What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Grey Fox]

That is what I said.

[grumbler]

That is what I said.

This is what everyone said. Some said it in English, and some in NewSpeak.

[garbon]

Another big factor in retail are the warehouse clubs.  It's another dimension of competition because it keeps both the live experience and the get-everything-in-one-place convenience.  The atmosphere is more spartan but I suspect the clubs have done even more damage to the lower-tier malls than ecommerce.

Those aren't knew though. I mean I know they were already pretty common when I was a kid in the early 90s.

[dps]

Back in the 90s, though, weren't many (most?) more-or-less actually akin to private clubs, as opposed to today, when most of them are called "clubs" but anyone can join?

[garbon]

I don't think so? My parents definitely didn't have any hook ups when they joined one in Mass. We'd only just moved there.

[garbon]

Crash and Bern

In the latest iteration of the relitigation of the 2016 Democratic presidential nominating contest, Bernie Sanders said something critical about the Democratic Party this week, and people freaked out.

Bernie Sanders has triggered a backlash by making comments interpreted as an attack on Barack Obama on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

The senator for Vermont appeared to criticise the first black US President as he branded the Democratic Party a "failure".

Speaking in Jackson, Mississippi, he said Democrats had lost a record number of legislative seats.

"The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure,' said the Vermont Senator.

Sanders went out of his way to mention Obama's brilliance, and in context it was reasonably clear he was talking about the Democratic Establishment, not necessarily the 44th president at the top of the party pyramid. But it was almost certainly the wrong place at the wrong time to make this argument, as actor Jeffrey Wright made clear:

Jeffrey Wright
✔
@jfreewright
Nah, no, nope...Bernie...didn't go down to Jackson...Mississippi...MLK assassination...50th anniversary...and try to drag...Obama...who ain't perfect...at all. But. Bernie...if you want more than 3 southern black folks voting for you...you TRIPPIN', 'white working class Bernie.'

Paul Waldman added to the criticism by suggesting that it was also an odd time to be flaming the Democratic Party for electoral incompetence:

Since Trump got elected, Democrats have won nearly every off-year and special election in sight, usually improving on their prior performance by 10, 20 or even 30 points. They are poised to win back the House — and maybe even the Senate. No one in either party doubts they are going to make huge gains at state and local levels this fall. Whatever else you can say about them, you can't say they are not having success at the ballot box.

But then Waldman puts his finger on why Bernie Sanders is going to keep complaining about the Democratic Party even if it seems to be getting its act together, and moving pretty decisively in a progressive direction:

This is the essence of the Sanders brand; it always has been and always will be. No matter how much the party moves to the left — and it has moved a great deal in the last few years — there will never be a point where Sanders says, "I'm really pleased with where the Democratic Party is right now." Because once he said that, there would cease to be any need for Bernie Sanders to exist.

To put it a tad more charitably, Bernie has always, for many decades, been a gadfly when it comes to Democratic politics, and it's a mite strange to expect him to become anything else in his mid-to-late 70s. This is why he's never joined the Democratic Party–he feels he can't maintain healthy pressure on the old donkey if he's in harness with it.

And you know what? That should be okay to regular Democrats. Bernie's gonna Bernie, and most of the time that will consign him to limited influence in the party he's criticizing from outside the ranks. As Waldman points out, his near-conquest of the party in 2016 was the produce of extremely unusual circumstances, and probably won't recur in 2020, even if he does ignore concerns about his age, given a larger candidate field with fewer clear left-center fault lines. But any way you slice it, Sanders' criticisms don't necessarily show any "disarray" or deep identity crisis among Democrats. So long as Donald Trump is in the White House, the necessity of fighting him off and putting an end to this sad national experiment in white nationalist populism or whatever you want to call it should keep Democrats unified when and where it matters quite well.

[merithyn]

But then Waldman puts his finger on why Bernie Sanders is going to keep complaining about the Democratic Party even if it seems to be getting its act together, and moving pretty decisively in a progressive direction:

This is the essence of the Sanders brand; it always has been and always will be. No matter how much the party moves to the left — and it has moved a great deal in the last few years — there will never be a point where Sanders says, "I'm really pleased with where the Democratic Party is right now." Because once he said that, there would cease to be any need for Bernie Sanders to exist.

*slow clap*

Well said, Waldman.

[Berkut]

So where are the other Dem candidates?

[Tonitrus]

I think I head something on NPR the other day about Martin O'Malley doing the rounds.  But we all know how that is likely to go.

[garbon]

Kamala Harris
Elizabeth Warren (though she says she wouldn't as she keeps traveling around)
Eric Garcetti
Cory Booker
Terry McAuliffe
Andrew Cuomo

are all names that I've seen bandied about.

[derspiess]

But then Waldman puts his finger on why Bernie Sanders is going to keep complaining about the Democratic Party even if it seems to be getting its act together, and moving pretty decisively in a progressive direction:

This is the essence of the Sanders brand; it always has been and always will be. No matter how much the party moves to the left — and it has moved a great deal in the last few years — there will never be a point where Sanders says, "I'm really pleased with where the Democratic Party is right now." Because once he said that, there would cease to be any need for Bernie Sanders to exist.

*slow clap*

Well said, Waldman.

What do you think?  Is the Democrat Party as far left as it should be, or should it move further to the left?

[Berkut]

But then Waldman puts his finger on why Bernie Sanders is going to keep complaining about the Democratic Party even if it seems to be getting its act together, and moving pretty decisively in a progressive direction:

This is the essence of the Sanders brand; it always has been and always will be. No matter how much the party moves to the left — and it has moved a great deal in the last few years — there will never be a point where Sanders says, "I'm really pleased with where the Democratic Party is right now." Because once he said that, there would cease to be any need for Bernie Sanders to exist.

*slow clap*

Well said, Waldman.

What do you think?  Is the Democrat Party as far left as it should be, or should it move further to the left?

Right now the Dems would be foolish to move further left.

They need to be the not-Donald-Trump party, and be as palatable as possible otherwise.

[garbon]

Yeah, I love how the lesson that progressives took from right/nationalist Trump winning over left/centrist Clinton was that they need to move further to the left. Say what?

[garbon]

But then I think that's the lesson Labour took as well, here in Britain...

[merithyn]

What do you think?  Is the Democrat Party as far left as it should be, or should it move further to the left?

I'm a centrist, generally, but as the last decade has past, I've found myself further and further on the left. My opinions haven't changed, but the overall political leanings have. So I think that the left should move further to the left, as should the right.