| Jumpin said: I am in agreement with you on Warren. IMO - she'd make the best President out of any politician I am aware of in the US. At the time of nominations, I think it seemed obvious that her endorsement of Bernie would have been redundant. Saving it for the winner of the Democratic primary was ultimately the best strategy. The problem is that Bernie Sanders actually lost. If she had endorsed Bernie and he still lost the primary, that would have hurt Hillary's chances even more in the general. HOWEVER, I wasn't considering gender politics as relevant in that time, and her endorsement of Bernie could have alleviated the female resistance vote against him. She couldn't exactly run in the primaries either; while it would have hurt Hillary for her to do so, it would have hurt Bernie more. It was a strategic miscalculation on Warren's part, but I don't think it should be held in any way against her. As for political reputations. It's unfortunate that these little tiny brownies have been blown up into behemoths. It's unfortunate the "Pocahontas" name is something that holds sway given how ridiculous of a label it is. From the media and comments I see of Warren, even amongst the left, her reputation is effectively ruined for 2020. 2024 would be a different story, by then I think people will clearly consider Bernie too old, and wouldn't hold it against Warren if she ran as the leading social-democrat in his stead; in 2020, if she ran instead of him, I can see a lot of dissenting "We want Bernie instead!" people. I also hope the culture around women in politics changes, otherwise, Ocasio-Cortez is going to be deep in the mud before she's even old enough to be on the ticket. Bernie Sanders has described himself as a Democratic Socialist even though he is running a Social Democrat platform. Some people (left wing media sources like Secular Talk and David Pakman Show) assume he is just confusing the two terms, but I don't think that's the case. " human beings have the right to control their own lives. And that means that you cannot separate the political structure from the economic structure. One has to be an idiot to believe that the average working person who’s making $10,000 or $12,000 a year is equal in political power to somebody who is the head of a large bank or corporation. So if you believe in political democracy, if you believe in equality, you have to believe in economic democracy as well." - that's Social Democracy. I think what trips people up is that they assume social democracy refers to the systems used in the USSR and PRC; but if you look at his statement, it is clear that isn't the case - he's far more Westernized than that. In the 80s he was very optimistic that the USSR would return to attempts to implement the pre-October 1917 philosophies before the downfall. |
It is indeed tragic that seemingly every woman gets dragged through the mud over ridiculous things like that Pocahontas bullshit. Certainly seems to happen to every woman anyway, regardless of where on the political spectrum they are. I do think with the pro-woman trends we saw in this midterm election that it won't last. There is huge appetite to elect a woman President for the sake of proving that "no really, we're not just saying we'd elect a woman President if we liked her politics, we really would elect her!" It'll just take a woman with the right politics that matches the national mood, as well as a dying off of certain older, more sexist demographics. I'd say either the 2028 or 2032 elections will produce a woman President. 2036 at the latest. 2024 if Trump wins a second term and drives women further into the Dem camp with his sexism.
