Will Bernie Help Biden?

I would've much preferred Bernie Sanders to Joe Biden, as the Democratic nominee for President. But still, I would much prefer Biden to Trump as President. Now that it's gonna be Joe, is Bernie going to help out?

It's something which (eww!) politicians do, something known as (ewwwww!!!) politics: give and take. Give something to somebody, even if it's someone you really dislike, in order to get something. To save the situation from being a total loss. To help the possibility that later on, you'll get that something, the something you wanted but couldn't get right now.

I don't know what Bernie will do. I have no idea what goes on in his mind. But right now, he wields a lot of power, and he could use it to help someone he has a lot disagreements with, Biden, in order to help Biden beat someone who is much, much worse: Trump. Remember President Trump?

In 2016, Bernie wielded a lot of power after he had lost the nomination, and in my opinion he didn't do everything he could have done with that power, in order to beat Trump -- but right now 2016 and how well Bernie used his power and my opinion of what he did, none of that matters. Right now, what matters is Trump vs Biden in November. And Bernie can do a lot about that. Many of Bernie's supporters say they don't see any difference between Trump and Biden. Bernie could do a lot to explain the differences to them. If he wants to. If he sees the differences. Like I said, I have no idea how Bernie's mind works. He's a strange case to me: a politician who has spent nearly his entire career not engaging in politics, holding himself disdainfully above all of the compromises and horse-trading.

This would be a particularly bad time for him to keep holding himself above it all, instead of getting his hands dirty, helping something to happen which he no doubt sees as bad -- a Biden Presidency -- in order to prevent something which would be much worse: a 2nd term of Trump. I hope so much that he gets down into the dirt and fights, that he acts like a politician at last. The whole world needs all the help it can get right now, removing Trump from office. And that's not going to be done with idealism. It's going to be done if a whole lot of us hold our noses and vote for someone we despise, in order to stop someone else who is much, much worse. That's politics. There's nothing pure about it, never has been.

Democratic Candidates For President in 2020

Gabriel Debendetti thinks that Democrats' chances in the 2020 Presidential election may be hampered by too many candidates.

I think Debendetti is a Republican.

I'm not worried about a bunch of Democrats in the primaries. Real Democrats know when it's time to drop out and support the nominee. I'm worried that Bernie, who pretended to be a Socialist for a long time before this brief period of pretending to be a Democrat, might screw us with his giant ego, again. Yes, Bernie is a fake Socialist: Socialism, by definition, means working well with colleagues, for the greater good, for the benefit of those most in need of help. Bernie is an Independent if there ever was one: the opposite of a Socialist. Anti-social. We Democrats are Socialists, and it's high time we stopped being afraid of the word, and afraid to read the European Socialists, from before Marx to the Frankfurt School to after Gregor Gysi, who have so much to teach us. And it is definitely way past time for us to be afraid of going negative on Bernie.

J Lincoln Hallowell Jr summed up Bernie's relationship to the Democratic Party very well during the 2016 campaign. The quote is often mistakenly attributed to Barney Frank. I mistakenly attributed it to Barney on this blog. Sorry, Barney. As Hallowell said:

"The Democratic Party. The party that gave this country its first African-American President; the party that is poised to give this country its first woman nominee of a major party, very likely its first woman President; a party chaired by a Jewish woman; a party which features the first openly gay member of the United States Congress on the party’s rules committee; isn’t 'progressive' enough, or inclusive enough, according to a 75 year old straight white male, who 'white flighted' his way out of the most ethnically diverse city in the country, to the whitest state in the northeast United States, and who just passed his 1 year anniversary of declaring himself a member of the party, that he thinks that he is the only fit candidate to be the party’s nominee for President. A nomination which if he can’t secure it by the ballot, has threatened to secure it by lawsuits, and more than just hinted at violence."

Here are some remarks about Bernie which, at least according to the Boston Globe, Barney actually did say:

“Bernie Sanders has been in Congress for 25 years with little to show for it in terms of his accomplishments, and that’s because of the role he stakes out.”

“I think he has unduly denigrated the {House of Representatives} and a lot of the members,” Frank told The New York Times in 1991. “It does not help leftist causes to make people think government is full of poltroons and charlatans.”

“Bernie alienates his natural allies. His holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”

““But maybe [being effective] is not his goal. There are some people who seek to have a major effect inside, and others who opt to use the place as a platform.”

“I think when he first got here, Bernie underestimated the degree that Republicans had moved to the right … I get sick of people saying ‘a curse on both your houses.' When you point out to them that you agree with them on most things, they’ll say, ‘Yeah, well, I hold my friends up to a higher standard.’ Well, OK, but remember that we’re your friends.”

“I think it is a lack of information, to be honest,” Frank said, explaining Sanders’s appeal [in the 2016 primaries]. “You have people, I believe, who do not understand how hard it is to make change. [It is] the importance of not just being idealistic, but being sensibly pragmatic and keeping their ideals. Sanders is getting their support.”

“Is pragmatism the opposite of idealism? Or is pragmatism a necessary adjunct to idealism? I think Bernie Sanders tends to have the approach, ‘Don’t be pragmatic, state your ideals, state what you think is the right policy, and be very wary of compromise and of accepting less than you want.'”

Exactly: Sanders is a schmuck, and his supporters are uninformed idiots. Do not wait to go negative on Bernie.