@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal What a great damn idea! Give the person that thought of that sketch a raise!

#1.1.2.1

@wokkamile
for Biden. Whereas, being out and about did work for Pete.

Matt Taibbi gave the Dem elites a road map as to how to defeat Sanders. The map the GOP didn't have in 2016, but they also didn't have a Trump opponent with high name recognition who entered the race and held onto a primary polling lead among those not paying much attention. Trump led the pack within a month of entering the race and never relinquished it. Nationally and generally in most state polls through 2019, Sanders rarely led Biden and Sanders mostly languished in the 20% range while Biden was in the 30% range.

I'd put Pete in the same category as Rubio. Intellectually smarter but riding on youth and physical attractiveness with no agenda other than "I wanna be president." Beats me why some voters fall for candidates like that in every election cycle. And don't get me started on Yang; more than five minutes consideration of him would have been too much.

The playing field in each presidential election cycle (Warren did say it's just a game) is tilled in advance by the mood of the public. Very roughly, "more of the same" or "something different." Reading that correctly and exploiting it, particularly when a candidate easily embodies it, is the difference between winners and losers. 1988 was a "something different" cycle, the one Democrats blew with what I consider the worst recent nominee. (Had Hillary been the '08 nominee and lost, that would have made her worse than Dukakis.) What make this trickier is that more often than not public awareness lags what a president has done in office because much legislation take years to mature. That was less true in 1980 and 1992 and Reagan/GOP exploited that to the max in 1980 and WJC/DNC and Perot exploited that in 1992. A Democratic potted plant could have won in 2008. "More of the same" opponent to "more of the same" incumbent always loses (Dole, Kerry, and Romney) even as "more of the same" isn't favored as in 2004.

What Trump has done, and which is quite clever, he's continued to exploit and embody "something different" as he maintained "more of the same" from his five predecessors. So, he's attempting to neuter a natural favor for "something different." Russia/Putin along with Hillary have been rejected and are now within the "more of the same" box as is the Democratic House going along with whatever Trump threw their way. Sanders did blow it by going along with Russia/Putin and after the disappointment with Mr. Hope and Change compounded by DC Democrats not stopping Trump on policy, it too difficult to believe that Sanders would even try to buck the whole system. Both parties are hollow shells at this point; only capable of raising money and using it to smear intra and interparty opponents to maintain the status quo that keeps them in the game.

#7.1.1.1 turns out to have been a resounding success, judging by the current outcome. Probably a one-off for this unusual election cycle, with defeating Trump on the ballot, and now C19 making campaigning an unwise move. But maybe there's something to be said for less is more in campaigning. Or that organizing, campaign offices, canvassing and endless campaign appearances and stump speeches are a bit overrated. Perhaps a little of all these things.

Liz, for instance, might have been better off taking more time away from the stump to recharge and rethink strategy with her aides, always considering different approaches. Look at what all the money, organization and selfies got her -- a ticket to the sidelines fairly early. Somewhat similar for the South Bend youngster, although he did better than expected, for a brief period.

With Biden, it couldn't have been a difficult decision to advise him to go easy on the stump stops, with his current condition added to his history of foot in the mouth. At this late stage, he is far better off reading from brief prepared scripts off the teleprompter. Short and sweet, no ad libbing, no questions taken, no brief exchanges with those ornery voters. He needs to be more scripted and controlled than even Dick Nixon in 1968, the Roger Ailes campaign. We'll see if he can hold it together until the convention.

@Marie

Sometimes I stand way, way back to get a glimpse of the much-bigger picture, and what I see is a planet with lots of humans on it loosely organized into shifting socioeconomic tribes, city-states, kingdoms, empires, feudal hierarchies, dictatorships and republics, just muddling along making progress and messes along the way. And then, when technology had advanced to the point that world domination could become conceivable, a collection of wealthy folks and evil geniuses decided to go for it. They assumed they were smarter, better, and more deserving than the rest of their fellow human beings and devised a plan to, essentially, subjugate the rest of the world. The Powell memo fits in here, but there was more going on. In my little life, I began noticing the shift into structural elitism and a gradual swindling of the middle classes during the Reagan era but instead of getting better after the election of a Democrat (Clinton), it solidified and went global. Then, helped along by 9/11 (PNAC) and a plethora of new technological tools, it became possible to surveil, gaslight, and brainwash the populace to the point of near-complete subjugation. I hoped Obama would undo it, but he was part of it. Trump is an anomaly; he doesn't quite fit in with them but he is unable to fight or even resist them. Somehow, he is still in their way and they want to get rid of him, although he's useful as a bogeyman.

Then comes Bernie Sanders, who has been aware of and opposed to this shit since his youth and is bold enough to put it into words that reach and motivate a significant slice of the population, and they really need to stop him in his tracks. They're probably less afraid of Bernie than of the movement that has grown around him. They've planted a few controlled opposition actors and gate-keepers to dilute and mislead the movement until they figure out how to deal with us. They are fully prepared for any kind of violent revolution. Whatever we do is going to have to be sneakier and less direct than that. I've even wondered if it might come to purposeful destruction of certain technologies.

But I keep hoping something good will occur to change the ugly course we're on. Maybe some genius could come up with an antidote to psychopathy. That would at least level the playing field, some.

I've said a lot more here than I intended to say, but I think I'll leave it as is for the time-being.

#15.1.1.1

At best, we're cheap labor, useful foot soldiers, and consumers of products.

Until we demand a living wage, until we return scarred and maimed for live, and until we run out of money and credit. At that point, we're supposed to do right by them and die.