Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumSome Of The Ways That Joe Biden Will Beat Donald Trump
In politics, there's the truth, there's what people believe, there's what people want to hear politicians say, and then there are those things that the politicians actually do say. Those four things are often not the same things at all, and it is often hard to keep those four things straight. This is just one of the reasons why politics can be so complicated. Let us start by first focusing on some of the things that politicians say.
What Politicians Actually Do Say
Currently, we have the modern version of the evil boy king in the White House. This petulant child, Donald Trump, had Republican voters fall in love with him for actually repeating all of the hateful things that they had been hearing on Fox News and Right-Wing radio for decades. "At last," they thought, "a politician who talks like Rush Limbaugh does--and he does it all of the time!". Now, while Donald Trump is different from the previous Republican presidents of the last seventy or so years because he spouts his hateful rhetoric on a regular basis, his policies really are not that different from the policies of previous Republican Presidents.
I know it may sound crazy to say that Donald Trump's policies are not that different from the Republicans that came before him, but hear me out for a moment. Lots of poor people were dying from lack of health care, from lack of proper wages, from lack of proper retirement benefits, and from being shut out of this country due to immigration policies long before Trump became President. The key difference between Trump and the evil Republican slime-balls before him is that Donald Trump insults people all the time. If you are not part of his base, he's probably getting an insult ready for you. With Trump, you are either for him or you are against him, so he's always got plenty of people in his mental doghouse, and he's always getting more insults ready like a kid in a snowstorm who is constantly rolling up snowballs.
It is true that Republicans really do love how he insults those people who do not agree with him. Do you know who is actually not fond of that? Democrats, as well as the majority of Independent voters (the ones who do not lean Conservative), are not fond of that at all. This is one of the reasons why Donald Trump's approval for almost three years has averaged around 42%--because most Americans do not like how he goes about his business. They do not like the constant insults and constant put-downs. They think that it makes him look like a clown--and not presidential at all.
What I Think Most People Believe
Now, we Democrats don't usually fight our battles the way that Trump does. Our last Democratic President. Barack Obama was originally a community organizer who focused on getting groups to work together. Barack Obama was a truly nice guy with a huge heart who really cared about people and sought to find consensus on the Congressional bills that he supported. The Democratic President before him, Bill Clinton, focused on what some called "triangulation", or finding the center between what the Democrats wanted and what the Republicans wanted, so that he could try to work out compromises. The Democratic President before him, Jimmy Carter, a man so nice that he is still building houses for the poor when most others would have just taken to a rocking chair, won his 1976 Election partly by showing America that he was a businessman, a religious family man, and a former officer in the Navy--all of which tend to be things that Republicans generally love. None of them, Obama, Clinton, or Carter, believed that insulting the opposition was the way to go.
Do you know who else really does not really believe in politicians insulting people all of the time? Members of America's largest political party--the Independent Party--don't generally believe in that either. Do you know why there are more Independents in this country than either Democrats or Republicans? It is because there is a really big chunk of voters who think that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have cornered the market on good ideas. If these people truly thought that the Republicans had all of the good ideas, then they would *be* Republicans, and if they thought the Democrats had all of the right ideas, they would *be* Democrats. However, a lot of Independents believe that America needs more than one political party, that no one party has cornered the market on good ideas, and that countries that only have one real political party tend to look like the following countries, per Wikipedia ( https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-party_state#Examples ):
As of April 2015, there are 10 states that are ruled by a single party:
--China (Communist party, 8 registered minor parties)
--Democratic People's Republic of Korea (AKA- North Korea) (Korean Workers' Party) - 2 minor parties that exist on paper only
--Vietnam (Communist party)
--Cuba (Communist party)
--Eritrea
--Western Sahara
--Burma (the opposition parties are prevented from taking office)
--Laos (Communist party)
--Syria (Ba'ath Party)
--Turkmenistan
Those countries all have essentially one political party, and politics in those countries is truly awful. This is one of the reasons why there are so many Independents in this country, and it is also why most television newscasts, newspapers, and news magazines tend to show more than one side to a story. It is because there are a lot of voters, and a lot of journalists, who believe that there is usually more than one side to a story, and that it is critical that more than one side of the story be heard. You see, in countries that only have one political party, that party usually looks a lot more like the modern Republican party than it looks like the modern Democratic party. In one-party states, that party is usually controlled by the richest and the most powerful, and to me, that sounds a lot more like the modern Republican party than it does the modern Democratic party.
So, when Joe Biden says we need there to be a Republican party, he's not ignorant to all of the evil that the Republicans have done. Being in national politics as long as he has, few understand their evil better than he does. When he says we need there to be a Republican party, it is because he understands from looking at the world as it is now, and from how one-party states have operated in the world for the past 100 years, that if a nation only has one party, odds are that one party will look a heck of a lot more like the current Republican party than the current Democratic party--and the one thing Joe Biden does not want is to have the United States ruled by one party that looks like the Republican party.
I believe that Joe Biden will win the Democratic Nomination. Furthermore, I believe that Joe Biden is going to win the next Presidential General Election because he is going to do it by not constantly insulting the other side. The reason that when Joe Biden called a voter a liar a few days ago made the news was that he almost never does that. When Joe Biden did that thing that he rarely does, show just how angry people going after his son sometimes makes him, some of the Democrats who want another candidate to get the Democratic nomination said, "Oh, he should be more cool like Obama was". Some of these same people, when Joe Biden actually indicated that he thought that he could get bills passed by working with Republicans, the same thing that all of our previous Democratic Presidents thought, said things like, "Oh, Joe Biden is crazy! We can't work with Republicans! All they do is obstruct! Joe Biden is living in the past!". Some of these same Democrats, who support other Democratic candidates for the Presidential nomination, also tend to say things like, "Oh, look how delusional Joe Biden is for thinking that America needs the Republican party!".
Despite the ridiculous obstruction of the Republican Party, Joe Biden knows that he can get things done as President. He knows that, as President, he will be able to veto any bill put on his desk, and he knows that there is no way that the Republicans will end up with a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate. This means that they will be forced to work compromises with him, and no other Democratic candidate has had more experience at getting bills through Congress than Joe Biden has. Biden also knows, for the reasons mentioned above, that no matter how awful the Republican party is, America only having one political party would be even worse because odds are it would look a lot more like the Republican Party than the Democratic Party.
What I Believe That Most People Want To Hear Politicians Say
As for why Joe Biden will win against Donald Trump, he is going to win against Trump because he is going to win a lot of votes from the middle, meaning the Independent voters, in addition to winning a lot of Democratic voters. So, what exactly is the reason that Joe Biden is going to win the middle? It's because the middle is sick and tired of what they refer to as all of the "bickering and fighting" that is happening in Congress. A lot of people in the middle always seem to think that both sides are responsible for America's problems, no matter how evil Republicans get.
So, Joe Biden will do what worked for Carter, Clinton, Obama, and a lot of other previous Democratic Presidents. He will focus on emphasizing that he believes that he can work with the Republicans, just as previous Democrats have done. He will focus on the issues and on what needs to be done more, and he will focus on insulting the opposition less. He will walk in the same path of Carter, Clinton, and Obama, as they walked the same path of FDR, Truman, JFK, and Johnson. He will emphasize working together for the common good of America, and he will look for the things that Democrats and Republicans have in common.
What I Believe To Be The Truth
In this way, Joe Biden will win the majority of Independents in addition to winning a majority of Democrats in November of 2020, and he will consign Donald Trump to the ash-bin of history. Soon, we will no longer be living in Trump's world. Just as 9/11 faded into the past, Donald Trump will soon be just a really bad memory that most of the nation will be trying to overcome. Joe Biden will get us there not though endless crass insults, but instead by focusing on common goals and working together. So, you fellow Democrats who think that Joe Biden is nuts because he thinks he can work with Republicans and think he is nuts because he believes that America needs more than one political party, you keep expressing your opinions. That is, after all, what America is all about--people having more than one viewpoint--and we Joe Biden supporters, like Joe Biden himself, believe in more than one viewpoint, as well as believing in more than one political party in order to express that viewpoint.
As for Joe, he will keep being at the top of the national polls, he will wrap up the nomination this summer, and he will win next November. In the end, after his administration is over, and many Democrats start to realize that Joe Biden was actually right all along, odds are that he will not even say, "I told you so" even once. You see, Joe Biden believes in being polite as much as he can. Just don't go after his family to his face.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Thekaspervote
(34,160 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Bayard
(23,813 posts)To show what sanity looks like.
If the Russians don't double down on reinstalling their useful puppet, Joe is our next President. If he gets an overwhelming majority, not even that will stop him.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)Republicans make the Democrats look good.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Demsrule86
(70,739 posts)K&R
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
peggysue2
(11,368 posts)A post people need to read and think about. Because just like the Electoral College, the Republicans are not going to go away any time soon and if they did, one-party rule--as you state--would come back to bite us.
Unexpected consequences and all that.
So yes, I agree that Joe Biden has the experience and wisdom regarding how government works. Or to put it into crasser terms: he knows how shit gets done. He also has humility, something rare in politicians, and a respect for the country, our history, our legacy despite all our faults and mistakes. When he says he's fighting for the soul of the country, I believe him and agree that that's exactly what is at stake--our soul, the very definition of who and what we are as Americans. More than that, he has genuine empathy for others. People trust that quality as a marker of a decent human being and an ethical leader, and Joe Biden has been out there for decades fighting for people's rights. He didn't just helicopter in on a sunny afternoon promising the world. He's been in the trenches, knows what's possible as opposed to wishful thinking and unkept promises.
I do believe Biden can turn this mess around, both here and abroad. If he's given the chance, he'll fight like hell. For all of us.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
mac56
(17,602 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden