@Mark from Queens and burn out not from TDS but from Trump, full stop --a perfectly normal reaction by fairly well-adjusted adults to a president showing clear signs of being a bit unhinged with tendencies toward a wannabe brutal dictator scheming to destroy what's left of the Good in this country.

It's the fear and loathing of this game show not-so-funny clown turned president which will drive anti-Trump voters to the polls probably in record numbers. All the Dem candidate needs to do is embrace this feeling and highlight it in the GE

Meanwhile my major fear remains that Trump when defeated will declare the election was rigged and refuse to step down. I don't think this is hyperbole but rather something entirely in keeping with his erratic personality and low self-esteem.

I’ve also realized over this past year, to my dismay, that there were a good many friends who in 2016 were big Bernie supporters but who have had over the course of last year become inexplicably lukewarm on him this time around. I don’t know if they were soured by the same viciously stupid and insidious MSM who propagated non-stop RussiaGate nonsense for three years, with the attendant lies that Bernie hurt Hillary/didn’t campaign for her/Bernie Bros/Jill Stein, etc, or whatever machinations of the full throttle propaganda machine were to denigrate and/or blackout Bernie.

It was frustrating to notice an inexplicable and marked drop-off in excitement and/or commitment to him this time around. He hadn't changed at all; in fact he was of anything more progressive and outspoken, all aspects that appealed to friends who had supported him. Yet one seemed more interested in Warren, and another for Kamala,(?!), and another seemed interested in Buttegieg (just as nauseating). I even overheard some younger people at a table next to us for lunch at a Thai place a few months ago talking favorably about Mayo Pete. The dangerous and pernicious propaganda machine of the MSM had led all these folks to think of voting as if they were just shopping around, and identifying with their personal attributes rather than the polices for which they were advocating.

Similarly I recently had a text exchange with a pretty radical mom I know from the Balkans who said this:

I hope Sanders wins the nomination. But more so hope that the Democrats get the Presidency this time. I’m counting down the months and hoping DJ doesn’t drag us into a war meanwhile...

What’s obvious to me is the degree to which people are filled with fear and burn out from Trump Derangement Syndrome. At the same time they've been showered in fear with negatives about Bernie from an MSM who have gotten into high gear to stop him.

Which means they’ll vote for anyone.

Which means Bernie has to win the primary.

Which means he’ll draw in disaffected Republicans and tons of Independents, and win the general election in a fucking landslide.

@Wally
It's 30 points or they steal it.

Yup! But this isn't 2016... pic.twitter.com/r9rSSTphVp

— Dark Warlord (@drkwarlord) January 28, 2020

Edit/add:

VENCEREMOS!

Tell them they lose nothing by supporting him in the primaries. They can wrestle with their conscience during the general, depending on who ends up winning the primary. We NEED the primary votes!

— Kat Godspell News & Comment (@KatGodspell) January 27, 2020

Wider Margins Help Prevent Superdelegate Coups

@lotlizard

If memory serves, he got one right after the Iowa caucuses last time, but I couldn’t find anything current.

or helicopters, either.

Also, urge everyone on your staff to use hand sanitizer, and think about hiring a food taster.

https://www.rt.com/usa/332206-bernie-secret-service-codename/

“Intrepid.” Indeed.

@wokkamile

They are very organized and unified to defeat Bernie any way possible.

the notion of How They Are Going to Destroy Bernie: They are probably not as organized and unified in fierce opposition as many here suspect, although no doubt there are some (Neera Brock) who are. Likely many anti-Bernie types will conclude that a) he would probably make for a less obviously doddering and drooling Dem candidate than Biden, and b) a Sanders presidency won't be so bad as his radical proposals would have to be put through the brutal congressional filter of cleanse, rinse, repeat.

In any case, a tough nasty slog to win the nom should put Bernie and his campaign to the test, which if he does well should make him a stronger candidate in the GE and battle-tested to go up against the Trump machine which will be a hundred times more vicious. The Dem primary should not be a contest over who will emerge victorious from a gentle backyard game of croquet.

@ggersh
to put the US on a war footing for the upcoming battle. Russia, China and Iran pose an existential risk to America. Unless the US can stop the BRI's steady advancement towards Europe and Africa by the mid 2020's, they WILL lose their exalted position as global hegemon.

In order to match China's rapidly expanding naval power in the Pacific and Indian Oceans plus Russia's increasingly advanced air superiority, the US will have to increase it's basic defense budget from the current $738 billion to at least $1 trillion immediately to match their competitors. It will be very hard because both China and Russia get 3-4 times more bang-for-the-buck.

(There are a lot of important points in the following document that are not done justice with this short descriptor.)

China, Russia and Iran: Basis of the New Geopolitical Order

In a recent very insightful article, analyst Alistair Crooke argued that the United States was institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. Written before the recent removal of national security adviser John Bolton from his position, Mr Crooke argued that decades long sanctions have become a “knot” that is difficult, if not impossible, to untangle.
...
It is not only Iran that has concluded the United States “is not agreement capable.” The Turkish leader Recep Erdogan, himself the survivor of an attempted United States coup, has taken a series of steadily increasing steps to reorient his country away from the United States axis. These include making trade deals with Iran and perhaps more significantly, an increasing degree of involvement with Russian and Chinese initiatives to reorient the balance of world power away from the United States.
...
For countries such as Germany, a principal beneficiary of the Russian oil projects, a refusal of American wishes would have been unthinkable not so very long ago. Self-interest is always a powerful motivating factor, and an increasing number of European countries have taken significant steps in recent months to be more assertive about their independence.

One manifestation of that are the 152 countries that have signed agreements with China to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This is an astonishing degree of acceptance of a Chinese initiative that was first propounded as recently as 2013. Signatory countries now encompass the world.
...
The vast majority of countries in the world, as evidenced by the rapid growth of the BRI membership, is tired of the United States and its dwindling number of allies pursuing perpetual war for their own profit. Multi national cooperation, from China in the east via Iran to the Russian west and its European neighbours show that a better alternative is available.
...

We will be seeing an acceleration of the waning of US global power in the coming decade. The question remains: will the US go gently into the night or will American "exceptionalism" cause it to bring down the rest of the world with it. As long as the MIC controlled Deep State is at the helm, I don't have much faith in the former.

will the election even count?

https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-israel-intelligence-2020-elections-c...

Our adversaries want to undermine our democratic institutions, influence public sentiment and affect government policies. Russia, China, Iran, and other foreign malicious actors all will seek to interfere in the voting process or influence voter perceptions. Adversaries may try to accomplish their goals through a variety of means, including social media campaigns, directing disinformation operations or conducting disruptive or destructive cyber-attacks on state and local infrastructure.

While at this time we have no evidence of a compromise or disruption to election infrastructure that would enable adversaries to prevent voting, change vote counts or disrupt the ability to tally votes, we continue to vigilantly monitor any threats to U.S. elections (emphasis added).”

EDIT : to add this section

Conflict of interest-ridden Microsoft “defends democracy”

Last year saw the tech behemoth Microsoft join the effort to blame foreign state actors, specifically Iran, for cyberattacks against the U.S. This helped to bolster assertions that had largely originated with a handful of U.S. intelligence officials and hawkish, neoconservative-aligned think tanks as media reports on Microsoft’s related claims treated the company as an independent private sector observer.

Yet, as MintPress investigations have revealed, Microsoft has clear conflicts of interest with respect to election interference. Its “Defending Democracy” program has spawned tools like “NewsGuard” and “ElectionGuard” that it claims will help protect U.S. democracy, but — upon closer examination — instead have the opposite effect.

Last January, MintPress exposed NewsGuard’s neoconservative backers and how special interest groups were backing the program in an effort to censor independent journalism under the guise of the fight against “fake news.” Subsequent investigations revealed the risk that Microsoft’s ElectionGuard poses to U.S. voting machines, which it claims to make more secure and how the platform was developed by companies closely tied to the Pentagon’s infamous research branch DARPA and Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200.

ElecionGuard software has since been adopted by numerous voting machine manufacturers and is slated to be used in some Democratic Primary votes. Notably, the push for the adoption of ElectionGuard software has been spearheaded by the recently created Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is the federal agency tasked with overseeing election security and is headed by Christopher Krebs, a former high level Microsoft executive.

In recent months, Microsoft has also been at the center of claims that Iran attempted to hack U.S. presidential campaigns ahead of 2020 as well as claims that Iran plans to target the U.S. power grid and other critical infrastructure with cyberattacks.

Last October, Microsoft penned a blog post discussing a “threat group” it named Phosphorus that they “believe originates from Iran and is linked to the Iranian government.” The post went on to claim that Phosphorus attempted to target a U.S. presidential campaign, which later media reports claimed was President Trump’s re-election campaign. Microsoft concluded that the attempt was “not technically sophisticated” and ultimately unsuccessful, but felt compelled to disclose it and link it to Iran’s government.

Though it provided no evidence for the hack or its reasons for “believing” that the attack originated from Iran, media reports treated Microsoft’s declaration as proof that Iran had begun actively meddling in the 2020 election. Headlines such as “Iranian Hackers Target Trump Campaign as 2020 Threats Mount,” “Iran-linked Hackers Target Trump 2020 Campaign, Microsoft says”, “Microsoft: Iran government-linked hacker targeted 2020 presidential campaign” and “Microsoft Says Iranians Tried To Hack U.S. Presidential Campaign,” were blasted across the front pages of American media. None of the reports scrutinized Microsoft’s claims or noted the clear conflict of interest Microsoft had in making such claims due to its efforts to see its own ElectionGuard Software adopted nationwide.

While looking over there it will be from within and Israel that the real theft of the election will happen......BWTFDIK

@Anja Geitz

. . . and then some!

If the DNC is not successful in cheating Bernie out of a win in Iowa and New Hampshire, I will canvass for him here in California and do everything possible to inform independent voters about crossover ballots.

It's good to see you. Thanks for the article. Two things stood out for me. The first was this:

But lending one’s neurons to the cynical machinations of our faux politics is highly corrosive for the soul: it’s difficult not to be tainted by the sheer insincerity, hypocrisy, mendacity and negativity of the spectacle, even as one seeks to deconstruct and expose it.

This is the main reason I stay off Twitter. I take things to heart. And to watch humanity behave in the ugliest way possible is so upsetting for me, it begins to affect other areas of my life. No can do.

What we really need in this country – if there is still any chance left of saving it – are three things: (1) the birth of a broad popular movement for structural change; (2) the development of a serious program for Election Reform to take our democracy back from the banks and corporations that both major parties currently serve; and (3) a mass popular rejection of Corporate Media with its management of the political debate and manufacturing of consent. The Sanders campaign is the best vehicle we have for achieving these things. Not only can we have a positive politics in 2020 but, a from the looks of what’s happening right now in Iowa, we already do.

I agree 100%. If the DNC is not successful in cheating Bernie out of a win in Iowa and New Hampshire, I will canvass for him here in California and do everything possible to inform independent voters about crossover ballots. Let us know how your election journey goes.

P.S love the Bernie meme at the end.

@earthling1

So a lot of people didn’t bother. There may even have been a concerted effort to discredit the caucuses by having the Clintonites mail in ballots. I did just to be heard but I might have been an outlier.

in Washington state in 2016. He won 73% of the delegates in the statewide caucases.
But in the primary he lost to Her.
It bothers me that of all the people who went to the trouble of showing up at night in the cold to support Bernie, would be dealt a loss in the primary by people who sat on their asses (vote by mail) at the kitchen table.
I'm still pissed.

@earthling1 was just a few blocks away at the library and Bernie won all but a few votes which was good because there were supporters older than me (69) that physically couldn't attend due to health issues.

At least during the actual election the ballots come in the mail so those friends weren't shut out from the process like they were with the Caucus.

So that's my only complaint about Caucuses, and why I think the polls aren't a good barometer guessing vote totals for someone like Joe. It's easy to answer a poll but how many of the Biden supporters will actually engage with that beehive of activity? Waiting in lines , dealing with crowds,and listening to the spokespersons for varying candidates as people haggle over where their votes will go if their candidate doesn't pass the threshold.

It's not a short day. Yet come election time if you haven't already mailed in your vote there voting boxes outside the Courthouse across the street, including one drive thru, and it clearly demonstrates the difference between the two voting styles sand why a lot of people don't like the Caucus method is easy to understand.

in Washington state in 2016. He won 73% of the delegates in the statewide caucases.
But in the primary he lost to Her.
It bothers me that of all the people who went to the trouble of showing up at night in the cold to support Bernie, would be dealt a loss in the primary by people who sat on their asses (vote by mail) at the kitchen table.
I'm still pissed.