politics

I'm fully convinced they slow rolled the Trump prosecution so that they could use him to fundraise. I'm half convinced they slow rolled it because they were going to just let it slide if it was clear Trump was going to stay out of politics, because the ghoul club looks out for each other behind the scenes.

And yeah, there's an actual laundry list of places where they fucked up hard on this last election. A non-exhaustive list includes:

• Lying about Biden's condition/ not pushing him to step aside because the establishment democrats considers seniority to be the holiest of all political attributes. It's why they were SO pissed that Obama cut Hillary off and they went on about "it's her turn!" in '16. Tbh, it's probably just as much a part of why they shut Sanders out in '16 as him being progressive. Anyway, this meant that we had basically a sham primary. Yes, it was a real primary, but we all know the incumbent always wins the primary, and they lied over and over about his condition until that shit was over with. So, no, I don't think you can really say it was a fair election, because voters were deliberately deceived by their own party.

• Colluding to get Biden put in. I know someone's going to come and tell me that the '20 primary was 100% legit and totally not sketchy at all, but I'll never forget Biden showing up to those debates looking like a freshly reanimated corpse and, all of the sudden, he wins South Carolina (which I do consider legitimate) and all the other candidates start dropping out and giving their delegates to him (which I consider illegitimate because it really smelled coordinated and allowing candidates to pledge their delegates forward is sketchy AF). To me, this is the original sin here. Biden wasn't a god awful president, but they knew he wasn't the best candidate they could possibly run, they knew his history, and I will never ever be convinced that they picked Kamala because she was the right person for the job. They picked Kamala because she landed some absolute body shots on Biden about racism in the primary debates, and they needed to clean that radioactive spill up. I think they felt that the most expedient means of doing so was for Joe to get Kamala. I don't think for two seconds that Kamala was Joe's choice. This wouldn't have been all bad if they'd committed to working on polishing Kamala up and getting her out there in the public eye and grooming her as a viable independent candidate a la Gore, but they didn't. They kinda just shoved her into the broom closet after Biden won and only dug her out after he blew his legs own off on the debate stage. So, that stupid fucking maneuver to shut Sanders out in '20 gave us a president that not many people were excited about; a VP that neither the president, nor the DNC, nor the people liked who would go on to be his natural successor on the campaign trail; all while ensuring that said VP had no distinct political image, and even, due to the righteous trait of seniority, forcing Kamala to assure voters that she absolutely adored Biden's unpopular policies.

• The DNC didn't even trust their own candidates. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Kamala is God awful; I wouldn't have picked her, but she had enough good qualities to work with to stand on her own if they'd trusted her. This is especially true with Walz on her team; they had some real potential if the DNC had got the fuck out of the way and stopped focus grouping them to death. Instead, they picked Kamala and played up what little leftist cred she had and then foisted HRC's campaign staff on her, made her talk about limited means-tested small business aid, and got celebrities to make guest appearances. They got Walz for his incredible shit talking abilities, then muzzled him. They saw the campaign starting to make its own identity separate from Biden and screamed "NO, YOU'LL DISHONOR OUR SPECIAL BOY. HE WON'T KNOW, BUT WE WILL!" They saw the populist moment, the people crying out for change, and went "hey, shut up, offer them means tested tax assistance. Here's Obama lecturing down to our base, that always goes over well".

• They abandoned their strategy of talking about what a dangerous fascist Trump was after that kid in Pennsylvania nearly started a GoFundMe for Trump's family. Trump didn't stop being a dangerous fascist, but the appearance of decency was more important than speaking the truth. If Trump didn't want to get his goddamn brains blown out, maybe don't go having fascist rallies in open fields. But it gave the perception that they didn't really believe that he was a dangerous fascist, that they were just saying it until they realized it was dangerous to say it. This was a huge mistake, imo.

Not to mention their perpetual blackballing of anyone actually progressive in the party. The neoliberal arm of the DNC has done nearly as much damage to this country as the Republicans have.