MAY 20, 2020 (counterpunch.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by\u00a0TED RALL<\/a> Facebook<\/a> Twitter<\/a> Reddit<\/a> Email<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The corporate conservatives who control the Democratic Party are suffering from cheaters\u2019 remorse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DNC and their media allies (NPR, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Vox, etc.) subverted the will of primary voters, undermining initial frontrunner Bernie Sanders in order to install the worst candidate of the 20 centrists in the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the power brokers are worried that the befuddled Biden<\/a>, whom they touted as the Most Electable Against Donald Trump, will lose to him. Rather than take responsibility for their idiocy and force Biden to pull out of a race for which he is obviously physically and mentally unprepared, the corporatist sellouts are preemptively blaming the progressives<\/a> who warned them about this exact scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sorry, right wingers. Biden is on you. You made him the presumptive nominee. If Trump wins again, it\u2019s your<\/em> fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as it was last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Establishment panic over Biden is most palpable in the pages of the official party organ of the Democratic Party, the Times. \u201cWhile [Biden] has held consistent leads in most national and swing-state polls, they have not been altogether comfortable one,\u201d the paper noted<\/a> on May 15th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Biden is to squeak by Trump in November, he requires a comfortable lead now. \u201cA CNN poll<\/a> released on Wednesday found Mr. Biden leading the president by five percentage points nationwide, but trailing by seven points among voters in crucial battleground states\u2026for some Democrats, the results of the CNN poll again raised the specter that Mr. Biden could win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College, as Hillary Clinton and Al Gore both did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Historically, in May of a presidential election year Democrats need lead of at least 10 points<\/a> over their Republican rival in order to prevail in a general election. Republicans always close the gap during the last six months of a presidential race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Times is pushing Biden\u2019s candidacy via two lines of argument. First, lesser-evilism. As columnist Frank Bruni wrote<\/a> May 17th<\/sup>, he\u2019ll \u201ctake Biden\u2019s confusion over Trump\u2019s corruption.\u201d (Of course Biden is corrupt<\/a> too.) Second, they claim, Biden should be acceptable. He isn\u2019t Hillary Clinton. Due to the coronavirus crisis, Bidenites say, their man is willing<\/a> to pivot to the left<\/a>. (Never mind that progressive programs need to be in place before a crisis, not ramping up a year after<\/a> it begins<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second argument is the easiest to shoot down. Biden has a decades-long track record of voting and governing to the right, including voting to invade Iraq for no good reason. Even now, as tens of millions of Americans lose their jobs and thus their health insurance, Biden refuses to join the rest of the industrialized world<\/a> by endorsing single-payer healthcare. Progressives don\u2019t trust Biden. They trust history. History proves Biden isn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruni\u2019s argument involves magical thinking too. \u201cAt the end of the day, Biden can be trusted to do what Trump didn\u2019t and won\u2019t: stock his administration with qualified professionals. He could compensate for any supposed cognitive deficit with a surplus of talent,\u201d Bruni says. There is no evidence, none, zero, zip, that this is true. Biden could validate that argument by announcing his cabinet nominations now. But he\u2019s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden leaves progressive voters cold. That matters because the enthusiasm gap could decide the election. \u201cTrump had a consistent edge over Hillary Clinton in enthusiasm [in 2016],\u201d reported CNN\u2019s Harry Enten<\/a>. \u201cHis voters were 4 points more likely to say they were very enthusiastic in voting for him than Clinton\u2019s were for her in the final ABC News\/Washington Post poll<\/a>, even as Clinton led overall. That enthusiasm advantage should have been one of the warning signals to the Clinton campaign. Trump\u2019s current edge in enthusiasm over Biden is even larger. In a late March ABC News\/Washington Post poll<\/a>, 53% of Trump backers said they were very enthusiastic about voting for him. Just 24% of Biden backers said the same about their guy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If anything, the enthusiasm gap might widen as billions of dollars of stimulus payment letters bearing Trump\u2019s signature hit voters\u2019 bank accounts and he wraps himself in the trappings of the presidency while Biden sits in his basement trying to figure out how to use his computer camera<\/a>. If I were Trump, I\u2019d be planning my second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s not forget how we got here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Bernie Sanders announced he was running again, Democratic-aligned media outlets said he was too old. \u201cMr. Sanders would be 79 when he assumed office, and after an October heart attack, his health is a serious concern,\u201d the Times said<\/a> in its absurd editorial joint endorsement of Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, when Bernie emerged as frontrunner for the nomination, corporate media presented him as an existential threat. Head-to-head polls showed he was at least as electable as his rivals, yet \u201cjournalistic\u201d organizations stated, without evidence, that a left-wing Democrat couldn\u2019t beat Trump. Headlines proliferated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan Bernie Be Stopped?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBernie Sanders Can Still Be Stopped.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Stop Sanders Movement Has Gone Public<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n CNN even compared Sanders to the coronavirus<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember all those \u201cCan Obama Be Stopped?\u201d headlines from the 2008 primaries. Me neither. When it came to Bernie, pseudo-liberal media didn\u2019t pretend to be objective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DNC went after him like crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bernie Sanders won the key Iowa caucus<\/a> but Democratic vote-counting chicanery cheated him out of the PR for his win. Party insiders believe that Barack Obama personally arranged for Beto O\u2019Rourke, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg to endorse<\/a> Joe Biden the day before Super Tuesday. Speaking of which, Sanders won California<\/a>, the biggest state\u2014but the vote count mysteriously took days, denying him a big headline and an accurately optimistic delegate count in media coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re still at it. At this writing party leaders are trying to prevent an embarrassing protest vote against Joe Biden in New York by fighting in court for the right to delete Bernie Sanders from the state\u2019s mail-in primary ballots<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Times headline from February 20th<\/sup> proved prescient: \u201cDemocratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Bernie Sanders<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They got what they wanted.Join the debate on Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n More articles by:TED RALL<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ted Rall<\/strong>, syndicated writer and the cartoonist for ANewDomain.net<\/a><\/em>, is the author of the book \u201cSnowden<\/a>,\u201d the biography of the NSA whistleblower.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MAY 20, 2020 (counterpunch.org) by\u00a0TED RALL Facebook Twitter Reddit Email The corporate conservatives who control the Democratic Party are suffering from cheaters\u2019 remorse. The DNC and their media allies (NPR, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Vox, etc.) subverted the will of primary voters, undermining initial frontrunner Bernie Sanders… Continue reading