• RNAi [he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    4 years ago

    Bernie campaign did some really stupid shit, but they weren't gonna win anyways. I didn't make the meme, I'm just sharing it cuz it's funny

    • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      None of the campaign's mistakes were bad enough to classify as "really stupid shit," and concluding in hindsight that he never even had a chance is just cope.

        • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          No, pretty much all of the Bernie campaign was at least defensible -- i.e., stuff you can reasonably argue was a good decision at the time. "Really stupid shit" is stuff that is so obviously wrong that there isn't even a plausible excuse for doing it.

          For instance, you can make a reasonable case that going negative on Biden would not have worked. You might still disagree with that assessment, but even if it was a mistake it wasn't so far outside of the realm of possibility that it qualifies as "really stupid shit."

            • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              4 years ago

              What do you mean "allowing"? Could he have cut Biden's mike? Could he have put on the video evidence right there in the debate? No, the best he could do is reply "that's not true and there's video to prove it, you can go see for yourself" -- which is what he did. I think he would have benefited from a more aggressive tone and a more pointed approach at that last debate, but now we're talking about precisely calibrating the tenor of 90+ minutes of extemporaneous speaking. This is fine detail, not unjustifiable, unforced errors.

              "Really stupid shit" is stuff like ignoring important states, making a huge issue out of things people don't care about, being unprepared on major topics, falling for obvious bait (Warren's DNA test comes to mind), etc.

                • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Waiting until the last debate to say anything

                  Biden was dead in the water before the last debate; this is just hindsight bias. I don't think Biden won a single delegate until South Carolina, and even then it took Obama's coordinated drop out/endorsement ratfucking to revive his campaign. Why didn't Bernie go out of his way to kick Biden in the Nevada debate? Because Biden was a non-factor then.

      • RNAi [he/him]
        hexagon
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yes, it's cope, but do you really think the powerful were just gonna let him win the presidency?

        • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          That depends on how coordinated the powerful were, and how much effort they would have had to put forth to sabotage the campaign. One reasonable takeaway from the primary is that the powerful got really lucky, and that they probably won't be as lucky next time around. Imagine a re-run of 2020 where:

          1. The pandemic (or another equivalent story) his a month earlier
          2. The Tara Reade story (or an equivalent) breaks a month earlier
          3. Mainstream Democrats don't have a popular two-term president with the clout to coordinate a mass drop out before Super Tuesday (historically, this is rare)

          Would the party be able to consolidate around a centrist candidate in time? How much (more) ratfucking could they (and would they) pull off? Would any amount of coordination or ratfucking be enough if Bernie had twice as many supporters?

          • RNAi [he/him]
            hexagon
            ·
            4 years ago

            You are forgetting about the GOP, if Bernie won the primary, every single news outlet would somehow suddenly praise Trump, while telling people the country will explode and children will cry blood if evil gomunism won the white house. Corporate democrats would just openly bash Sanders and will talk about not voting or something like that.

            • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Corporate democrats would just openly bash Sanders and will talk about not voting or something like that.

              I don't buy this. First, this didn't happen when Obama (painted as an evil muslamic gommunist who wasn't even a real red-blooded 'Merican) won the primary in 2008. Second, no one wants to risk getting frozen out by a winning administration. Third, "Vote Blue No Matter Who" had been drummed into people's brains for 3.5 years at that point, and not even the American propaganda apparatus can erase that kind of messaging overnight.

              • RNAi [he/him]
                hexagon
                ·
                4 years ago

                Meanwhile Biden says children should go bac to school and libs are happy with it. People have a memory span of half second at best

                • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Even if that's true, there are still the other two reasons you wouldn't have seen an open revolt among Democratic politicians.