Originally Posted by
Deacon Blackfire
Unfortunately I believe this as well. Biden's major running point is "I can beat Trump", and at this point I think a lot of people are going to gravitate to that tepid middle ground out of fear that going "too radical" will help Trump win. However, I tend to think running another center-hewing Democrat like Biden and Clinton before him would basically guarantee a 2nd term for Trump.
Trump didn't win because he outperformed previous Republicans by huge margins - really, that election was more about the votes Clinton DIDN'T get as opposed to the votes Trump got. It was about the people who didn't vote. Racist voter suppression laws in red states obviously played a huge part but it went beyond that. Huge swaths of the country didn't vote and caused Clinton to underperform in crucial areas, because 1) Clinton was a milquetoast centrist whose support was basically defined by opposition to her rival ("she's better than Trump" was the main motivator, not thinking Clinton would do the job to your liking), who took her support in the places she needed as a given, and 2) Clinton's campaign did a better job convincing people Trump had no chance of winning than convincing them that they should/needed to vote for her, which resulted in a lot of people just staying home and not casting a vote. Trump fatigue will help Biden get around that second point, but the first point still stands for him, and after his awful debate performances and numerous moronic statements this early into the election cycle, I am bewildered by anyone who thinks he is the "safest" choice. The stale centrism he represents failed catastrophically in 2016 and yet the Democratic machine is poised to rally behind him dutifully because they have learned nothing. They would rather lose to fascism while tsk-tsking the electorate for not embracing their lazy mediocrity than move an inch left and risk compromising the Democratic party hierarchy and its institutional power and privilege. Nancy Pelosi's recent conduct perfectly exemplifies this, from abdicating her constitutional duty to impeach in favor of banking it all on voting him out in 2020, to going more scorched-earth against leftist members of her own party like the Squad (the people who represent actual values, who represent the future of their party) than the vile scumbags trying to destroy every mechanism we have to save our country.
I just could not be more discouraged by Democratic "leadership" in these past four years. They are the only realistic option for political opposition we have, and instead of rising to meet the awful tide of the Trump-era, they are - yet again - banking on the non-existent standards of the Republican party to squeeze by the least desirable candidate possible. They are again leveraging the desperation of the electorate in another "lesser of two evils" choice, even after doing so in 2016 went so disastrously wrong. And before anyone says it, yes, Biden is far, far, FAR less evil than Trump and if I need to, I'll vote for the white-toothed dingus. I just feel he is the opposite of the "safe" candidate that they are marketing him as.