British Vote is a Lesson for the US
Boris Johnson picked up 88 seats in Parliament yesterday assuring that Britain will leave the EU. Scotland may very well secede from the UK and stay in the Union. It’s a disaster for the Labour party and I believe a disaster for Britain, a move which could easily kick off a widespread recession. Indeed the British pound is off today from both the US dollar and the Euro.
Beyond the economics and politics of Britain, are there any lessons for the US and our upcoming elections in 2020? My answer is yes, and it’s a really serious lesson. The Labour party, lead by Jeremy Corbyn, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, got slaughtered. This is the worst result for Labour since 1935, and could easily set up a minority for them for a decade. Boris Johnson sold smaller government, spouted anti-European rhetoric pitting Europe against England. He also favors killing the National Health Service and privatizing virtually everything. In short, he’s just a slightly less childish and offensive Donald Trump. Did the Russians help? Certainly, but Labour was its own worst enemy. Corbyn is a terrible leader. He and his colleagues are hard left and tone deaf. While the voting populace was being bombarded with images of scary dark-skinned people and a long list of grievances, Corbyn stuck to his playbook of vilifying Britain’s colonial past and focusing on social issues (gender, social justice) and was self righteously pious, acting as if everyone who disagreed was somehow morally flawed. The result was predictable – Labour lost voters in traditionally labour areas. Corbyn got Trumped by Johnson (pun intended).
The lesson here is for the Dems to avoid the same mistakes. They need to focus 2020 on one goal, and one goal only – beating Donald Trump. Many of my Dem friends are having deep, thoughtful discussions comparing Warren’s and Sanders healthcare programs to Buttigieg’s and Klobuchar’s. They dither over free college education and college debt forgiveness. That’s just plain stupid and tone deaf. Don’t get me wrong – these are all important issues that we need to deal with, but they don’t mean a goddam thing right now. The Dems need a candidate that can win Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. That candidate needs to be competitive in Florida and Ohio. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. Period.
Warren and Sanders are Jeremy Corbyns’ doppelgängers. They are losers in the general because Trump will beat them in the swing states. Klobuchar could be a good VP candidate because of her midwest appeal. Like Warren and Sanders, Buttigieg is also a national loser, but for different reasons. He needs to go home and win a statewide election in Indiana and comeback in 2028. The Dems need to focus on winning, and stop focusing on their navels and esoteric policy questions. The policy questions should be left for January 21, 2021. The British Labour party got their asses kicked by Boris and his thugs while Corbyn dithered over policy and social issues. This is not the time, and Corbyn proved it.
Many of you will hurl insults for this, but in my mind there is one prime candidate who can win the general, and that’s Joe Biden. Bloomberg is interesting, but he has the billionaire baggage that I’m not sure he can shed. Biden is the choice, especially with a strong VP who also has broad appeal. Everyone else needs to go home.
OK, ignore the lessons of yesterday and reach for the torches and pitchforks. Ready, set, go…
Just watched the Kennedy center honors. Sesame Street.
1Letters, numbers and ideas.
Ideas like kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.
No longer on PBS due to budget cuts.
Funny how that works.
Selfishness equals freedom, equals success, equals patriotism. Big bird is a dirty socialist.
YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY TELLING IT LIKE IT IS! The ONE issue is beating drumpf. NOTHING else should matter to Dems or anyone else with even half a brain. And JOE BIDEN is our only hope for victory in 2020.
2Just what we need. Another old white dude. Jefe, just what do you have again strong middle-aged women running for president? You haven’t had a nice word to say about any of them for years.
3@Steph – I have absolutely nothing against any woman running for president. My only issue is that I use arithmetic. Voting for a woman JUST because she is a woman is just as bad as the opposite. As I’ve said 100 times, beating Trump is the only issue, including gender. Biden has highest probability of beating Trump. If arithmetic is offensive, I can’t help you.
4El Jefe@4 of 54, ” Voting for a woman JUST because she is a woman is just as bad as the opposite.” Said no one, but you.
Senator Warren has the policies. She lines out the course corrections needed to restore us to the New Deal that has been eroded by Republicons for decades.
Biden? The ‘Cons have already tipped their hand that he’ll be hung on his son’s petard by the right. While sentient Democrats based on his Senate confirmation of Clarence Thomas and some other stellar blunders do not see him moving the country forward.
Arithmetic? Let’s take this to algebra. Specifically the quadratic equation of women, millennials, the Obama coalition and a huge pool of voters ready to be excited enough to vote for once.
Yes, we are a “centrist” nation. But we’ve been drifting right for so long that centrists won’t get us where we need to be. That requires someone who knows where we are and how to implement the course corrections needed. Liz Warren is one. There may be others, but they are not running.
5@Jane – Steph was castigating me for not backing a woman. Since there is no woman leading Trump in any electoral matchup, I assume she wanted me to back a woman because of gender. Warren has a LOT of policies; but all those policies don’t mean a goddam thing when she’s back in the Senate. Trump beats Warren in all matchups on electoral votes. She gets slaughtered in Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio. Arithmetic, not magical thinking is what counts now. My premise is that policy doesn’t matter now. Beating Trump does. Call me a misogynist again like you have for 3 years. It works every time and changes my mind.
6El Jefe@6, maybe some have called you a misogynist at some time or another, or not. That is neither here nor there in selecting a candidate to beat IQ4.5. If you were called misogynist for pointing out that Hilz was a flawed candidate that was unfair to you. She was a flawed candidate; albeit I voted for her in the general because the alternative was a ***king moron.
What is important is not repeating 2016. Evuh. Biden fits that profile. Tons of baggage, a record to burn on and name recognition be damned as that is a two edged sword. Even the appearance of being “the” DNC selected candidate will hurt him.
Two themes on beating Donnie. He’s a crook. He has no policy except that of destruction of the American norm and lining his pockets. Liz Warren is the total opposite of Donnie.
Polls? It’s early. But there are several polls showing Biden, Sanders and Warren beating Donnie. Sorry for not linking you to a few, but that was 2 weeks ago and already those are buried back a few pages. Tomorrow is another day. Time permitting will locate them.
7I hear the word arithmetic thrown around a a defense against crititism of a failed electoral strategy.
8Is this the same electoral arthimetic that hillay, gore and Kerry used?
Trying to appeal to a mythical block of “moderates” who will vote for whack jobs like the twit and demented donnie but find voting for a woman, and/or a progressive, just too revolting.
Is this the same arithmetic that wrote off demented donnie when he bragged about grabbing women, or attacking a gold star family?
Depending on whether one is reading legitimate polls that actually do try to reflect opinion or cooked ones who try to show the thuglicans and their hapless leader going down.
a number of polls, other then thuglican rasmussen and other “fake” polls carrying water for thuglicans, show that ANY of the main top 4 or 5 D’s running wins including the women.
Check 538 an relatively unbaised source versus Real Clear thuglican propaganda.
Electoral victory is not aicheved by running candinates burdened with a history of bad choices such as ex senator from mastercard biden who continues to babble inanities of thuglicans “coming to their senses’ after their tin god is removed from office.
Go on and nominiate a loser like biden who will get hammered like Hillary was then complain about how those occassional voters who come out when they see someone who is fighting for them running and stay home when a wishy washy thuglican lite is pretending to care about those citizens who can’t write a 6 figure check to their campaign.
Think about the baggage that wholly owned credit card company asset is running?
Votes for Mastercard instead of people.
Voted for war and even more war.
Accepts that austerity only apply’s to social programs and not military or corporate welfare.
rolled over and played dead as head of judiciary committee in allowing thomas ( by his deciding “yea” vote”) to even get out of committee hearings.
And lets not even mention all the fake manufactored “scandals” that the thuglicans will hammer him with, like Hillary’s, emails.
Let us not forget the thuglicans go bold with addled ronnie, the twit and the demented one and win.
The d’s go with the “safe” choice of milquetoasts such as gore, kerry and hillary and lose.
So much for the idea of picking the “safe” bet.
@Jane – Biden is the ONLY candidate with serious federal executive government experience. He has huge name recognition. He knows world leaders by first name. He’s the most popular (by a lot) with labor, African Americans, rural and urban voters. This is COMPLETELY different from 2016. Hillary had complete control of the DNC from early 2013 through the election. She packed the DNC with loyalists and staffers. She undid all of the reforms put in place by Obama, tilted the debates in her favor, preloaded super delegates and built up a $130 million wall before a vote was cast in the primaries. NONE of that has happened this time. In fact, the DNC has tried to damage Biden by keeping low thresholds for zero percent candidates. The primaries start in SIX WEEKS, and we’re still having to hear from zero percenters like Steyer, Yang, and Klobuchar. Castro and Booker STILL haven’t given up and are pressuring to change the already too low thresholds to get back in. The polls are not too early. As I said, the primaries start in six weeks, and support has solidified except for a few. Biden leads more consistently against Trump in the swing states. This is about beating Trump, not molding new healthcare or education policy.
9The most convincing argument I have read on this comment thread is that anyone claiming that Biden is the only real choice because “arithmetic” is using the same “arithmetic” that nominated Hillary.
10El Jefe, you might want to reconsider your support for Democratic centrist Joe Biden, based on what Caitlin Johnstone has to say about why Labour failed so badly against Boris:
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/post/what-corbyn-got-wrong-about-brexit
11@Joe – Nope. Read my comments to Jane.
12@chuck – If you think Corbyn is Biden, then I can’t help you.
13I admit, I didn’t read your comment to Jane past, “Biden is the ONLY candidate with serious federal executive government experience.”
Because here’s what I think the weakness is in an argument about a candidate’s qualifications: The type of person that votes for Trump doesn’t say to himself, “I voted for Trump in 2018, but Biden has Executive Branch experience and knows world leaders on a first name basis—I’m going with Biden this time!” Conversely, the people that are currently supporting Biden in all the polls are not the type to say, “Biden is my man, and if it ends up Bernie or Liz, then I’m sitting this one out!”
The only reason Biden seems strong in polls is because of name recognition. And Biden is slipping in the polls—I think one just came out today showing Bernie in the lead.
The key is to attract the people in the swing states that voted for Trump. These people don’t think about qualifications and experience so much. They want an outsider to shake up the system. That’s why they went with Trump. A consummate insider like Biden is not going to motivate them. Only an outsider like Warren or Sanders has a chance. Like 2018, this election is a populist election, and in such times you run a populist.
14Glad to know the DNC is cleaning up its act according to some.
15It isn’t like the so called “moderates” foisted one of their own into the chairs position.
Or that the DCCC is running interference for thuglican lites such as lipinski, cuellar, case etc by threatening the livelihood of any one who should even have the temerity to challenge one of their ethically challenged surrendercrats.
Or that they have tried to limit dark money PAC’s from underwriting campaigns of “moderates” ( who vote thuglican)
Or they have been promoting negative news about Progressives
Or that they have been selling false meme of how the thuglicans will “come to their senses” as though the bad behavior of thuglicans during the Clinton and Obama administrations never occurred.
No let us just look at the polls, from right wing shills (real clear politics), that are highly dependent upon name recognition this far out and replay the failed strategy of hillary’s campaign.
Oh and lets just ignore and turn our backs upon the strategy’s and people who gave us the House in 2018.
Just as an adage is that everybody is always fighting the “last” war and trying to replicate lessons learned into a different environment and false parallels. Especially when you lost the “last” war with the same strategy.
The “arithmetic” that is thrown about would have given us a President Clinton in 16, a President Dukakis in ’88 etc.
Voters and political situations are NOT static.
Planning a campaign based upon a proven losing strategy and trying to defend it with so called “arithmetic” based upon polls from organizations whose agenda is to erase the New Deal and any subsequent actions. To roll back all progressive, environmental, labor, civil rights for all actions implemented since the new deal this far out is a formula for defeat.
Read Rachel Bitecofer she got it right last time. Why ignore the accurate one strategy while embracing the strategy that ones opponents wish you to follow?
Same arguement i hold from someone who is smarter. So now Robert Reich and Rachel Bitecofer present the same logic that lead to a win in 2018 versus those who promote the logic of a failed campaign.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/elizabeth-warren-will-be-americas-next-president-heres-why/
“Presidential elections are determined by turnout. Over a third of eligible voters in America don’t vote. They go to the polls only if they’re motivated. And what motivates people most is a candidate who stands for average people and against power and privilege.”
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