Didn’t say I was in favor, just that I’d seen it.
Same here.
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I’d rather like it if there were a candidate younger than me, or even my age. I’m losing trust in the olds, even as I get closer to being one. Can’t see that really happening though. Without the added decades of schmoozing within the party (either one), a younger person wouldn’t have much chance, regardless of public opinion. Maybe if they were super-wealthy and could buy their way in, but that wouldn’t be good either.
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Non-incumbent Democrats winning the White House since the Civil War:
Barack Obama 1961-08-04 2008-11-04 47 years old Bill Clinton 1946-08-19 1992-11-03 46 years old Jimmy Carter 1924-10-01 1976-11-02 52 years old John F. Kennedy 1917-05-29 1960-11-08 43 years old Franklin Roosevelt 1882-01-30 1932-11-08 50 years old Woodrow Wilson 1856-12-28 1912-11-05 55 years old Grover Cleveland 1837-03-18 1892-11-08 55 years old Grover Cleveland 1837-03-18 1884-11-04 47 years old
Clinton, Biden, Sanders, Warren, all these people are ANCIENT.
Republicans will get out and vote for their cranky grandpa. Democrats simply will not.
more from before the civil war
James Buchanan 1791-04-23 1856-11-04 65 years old Franklin Pierce 1804-11-23 1852-11-02 47 years old James Polk 1795-11-02 1844-11-01 48 years old Martin Van Buren 1782-12-05 1836-11-04 53 years old Andrew Jackson 1767-03-15 1828-10-31 61 years old John Q. Adams 1767-07-11 1824-10-29 57 years old James Monroe 1758-04-28 1816-11-01 58 years old James Madison 1751-03-16 1808-11-04 57 years old Thomas Jefferson 1743-04-13 1800-10-31 57 years old
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Given voter suppression and gerrymandering etc, any campaign with a chance of success requires not just reluctant, defensive voting, but overwhelmingly massive turnout. The millenials and the poor are not going to come out with enthusiasm for anyone associated with the establishment Democratic party.
You need someone at least as left as Bernie, preferably young and entirely authentic.
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What’s “young” to you, the minimum age to run? And “authentic” - authentic what? How about “emotionally mature and as sincere as possible”? Because let’s face it: The climate in Washington DC makes a person subject to coming down with “Potomac Fever”. Ever heard of it? Even the young and authentic are susceptible to it. So whoever it is, they MUST be immune. The only preventative for it is a strong will and loads of integrity.
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I myself have no clue. Noblesse oblige seems to no longer exist in major governmental positions on every level. Universe help anyone who wants to do any good but who happens to have a ticky-tacky past (meaning no murder or other major crimes/taboos, but any number of petty ones); they’ll be gutted like the small-mouth bass I caught when I was nine years old. And whoever it is, they should have a goodly helping of natural stamina.
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There is something to be said for a candidate who will actually have to live in the world they create.
Also this. It infuriates me to no end, but its true. It infuriates me not because I necessarily love the establishment, but anyone around long enough is establishment. I would punt on the “establishment” note if they were still politically aligned with me, and will be on this earth long enough to feel the consequences of their actions (climate is one of my major issues).
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The aforementioned Bernie, and to a lesser extent Elizabeth Warren, are both olds who are also not “part of the establishment” in the eyes of most progressives.
“The establishment” when talking about the Democratic party is code for centrists, neoliberals in blue, 1%ers, those who want merely to preserve the status quo (which a saner society would be calling “conservative”)…
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I’m aware of that. I’m just saying, a lot of people my age (31) perceive both Sanders and Warren as establishment, and it’s my perception that their use of that term has less to do with any specific political stance than their age and tenure. That’s my perception because none of them, when asked directly, can produce a cogent argument for why. I can think of reasons off the top of my head to code both as establishment. Particularly men my age are very eager to decry Warren as “establishment.” You might guess that I don’t have strong hopes for a female president in my lifetime.
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That perception, where it exists as you state it, is pretty small compared to how it’s reset every time Sanders opens his mouth about anything serious. Warren, not so much.
What both actually are is at the end of their careers.
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Given that that’s the reason the US ended up with Trump, anyone with this attitude in 2020 really needs to get the fuck over themselves.
Or petition to have voting made mandatory so the Republicans can’t disenfranchise anymore, and they’ll be wiped out in a generation. That’ll also do.
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That’s not fair to Warren. She’s three years younger than Trump, and nearly eight years younger than Bernie.
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While much of Asimov’s “psychohistory” is an unrealistic, fictional plot device, the fact remains that people are much more predictable as groups than as individuals.
Demand all you want that people get over themselves and vote for the lesser of two evils. See how well it works for you in two years. My guess is that it’ll work no better than it did two years ago.
Or, you can give them a leader to follow, someone to be inspired by. Like Obama in 2008. Say what you will about his ability to follow through on his promises, but he ran an inspiring campaign.
People like stories where they can see themselves as the hero. “You need to get over yourself” doesn’t fit into such a story, so people hearing that message will probably cast the person saying it as the villain. “Be a part of overthrowing the corrupt establishment and securing justice for the neglected” is an incredibly powerful heroic narrative. It’s basically the campaign that the last four non-incumbent presidents were elected on.
Any given individual? Sure, I might try to talk them into voting the lesser of two evils, given the gravity of the situation. But swaying a whole population to do so? It’s a crap shoot, with enormous stakes on the table, and that’s not a gamble I’m comfortable with.
If the Democrats had any lessons to learn from 2016, it’s to try to be inspirational. Hopefully, it’s a lesson they’ve taken to heart.
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If it were a normal country, I’d be arguing for someone in their thirties. Given the USA’s archaic age restrictions, as young as is possible.
Authentically committed to their openly-presented ideology, and not a corrupt poll-driven careerist.
Which excludes essentially any establishment Democrat. Bernie, Ocasio-Cortez and perhaps Kaniela Ing show parts of what I’m getting at, although none of them are perfect.
Keep in mind a few points from my perspective:
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Fascists are counting the votes. The GOP controls electoral administration in the red states, and I have no doubt that by 2020 they’ll be involved in the widespread use of violence to suppress the Black vote. Voter suppression and the gerrymander already render the Confederacy almost unassailable. There is very little chance of an electoral win even with a good Democratic candidate.
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The establishment Democratic party are not the solution, they are part of the problem. Modern America is as much their creation as the GOP’s, and their current actions are primarily focused on sabotaging the left rather than resisting the right. A Quisling Dem President over a fascist GOP Congress would not substantially improve matters. Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
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It is almost certain that Trump will have launched another war by 2020. Millions of innocent people may already be dead by the time you get there.
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The Arctic Circle is on fire, and American bombs land on civilians across the world every 12 minutes. The continued business-as-usual existence of the American Empire is inconsistent with the survival of global civilisation.
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Fascist America is too well entrenched for reform to be a viable solution. A revolution is required.
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I agree, but I also remember the 2016 campaign coverage being almost entirely the media reporting breathlessly on the latest Trump shitshow, and then asking the other candidates what they thought of the latest Trump shitshow. So much so that basic platform info got underreported.
That’s got to change as well.
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Reminder that much of the media was doing that because the Clinton campaign told them to. And, yes, they’re planning on doing it again.
“Vote for us or you’ll be killed by the fascist we deliberately elevated” is all they have left. There is nothing in their actual policies to inspire support.
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I’ll just accept that as the way you perceive things, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but Bernie wasn’t even a Democrat except when he ran as one in 2016, and all the mainstream could say about him (when they weren’t focusing on Trump) was how he was an “insurgent” candidate.
Anyway, I agree that he’s too old for this now, and his position as a candidate is weakened IMHO after the 2016 primary, even if the policies he was championing have more support than ever.
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That would still make her older in 2020 than Reagan was during his term, (who was our oldest president before Trump), and also older than Trump was when he took office.
I’d love to have Sanders, and Warren could be ok, but I think that we probably need one of their younger proteges instead. As bad as ageism is, politics is a popularity contest, the left are generally younger, and that could hurt their chances.
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Yup. But she would be, upon taking office, 71 years and 7 months old. And Reagan, at the “end of his career,” was a couple weeks shy of 78. And Trump, assuming he makes it that long, will be 74 years and 7 months.
She’s legitimately as far from the “end of her career” as they were when they first became President, except for the fact that her party does prefer to vote for younger geezers.
I am also inclined to believe that she’s in better health than those two gents (far better than Trump especially). To say nothing of the fact that she still possesses all her marbles, and also had a bigger bag of them to begin with.
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Warren’s vote for Trump’s military budget was sufficient to be disqualifying on its own, IMO. Support for US militarism is appalling in normal circumstances; it’s beyond the pale with Trump as CIC.
Her long history of service to the weapons industry does not make that vote look any better.
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