Joe Biden won in Michigan yesterday, along with Idaho, Mississippi and Missouri. I'm guessing results from North Dakota and Ohio are still in process.
Cue a whole lot of bitching from the Bernie people.
Yet again, if you want to win, you have to show up and vote. I did, it's not that hard.
Perhaps more to the point, this whole thing proved yet again that social media ain't the real world, and that comfortable, privileged liberals are hardly the whole 'Democratic coalition." In fact, the Biden coalition that appears to be forming up looks an awful lot like the one that Barack Obama assembled in 2007-2008, plus more independents and dissatisfied Republicans. For you kids in the back...yes, you, put your phone away...that's actually a good thing. Democracy is a numbers game, the more people you get...and per our system the more places you get them...the better.
Let me ask you a question: How many of those often-rural Black voters in Mississippi do you suppose have Twitter accounts?
How many senior citizens in Northern Michigan do you suppose post dank memes on Facebook?
Do you suppose that 20-something Native kid in North Dakota (who may actually BE a Bernie voter for all we know, yet) has the time to goof around on Discord or TikTok?
My guess would be, not very many, and no.
And yet...here we are...where a Presidential candidate with a long-established history of being a centrist moderate Democrat is being harangued about some stupid "viral video" shit by...a middle-aged white Republican dude.
That's who all the internet-activism bullshit is reaching...and why it matters is, I guarantee you that dumb ass shows up to vote.
To his credit, Joe told the guy he was full of shit, and told him to stop acting like a horse's ass.
More of this, please.
Let's go over this again. I don't give a damn what your "viral video" said, the Second Amendment is a part of the Bill Of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States. It takes an Amendment to alter or remove an Amendment (See also "Prohibition.") You can propose whatever the fuck you want...but you have to get that shit by both houses of Congress with 75% in favor, the President has to sign off on it, and then you have to get it passed by three quarters of the states...some of which absolutely will put it to the popular vote. (See Also: Equal Rights Amendment.) It's hard to amend the Constitution for a damn reason, and then there's the ongoing task of the courts interpreting it and if you think anybody's going to slip some kind of a blanket gun ban by the Conservative legal-industrial complex, you're on some pretty good drugs.
Joe Biden, or for that matter Bernie Sanders or Marianne Williamson, can go ahead and think or advocate for whatever they want...but those are the facts.
But more to the point, nobody on the Democratic side is...or to my knowledge, ever has been trying to do this.
In our society right now there is way the hell too much tolerance for bullshit and conspiracy theories and drunk-uncle racism. Despite the vast amount of partisan rancor that seems to exist...particularly on the Republican side...lots of people are still way too conflict-averse, and thus bad actors get away with more bullshit, more misinformation gets spread, etc.
And the "neutrality" and "objectivity" fads that extend from the media on down don't help much.
If you take the time to explain things to a lot of these yahoos you're going to lose, because frankly there's a hell of a lot of them, and that's exactly how they wear you out. No. You have to have the guts to tell people that come at you with bad information, misinformation and outright lies "Do you really believe that crap? What the fuck is wrong with you?!"
As somebody once said, if you're explaining, you're losing.
It's been my experience...and I deal with this on a nightly basis...that a lot of these old white conservative dudes that I work with simply don't retain information that well. You can give them the information and tell them the truth and hope they'll evaluate things properly and do the right thing. But I'm here to tell you they often won't, or they'll only retain the information until the next time they're sitting zombie-eyed in front of a TV with Fox News playing.
No, sometimes you have to make a value judgment and lay the smack down and tell people "No, that's crap, don't believe it."
Or my personal, and louder, favorite "Where the fuck did you come up with this silly bullshit?!"
Embarrassment can occasionally be a powerful motivator, but more to the point, a lot of these people actually do respect consistency and a person's willingness to hold and defend a set of beliefs, even if they don't agree with it. Some of these old white conservative dudes actually will ask me questions and shit, even though they know I don't agree with them about much.
And as for the rest, you simply cannot reason with unreasonable people, so don't waste your time. You'll get further with calling their viral videos silly bullshit and telling them not to act like a horse's ass in public.
I don't know about you, but I'm kind of hoping we end up with a post-Malarkey wold for awhile after this Trump bullshit is over.
And this feels like a first step.
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