I don't like the hit job being done on Joe Biden

[jaysunb]

I realize young people have very little understanding or appreciation for the times when dixiecrats were a large block of the Democratic Party, but when put in proper perspective, civil rights and racist views were not the totality of the focus of Congress. Many progressive laws that came out of those times benefit all of us today, and yes, it took a patchwork of all ideologies to get things done for the American people.
Biden is absolutely correct that we will go nowhere until bipartisanship is restored. Making this some sort of referendum of indictment of him is silly and a diversion from the hugh task at hand.

Disclaimer : I am not endorsing any candidate at this time

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212202523

[trev]

1. IMO, bipartisanship will be restored only

when the current crop of Republicans are out of power. That alone will make them reconsider their tactics.

[RKP5637]

5. Yes!!! n/t

[emmaverybo]

36. We need to get things done before then. Infrastructure for one. A good part of the American

electorate does blame both sides of the aisle for stalemate. They just hear the noise coming from the fighting, feel the effects of the stalemate, but don’t identify, as we do, the source.

[infinite_wisdom]

46. Gerrymandering

produces a lot of the extremism. Too many super safe conservative districts. The primary voters are insane and choose the most right wing nutbagiest person out there. The nuttiest of the bags win and then in November people just vote for the R no matter what.

I don’t see the fever breaking soon. Biden is not bring realistic. If he wins he will get zero cooperation from Republicans.

[Chakaconcarne]

48. So which other Democrat will get cooperation?

[Lonestarblue]

51. No Democrat will get cooperation.

Republicans have convinced themselves that they can keep winning by any means necessary and hold on to their power, so they have no need to compromise. The 2018 election was a surprise, but maybe too much attention was being paid for them to cheat. Of course, they did still cheat as we learned from North Carolina.

The only way to break this pattern is to defeat Republicans so heavily that a clear message is sent. Otherwise, they will just keep on working on their plan for permanent one-party dominance.

[LiberalLovinLug]

52. Not a one, that's the point

Democrats didn't want it to get to this place. But this is where we are. Maybe one day we can get back to some semblance of normalcy, give and take, but it's not now. First we fight and win, with every weapon we can. I've had it with the cap in hand approach when time and time again they just slap it out of our hand and laugh at our gullibility.

Some things are more important than an infrastructure bill.

[BeyondGeography]

2. You mean this one?

[JustAnotherGen]

7. The one where the CBC came to his defense

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287156148

I agree with them. People are being shrill shrews over this.

Folks who are decided best remember - those of us at the very end of the primary might look to supporters - - not the candidates - and make a decision.

[BeyondGeography]

9. It's seven months to Iowa

Far too early for anyone to lose their sense of humor.

[Cha]

20. HAHA! Black lawmakers get Biden's back amid 'segregationist' uproar

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287156148#top

[Cha]

21. Mahalo, Gen!

[pnwmom]

3. Sometimes Joe Biden shoots himself in the foot. His gaffes are part of the package.

That doesn't mean everyone else has to ignore them. He's not the nominee yet.

[Cha]

26. Right.. "part of the package".. like smearing Biden with

alan dershowitz?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=154449

[pnwmom]

27. I didn't smear him. I said I hoped he would say thanks but no thanks. n/t

[Cha]

28. Right...

[emmaverybo]

37. Ditto. Yeah, sure. NT

[RKP5637]

4. IMO the US is going nowhere in the future unless some from of bipartisanship is restored.

I'm fed up with all of the arguing ... I blame that really on the GOP. So many remind me of the neighbor you want to avoid but can't. That said, there really needs to be some form of bipartisanship. Way back my father was a strong democratic political figure, and he had lots of republican friends ... used to be working on things together all of the time. The goal was nothing will satisfy everyone of all political stripes, but we need to get past having just 50/50 arguments. It was a far different mindset decades ago.

[trev]

13. Key operative phrase: "Decades ago."

I'll ask you what I asked another poster earlier: How do you think Biden will accomplish bipartisanship in the current climate? This is not a snark, but an honest question that I'd really like to hear the answer to.

[RKP5637]

31. No, not a snark at all. I've wondered the same. My father would be decades older than Biden, but

they are similar IMO in the bipartisan area. ... but, things have changed drastically. Politics have turned into a cage fighting sporting event. It's horrible. Old lessons learned in the past well might not work today.

I think from the GOP perspective wanting bipartisanship is seen as a sign of weakness to be exploited. It is a horribly unhealthy way to run a country and Trump has exploited it to the hilt. And The Turtle is a classic case in point.

That is why I'm still "Undecided." I don't think Biden is the panacea, maybe he is, but I like his feeling that we need bipartisanship ... as do I think the other candidates.

One poster had said bipartisanship will not exist until the current crop of republicans is voted out of office ... but can we wait that long. What needs to occur is for the majority of the nation to want bipartisanship and vote accordingly. It's a psychological game, to sway the majority to want bipartisanship. I don't know, really, which candidate would be best for that ... but I tend to lean toward Elizabeth Warren and/or Buttigieg ... perhaps them as a team.

[trev]

60. I think that "other poster" was me. :)

We watched Obama get stifled everywhere. We're watching Pelosi get stifled even more blatantly. The current GOP members don't want us to be able to do anything, and they are using every trick they can to prevent it. Even criminal acts.

How can we sit down with them under these conditions? I have to admit I don't know.

Getting rid of McConnell would be a very good start, IMO. I know there are senators who privately don't like some of what he's doing. Maybe with him gone, we'd have a better chance at that bipartisanship.

Thanks for responding.

[RKP5637]

61. You're very welcome! What you had said made immediate sense to me!

[trev]

62. Well, I'm glad *something* I say made sense.

[floppyboo]

70. Warren and Buttigieg!

Now THAT would be a return to sanity!

[RKP5637]

71. Yes, I really think so! n/t

[emmaverybo]

38. He accomplished it, not decades ago, but while serving as VP, and yes, worked with Turtle. I

hate Turtle almost as badly as I loathe Trump, maybe more because McConnell isn’t stupid. As Joe might say, he does know better.
But he’s there and we have to move on what we can, as much as we can until we have a Dem majority in the senate.

[pazzyanne]

50. Biden, or any candidate, cannot do it on their own, but we can help.

Amy Klobuchar is a perfect example of a person who works in a bipartisan manner, and who gets results doing so. She works hard at making bills she writes and supports bipartisan. It can be done. We can help by working on electing more Democrats to the Senate while maintaining our majority in the House. Getting rid of Mitch McConnell would be a big help toward moving toward bipartisanship. The Freedom Caucus (Tea Party) is another roadblock. Get out the vote and then GOTV in 2020.

[TCJ70]

6. You mean quoting him? Yeah. That's rough. n/t

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Talking about what a candidate has said in the past and expecting them to do better than

nostalgic denial is not a hit job.

[mr_liberal]

10. AOC is working with Ted Cruz. There's an example just from today. nt

[marylandblue]

25. Neither one is a paragon of civility. And that's what Biden is missing.

He is confusing civility with accomplishments. Lots of people refuse to make a deal but are perfectly civil about. Mitch McConnell has a perfectly civil smirk while he refuses to move a single bill. He probably gives a friendly hello to Chuck Schumer every morning.

Nancy Pelosi refused to budge on Trump's wall for 35 days. How uncivil of her.

[snowybirdie]

11. Amen

Politics used to include compromise. How good things got done.

[Politicub]

42. And earmarks. A lot of stuff was accomplished via earmarks.

And then that fell out of vogue.

The house and senate have been hostile since I cast my first vote for Bill Clinton in 1992. Since then, the republicans dug in their heels and have not let up.

So I don’t share a first-hand memory of the mythical compromise unicorn. It might have existed, but that’s not the environment we find ourselves in today.

That’s why the conciliatory language is not being received well by many of us. One of my older friends bemoans the time when the parties weren’t at each other’s throats. That must have been before my time and I don’t care about how things used to be; I want to see the GOP crushed.

[mr_liberal]

12. This is what cost Hillary the election.

Back during the primaries with Obama people turned blacks against Hillary and called the Clintons racist. Then when Hillary ran in 2016 a lot of blacks didn't turn out for her in Michigan, Pennsylvania..... Same thing could happen to Biden.

[Voltaire2]

15. Wait wut?

I thought it was all the Bernie bros.
The narrative keeps shifting.

[mr_liberal]

16. I was going to say "in part" but it just sounded funny. nt

[pnwmom]

17. What cost Hillary the election was the SCOTUS dismantling the 1965 Voting Rights Act

in 2013, after Obama's second election.

With new voter ID requirements, closed polling places, and shorter voting days and hours, millions of votes were suppressed nationally, including hundreds of thousands in the crucial states where Hillary barely lost.

ALSO, Russian interference.
ALSO, the Comey letter.

It wasn't because African Americans -- those who weren't prevented from voting -- didn't turn out for her.

[mr_liberal]

24. The black voter turnout rate declined falling to 59.6% in 2016 after reaching a record-high 66.6% in

2012.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/

4.4 million 2012 Obama voters stayed home in 2016 — more than a third of them black

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/03/12/4-4-million-2012-obama-voters-stayed-home-in-2016-more-than-a-third-of-them-black/?utm_term=.659b6f9f809e

[pnwmom]

33. And who do you think was most affected by dismantling the 1965 Voting Rights Act?

Black voters. The was the whole point of the Act -- to stop the suppression of black votes. OF COURSE fewer black people voted when it was dismantled in 2013 -- a year after Obama's re-election.


We were lucky it wasn't dismantled in 2011, because that would have impacted Obama's re-election.

[Chakaconcarne]

49. Or were told to go to another polling place that didn't exist...

[Celerity]

35. a post backing a lot of this up

Black voter turnout fell in 2016, even as a record number of Americans cast ballots

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/

The black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, falling to 59.6% in 2016 after reaching a record-high 66.6% in 2012. The 7-percentage-point decline from the previous presidential election is the largest on record for blacks. (It’s also the largest percentage-point decline among any racial or ethnic group since white voter turnout dropped from 70.2% in 1992 to 60.7% in 1996.) The number of black voters also declined, falling by about 765,000 to 16.4 million in 2016, representing a sharp reversal from 2012. With Barack Obama on the ballot that year, the black voter turnout rate surpassed that of whites for the first time. Among whites, the 65.3% turnout rate in 2016 represented a slight increase from 64.1% in 2012.





Why black voter turnout fell in 2016
How voting Democratic has become integral to African Americans’ cultural identity.

https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2018/1/15/16891020/black-voter-turnout

“Black Voters Aren’t Turning Out For The Post-Obama Democratic Party.” It’s a familiar headline in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. Indeed, post-election analysis of voter data shows black turnout in presidential elections declined 4.7 percent between 2012 and 2016 (overall turnout showed a small decline from 61.8 percent in 2012 to 61.4 percent in 2016).

How do we explain it — and can it be changed? My ongoing research with Ismail White on political norms among black Americans says we ought to have expected the decline, but that the Democratic Party can do much more to cut it back by recognizing how social dynamics shape African-American politics.

Some have attributed the decline in black turnout to voter suppression tactics made possible by the Shelby v. Holder (2013) decision that rescinded key protections from the Voting Rights Act. But black turnout saw similar declines in states where no new voter laws were implemented after the Shelby decision. Others have simplistically pointed to the absence of the first black president on the ballot — as if that fact offers an explanation. Our work on the social dynamics of politics within the black community provides the missing explanation.

In our recent publication in the American Political Science Review, we argue that the continued social isolation of blacks in American society has created spaces and incentives for the emergence of black political norms. Democratic partisanship has become significantly tied to black identity in the United States. The historical and continued racial segregation of black communities has produced spaces in which in-group members can leverage social sanctions against other group members to ensure compliance with group partisan norms.

snip



Study: Black turnout slumped in 2016

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/10/black-election-turnout-down-2016-census-survey-238226


Census shows pervasive decline in 2016 minority voter turnout

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/05/18/census-shows-pervasive-decline-in-2016-minority-voter-turnout/


Study: Black voter turnout in Wisconsin declined by nearly one-fifth in 2016

https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/study-black-voter-turnout-in-wisconsin-declined-by-nearly-one/article_d3e72e41-96a0-51fb-83ba-11dfc6693daf.html

Turnout among black voters in Wisconsin dropped about 19 percent in the 2016 election from 2012, more than four times the national decline, according to a new study by a liberal group.

The study, released by the Center for American Progress, made the estimates based on data from the U.S. Census, polls and state voter files.

It provides the strongest evidence yet that Wisconsin’s decline in voter turnout, while seen in other demographic groups, was much more dramatic among African-Americans.

The study also found in Wisconsin, as in other key states, the 2016 electorate was significantly more white and non-college- educated than was reported by exit polls immediately after the election.

snip


Many in Milwaukee Neighborhood Didn’t Vote — and Don’t Regret It

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/many-in-milwaukee-neighborhood-didnt-vote-and-dont-regret-it.html

MILWAUKEE — Four barbers and a firefighter were pondering their future under a Trump presidency at the Upper Cutz barbershop last week.

“We got to figure this out,” said Cedric Fleming, one of the barbers. “We got a gangster in the chair now,” he said, referring to President-elect Donald J. Trump.They admitted that they could not complain too much: Only two of them had voted. But there were no regrets. “I don’t feel bad,” Mr. Fleming said, trimming a mustache. “Milwaukee is tired. Both of them were terrible. They never do anything for us anyway.”

Wisconsin, a state that Hillary Clinton had assumed she would win, historically boasts one of the nation’s highest rates of voter participation; this year’s 68.3 percent turnout was the fifth best among the 50 states. But by local standards, it was a disappointment, the lowest turnout in 16 years. And those no-shows were important. Mr. Trump won the state by just 27,000 voters.

Milwaukee’s lowest-income neighborhoods offer one explanation for the turnout figures. Of the city’s 15 council districts, the decline in turnout from 2012 to 2016 in the five poorest was consistently much greater than the drop seen in more prosperous areas — accounting for half of the overall decline in turnout citywide.

The biggest drop was here in District 15, a stretch of fading wooden homes, sandwich shops and fast-food restaurants that is 84 percent black. In this district, voter turnout declined by 19.5 percent from 2012 figures, according to Neil Albrecht, executive director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission. It is home to some of Milwaukee’s poorest residents and, according to a 2016 documentary, “Milwaukee 53206,” has one of the nation’s highest per-capita incarceration rates.

At Upper Cutz, a bustling barbershop in a green-trimmed wooden house, talk of politics inevitably comes back to one man: Barack Obama. Mr. Obama’s elections infused many here with a feeling of connection to national politics they had never before experienced. But their lives have not gotten appreciably better, and sourness has set in.


snip





and when they did vote there was this...

Mostly black neighborhoods voted more Republican in 2016 than in 2012

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/25/mostly-black-neighborhoods-voted-more-republican-in-2016-than-in-2012/

snip




A few things jump out. First: The most heavily white neighborhoods voted much more heavily Republican in 2016 than in 2012 (the dark red line shoots up past the light-red one). Second, the most heavily black neighborhoods voted less heavily Democratic last year than four years ago. (We’ll come back to this, obviously.) Third, Hispanic neighborhoods voted for Republicans less than in 2012.

The net effect of those shifts can be measured by comparing the margin between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012 with the Trump-Clinton margin in each neighborhood last year. In heavily white neighborhoods, a big shift to the Republicans. In mostly Hispanic neighborhoods, generally more support for the Democrat, except in the most dense places (although, as the chart on the right makes clear, the sample size for those is very small and therefore more subject to volatility).




snip


This Chart Shows Philadelphia Black Voters Stayed Home, Costing Clinton
A shift in Philadelphia voter turnout, which broke along racial lines, appears to have cost Hillary Clinton almost 35,000 votes.



https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johntemplon/this-chart-shows-philadelphia-black-voters-stayed-home-costi



One of the most surprising results of Election Day was Donald Trump winning Pennsylvania — a state that had voted for the Democrat in every election since 1988. As of the Pennsylvania Board of Elections’ latest tally, Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 57,588 votes. More than 60% of that margin comes from a shift in the vote in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia data offers a particularly clear glimpse at what went wrong for Hillary Clinton: A block of voters who showed up for Barack Obama wasn’t inspired enough by her — or scared enough by Donald Trump — to show up. And as analysts pore over the results of the campaign, the numbers in Philadelphia offer perhaps the most devastating single data point for the Clinton campaign.

snip



massive drop in 85% black Detroit too

Link to tweet

[loyalsister]

57. Thanks for posting

This is a discussion that has been over simplified.
Another piece that may have been overlooked is the way the conversation about race and racism changed dramatically after Obama took office. Many of us were quickly disabused of our perception that we had made real progress. Racism is much deeper and more pervasive that I realized.
My thinking, and the conversations I started having about it totally changed during Obama's presidency. Henry Louis Gates' arrest was prescient. Those of us who were unaware learned something new about the police and the risk of being Black. Michelle Alexander exposed the fact that private prisons are an off shoot of plantations fully supported by the 13th Amendment that we were told ended slavery. It was all very illuminating to me, and I think it has only been within the last 4-5 yrs that the privilege I live with has been explicitly defined.
A lot of it has been local, but I have noticed a more broad cultural impact. Conversations here on DU changed a lot.
The film 13th hit Netflix in Oct. 2016. I wonder if there is any correlation between those viewers and their votes or non-votes?

[emmaverybo]

45. Hilary's attitude to Obama in 2008 did her no favors. I saw the debate in which she said archly,

no one knows who you are to Obama. She also lambasted him for all those years he sat in those pews listening to Reverend Wright.

Here’s the thing: Wright had been seated next to Hilary when he was a part of a select group of religious leaders invited to the White House for President Clinton’s annual prayer breakfast when he was seeking public atonement for the Lewinsky affair.

Hilary knew who Obama was. He had emerged as one to watch when he delivered the keynote at the Dem National convention, creating lots of media buzz, and he had an impressive CV, including a popular memoir out, that surely she was aware of.

As Bill Maher said, Obama was being treated like whites would react to some guy dressed up in a stereotype of drug dealer garb cruising their neighborhood.
Hilary echoed this treatment.

She also said McCain would make a better commander in chief, a truly low and unnecessary blow to a fellow Dem.

Geraldine Ferraro had to quit the Clinton campaign after she said in an interview that “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position...He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Bill Clinton was accused of making racist comments about Obama in private. Regardless of the truth, a perception grew that Clinton’s on record comments about Obama not understanding how government works, being an incompetent, and an amateur, were veiled racism.

Hilary made a real mistake too in padding her resume as to her foreign policy and relations accomplishments as well as in saying she would not concede because thinking back to the summer of ‘1968 you can never tell what might happen.

I admire Hilary as an intellect, a tough fighter, a champion for women and children globally. But she earned black people’s distrust during that contest. She earned mine at the time.

However, people should get a chance to rehabilitate their image and I think she learned and is a great elder states person. In all fairness, Obama gave her a chance to use her experience and skills and to be an actor o the world stage when he appointed her his Secretary of State.

,Obama not only was willing to deal on a bipartisan basis, as he did in using Biden as his proxy, but also in Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals” political tactic.

[Voltaire2]

14. Send a telegram to his campaign.

[LibFarmer]

18. +1000 nt

[Eustace is Useful]

19. Neither do I

[samnsara]

22. joes got my support to the very end

[OKNancy]

23. He's getting Hillaried.

Things blown out of proportion, or out of context, or even purposely reported falsely.

As I just tweeted: Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little / Cheep cheep cheep...

[marylandblue]

29. Of course he's getting Hillaried. The question is, what's he going to do about it?

Do you think he's being scrutinized by other Democrats because we don't like him? Not at all! He's a good person. I know he didn't mean anything bad by it.

But he comes across as hapless and out of touch. And Trump will feed that view until it's all the media talks about.

He needs to change the narrative now, or the narrative will eat him for lunch. The primaries are just the appetizer.

[FloridaBlues]

30. Have to agree with you OK nancy people are really trying hard.

Hopefully this doesn't take its toll on Biden if he is our nominee.

[oasis]

43. Exactly. nt

[treestar]

64. +1 This is his Henry Kissinger

Hillary actually talked to Kissinger the war criminal rather than spitting on him!

[jberryhill]

32. You want a better hit job?

[emmaverybo]

34. Agree. Agree. Obama wisely sent Biden out to negotiate with Republicans and although everybody

did not get everything they wanted, something got done. In the case of the Budget Control Act of 2011, the something was significant: a crisis averted.

From Wikipedia:


His ability to negotiate with congressional Republicans helped the Obama administration pass legislation such as the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which resolved a taxation deadlock; the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved that year's debt ceiling crisis; and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending fiscal cliff. Obama and Biden were re-elected in 2012.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden

[jaysunb]

39. +1 n/t

[PatrickforO]

40. We'll see how the primary vote goes.

[TeamPooka]

41. Crushing the GOP politically and electorally, pushing through our agenda, like they would

is the way to go.

[saidsimplesimon]

47. I disagree.

Our Challenger in 2020 needs to have a pre-employment interview. Whoever that is the one I will defend from "hit jobs". imho

[murielm99]

53. I am sure that Joe was talking about

finding common ground. That is the way things get done in Congress, and in international negotiations. How could we trade with, or have treaties of any kind with foreign governments who are nothing like ours unless we found common ground?

Hillary found common ground with Boehner. Teddy Kennedy and Orrin Hatch were friends.

[sandensea]

54. Nor do I - and he's not my first choice

Biden, by all accounts, has led an above-board, morally and ethically upright life (i.e. the exact opposite of the current occupant of the White House).

Besides which, he'll most likely be our nominee next year.

[mudstump]

55. Joe must have been in a comma for the eight years he was in the Obama White House...

I suspect that Biden was advising Obama to go along to get along as the republicans blocked everything. We don't need a conciliatory president we need a warrior. Heck no on Biden.

[mtnsnake]

56. If this is a hit job on Joe Biden, what would you call what has been done to Bernie Sanders here?

Character assassination perhaps?

I wish neither Biden nor Sanders were in the 2020 race because of the divisiveness involved, but the angst expressed towards Joe Biden is nothing compared to the all-out hatred and venomous slander that's been spewed at Bernie Sanders around here.

[DallasNE]

58. Bipartisanship Is Desirable But Dead

Thanks to Citizens United and dark money

Most legislation 70 years ago passed with northeastern Republicans and northern Democrats that were like minded. It only took 51 votes in the Senate for most bills.

Chairmen were mostly long serving southern Democrats so that sometimes complicated getting bills to the floor so this could be what Biden was talking about but the debate usually centered around the size of the pork for the chairman. Accordingly, I think Biden is mistaken.

[TomSlick]

59. Attacking a fellow Democrat,especially by willfully misconstruing what s/he said,

will not earn my support. We don't need another dishonest President.

[Scurrilous]

63. K&R

[Gothmog]

65. James Clyburn is siding with Joe Biden on this issue

This is very nice to see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/20/why-joe-biden-is-so-defensive-over-his-remarks-about-segregationists/?utm_term=.ab8bb7949ad8

Biden has powerful Democratic backers on this: The highest-ranking African American member of Congress, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), told reporters Wednesday he understands where Biden is coming from and that he, too, worked with people such as Strom Thurmond. Other black Democrats in Congress tried to frame Biden’s words in charitable ways.

“I think the sentiment is something that we all know in the legislative body — that you work with people you don’t agree with,” Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.), a co-chairman of Biden’s campaign, said.

The Clyburn comment in particular is helpful to Biden. If there’s one friend in Congress you want to make as a Democratic presidential candidate, it’s probably Clyburn. He rules South Carolina Democratic politics, and South Carolina is the first early voting state with a majority black Democratic primary voters. Biden and his opponents will be campaigning in South Carolina this weekend at Clyburn’s famous fish fry.

[Cha]

69. Gracias for this article on Clyburn backing Biden, Goth

Biden has powerful Democratic backers on this: The highest-ranking African American member of Congress, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), told reporters Wednesday he understands where Biden is coming from and that he, too, worked with people such as Strom Thurmond. Other black Democrats in Congress tried to frame Biden’s words in charitable ways.

“I think the sentiment is something that we all know in the legislative body — that you work with people you don’t agree with,” Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.), a co-chairman of Biden’s campaign, said.

The Clyburn comment in particular is helpful to Biden. If there’s one friend in Congress you want to make as a Democratic presidential candidate, it’s probably Clyburn. He rules South Carolina Democratic politics, and South Carolina is the first early voting state with a majority black Democratic primary voters. Biden and his opponents will be campaigning in South Carolina this weekend at Clyburn’s famous fish fry.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/20/why-joe-biden-is-so-defensive-over-his-remarks-about-segregationists/?utm_term=.ab8bb7949ad8

[BlueStater]

66. Stop calling every criticism of him a "hit job".

It's getting annoying. Geez.

[Laelth]

67. I think bipartisanship is dead for the foreseeable future.

I think it is unlikely to be restored within the next 20 years, at least.

-Laelth

[Hortensis]

72. In that case our democracy will die long before then.

This is called representative government, and it won’t work if half the nation can’t be represented.

It has to change to something else and that’s usually an authoritarian something else supported with guns and tanks aimed at the people. Some here may have noticed that the Republicans are already moving that way. 2020 and electing Democrats who will continue the FIGHT restore bipartisanship may be our last chance to save our democracy.

[marylandblue]

73. You are correct, it may be our last chance, but it already may be too late.

To save democracy, people must vote for in overwhelming numbers AND politician must respect and enforce democratic norms amongst themselves. Right now we have neither. The old norms are shattered. Hopefully we will get that overwhelming vote for democracy in 2020. Then we have the even more complex task of establishing new norms, which does include working with the other side, but also includes enforcing the norms against politicians who violate them.

[boomer_wv]

68. It's needed.

It's better to test him now than to get into General with somebody that you find out is a lot weaker than you thought. If Biden can survive the primary I think he will do very well in the General. If he can't, then his flaws would have been exposed then anyway.