Bernie was definitely a sheepdog in 2016, because he herded good and sincere progressives into the establishment-Democratic Clinton campaign. But he was also an underdog, who-like most of his supporters-knew, and was primed to accept that outcome as inevitable from the beginning.
Bernie enters the 2020 primary campaign under entirely different conditions. There is certainly no inevitable candidate. Bernie has public recognition, a base of support, and a campaign organization at least as good as anyone else in the race-as well as a fundraising capacity that is nothing short of spectacular. He's riding on a larger wave of disgust among the Democratic constituency with all the party establishment's political and policy failures-including Hillary's inability to defeat Donald Trump-that has already brought insurgent progressives like AOC to the fore. He comes in as the guy with the bold progressive policies, in relation to which every other candidate must define themselves-usually by pretending to agree with them and concocting some hollowed-out ersatz version thereof. There is certainly no inevitable candidate that impedes him. If anything, he enters the race in the strongest position.
As the campaign has progressed, he has certainly become stronger while most of the new cool kids (Beto, Kamala, Booker) have fallen by the wayside. Most pleasing to me were the unintended effects of Elizabeth Warren's various maneuvers-starting with her moonwalking away from her oft-stated support of Medicare-for-all and culminating in her foot-shot stunt, accusing Bernie of dismissing the possibility of a woman becoming president and oh-so-cleverly putting herself in a tight "Either he's lying or I am" box. 'Cause who would disbelieve a Native American woman?
All of this triangulating, pandering, and betrayal helped many well-meaning progressives see what many of us have been trying to get across for years: that Warren is not at all a bird of Bernie's feather, but a creature of an altogether different serpentine order. It's now quite clear that Bernie is the only real progressive candidate in the Democratic race.
With Warren nicely slip-sliding down in the polls, Bernie is also now alone in the top tier with Joe Biden.
Problem is, Joe Biden is a compulsive liar and fabulist. As Shaun King demonstrates in a devastating analysis and Twitter thread, it's a lifelong pattern. He really can't stop himself from lying in the most transparent and self-destructive ways, "creating entire fictional storylines to impress white liberals & connect w/ Black voters." He continues to this day repeating false stories about his heroic activities in the civil-rights movement that he admitted thirty years ago were lies. Joe's zombie lies. It's the same pattern with his lies about his stances on the Iraq War and Social Security.
Biden already had one presidential campaign destroyed by this compulsion, in 1988. The only reason it hasn't happened in this campaign yet is because the Democratic establishment-aligned media, and its oh-so-concerned-with-the-truth fact-checkers who keep a running tally of Trump's lies every day, have been glossing over Joe's lies to help him in the primaries. But the internet preserves forever and distributes everywhere, and Biden would be Trump toast:
It gets worse, because right now Jumpy Joe is also an awkward and often incoherent campaigner. Take a look at this exchange with an Iowa voter concerned about pipelines, where a petulant, angry Biden gets all pushy and grabby, tells the guy to "go vote for someone else," misprofiles him as a Bernie supporter, and refuses to take a picture with him:
When running for office, @JoeBiden does not just have gaffes or embellishments, he creates wildly fictional storylines about his life and work that simply are not true.
These are lies. And he tells them to get votes and build a rep he has not earned. pic.twitter.com/FUjALdqA3C- Shaun King (@shaunking) January 30, 2020
Original post (I shot the video) pic.twitter.com/TMp60C5oXm
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