That question is at the heart of Trump’s power over the GOP. The likelihood is rather high. Trump brought a significant swatch of traditional non-voters into the GOP base, producing not just his 2016 election, but also a significant midterm turnout - which he very deliberately wielded as an instrument of control. Had he campaigned as a normal president in 2018, the Republicans would likely have been better off. But they won seats he focused on, and lost some where he chose not to engage.
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I hear you with all of this. Not sure who a good Dem candidate would be, who would win. They had the best of the bunch lined up to fight it out last time, and Biden rose to the top and got the nomination, by some distance.
On the age thing, the Constitution has a 35 yrs old lower limit for President. There is no upper limit, hence Biden, Trump before. To my mind, the age limit should be scrapped. AOC will be 35 if she won the nomination. I agree though, the Republicans will throw the book at her.
Still, they think a bland and centrist Biden is a socialist, and reality has long since left the building.
I like Pete Buttiegieg as the best of the Dems, but my shout for AOC was in order to give a proper left wing choice, as Dems try to hug back to the center, and they are still pilloried for being extreme left wingers.
Trump casts a shadow over the party. If he doesn’t run (I think he will, unless legal stuff gets him, but his whole life he has been Teflon Don) but if he doesn’t run, someone like Ron DeSantis might gain traction (can’t stand him) or a Josh Hawley (can’t stand him) or even an increasingly oleaginous Ted Cruz, someone like that.
The next battle that is looming is between democracy and authoritarianism. It’s unbelievable that we are here in this day and age, but that’s what is at stake in this post truth climate.
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Given this, I’m surprised that he hasn’t been taken out at one of his rallies.
And notably lost some where he did engage and misread his control on the situation. Trump caused a significant realignment in our politics and no one, not the least Trump himself, has really got to grips yet with what that actually means and so I think prognostications are incredibly likely to make one look like an idiot.
However, there is one thread that will be pulled on…and that is the bar voters have for democrats who are in power. They are rarely compared against the alternative, but against some gut feeling of whether they have done enough. And as our political system is designed to move very slowly, the answer to that is often “no” and so people swing back to the alternative without critical evaluation on whether they would actually be better on things they think have been under delivered on.
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Just out of curiosity, would Bernie Sanders or someone along that line do better than AOC? Why yes and why no?
From an outsider point of view, I never understood the US politics which are so extremely fragmented either you are Democrat or Republican. Should it not be the best of both or all parties for the good of USA? Neither party can say they are good for the whole USA or at least the overwhelming majority. At best, either party can do good in the eyes of only half the population based on the votes. And I brought up Sanders because, I might be wrong, he sounded more independent of both parties and would there be people like him, if not Sanders, who don’t just give visions of what USA can be in 20,30,40,50 years but also balance the short and mid term needs considering a President can stay max 8 years?
It really is rather depressing to see the rank cowardice of so many GOP politicians, when you are absolutely correct - his actual power to deliver was nowhere close to the power he wielded to intimidate.
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There seemed a real groundswell of support around Bernie Sanders in 2016, and Hillary Clinton beat him to the Democratic nomination, then probably assumed she would easily beat Trump to the Presidency, and the rest is history.
There were questions of shady dealings around Hillary Clinton beating Sanders, along the lines of using the official Democrat Party machinery to ensure she got the nomination.
Sanders was old (is that much older again now, at 80 yrs old) but in 2016 he was winning the hearts and minds of lots of younger voters, who genuinely thought he represented the best chance to make America a better place, a fairer place, while also giving them a shot at the American dream with healthcare and education policies they liked, among other things.
When Hillary got the nomination there was a sense in which the air went right out of the balloon, and it was back to business as usual.
My take is Sanders has missed his moment for that level of office at this stage, but he would be the natural ally to help the likes of AOC. Whichever one of them was in play would be pilloried, misrepresented and smeared by the right which seems par for the course. I think AOC would have more energy now, and more fight, and obviously many more years in front of her than Bernie.
Politically they are very similar, but I think Sanders could help her behind the scenes, negotiating, bringing people together if possible, being a politician, fighting in the Senate for her, etc.
Mind you, when I say bringing people together, I mean within the Democrat caucus. The Republican Party is now so far to the right that a centrist President like Biden is viewed as an extremist, so I just don’t see any meaningful business being done by Republicans with the Democrats.
At that point I think the Dems are better advised going left, and winning hearts and minds in the way that Sanders appeared to do in 2016. It would present a real choice to the American people too.
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Well said. The Democrats really missed a chance there. A lot of Trump’s support came from people who were fed up with ‘business as usual’ and Sanders represented a break with that. I’m sure he could have got a lot of those voters who went to Trump. The DNC are still so scared of a repeat of McGovern, that they always go for a centrist, never mind the fact that that tactic has also failed.
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Thanks for the reply, I think @Bekloppt said the sentence what I thought back then, is that by giving Hillary the vote up against Trump was the chance to win voters who were fedup with business as usual was lost. Again I might be wrong but HIllary to me is seen as someone again who is full of talk but hardly seen as someone who can effect change by getting down to work. Bernie Sanders seem like someone who wants to actually do something and not just talk something.
And that is the reason why I ask my initial question because while AOC has great mandates, a young visionary and a ‘breath of fresh air’ could now be seen as “business as usual” as a new generation of young people who are taking huge interests in politics and want to dictate the future of the world they live in is springing up everywhere and not just in USA to the point that they are being written off as idealists and not enough practical ideas on how those ideas can be executed. So I thought a good bridge would be like someone like Sanders running for President with AOC as Vice and setting a platform and foundation for AOC to run for the main job after 4 or 8 years later. This might not be the sentiments of the Americans but from an outsider, this is my opinion. But of course Sanders age might be a huge deterrent but the principle is that.
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I think the term independent can be a bit confusing in US politics. Bernie technically is an independent and so is often referred to as such. Usually that is a term is often given to people who look to position themselves as compromise candidates, and that is NOT Bernie. He is independent because he does not feel that the party that ostensibly represents the American left is remotely left enough so has chosen to operate from outside that system. Within congress he is effectively a democtatic vote, but is not a member of the party officially.
In terms of the presidency, the system is set up to make a credible run at the office effectively impossible from outside of the 2 party system. As such, if he was looking for a real run (and not just a disruption and an avenue to talk about his policies) he needed to do it from within the 2 party system, and the Dem party was the only option given the alignment of the 2 parties.
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There is an odd duality in play in that a sober reading of the data showed that Bernie primary voters actually voted for Hillary in better numbers than supporters of Hillary in the 08 primary voted for Obama. However, what that doesnt show is the intense disruption the “online” section of Bernie’s support committed to. As we’ve seen on this forum and its predecessor, among many in this group anything short of 100% alignment with Bernie’s policy and, more importantly, his strategy is “ghoulish” and essentially Hitler. So as much as the Bernie supporters did come out to support Hillary in the end, a non-significant portion of his support absolutely added to the toxicity of the GOP attacks against the Clinton campaign . I dont know how you balance that, but what I have seen and experienced makes me convinced that it impacted the outcome.
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Again, I am an outsider, but to me, whenever I hear independent candidate in US politics, I am more inclined to listen to them rather than when they identify as republican or democrat. And unfortunately I guess what you said about being unable to make a credible run at office outside of these 2 parties is true…and that to me is what is probably wrong with US politics.
I’m not sure it is different anywhere else… sadly.
The US election system is particularly undemocratic, and getting worse.
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Kevin Spacey? Martin Sheen? Honestly, after watching Newsroom I’d put the writer for Jeff Daniels in there.
I wish Bernie wasn’t such a socialist because his heart is in the right place. “by the people, for the people”. But he’ll never get in. AOC would be a great choice, but she’s still too young. This is a good time for the Dem’s to solidify and I think they’re shitting the bed with Biden on point.