Right now, Democrats are doing what Democrats always do: They form into a circular firing squad and snipe at one another to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Currently, the Dems have three viable 2020 candidates – Warren, Sanders, and Biden. Buttigieg, as great as he is, can’t get out of single digits in national polls, and let’s face it – it’s not his time and he should prepare to run for governor or Senator from Indiana and then come back in 10 years. His time is in the future. There have been no votes cast in any primary yet, but the intramural feuding is well underway with Warren supporters smearing Biden and amplifying Trump’s idiotic conspiracy theories, Biden supporters saying Warren is unelectable, and Bernie supporters hating everyone.
Warren is sticking to a Medicare for All plan that doesn’t have the slightest chance of ever seeing the light of day, wants to fund it by taxing billionaires, vows to shut down the US oil industry, and is threatening businesses that she’s going to jail CEOs. Sanders vows to also shut down the US oil industry and tax billionaires; he’s more circumspect on healthcare policy. Biden is staying down the middle, making the electability argument as his main selling point.
Let’s be blunt here. As much as you’ll hate to hear it, big sweeping policy changes and turning industries and healthcare on their heads is NOT a winning strategy. Dems have only one choice, and that is Trump, not Trump. Period. Short of him being removed by impeachment (which I believe is a slim to zero chance), or him keeling over from his artery clogging diet, getting him out of office through the ballot box is the only viable chance to rid ourselves from this metastasizing tumor sitting in the Oval Office.
The New York Times published their latest poll this week that pretty much sums up what Real Clear Politics has been reporting for months – Biden is the clear choice for the best chance to beat Trump:
This is the summary of the latest poll. Sanders is second, Warren a distant third, yet Warren is catching up to Biden in the early primary states, though she is the worst of the front runners to face Trump, and her rhetoric is making it even harder for her to compete.
Before you say it, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know – Biden is old, failing, sleepy, confused, (insert your insult here _________). What’s really weird is that none of those adjectives are used on Sanders or Warren even though he is older than Biden and is ACTUALLY suffering from a heart condition, and Warren is only a few years behind both of them. The issue here, and the ONLY issue here is beating Trump. Biden, especially if strengthened by a younger vibrant VP candidate is the highest probability candidate to beat Trump. Warren and Sanders are not. Period. Want to lose suburbanites, and middle of the roaders? Threaten to take away their healthcare and triple the price of gasoline. It’s stupid, and a losing strategy.
As much as all of us hate it, this is NOT the election for sweeping policy changes. This is the election of winning. That is the only goal. The choice is Trump, not Trump. If you think things are miserable now, imagine if this SOB got another 4 years. He has already destroyed the State Department and the Justice Department. After he packs another 2 or 3 ideologues on the Supreme Court and hundreds of lunatics in the federal court system, he would have virtually destroyed our democracy. The risk is too great to lose this one – the cost is too high.
The Dems just have to stop the infighting and focus on the only goal for 2020 – beating Trump. It’s arithmetic.
