Who will Biden choose as running mate?

[Firestone]

A lot of speculations, a lot of leaks with oppo research on the various candidates.

But who will it be?

My guess is that conventional wisdom (and betting markets) are right for once: Biden will pick Kamala Harris.

Time for a forum poll ...

 

[angrysoba]

Build
Back
Better
Biden
Bottoms

It's a ridiculous slogan. So he will choose her.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Build
Back
Better
Biden
Bottoms

It's a ridiculous slogan. So he will choose her.

 

[Brainster]

Karen Bass has some interesting stuff in her past. She was an organizer and member of the Venceremos Brigade, a group of young radicals from the SDS who annually volunteered to travel to Cuba to help the sugar cane harvest in the workers' paradise. They apparently had hoped to sub in for industrial workers, but Castro put them out in the fields cutting cane. Bass reportedly went to Cuba every six months for five years.

Bass was one of numerous young radicals for whom a Venceremos trip proved formative. Joel Schwartz, a participant in an early brigade and a veteran labor activist, said his six-week, ground-level glimpse of the Cuban communist experiment was “life-transforming,” and added that he would “never say anything bad about anyone who went.” Schwartz also recalled that Brigadistas received threatening letters from the State and Treasury Departments, although the government never followed up on them. The leftist historian, author, and indigenous rights activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz remembered heading to the island with “500 squabbling Americans” of all different leftist persuasions when she traveled there on an early brigade. “It’s proof of the transformation they went through down there that they were actually not fighting at the end.”

Isn't that heartwarming? Castro brought them all together. No wonder Bass praised Fidel on his death as El Commandante Jefe and said the Cubans had lost a great leader.

In the mid-1970s Bass was a rectificationist, an adherent of the belief that Stalin and Mao had it right and that the denunciations of them after their deaths by Khrushchev and Deng were revisionism from counter-revolutionaries.

She's also got a tiny Scientology problem:

Video emerged on Friday of the California Democrat speaking at a ceremony for a renovated Scientology church in Los Angeles when she served as speaker of the California State Assembly. The Daily Caller first reported the video’s existence.

In her remarks, Bass called on treating humans with respect and fighting oppression, but also spoke highly of the controversial group and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

Her explanation leaves a bit to be desired:

“Back in 2010, I attended the event knowing I was going to address a group of people with beliefs very different than my own, and spoke briefly about things I think most of us agree with, and on those things — respect for different views, equality, and fighting oppression — my views have not changed,” Bass tweeted. “Since then, published first-hand accounts in books, interviews and documentaries have exposed this group.”

Yeah, I mean, who knew 10 years ago that Scientology was a cult of kooky people? Just as a cultural marker, the Southpark episode Trapped in the Closet came out in 2005.

 

[theprestige]

Why is a Stalinist on Biden's short list? Who in his entourage has those ideas and that kind of influence? Previously I said I'd be okay with a Biden administration in counterpoint to a GOP legislature. But if he's got actual Stalin apologists nudging his policy positions, I'm going to have to nope out of that. Four more years of Trump is infinitely preferably to a Stalin-adjacent presidency.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I voted for the one I think is the best: Duckworth.

I don't know who Biden will choose.

 

[rockysmith76]

Establishment Cog number three, hopefully a better speaker than Dementia Joe.

 

[shemp]

I am, of course, legally and morally required to vote for Planet X. But I think Planet X would make a great VP!

 

[theprestige]

I am, of course, legally and morally required to vote for Planet X. But I think Planet X would make a great VP!

I dunno. Planet X could conceivably cause more death, destruction, and human misery than Joseph Stalin.

 

[Elagabalus]

I'm disappointed that there is no Lee Kuan option.

 

[Firestone]

I voted for the one I think is the best: Duckworth.

I don't know who Biden will choose.

I like Duckworth too, and she would be awesome on the ticket.

Polls show that Biden is under performing Hillary Clinton with African Americans. That's why I think he'll pick Harris. Counterargument: Harris didn't do that well with African Americans in primary polls, so who knows.

 

[angrysoba]

I like Duckworth too, and she would be awesome on the ticket.

Polls show that Biden is under performing Hillary Clinton with African Americans. That's why I think he'll pick Harris. Counterargument: Harris didn't do that well with African Americans in primary polls, so who knows.

I thought Harris was less popular with black voters than Biden.

 

[acbytesla]

Why is a Stalinist on Biden's short list? Who in his entourage has those ideas and that kind of influence? Previously I said I'd be okay with a Biden administration in counterpoint to a GOP legislature. But if he's got actual Stalin apologists nudging his policy positions, I'm going to have to nope out of that. Four more years of Trump is infinitely preferably to a Stalin-adjacent presidency.

A "stalinist"?

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited breach of rule 12

 

[theprestige]

A "stalinist"?

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited breach of rule 12

She defended Stalin. That's objectively Stalinist. I can understand being a Communist but rejecting Stalin. A Trotskyist or a Marxist-Leninist, for example. That's bad enough. But this woman is a literal Stalinist and she's apparently on Biden's short list. Doesn't that bother you?

 

[acbytesla]

She defended Stalin. That's objectively Stalinist. I can understand being a Communist but rejecting Stalin. A Trotskyist or a Marxist-Leninist, for example. That's bad enough. But this woman is a literal Stalinist and she's apparently on Biden's short list. Doesn't that bother you?

I see "no evidence" that she ever defended Stalin. Castro...yes, but she denounced her statement about Castro.

 

[angrysoba]

Why is a Stalinist on Biden's short list? Who in his entourage has those ideas and that kind of influence? Previously I said I'd be okay with a Biden administration in counterpoint to a GOP legislature. But if he's got actual Stalin apologists nudging his policy positions, I'm going to have to nope out of that. Four more years of Trump is infinitely preferably to a Stalin-adjacent presidency.

I dunno. Planet X could conceivably cause more death, destruction, and human misery than Joseph Stalin.

She defended Stalin. That's objectively Stalinist. I can understand being a Communist but rejecting Stalin. A Trotskyist or a Marxist-Leninist, for example. That's bad enough. But this woman is a literal Stalinist and she's apparently on Biden's short list. Doesn't that bother you?

Yeah, could you find some evidence to support this? I tried to Google this claim and nothing came up.

 

[Brainster]

Why is a Stalinist on Biden's short list? Who in his entourage has those ideas and that kind of influence? Previously I said I'd be okay with a Biden administration in counterpoint to a GOP legislature. But if he's got actual Stalin apologists nudging his policy positions, I'm going to have to nope out of that. Four more years of Trump is infinitely preferably to a Stalin-adjacent presidency.

Biden more or less boxed himself in when he said he'd pick a woman. Now that the expectation has become that it will be a minority woman he's even more constrained. He doesn't exactly have binders full of women to choose from. There are 25 current Black congresswomen, and the ones that have a significant amount of experience are all pretty old--there are at least 3 older than Biden. Bass isn't a spring chicken either--she's 67.

As for how she got on the short list, the Tablet article gives a pretty good explanation. She (mostly) stopped talking about her support for Castro and the media stopped asking:

Neither Bass’ long-term involvement with the Venceremos Brigade nor her being targeted by a possibly illegal police operation have made it into accounts of Bass’ career after the mid-1990s. A June New York Times article about Bass discussed the congresswoman’s leading role in police reform efforts on Capitol Hill, but did not mention that she was herself targeted in a legally questionable police spying ring. A 2016 LA Times article about Bass’ participation in President Barack Obama’s landmark trip to Cuba says that she frequently traveled to Cuba in the ’70s for volunteer work, but does not name the Venceremos Brigade.

Note that the article does not seem to be a hit piece; the focus of the piece is purportedly her journey from the far left to the mainstream.

 

[Brainster]

Yeah, could you find some evidence to support this? I tried to Google this claim and nothing came up.

Here you go: Karen Bass' Stalinism.

An undated, typewritten document uploaded to a Wiki page in July of 2016 that appears to have been written by an activist with the organization Line of March lists a “Karen Bass” as one of the “forces working directly under the guidance of the rect. line” in Los Angeles. In the context of the document, “rect.” is short for “rectificationist,” referring to communists who opposed the revisionist turn typified by Khrushchev’s condemnation of Stalin and Deng Xiaoping’s repudiation of Mao. In 1977, West Coast rectificationists formed Line of March, which consolidated the efforts of activists affiliated with the Union of Democratic Filipinos, the Northern California Alliance, and the Third World Women’s Alliance (an organization that grew out of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC). When reached for comment about Bass’s possible involvement with Line of March, a spokesperson for Bass said that the future congresswoman had “attended events.”

People around here switching to the "What's wrong with defending Stalin?" line shortly.

 

[Puppycow]

Karen Bass has some interesting stuff in her past.

Why is a Stalinist on Biden's short list?

George Will actually wrote positively about her. Maybe he didn't know about her past. Hopefully she is no longer a Stalinist.

But these things are likely enough to strike her off the list. I can't imagine her pro-Castro past will play well in Florida, a key swing state.

I believe it will be Harris.

 

[angrysoba]

Here you go: Karen Bass' Stalinism.



People around here switching to the "What's wrong with defending Stalin?" line shortly.

Fair enough. It doesn't look great. There's nothing there to say she was an actual Stalinist, but if she was involved with people who were then it is something she should probably clarify.