Yes, the main obstacle. Given the demographics and the state of the social economy, the Republican party, under any leader, could not stop any social-democratic policy that a real opposition party and press representing working people's interests wanted to enact. Those policies are not stopped by the opposition of the Republican party. They are stopped by the opposition within the Democratic party, which takes them in its false embrace, to co-opt and kill them. As it just did with Medicare-for-All.
Really, register this: The principal immediate goal of the Democratic party in this primary (and when I say "Democratic party" I always include "its allied media"), in the midst of a pandemic, was to kill single-payer healthcare, the most basically humanistic and politically advantageous social policy--indeed, as the present pandemic makes clear, the most obvious social necessity--one can imagine. The party strangled it, and smothered any other such initiative, by coalescing around Joe Biden, who has vowed to veto Medicare-for-All even if it passes congress, has long sought to cut Social Security, and promises his billionaire donors that, if he's elected, "nothing will fundamentally change". No Republicans necessary.
We won't even mention the principled difference between the two parties regarding U.S. imperialism (or whatever else you want to call it: militarism, American exceptionalism, regime-change wars, "foreign policy"), because nobody even pretends anymore that there is one.
Furthermore, there is no longer the facade of personal charisma that distinguished Obama, and identity correctness that distinguished him and Hillary from Republican opponents, and inspired a lot of energetic support among Democratic constituencies. That thin, but at the time politically effective, fa????ade lost most of its luster in the mire of Barack and Hillary's real actions, and with Biden's ascension, it's gone, baby, gone. Joe Biden is arguably at least as much of a racist, sexist, liar, and war-monger, and more incoherent and cognitively impaired, than Donald Trump.
There is no affirmative case for Joe Biden. The Democrat party knows that and fears it--not just because it makes Biden a loser, but because it demonstrates that there's no affirmative case for the party itself. That is why Democrats are frantically worrying about whether to replace him before August. He's like an email that was sent by mistake. If they can figure out how to recall him before the voters get too far into him, he will have the honor of being the first presidential nominee deposed in advance.
And what would be the Democrats' alternative? Cue the Cuomo Craze. All the #Resistance Dems, who can see Biden decompensating, are in a rapturous tizzy over Andrew as a Great White Obama who can swoop in and save the party from the disaster it has brought upon itself with Joe. They are again completely taken in by a smooth-talking neo-liberal con-man who's good at playing the anti-Trump on TV. Cuomo--who put his investment-manager donor in charge of closing hospitals and medical schools, who eliminated 20,000 hospital beds and rejects Medicaid funding rather than raise taxes on the rich--is the guy the Democrats have anointed the healthcare hero of the pandemic.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
2
2
