Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
While comfortable libs/DP faithful will gloss everything. One option with the gun to your head that is failing to stop Trump come the election.
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Cont: Biden for President? Pt 2
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While comfortable libs/DP faithful will gloss everything. One option with the gun to your head that is failing to stop Trump come the election.
Mader Levap
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I like how you removed that. Hitting too close to home?
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
I like how you picked up the ball and ran the ad hom into the endzone.
xjx388
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A "unity" ticket would be a brilliant, historic choice. Both parties coming together to oust the worst President we've ever had. Campaigning against the GOP toadies who did nothing but enable Trump. A new era for American politics after the Trump debacle. A new, public commitment to bipartisanship and moving forward together united despite our differences...
Too bad it will never happen.
BUT: IF it did . . . Condoleeza Rice, people!
Too bad it will never happen.
BUT: IF it did . . . Condoleeza Rice, people!
One of George W.'s primary enablers? A close ally of Dick Cheney? A principal architect of the Iraq invasion? No. Just no.
A unity ticket might have been plausible at a time when there were moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats. But the lines on most public policy issues are sharply drawn. What common goals could a Democrat and a Republican share? And a Republican VP would be well-positioned to succeed Biden. Why would Democrats do that? Can anyone imagine a Republican choosing a Democrat as VP?
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TurkeysGhost
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A Republican VP might as well be an open invitation for assassination attempts by conservative whack jobs.
lobosrul5
Philosopher
If... Sanders had taken the nomination and the best shot at getting Trump out of office was splitting the electoral college 3 ways so congress would select the president.
And if... Joe Biden hadn't committed to a female VP then maybe Kasich would have made sense as a VP. I really can't see Romney helping him out.
Or if... a female senator, ie Susan Collins, had voted to impeach Trump and left the GOP, then maybe that would've made sense.
But none of that came to be so its just a dead line of rationalizing a "unity ticket".
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Beelzebuddy
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Biden's recent comments have reminded me of this 538 profile on him: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-pandemic-has-pushed-biden-to-the-left-how-far-will-he-go/
Written in the bygone era of two entire weeks ago, it describes Biden as not so much a moderate but a literal centrist: at every point in his career, he's represented the very middle of the Democratic platform. Sanders nudged him leftward, Covid gave him a bigger push, and now... yeah. If the trend holds he's going to be a much more progressive president than anyone would have expected back on Super Tuesday.
This also means there's a good opportunity here for prominent True Conservatives looking to forsake Trump while influencing governance: publicly declare that you're joining the Democrats. You might not agree with their fiscal policies, but goddamn it, Black Lives Do Matter and you can't in good conscience stay in a party that's been so dominated by racists and fascists. You'll need to eat some crow at first but eventually you'll be welcomed, and the discussion of how to incorporate you will pull Biden back over to the middle. Then in an election cycle or two you can declare any random candidate "just too socialist for me," go back to the Republicans while pulling out your dog whistles and crypto fascism, and try rolling up a better demagogue for next time.
Written in the bygone era of two entire weeks ago, it describes Biden as not so much a moderate but a literal centrist: at every point in his career, he's represented the very middle of the Democratic platform. Sanders nudged him leftward, Covid gave him a bigger push, and now... yeah. If the trend holds he's going to be a much more progressive president than anyone would have expected back on Super Tuesday.
This also means there's a good opportunity here for prominent True Conservatives looking to forsake Trump while influencing governance: publicly declare that you're joining the Democrats. You might not agree with their fiscal policies, but goddamn it, Black Lives Do Matter and you can't in good conscience stay in a party that's been so dominated by racists and fascists. You'll need to eat some crow at first but eventually you'll be welcomed, and the discussion of how to incorporate you will pull Biden back over to the middle. Then in an election cycle or two you can declare any random candidate "just too socialist for me," go back to the Republicans while pulling out your dog whistles and crypto fascism, and try rolling up a better demagogue for next time.
DetectedMotion
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I think Rep. Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts-7th Congressional District) would make a very good VP for Biden; She's very articulate, inspiring, and though she is only in her first term in the House Of Representatives, has natural leadership qualities.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/rep-ayanna-pressley-talks-racism-police-reform-and-the-death-of-george-floyd/#x
Her interview starts at 58 seconds into the video
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/rep-ayanna-pressley-talks-racism-police-reform-and-the-death-of-george-floyd/#x
Her interview starts at 58 seconds into the video
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I thought we already picked Biden as a unity ticket. Add another conservative to the ticket and it really should be added to the GOP primary.
Besides, there is no one in the GOP who has enough sway to attract votes who hasn't capitulated to Trump. He has conned every single one of them and tarnished the entire party. That was the point of Will's article: they all deserve to lose. To pick one of them to run with Biden is twisting Will's article into another dimension.
A few holdovers from the Bush years, but let's not forget how bad they were just because Trump was worse. Even the smart ones, like Condoleeza Rice.
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TurkeysGhost
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There's like a dozen anti-Trump conservatives and somehow every single one of them has gotten a nationally syndicated news column to opine about how the Democratic Party should run the campaign.
For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone is treating the Never-Trump conservatives as anything but an irrelevant offshoot of the fully MAGAfied Republican party.
As much as they'd like the Democratic Party to become Republican Party #2, I see no benefit in allowing this to happen. They lost their party, sucks for them, but the Democrats shouldn't rush to the right to fill the void left by the Republicans falling off the far-right end of the scale.
Especially when you consider that Trump is the natural direction the GOP has been heading ever since Reagan. He got here sooner than some of us expected, but from Reagan to Newt Gingrich to Trump, it is not like Trump doesn't fit the party. And if he wasn't a good fit initially, they sure did make him feel right at home.
TurkeysGhost
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Truly the morons of the party. All the others understood that the dog-whistles were dog-whistles. These guys actually bought the BS lines about "small government" or whatever other nonsense the right was peddling. Now they're standing there with their mouths ajar in shock as all the cynical pretexts are thrown away.
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Minoosh
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Dumb thing to say, but I don't think it will hurt him. Enough white Americans probably agree with him.
Segnosaur
Penultimate Amazing
What do you mean "both parties coming together"?
A Biden+republican VP will not be both parties coming togetether... it will be the democrats and a tiny rump of republicans, all the while the vast majority orange-hatted MAGAs and republican congress label the VP as a turncoat.
And then after the election and the Democrats win (if Biden hadn't pissed off half his party by picking a republican for VP), republicans in congress will be just as obstructionist as before, while doing everything they can to force the president to leave office. And then finally, after Biden's time is done, whatever tiny little bit off bipartisanship that had been created will quickly vanish.
sounds good. doesn't work in practice, considering almost half the country doesn't want to "move forward", they want to move backwards (to the time when minorites and women were truly second class citizens).
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
No, actually he didn't put his foot in his mouth. What's being reported leaves out the highlighted part below:
https://sports.yahoo.com/biden-proposes-training-cops-shoot-193855367.html
Obviously, by "unarmed" Biden meant not having a gun. Leaving out the highlighted part is crucial to misrepresenting his meaning. I see nothing wrong with shooting a person in the leg rather than shooting to kill.
Stacyhs
Penultimate Amazing
The idea of Biden choosing a GOP running mate is so ludicrous that it doesn't even deserve the time it would take to explain the very obvious reasons it's a non-starter.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
If somebody is coming at you with a knife, I think shooting to kill is actually the correct response.
Really, there's no reason to be shooting at all, unless you actually do need to use lethal force. If you don't need to use lethal force, or be ready to use lethal force without delay, the gun shouldn't even be in your hand.
And "being attacked with a knife" is definitely Gun In Hand Time, in my book.
Anyway, use of force in law enforcement is a complex subject with no easy answers. If Biden wanted to make the world a better place, he'd actually take the time to talk about this challening subject in detail, examining the competing goods and trade-offs and encouraging his audience to do the same. Simplistic off the cuff blabbering like this just reinforces the misperception that the cops are always wrong. It's divisive and pro-riot.
Really, there's no reason to be shooting at all, unless you actually do need to use lethal force. If you don't need to use lethal force, or be ready to use lethal force without delay, the gun shouldn't even be in your hand.
And "being attacked with a knife" is definitely Gun In Hand Time, in my book.
Anyway, use of force in law enforcement is a complex subject with no easy answers. If Biden wanted to make the world a better place, he'd actually take the time to talk about this challening subject in detail, examining the competing goods and trade-offs and encouraging his audience to do the same. Simplistic off the cuff blabbering like this just reinforces the misperception that the cops are always wrong. It's divisive and pro-riot.
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