SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[LadyTevar]

WV's Governor just announced that the MAY 2020 Primary will be ALL ABSENTEE/MAIL-IN Ballots.

I'm trying to find some info on how that'll work out right now.

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly, one of the pandemic-inspired changes I'm hoping sticks is all elections being moved to absentee/mail ballots. It'll increase overall access to voting, and hopefully increase turnout.

[The Romulan Republic]

"Reality has endorsed Bernie Sanders":

https://newyorker.com/news/our-columnis ... ie-sanders

The debate over the role of government in addressing income inequality, housing insecurity, debt accumulation, and health care continues, now against the grim backdrop of the raging coronavirus. It is difficult to articulate the speed with which the U.S. and, indeed, the world, has descended into an existential crisis. We are experiencing an unprecedented public-health event whose diminution and potential resolution rests with a series of prescriptions, including settlement-in-place orders, that will annihilate the economy. The deadly spread of covid-19 demands enclosure as a way to starve the searching virus of bodies to inhabit. The consequences of doing so removes workers from work and consumers from consumption; no economy can operate under these conditions.

American life has been suddenly and dramatically upended, and, when things are turned upside down, the bottom is brought to the surface and exposed to the light. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath ravaged the Gulf Coast, it, too, provided a deeper look into the darkness of U.S. inequality. As the actor Danny Glover said then, “When the hurricane struck the Gulf and the floodwaters rose and tore through New Orleans, plunging its remaining population into a carnival of misery, it did not turn the region into a Third World country, as it has been disparagingly implied in the media; it revealed one. It revealed the disaster within the disaster; gruelling poverty rose to the surface like a bruise to our skin.”

For years, the United States has gotten away with persistently chipping away at its weak welfare state by hiding or demonizing the populations most dependent on it. The poor are relegated as socially dysfunctional and inept, unable to cash in on the riches of American society. There are more than forty million poor people in the U.S., but they almost never merit a mention. While black poverty is presented as exemplary, white poverty is obscured, and Latinos and other brown people’s experiences are ignored. As many as four in five Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck. Forty per cent of Americans say that they cannot cover an unexpected four-hundred-dollar emergency expense.

This is a virus that will thrive in the intimacy of American poverty. For years now, even in the midst of the economic recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, rising rents and stagnant salaries and wages have forced millions of families to improvise housing; nearly four million households live in overcrowded homes. This is the cruel irony of the San Francisco Bay Area’s shelter-in-place mandate: the region is at the epicenter of the U.S. housing crisis, as exemplified by its growing unsheltered homeless population. How do you practice social isolation without privacy or personal space? There are the crowded public offices that poor people congregate in to navigate access to services and income. There are the emergency rooms that function as primary health-care providers—not to mention the county jails and state prisons.

Economic inequality is exacerbated by racial injustice, both held in place by a threadbare social-safety net. Black and brown populations are particularly vulnerable to infection because poverty is a fount of underlying conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, pulmonary disease, and heart disease, that make it more likely that the virus will be deadly. They are also more vulnerable because greater rates of poverty and under-employment have hindered access to health care. In Milwaukee, the most segregated city in the U.S., where black unemployment is four times the rate of white unemployment, the majority of diagnosed coronavirus cases are middle-aged black men. And as anyone who has ever had to wonder how they will make their rent payment knows, the stress of economic uncertainty is corrosive, eating into the capability of the immune system.

But the danger of contracting the coronavirus will hardly be the problem of the poor and working class alone. Those who, because of poverty and insecurity, are most vulnerable to infection also have disproportionate contact with the broader public, through their low-wage retail and service work. Consider the plight of the home health-care worker. Millions of such workers attend to a largely elderly and homebound population for meagre hourly wages and often without health insurance. In 2018, home health-care workers, eighty-seven per cent of whom are women and sixty per cent of whom are black or Latino, made an average of about eleven dollars and fifty cents an hour. These workers are the sinews of our society: they must work to insure that our society continues to function, even as that work poses potential threats to their clients and the general public. Their insecurity, combined with the failure of meaningful action by the federal government, will make the suppression of the virus nearly impossible.

Thus far, the Trump Administration has predictably bungled the response to the coronavirus. But the Democratic Party’s response has been hampered by its shared hostility to unleashing the power of the state, through the advance of vast universal programs, to attend to an unprecedented, devolving catastrophe. About half of American workers receive health insurance through their employer. As job losses mount, millions of workers will lose their insurance while the public-health crisis surges. In the last Democratic debate, former Vice-President Joe Biden insisted that the U.S. doesn’t need single-payer health care because the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy proved that it doesn’t work. Strangely, he simultaneously insisted that all testing and treatment of the virus should be free because we are in crisis. This insistence that health care should only be free in an emergency reveals a profound ignorance about the ways that preventive medicine can mitigate the harshest effects of an acute infection. By mid-February, a Chinese government study of that country’s coronavirus-related deaths found that those with preëxisting conditions accounted for at least a third of all covid-19 fatalities.

Dismissing the necessity of universal health care also shows an obliviousness to the power of medical expenses to alter the course of one’s life. Two-thirds of Americans who file for bankruptcy say that medical debt or losing work while they were sick contributed to their need to do so. The costs of medical treatment become a reason for postponing visits to the doctor. A 2018 poll found that forty-four per cent of Americans delayed seeing a doctor due to its cost. Already, half of Americans polled have said that they worry about the costs of the testing and treatment of covid-19. In a situation like the one we are in, it becomes easy to see the ways that encumbered access to health care exacerbates a public-health breakdown. N.B.A. players, celebrities, and the wealthy have access to the coronavirus test, but attending nurses and frontline health-care workers, community health centers, and public hospitals do not. Health-care inequalities are problems that have been left unattended, creating so many small, imperceptible fractures that, in the midst of a full-scale crisis, the structure is collapsing, shattering under its own weight.

The case has never been clearer for a transition to Medicare for All, but its achievement clashes with the Democratic Party’s decades-long hostility to funding the social-welfare state. At the heart of this resistance is the pernicious glorification of “personal responsibility,” through which success or failure in life is seen as an expression of personal fortitude or personal laxity. The American Dream, we are told, is anchored in the promise of unfettered social mobility, a destiny driven by self-determination and perseverance. This ingrained thinking evades the fact that it was the New Deal, in the nineteen-thirties, and the G.I. Bill, in the nineteen-forties, that, through a combination of federal work programs, subsidies, and government-backed guarantees, created a middle-class life style for millions of white Americans. In the nineteen-sixties, as a result of prolonged black protest, Lyndon Johnson authored the War on Poverty and other Great Society programs, which were intended to lessen the impact of decades of racial discrimination in jobs, housing, and education. By 1969, with Richard Nixon at the helm, during an economic downturn that ended what was then the longest economic expansion in American history, the conservatives attacked the notion of the “social contract” embedded in all of these programs, claiming that they rewarded laziness and were evidence of special rights for some. When Nixon ran for reëlection, in 1972, he claimed that his campaign pitted the “work ethic” against the “welfare ethic.”

This was an attack not only on public aid and subsidized housing but also on the people using those programs. Republicans successfully tapped into the racial resentments of white suburbanites, who decried “their” tax dollars going to unruly, rioting African-Americans. They resented “forced integration,” “forced busing,” and “the bureaucrats,” as Nixon derisively called the previous Democratic Administrations. It is important to understand that this was not demonization for its own sake or because of some irrational antipathy toward African-Americans. This was about keeping the corporate tax rate low and reëstablishing the profitability of capital in the aftermath of another, longer economic downturn. It is hard for businesses and their political representatives to counsel ordinary workers to do more with less. It was easier to blame welfare queens, welfare cheats, and an oblique, yet black, underclass for the end of these “wasteful” programs. In 1973, Nixon unceremoniously declared an end to the “urban crisis”—the catalyst for much of Johnson’s welfare state. This created the pretext for his gutting of the Office of Economic Opportunity, the office that managed the web of anti-poverty programs created by the War on Poverty.

The eventual defection of ordinary white voters from the Democratic Party to the Republicans meant that the Democrats soon aped the right’s strategy of downplaying the structural roots of inequality while portraying black communities as ultimately responsible for their own hardships. By the end of the nineteen-eighties, the Democratic Party was championing law-and-order politics and harsh, racist attacks on welfare entitlements. In a 1988 column for the Post of Newark, Delaware, titled “Welfare System About to Change,” the then Senator Biden wrote, “We are all too familiar with the stories of welfare mothers driving luxury cars and leading lifestyles that mirror the rich and famous. Whether they are exaggerated or not, these stories underlie a broad social concern that the welfare system has broken down—that it only parcels out welfare checks and does nothing to help the poor find productive jobs.” This statement was hardly extraordinary; it reflected widespread efforts to transform public perceptions of the Democratic Party. By the early nineties, President Bill Clinton was promising to “end welfare as we know it,” which he succeeded in doing by the end of the decade.

This is the historical backdrop to the hypocrisy of U.S. government-spending priorities today. Bipartisan denunciations of big government do not apply to the obscene amounts spent on the military or the maintenance of the nation’s criminal-justice system. The U.S., across all levels of government, spends more than eighty billion dollars annually to operate jails and prisons and to maintain probation and parole. The budget for the U.S. armed forces topped out at a stunning seven hundred and thirty-eight billion dollars for this year alone—more than the next seven largest military budgets in the world. Meanwhile, social-welfare programs—from food stamps to Medicaid, to subsidized and assisted housing, to public schools—are forced to provide on the thinnest margin, triaging crises, rather than actually pulling people out of poverty.

When Bernie Sanders’s critics mocked his platform as just a bunch of “free stuff,” they were drawing on the past forty years of bipartisan consensus about social-welfare benefits and entitlements. They have argued, instead, that competition organized through the market insures more choices and better quality. In fact, the surreality of market logic was on clear display when, on March 13th, Donald Trump held a press conference to discuss the covid-19 crisis with executives from Walgreens, Target, Walmart, and CVS, and a host of laboratory, research, and medical-device corporations. There were no social-service providers or educators there to discuss the immediate, overwhelming needs of the public.

The crisis is laying bare the brutality of an economy organized around production for the sake of profit and not human need. The logic that the free market knows best can be seen in the prioritization of affordability in health care as millions careen toward economic ruin. It is seen in the ways that states have been thrown into frantic competition with one another for personal protective equipment and ventilators—the equipment goes to whichever state can pay the most. It can be seen in the still criminally slow and inefficient and inconsistent testing for the virus. It is found in the multi-billion-dollar bailout of the airline industry, alongside nickel-and-dime means tests to determine which people might be eligible to receive ridiculously inadequate public assistance.

The argument for resuming a viable social-welfare state is about not only attending to the immediate needs of tens of millions of people but also reëstablishing social connectivity, collective responsibility, and a sense of common purpose, if not common wealth. In an unrelenting and unemotional way, covid-19 is demonstrating the vastness of our human connection and mutuality. Our collectivity must be borne out in public policies that repair the friable welfare infrastructure that threatens to collapse beneath our social weight. A society that allows hundreds of thousands of home health-care workers to labor without health insurance, that keeps school buildings open so that black and brown children can eat and be sheltered, that allows millionaires to stow their wealth in empty apartments while homeless families navigate the streets, that threatens eviction and loan defaults while hundreds of millions are mandated to stay inside to suppress the virus, is bewildering in its incoherence and inhumanity.

Naomi Klein has written about how the political class has used social catastrophes to create policies that allow for private plunder. She calls it “disaster capitalism,” or the “shock doctrine.” But she has also written that, in each of these moments, there are also opportunities for ordinary people to transform their conditions in ways that benefit humanity. The class-driven hierarchy of our society will encourage the spread of this virus unless dramatic and previously unthinkable solutions are immediately put on the table. As Sanders has counselled, we must think in unprecedented ways. This includes universal health care, an indefinite moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, the cancellation of student-loan debt, a universal basic income, and the reversal of all cuts to food stamps. These are the basic measures that can staunch the immediate crisis of deprivation—of millions of layoffs and millions more to come.

The Sanders campaign was an entry point to this discussion. It has shown public appetite, even desire, for vast spending and new programs. These desires did not translate into votes because they seemed like a risky endeavor when the consequence was four more years of Trump. But the mushrooming crisis of covid-19 is changing the calculus. As federal officials announce new trillion-dollar aid packages daily, we can never go back to banal discussions of “How will we pay for it?” How can we not? Now is a moment to remake our society anew.

[The Romulan Republic]

New York Presidential primary pushed back all the way to June 23rd:

https://cbsnews.com/news/new-york-presi ... -announces

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that the state's presidential primary is being moved from April 28 to June 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic. New York is the hardest-hit state in the nation, with over 52,000 reported cases of the total 110,000 cases that were confirmed in the country as of Saturday.

"I don't think it's wise to be bringing people to one location to vote," Cuomo said.

The Democratic National Committee currently has rules in place that penalize any state that holds its primary after June 9, although it is unclear if it will keep those rules amid the pandemic.

The June 23 New York primary date will now be linked to congressional and legislative primary elections that were scheduled for that day.

Ten other states and Puerto Rico have moved their primaries, mostly until June. June 2 is shaping up to the next Super Tuesday with more than 400 delegates at stake.

Four states have switched their contests to mail only, and Montana is expanding the mail option. Hawaii's April 4 contest will be entirely by mail and Ohio, which delayed its scheduled March 10 contests, will be a vote-by-mail primary on April 28.

The next in-person voting contest that is still scheduled is Wisconsin's, on April 7. Guam and Kansas are scheduled for May 2.

Sarah Ewall-Wice contributed reporting.

Getting a bit close to the convention there. While some primaries will no doubt be done by mail ballot, I'm honestly starting to wonder if we might see a situation where there has to be a brokered convention simply because so many votes were cancelled that Biden was never able to technically win a majority. As well as those inclined to do so being able to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the primary, due to so many people being unable to vote.

I'm pretty much resigning myself to a brokered convention between Bernie, Biden, and possibly an attempt to put in a third compromise candidate (maybe Warren or Cuomo). Biden likely wins on the second ballot, though, unless the sex abuse allegations pick up more steam.

[B5B7]

Many nations will have thousands die from Covid-19, but the USA will have hundreds of thousands, even millions die from it.
Two major factors are the iniquity mentioned in the OP article and the "leadership" of Trump.
American historians in the future will not simply label this the Covid-19 pandemic, but the Trump-enhanced Covid-19 pandemic/disaster.
Of course, Trump alone isn't to blame. The failure to remove him by the Republicans contribute to this.
One wonders if it is still possible for the senate to vote again on the impeachment to endorse it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Many nations will have thousands die from Covid-19, but the USA will have hundreds of thousands, even millions die from it.
Two major factors are the iniquity mentioned in the OP article and the "leadership" of Trump.
American historians in the future will not simply label this the Covid-19 pandemic, but the Trump-enhanced Covid-19 pandemic/disaster.
Of course, Trump alone isn't to blame. The failure to remove him by the Republicans contribute to this.
One wonders if it is still possible for the senate to vote again on the impeachment to endorse it.

I don't think they can on the original impeachment.

Theoretically, the House could impeach again on different articles of impeachment (Trump has done so, so many impeachable things) and then the Senate could vote on those, but its doubtful the outcome would be substantively different (it might even be slightly worse, if Romney has been sufficiently cowed or finds the new articles less persuasive), and the political will to try it isn't there, with the election so close.

[Gandalf]

WV's Governor just announced that the MAY 2020 Primary will be ALL ABSENTEE/MAIL-IN Ballots.

I'm trying to find some info on how that'll work out right now.

On the upside, current events could be the kick in the arse that the US needs to move into the 20th century on processes like this.

But I could say the same about all sorts of health care and infrastructural issues.

[The Romulan Republic]

WV's Governor just announced that the MAY 2020 Primary will be ALL ABSENTEE/MAIL-IN Ballots.

I'm trying to find some info on how that'll work out right now.

On the upside, current events could be the kick in the arse that the US needs to move into the 20th century on processes like this.

But I could say the same about all sorts of health care and infrastructural issues.

Coronavirus is forcing a lot of change that should have happened a long time ago, yes. I don't think most people have really grasped yet that this is a world-shaking event on the scale of WWII and the Depression. The world on the other side will not look like the world we remember, and future generations will divide the history of the 21st. Century into pre and post-COVID-19.

Whether the changes will fall more on the side of authoritarianism/fascism, or 21st Century Democratic socialism, remains to be seen, and will doubtless be hard fought. And considering the even bigger crisis we have looming up ahead (climate change), the future of humanity may well hinge on the answer to that.

[The Romulan Republic]

Sanders is calling on Wisconsin to delay their primary:

https://msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/bernie-sa ... 1492037816

I've said before that the strongest argument for Sanders to drop out is that continuing the primary under these circumstances risks lives. At least he seems to be aware of that risk, in urging Wisconsin to delay (although there's also doubtless a tactical motive- delaying the next primary gives him more time to try to turn his poll numbers around in a state where he really needs a win).

[The Romulan Republic]

DNC postpones convention to August 17th:

https://politico.com/news/2020/04/02/dn ... -17-161459

The Democratic National Committee is postponing the party’s presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee to Aug. 17, the week before the Republican Party’s convention.

The delay from July 13 came after likely nominee Joe Biden publicly called for the convention to be rescheduled in response to the coronavirus pandemic. And it followed weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions with party leaders and the campaigns of the two remaining presidential candidates, Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The DNC had been resisting calls from Democratic officials to change the date, but was forced to shift gears after Biden this week called for a delay.

“I’m confident our convention planning team and our partners will find a way to deliver a convention in Milwaukee this summer that places our Democratic nominee on the path to victory in November,” convention CEO Joe Solmonese said in a statement Thursday.

In addition to postponing, DNC officials are discussing ways to scale back the convention. The committee is not flush with cash and wants to avoid the appearance of throwing a big party in the midst of a severe economic downturn.

“People are going to be hurting,” a DNC official said. “It’s not a time be lavish.”

While there has been talk about having a virtual convention, party officials and Biden — the presumptive nominee — would like to have a live event as long as it can be done safely, according to sources within the DNC and one with Biden’s campaign.

“Joe earned this, and we do want something to mark that, but it’s really complicated,” the Biden campaign source said.

The new date would put the Democratic National Convention back-to-back with its Republican counterpart, which is set to begin Aug. 24 in Charlotte, N.C. The proximity in time presents messaging challenges for both sides: Biden will not have as much time to enjoy a potential polling bounce before the Republican National Convention begins dominating coverage. And Republicans will not have as much time to plan out responses to speeches and events in Milwaukee.

The new dates also complicate the Biden campaign's financial situation, because it will not be able to access general election funds until August instead of July. Biden has relied more on wealthy donors who gave the maximum amount than Bernie Sanders did. But the former vice president isn't legally allowed to access the portion of those contributions dedicated to the general election until he's officially the nominee.

The coronavirus has undoubtedly taken a toll on Biden’s fundraising just as he was starting to pull in record sums for his campaign. However, Biden’s campaign staff was relatively small for a de facto nominee because of his earlier struggles with fundraising, so the campaign was used to subsisting on less than its rivals.

Biden aides said the campaign has saved additional money during the coronavirus crisis because it scaled back on advertising, didn’t go on a hiring binge and doesn’t have to pay the overhead of a traditional campaign as the candidate and staff shelter in place.

“It’s amazing how much you save if you don’t put on rallies and have to fly across the country every day,” an adviser said.

Another Biden campaign official said the new dynamic was manageable. "We can still raise and spend primary money up to the time we are the nominee, and we can raise (and not spend) general money," the official said. "This is about when the 2008 convention took place, and it didn’t hurt us.”

The DNC’s decision drew praise from officials involved in the convention planning.

Alex Lasry, senior vice president of the Milwaukee Bucks and a leader of the Milwaukee convention bid, told POLITICO: “This is the right decision for the safety of those involved in the convention and for Milwaukee. An August convention will provide a much-needed economic boost for Milwaukee and Wisconsin as we come out of this unprecedented time.”

Biden all but sealed the decision during an appearance on "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday.

"I doubt whether the Democratic convention is going to be held in mid-July or early July — I think it's gonna have to move into August," Biden said.

This may be necessary, but it also seems like a recipe for disaster. Because this means the primary won't officially be over, and Biden won't be officially the nominee, until late August. Which means Trump basically gets to campaign (to the extent campaigning is possible right now) unopposed through the whole summer, and the Democrats will have only two and a half months to run against him.

Then again, maybe there's a bright spot. The Democrats can concentrate their funds on that narrow two-month period. And if the debates end up getting cancelled, then it'll keep Biden's feebleness from being even more exposed in public.

[The Romulan Republic]

Judge has declined to postpone Wisconsin's primary. Because fuck voters' safety, I guess:

https://politico.com/news/2020/04/02/ju ... id=covid_m

A federal judge expanded absentee voting in Wisconsin in a ruling ahead of Tuesday’s coronavirus-stricken state elections, but he is not postponing the vote, saying that he did not have the authority to do so.

U.S. District Judge William Conley ordered the state to extend two key absentee ballot deadlines in an effort to mitigate a drop in voter turnout. Voters will have an extra day — until 5 p.m. Friday — to request absentee ballots, and, more significantly, Conley ordered election officials to count absentee ballots received by 4 p.m. on April 13, nearly a week after the original deadline of 8 p.m. on election night. Ballots do not have to be postmarked by any particular time.

Conley was sharply critical of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and the Wisconsin legislature, which is Republican-controlled, for not acting to postpone the presidential primary and local elections themselves. The judge said that it was unsafe for the state to have people go to the polls amid the coronavirus pandemic, but he ultimately decided that he did not have the authority to postpone the election.

“The Wisconsin State Legislature and Governor apparently are hoping” that state residents are “willing to ignore the obvious risk to themselves and others of proceeding with in-person voting, will thread the needle to produce a reasonable voter turnout and no increase in the dissemination of COVID-19,” Conley wrote in his order.

“However unlikely this outcome may be, or ill-advised in terms of the public health risk and the likelihood of a successful election, the only role of a federal district court is to take steps that help avoid the impingement on citizens’ rights to exercise their voting franchise,” Conley continued.

Additionally, Conley’s order waives a requirement that absentee voters have a witness certify their ballot. Absentee voters can now provide a written statement that they “were unable to safely obtain a witness certification despite reasonable efforts to do so,” and the ballot can still count.

“Every voter must count, even during crises, and this ruling gives voters critical time to vote safely by mail,” Ben Wikler, the chair of the state Democratic Party, said in a statement shortly after the order was published.

And I'm sure there will be no doubts whatsoever about the legitimacy of a vote where turnout is massively depressed due to a pandemic.

[Napoleon the Clown]

DNC postpones convention to August 17th:

<snip>

This may be necessary, but it also seems like a recipe for disaster. Because this means the primary won't officially be over, and Biden won't be officially the nominee, until late August. Which means Trump basically gets to campaign (to the extent campaigning is possible right now) unopposed through the whole summer, and the Democrats will have only two and a half months to run against him.

Then again, maybe there's a bright spot. The Democrats can concentrate their funds on that narrow two-month period. And if the debates end up getting cancelled, then it'll keep Biden's feebleness from being even more exposed in public.

You know what would let the Democrats focus on campaigning for the general? If Bernie dropped out. He has no realistic path to the nomination, the longer he keeps going the more it will be pissing people off, etc... I'm so far from thrilled at the idea of voting for Biden in the general it's not funny, but there's no fucking way Bernie gets this thing. He drops out, he endorses Biden, and it's probable that enough of the delegates he's received thus far will go to Biden due to delegate rules in states that have already voted that Biden will technically have all the necessary votes come the convention. Let's be realistic: Even if Bernie somehow manages to get the nomination, there's a very real possibility Hillary's 2016 supporters will just stay home in big enough numbers to fuck us. Keep in mind that more Hillary 2008 voters went to McCain than Bernie 2016 supporters went Trump. I am sure they will GLADLY fuck us into 4 more years of Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

DNC postpones convention to August 17th:

<snip>

This may be necessary, but it also seems like a recipe for disaster. Because this means the primary won't officially be over, and Biden won't be officially the nominee, until late August. Which means Trump basically gets to campaign (to the extent campaigning is possible right now) unopposed through the whole summer, and the Democrats will have only two and a half months to run against him.

Then again, maybe there's a bright spot. The Democrats can concentrate their funds on that narrow two-month period. And if the debates end up getting cancelled, then it'll keep Biden's feebleness from being even more exposed in public.

You know what would let the Democrats focus on campaigning for the general? If Bernie dropped out. He has no realistic path to the nomination, the longer he keeps going the more it will be pissing people off, etc... I'm so far from thrilled at the idea of voting for Biden in the general it's not funny, but there's no fucking way Bernie gets this thing. He drops out, he endorses Biden, and it's probable that enough of the delegates he's received thus far will go to Biden due to delegate rules in states that have already voted that Biden will technically have all the necessary votes come the convention. Let's be realistic: Even if Bernie somehow manages to get the nomination, there's a very real possibility Hillary's 2016 supporters will just stay home in big enough numbers to fuck us. Keep in mind that more Hillary 2008 voters went to McCain than Bernie 2016 supporters went Trump. I am sure they will GLADLY fuck us into 4 more years of Trump.

Considering that Biden has multiple sex abuse allegations against him and appears to be going senile, and that this whole campaign in particular has been marked but sudden and unexpected reversals of fortune (remember when we all assumed Biden was toast, five weeks ago?), there are reasons to stay in. I think desperate, last ditch efforts are justified to give our voters an alternative to having to choose between two serial gropers and accused rapists in November. If the voters choose not to take that alternative- so be it. But let them at least have the choice.

In a better world, Biden would drop out and let someone-anyone-else have the nomination. But he won't, and the DNC won't make him, so Bernie remaining in gives the voters their only alternative, however slim a chance it may be.

Even if Bernie can't win, there are reasons (to give his voters in late primaries a chance to have their voices heard, to keep attention focussed on the issues important to him, and to try to pull Biden and the party platform further to the Left).

There is an argument for him to drop out because continuing the primary increases the risks of spreading coronavirus, as I've acknowledged- but that has nothing to do with "dividing the party". Bernie dropping out now will not unite the party. Demanding that Bernie drop out now, and implying preemptively that any loss to Trump will be the fault of him and his supporters, as you are doing, certainly will not unite the party. All it will do is piss Sanders supporters off more.

You are right that some Hillary supporters might stay home if Bernie was nominee- but that just underscores the dishonesty and double-standard of blaming party divisions on Bernie and his supporters. Its also possible that the women who pushed the Blue Wave to victory in 2018 will stay home when given what appears to be a choice between the lesser of two rapists. I sincerely hope that's not the case, because I above all believe the priority has to be stopping the mass murdering criminal currently in the White House- but let's not pretend that the party would all be singing kumbaya if it weren't for that nasty Bernie.

My personal view is that all candidates have a right to stay in to the convention, but that circumstances (ie, COVID) may make it wiser for Bernie to drop out before then. Any decisions he makes in that regard should be made in consultation with the local, state, and federal health authorities, however- not the DNC.

[The Romulan Republic]

In fact, while I'm sure he'd rather he didn't have to keep running against Bernie, even Biden knows its fucking stupid to start trying to pressure him into dropping out, or scape-goating his supporters:

https://axios.com/biden-not-the-time-to ... 3825d.html

Joe Biden was asked by an attendee at a virtual fundraiser tonight whether he had any updates on Bernie Sanders' campaign and if he's going to drop out.

What they're saying: "Now’s not the time for me or anyone to call for him to drop out," Biden said. "I know firsthand what a personal decision that is."
Why it matters: If Biden becomes the nominee, he'll need Sanders to do everything he can to help him win — and that'll be a lot easier if he's hands-off about whether and how Sanders exits the race.

Biden's team and Sanders' team are talking with each other about the future of the race. "I have to be very blunt with you: Our staffs have been talking — Bernie’s staff and mine," Biden said. "I don't know where it’s going to go, but I have enormous respect for him."

"Whether Bernie gets out or stays in remains to be seen," Biden added, saying that the coronavirus “is making things more complicated for him and everyone else.
Between the lines: The question was centered around unifying the Democratic Party, and that's a big concern for Democrats as they try to defeat President Trump and void a party divided like in 2016 between Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

"If I’m the nominee I’m confident Bernie will push his supporters to support me, just as I would if it were reversed," Biden said. "He’s poured his heart and soul into this. He’s made some significant changes in American politics that have been positive."

I've said a lot of very critical things about Biden, albeit to my mind most of them thoroughly deserved. But I'll give him credit: this is exactly the right approach to take if he wants to unify the party, and a much better approach than I saw from the Hillary camp in 2016. I just wish more of his supporters would follow his example (as I wish the Bernie or Busters would follow Bernie's).

[The Romulan Republic]

President Trump admits that he doesn't want Americans voting because Republicans could not win a fair election:

https://peoplesworld.org/article/voter- ... many-vote/

Excerpt from a longer article on voter suppression, but:

When discussing the now-passed stimulus package, Trump boldly asserted how he and the GOP made sure to gut any measures proposed by the Democrats to help voters exercise their rights. This included a severe decrease in the amount of money Democrats requested, out of the $2.2 trillion package, for states to help them run elections.

Trump’s reasoning? Republicans wouldn’t win if voting was made easier and readily available.

“They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said during his appearance. “They had things in there about election days and what you do and all sorts of clawbacks. They had things that were just totally crazy and had nothing to do with workers that lost their jobs and companies that we have to save.”

Trump tried to proclaim that measures to secure people’s right to vote have nothing to do with workers and their current hardships. Yet voting has everything to do with the hardships that working people face. Voting is one of the most direct ways working people can hold elected officials accountable for their actions. Voters are crucial in determining the leadership that will make decisions about their livelihoods and, as we are seeing during this pandemic, their very existence.

Got that? The President of the United States just admitted he's using the pandemic to suppress the vote because he can't win a fair election.

So... I guess that means we can dismiss any election he wins as invalid? Since he just admitted he couldn't win a fair race.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://politico.com/news/2020/04/03/tr ... rus-162152

President Donald Trump’s political operation is launching a multimillion-dollar legal campaign aimed at blocking Democrats from drastically changing voting rules in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

In the past several weeks, the reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee have helped to oversee maneuvering in a handful of battleground states with an eye toward stopping some Democratic efforts to alter voting laws, and to bolster Trump. The mobilization is being closely coordinated with Republicans at the state and local levels.

The Trump campaign and RNC are actively engaged in litigation in Wisconsin, where the parties are at loggerheads over an array of issues including voter identification, and in New Mexico, where the battle involves vote-by-mail. The skirmishing has also spread across key states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, where the well-organized Trump apparatus has fought over changes that could sway the outcome of the election.

The enterprise — which includes more than two dozen GOP officials, including lawyers dedicated entirely to litigation — shows how completely the pandemic has upended the 2020 election. While litigation over voting issues is not uncommon, the coronavirus — and the likely obstacles it will create for voting in November — has brought the issue to the forefront of the campaign.

The public health crisis is already injecting a huge X-factor into the election, with impossible-to-predict effects on voter turnout, and officials in both parties acknowledge the fights over voting laws could affect the outcome of the election.

Democrats — who typically benefit from high turnout elections because their voters cast ballots less reliably — are plowing ahead with initiatives to make it easier to vote. Appearing Tuesday on MSNBC, likely Democratic nominee Joe Biden described a range of possible changes, such as using drive-through voting stations.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi shifted her tone on Friday, calling for a much more focused “Phase 4” relief package to address immediate needs related to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is about making sure that we're able to conduct our democracy while we're dealing with a pandemic. We can do both,” Biden said. “There's a lot of ways to do it, but we should be talking about it now.”

Trump advisers say they are open to certain changes, such as automatically sending absentee ballot applications to voters over age 65. But they’re opposed to other moves Democrats are pushing, such as sending every voter a ballot regardless of whether they ask for one, which Republicans argue would open the door to fraud.

Trump has long been fixated on voter fraud. He has repeatedly claimed without evidence that he lost New Hampshire in 2016 because out-of-staters cast ballots, and after the election the president set up a since-disbanded voter fraud commission. Following the disastrous 2018 midterms, Trump said that after voting, some people “go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again.”

During an appearance on Fox News this week, Trump pushed back against an effort by House Democrats to secure billions of dollars for election assistance in the coronavirus relief package. The bill Trump ultimately signed included $400 million, a fraction of what Democrats had been seeking.

“The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said.

Federal funding to help states ease voting barriers in response to coronavirus is just one front in the battle. Trump's political apparatus is taking a state-by-state approach.

In Pennsylvania, where Democrats proposed an entirely vote-by-mail system, Trump advisers worked with the Republican-controlled Legislature to push through more circumscribed rules. They include a limited expansion of absentee voting and changes to the handling and counting of those ballots.

In Georgia, some officials are recommending sending everyone a ballot, also a no-go for Trump's team. The president’s advisers instead advocated mailing people applications they would need to fill out and return in order to receive a ballot. The idea was approved by Georgia’s Democratic Party and Republican secretary of state.

Republicans see an advantage in the change in Georgia. They say they will be able to use their financial advantage over Democrats to reach their Georgia supporters to ensure they're returning ballot request forms.

The Democratic offensive is being led by Marc Elias, a veteran election attorney who is currently involved in litigation in more than a dozen states. He has advocated a handful of changes in the wake of the outbreak, including providing pre-paid postage for mail-in ballots and extending the postmark deadline to Election Day.

"If states are not able or willing to rise to the occasion of the challenges that Covid-19 poses, we’re going to continue looking very seriously to the courts to protect the rights of voters and to ensure that ballots don’t go uncounted that should be counted,” Elias said.

Trump advisers say they are trying to prevent overreach on the part of Democrats, who have long sought to ease voting restrictions.

“It is beyond disgusting that the Democrats are using this crisis to try to dismantle the integrity of our voting system,” said Justin Clark, a senior Trump campaign counsel who is helping to spearhead the legal fight. “The American people won’t stand for this, and the campaign and the party intend to fight with them for a free, fair, and open vote in November."

Clark pointed to so-called community ballot collection — an idea embraced by some Democrats that would allow local organizations and individuals to collect ballots from voters at their homes — as something the Trump campaign would fight.

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The pandemic is expected to increase the amount of funding the Republican Party devotes to lawsuits. The cash-flush Trump machine announced in February it was directing $10 million toward legal battles, but people involved in the effort say that figure is now likely to climb much higher.

In some instances, the RNC is providing financing for state parties to help with lawsuits.

“Democrats know they cannot beat President Trump at the ballot box, so they are trying to use the courts to beat him,” said RNC chief of staff Richard Walters. “We are going to use the full resources of the RNC to stop them.”

A cluster of Democratic organizations — including the national party committees, the prominent Priorities USA super PAC, and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee — have already been pursuing voting-related litigation. FairFight, an organization founded by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, has also been active.

Biden spokesman Andrew Bates declined to comment on whether the campaign would join in the legal wrangling but said any Trump-led effort “to restrict access to voting would … amount to a craven attempt to steal the sacred right of the American people to vote.”

The battle is likely to further intensify in the days and weeks ahead. Many of the changes Democrats are seeking would likely take substantial time to implement, meaning that any action would need to take place soon.

“You can’t wait to see how this is all turning out,” said Elias, referring to the coronavirus. “You have to start doing it now.”

So, Democrats are trying to ensure voting access during the pandemic, and Trump and the RNC are trying to block it. Unfortunately, knowing the Roberts' court's record on voting rights (namely, it doesn't support them), I suspect that Trump will likely largely succeed. In which case, he won't have to cancel elections outright- he can simply allow the coronavirus to suppress turnout, block any effort to remedy the situation, and likely "win" reelection.

Such an outcome should not be viewed as in any way legitimate. But I fear that the vast majority of Americans will simply accept fascism, either because they support it, or because they can't believe its happening, or because COVID-19 scares them into being good citizens, staying at home, and rallying around the President.

Also, the Trump administration is open to sending absentee ballot applications automatically... to voters over 65. No shit they are. They know who their voting base is.

[The Romulan Republic]

Biden informs Sanders campaign he is going ahead with VP, cabinet vetting:

https://politico.com/news/2020/04/03/bi ... rch-164315

Joe Biden disclosed Friday evening he has told his Democratic rival Bernie Sanders that he is moving forward with cabinet and vice presidential picks.

Biden told donors at a virtual fundraising event his campaign is to unveil a committee to vet potential vice presidential candidates “sometime in the middle of the month," and said he has held discussions with others about potential cabinet positions.

"One of the things I learned a long time ago, and I really mean this, a good leader has to be willing to have people that are smarter than them, know more than they know about a subject, bring in people who in fact have an expertise you don’t have,” Biden said, according to a pool report.

“And so I am in the process and I actually had this discussion with Bernie. He’s a friend. We’re competitors. He’s a friend. I don’t want him to think I’m being presumptuous but you have to start now deciding who you’re going to have background checks done on as potential vice presidential candidates and it takes time,” Biden added.

It was the first time the former vice president has disclosed holding a private conversation with Sanders since the Democratic primary became a two-person race. Conversations have been happening at a staff level between the two camps.

Sanders has said recently he believes he still has a narrow path to the nomination, despite a significant delegate deficit against Biden.

In Friday’s remarks, Biden also disclosed he’s leaned on former President Barack Obama for advice on the process of cabinet picks.

“So I called President Obama, not as to who but how soon you have to start that. Now the convention’s been moved back now another month so there’s more time now,” Biden said. “It’s kind of presumptuous, but sometime in the middle of the month we’re going to announce a committee that’s going to be overseeing the vice presidential selection process.”

It'll be interesting to see who he chooses. VP especially, since I have no confidence that Biden will be able to serve out a full term, and a vote for Biden may very well end up being effectively a vote for his VP.

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump polls finally take a dive.

https://mediaite.com/news/new-polls-tru ... -response/

After riding high just last week, President Donald Trump’s approval rating and handling of the coronavirus crisis have taken a beating in a pair of new polls.

Just last week, Gallup published a poll in which Trump earned the highest net approval of his presidency (49 percent approve vs. 44 percent disapprove), while 60 percent approved of his response to the coronavirus crisis.

He’s fared less well in other recent polls, but still earned positive ratings — until now.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday, 47 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s coronavirus response, while 52 percent of Americans disapprove — a steep drop from the same poll taken just two weeks ago when a whopping 55 percent approved of Trump’s response.

And in Trump’s favorite survey, the Trump-skewing Rasmussen daily tracking poll, his approval rating has dropped four points in a matter of days. The last time Trump was above water in that poll was Feb. 27, when his approval was at 52 percent. But he began this week with a -5 point net unfavorability, and finishes it nine points underwater with 44 percent approving and 53 percent disapproving.

Public opinion can be difficult to decipher, especially since Trump has been briefing the public every day, with wild swings in tone and advice. Trump’s dip could be a reaction to some combination of factors — there has been ever-worsening economic news and a mounting death toll — or it could be an indication that a rallying effect was at play when his approval was higher, but is now wearing off.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

Looks like the rally round the Fuhrer effect may be wearing off. Trump is a master con man, but its relatively easy to con people when they're not directly suffering. Its a lot harder to convince people that you're making America great again when they personally have been laid off and people they know are dead or on a ventilator.

Its just fucking awful that its happening this way.

[LadyTevar]

BERNIE DROPS OUT!!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-drops-out-presidential-race-n1155156

Sanders quitting Democratic race for president, Biden to be party's apparent nominee
The Vermont senator's presidential bid got off to a strong start but took a turn south in South Carolina and on Super Tuesday. His campaign never recovered

Bernie Sanders ended his presidential campaign, he announced on Wednesday, leaving former Vice President Joe Biden as the apparent Democratic presidential nominee.

"I have concluded that this battle for the Democratic nomination will not be successful, and so today I am announcing the suspension of my campaign," Sanders told supporters in a livestream, saying he wished he could provide supporters with "better news" but "I think you know the truth."

"We are now some 300 delegates behind Vice President Biden and the path to victory is virtually impossible," he said. Sanders called Biden "a very decent man who I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward."

Calling the decision "difficult and painful," Sanders said he had to make an "honest assessment of the prospects for victory."

He added that he understands some supporters who want him to fight on through the convention, but he could not "in good conscience continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour" as the COVID-19 outbreak grips the nation.

He pledged to have significant influence over the party platform this summer, as he did during the 2016 convention. He pointed to policies like a $15 minimum wage, which has been picked up in some states and cities since he first began campaigning for it at the presidential level five years ago, as evidence that his progressive platform is winning.

In a conference call with staffers earlier Wednesday, Sanders thanked his team for its "extraordinary work."

Biden released a lengthy statement on Medium after Sanders' departure from the race, saying he "has put his heart and soul into not only running for president, but for the causes and issues he has been dedicated to his whole life."

"I know how hard a decision this was for him to make — and how hard it is for the millions of his supporters — especially younger voters — who have been inspired and energized and brought into politics by the progressive agenda he has championed," Biden said. "Bernie has done something rare in politics. He hasn’t just run a political campaign; he’s created a movement. And make no mistake about it, I believe it’s a movement that is as powerful today as it was yesterday. That’s a good thing for our nation and our future."

(Snip stupid tweet from Trump crowing about it)

The Vermont independent senator's 2020 bid started off strong. He narrowly missed first place in Iowa before picking up wins in New Hampshire and Nevada. All the while, his campaign continued to rake in millions in small-dollar donations and pack rallies full of supporters as he ascended to national front-runner status amid a crowded Democratic field.

Running as a progressive insurgent against Hillary Clinton in 2016, Sanders popularized ideas like "Medicare for All." In 2020, however, a number of candidates backed similar policies, and he faced another prominent progressive in Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who was the first to propose canceling some student debt in April.

Sanders followed with a more far-reaching plan of his own in June. Warren surged above Sanders in the fall, right up until he suffered a heart attack in October. That — along with the high-profile endorsement by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., — revived his national polling numbers, and he remained in second place until Biden's dismal fourth-place showing in Iowa, which propelled Sanders to front-runner status.

[Atia]

So now it’s down to picking America’s least objectionable septuagenarian rapist. Yaaaaay.

[Ralin]

Yup. Seriously considering null voting.

Best case scenario here is Biden/Warren, with Biden dying within a year

[Ziggy Stardust]

I'm also considering null voting. Not decided yet, but it's on the table. I am skeptical of Biden's chances of winning, anyway. And even if he does win, I am worried that with a President Biden the moderate/centrist wing of the Democratic party will feel vindicated, and thus resist any attempts at pushing a progressive agenda (and, by consequence, resist any attempts at implementing any of the real structural reforms that the US political system so sorely needs). They will not have learned any of the lessons from Trump's victory, and will continue to dismiss him as a one-off anomaly rather than a symptom of the much deeper malaise within our society. The Republicans certainly aren't going to chance; with the downfall of Trump, it is far more likely that they continue to radicalize even deeper, and the ugly possibility is raised that 2024 will see them running a candidate with the same basic moral philosophy as Trump but who is actually competent (and willing to act aggressively on those morals rather than get distracted in petty arguments with reporters as Trump is wont to do). I see 2024 working out the same way 2016 did, with a clueless and out of touch moderate/centrist Democratic candidate bumbling into a loss at the electoral college.

(For the love of God, nobody give me a lecture about the importance of voting Democrat or anything like that. Trust me, this is not a decision I plan to take lightly by any means, and it is one I will consider both sides of between now and November. I am just expressing my opinion as of this moment in time.)

[The Romulan Republic]

So now it’s down to picking America’s least objectionable septuagenarian rapist. Yaaaaay.

Biden is far from my first choice for nominee. But one doesn't aspire to be a dictator, and will be gone in four or eight years. The other does aspire to be a dictator, and will never leave office if he gets the chance to further consolidate his power. It sucks unbelievably that those are the choices, especially for women and survivors of sexual abuse. But if Biden wins, progressives get another chance in four or eight years. If Trump wins, we'll never get another chance for the foreseeable future, and by then we'll be in the midst of the climate apocalypse and it probably won't matter.

I hope that Bernie continues to be both a strong supporter of the Biden campaign and a strong advocate for progressive principles, and that Biden is smart enough to offer the olive branch to his supporters and adopt more of Sanders' policies.

His initial response is quite good, striking a very gracious and unifying tone:

Today, Senator Sanders announced he was suspending his campaign. Bernie has put his heart and soul into not only running for President, but for the causes and issues he has been dedicated to his whole life. So, I know how hard a decision this was for him to make — and how hard it is for the millions of his supporters — especially younger voters — who have been inspired and energized and brought into politics by the progressive agenda he has championed. Bernie has done something rare in politics. He hasn’t just run a political campaign; he’s created a movement. And make no mistake about it, I believe it’s a movement that is as powerful today as it was yesterday. That’s a good thing for our nation and our future.

Senator Sanders and his supporters have changed the dialogue in America. Issues which had been given little attention — or little hope of ever passing — are now at the center of the political debate. Income inequality, universal health care, climate change, free college, relieving students from the crushing debt of student loans. These are just a few of the issues Bernie and his supporters have given life to. And while Bernie and I may not agree on how we might get there, we agree on the ultimate goal for these issues and many more.

But more than any one issue or set of issues, I want to commend Bernie for being a powerful voice for a fairer and more just America. It’s voices like Bernie’s that refuse to allow us to just accept what is — that refuse to accept we can’t change what’s wrong in our nation — that refuse to accept the health and well-being of our fellow citizens and our planet isn’t our responsibility too. Bernie gets a lot of credit for his passionate advocacy for the issues he cares about. But he doesn’t get enough credit for being a voice that forces us all to take a hard look in the mirror and ask if we’ve done enough.

While the Sanders campaign has been suspended — its impact on this election and on elections to come is far from over. We will address the existential crisis of climate change. We will confront income inequality in our nation. We will make sure healthcare is affordable and accessible to every American. We will make education at our public colleges and universities free. We will ease the burden of student debt. And, most important of all, we will defeat Donald Trump.

At this moment, we are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis in American history. There is enormous fear and pain and loss being felt all across the country. There are also untold stories of heroism — of nurses and health care workers and doctors and first responders and grocery store workers and truck drivers and so many others on the front lines of this crisis. Putting their own lives in danger for the rest of us. If we didn’t know it before, we know it now: This is the backbone of our nation.

Our first job is to get through the immediate crisis threatening the public health and getting help into the pockets of America’s workers. But we also need to take a hard look at what we need to fix and change in this country. Many of the biggest cracks in the social safety net have been laid bare — from health care to paid sick leave to a more extensive and comprehensive system of unemployment benefits. We will need to address these. Just as we need to address rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure. And we all know — the clock is ticking — we don’t have a moment to waste in combating the climate crisis.

As friends, Jill and I want to say to Bernie and Jane, we know how hard this is. You have put the interest of the nation — and the need to defeat Donald Trump — above all else. And for that Jill and I are grateful. But we also want you to know: I’ll be reaching out to you. You will be heard by me. As you say: Not me, Us.

And to your supporters I make the same commitment: I see you, I hear you, and I understand the urgency of what it is we have to get done in this country. I hope you will join us. You are more than welcome. You’re needed.

Together we will defeat Donald Trump. And when we do that, we’ll not only do the hard work of rebuilding this nation — we’ll transform it.

This is the Joe Biden we need if we want to beat Trump.

Sanders will be doing his first post-campaign interview (remotely, I assume) with Stephen Colbert tonight. It'll be interesting to see what he says about his plans going forward. He has not yet officially endorsed Biden, though he has conceded that he Biden will win the nomination, congratulated him on his victory, and referred to him as a "decent man" (which in light of recent allegations is really giving Biden more credit than he deserves). It should be noted that Sanders will remain on the ballot in upcoming states regardless of the status of his campaign, and he is hoping to gain as many delegates as possible to influence the convention:

https://cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders ... -campaign/

"While this campaign is coming to an end, our movement is not," Sanders said. He congratulated Biden, calling him a "decent man," and conceded he will win the nomination, but declined to endorse him outright. Instead, Sanders said he will remain on the ballot in states that have yet to hold primaries, hoping to rack up more delegates so that his supporters, and his policies, will be able to influence the party platform at the Democratic convention.

So his message to supporters seems to be "I can't beat Biden, but I want you to vote for me anyway to increase our influence at the convention."

This is at least an honest position to take, and probably a smart one, given how far behind he is and the fact that COVID renders further campaigning largely impossible. But at the same time, it lets Sanders voters still be counted, and gives Bernie as much influence as possible at the convention to advance the causes he believes in.

In other news, an aggregate of polls taken between March 11 and April 7 give Biden an average lead of 6.1%. Aggregates of polling state by state show him leading Trump in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina (though the NC polling is badly out of date). Some polls have him leading in Florida, Texas, and Georgia as well:

https://mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-g ... 57421.html

President Trump held a press briefing on April 7, in which he criticized reporters for how they asked their questions. Here's how he responded to McClatchy’s Francesca Chambers' question on issues with the paycheck protection program. BY THE WHITE HOUSE
Now that Sen. Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the Democratic primary, it has cleared the way for President Donald Trump and Joe Biden to match up in the presidential election.

Who’s leading early in the U.S. and swing state polls? Here’s a look at the numbers.

NATIONWIDE POLLS
Real Clear Politics takes an aggregate of polls to create an average. It shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a 49.8 percent to 43.7 percent lead over President Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2020 matchup. The polls in the aggregate are from March 11 to April 7.

Biden is also leading Trump in polls used by FiveThirtyEight. He had a 5- to 6-percentage-point lead over the president in five polls conducted in the past week.

SWING STATE POLLING
• Pennsylvania: Biden had a 3.8% lead over Trump, according to the Real Clear Politics aggregate. In a poll added to FiveThirtyEight on March 27, Trump was leading Biden by 2%.

• Wisconsin: Biden had a 2.7% percent lead on Trump, according to Real Clear Politics polling ending on March 29. Biden had a similar size lead in the state, according to polls added to FiveThirtyEight a week ago.

• Michigan: Biden led Trump by 4.4% in the state in polling as of March 20, according to Real Clear Politics. The candidates were tied in a poll from five days ago on FiveThirtyEight.

• North Carolina: Biden led by 3.4% in the state, according to Real Clear Politics. It’s important to note the most recent polls used in the calculation are from Feb. 28. Biden also led by 2% on FiveThirtyEight — though that poll was from March 2.

• Texas: Trump led Biden by 2.6% at the end of February in the Real Clear Politics aggregate, while a FiveThirtyEight poll in early March had the president in front by 4% in the state.

• Georgia: Trump led Biden by 7.5% in early March, according to Real Clear Politics. However, Biden led by 2% in a poll last week, according to FiveThirtyEight.

• Florida: Biden barely leads Trump with a 0.4% edge in the state, according to Real Clear Politics. However, Biden leads by 6% in a poll from last week on FiveThirtyEight.

Its early days yet, of course, but we're off to a good start.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yup. Seriously considering null voting.

Best case scenario here is Biden/Warren, with Biden dying within a year

By "null voting", do you mean voting for Trump? Because if so, guess what? Nobody cares WHY collaborators worked with the Nazis, what personal justifications they had. Only that they were collaborators. If you're given a choice between two sexual predators, and you pick the one who's also a fascist climate denying mob boss, well, that makes your values pretty damn clear, and you'll be judged accordingly.

Even staying home or voting third party amounts to aiding Trump, unless you are in a very safe state (like, by more than ten points one way or the other). In that case, do as you please.

It sucks, but that's the truth, under the current system. And if you're going to do that, then you need to own your support for everything Trump has done, and will do.

I'm also considering null voting. Not decided yet, but it's on the table. I am skeptical of Biden's chances of winning, anyway. And even if he does win, I am worried that with a President Biden the moderate/centrist wing of the Democratic party will feel vindicated, and thus resist any attempts at pushing a progressive agenda (and, by consequence, resist any attempts at implementing any of the real structural reforms that the US political system so sorely needs). They will not have learned any of the lessons from Trump's victory, and will continue to dismiss him as a one-off anomaly rather than a symptom of the much deeper malaise within our society. The Republicans certainly aren't going to chance; with the downfall of Trump, it is far more likely that they continue to radicalize even deeper, and the ugly possibility is raised that 2024 will see them running a candidate with the same basic moral philosophy as Trump but who is actually competent (and willing to act aggressively on those morals rather than get distracted in petty arguments with reporters as Trump is wont to do). I see 2024 working out the same way 2016 did, with a clueless and out of touch moderate/centrist Democratic candidate bumbling into a loss at the electoral college.

(For the love of God, nobody give me a lecture about the importance of voting Democrat or anything like that. Trust me, this is not a decision I plan to take lightly by any means, and it is one I will consider both sides of between now and November. I am just expressing my opinion as of this moment in time.)

Saying "Biden can't win" as a justification for helping to make sure he doesn't seems rather disingenuous. He'll win if people vote for him. He won't if they don't.

Also, with all due respect, I don't think you do get the full importance of voting Democrat. Neither do I. I don't think anyone can who hasn't felt the full weight of Trump's cruelty. Ask the people gasping their last breaths because their states weren't sent enough ventilators how important it is to stop Trump. Ask the children torn from their families and sleeping on concrete floors in cages how important it is. They're the ones you're contemplating treating as acceptable collateral damage in order to teach the Democrats a lesson.

Look, its really simple:

If Biden wins, progressives get to try again in four or eight years, and it won't matter what the DNC's old guard wants because they and their voters will all be dead or in nursing homes, and there will be millions more young and Latino voters who broke heavily for Sanders.

If Trump wins, any future elections will be even more rigged than Wisconsin's, and those young and Latino Sanders supporters won't get to vote at all.

Vote for Biden, because you're not really voting for him. You're voting for progressives to get another chance in four/eight years.

[The Romulan Republic]

I really can't overstate how important this is:

If Trump wins, we don't get another chance. This isn't politics as usual. If nothing else, the last four years should have taught us that. This isn't about our internal party squabbles, or "not wanting to vote for the lesser of two evils", or sending the DNC a message, or any of that. This is about whether the most powerful nation on Earth, during the triple global crises of COVID, a new Depression, and climate change, is a fascistic dictatorship.

If Biden wins, we get to try again. He'll be gone in four or eight years (possibly sooner, given his age and seeming senility). That's what I'll be voting for. The right to try again in four years.

America allied with the Soviets to stop Hitler. If American could fight side by side with Stalin to save the world in 1945, then people can vote for Joe Biden to save the world in 2020.

Edit: There's also the possibility, of course, that Biden's health will keep him from fulfilling the duties of the Presidency. In that case, a vote for Biden is effectively a vote for his VP/cabinet, who will actually be the ones shaping the next administration. So watch who he picks really closely.