post made on a forum, ever.
Quote:Here is my take, presented as a post-mortem of the first quarter of this century.
- George W was the ultimate representation of the establishment at its worst. A puppet of Wall Street, corporate lobbyists and warhawks. Even Republicans got sick of it. His presidency culminates with the 2008 financial crisis. Every day people suffer. The banks that caused it get bailed out, millions lose their homes. Middle America has had an absolute gutfull of the establishment. They want massive, massive change.
- Along comes Barack Obama, an impossibly charismatic man with the ability to move an audience unseen since MLK. He manages to miraculously sell people on the idea that this change can happen within the existing system. That there is more that unites us that divides us. That Democrats and Republicans can work across the aisle to make the American dream a reality for all, blah blah blah.
- It was bullshit. His charisma carries him through two terms, but it is still the same old establishment. Wars continue, drone strikes galore, the lobbyists still have the keys to the kingdom. But now on top of that we see some of the most partisan bullshittery in congress. Fuck all gets done. A whole 8 year presidency basically revolves around the debate over whether providing affordable healthcare to everyone is an egregious assault on freedom. It doesn't matter that GOP obstructionism was causing the legislative gridlock… to most people, it was just the same old Washington bullshit.
- Then we get to 2016 - the ultimate political sliding doors moment. There is a brief generational crossroads moment when people were hungry to try something radical and different. Anti-establishment sentiment was at fever pitch. Only one party ends up offering something different to voters. The Republicans offer up Donald Trump and right-wing anti-establishment populism. Bernie Sanders was the Democrats' man for this moment. He offered a similar anti-establishment brand that spoke to the same disaffected and middle-class voters that Trump was speaking to, but instead of divisive racism and bigotry, he was selling an effective message that that showed people that they were united by social/economic class rather than divided by race. He was generating incredible enthusiasm from everyday people. The internet embraced him, including many young males who were in the formative phase of developing their political identity - the "Bernie Bros".
- We know what happens next. I won't relitigate it, but the DNC gave us Hillary. "It was her turn".
- Michael Moore sounded the alarm bells. He was mocked. Trump wins, bigly. Instead of criticising the DNC for running a campaign that utterly misread the mood of the electorate, some of us (including me) blame the Bernie Bros for failing to fall-in line behind a party they have zero connection to. Some of them become very disenchanted and will go on to become easy meat and ultimately useful idiots for the alt-right and other political grifters.
- 2020 through a perfect storm of Covid and the general awfulness of Trump, the electorate experiences a slight moment nostalgia for how things used to be. Despite major predictions of a Biden landslide, he squeaks through by the narrowest of margins. People rejoice that Trumpism has been defeated. They were wrong.
- If Obama wasn't the very last chance for the establishment to show it could deliver, then Biden was the absolute last chance saloon. He did the best he could despite the best obstructionist efforts of the GOP House of Reps. The global economy struggles as they try to piece back together supply chain after COVID. Inflation soars. It's Joever.
- 2024 becomes a mirror of 2016. Trump's anti-establishment right wing populism vs the next hand-picked chosen one from the DNC Line of Succession, this time without even the illusion of a mandate that comes from winning a primary. "At least she was Vice-President… it's her turn."
Trump wins.
And now here we are, passionately debating who is next anointed senator or governor in the line of succession. "Whose turn is it?"
Thought this was an extremely rare good poli-era post. Does lack nuance but so does every post made on a forum, ever.