If Bernie's not the candidate... I know, I know. There's some appeal in the idea that The System will never allow progress and this proves it so there's no point in voting, or in anything. Fun! You can be an angry rebel forever that way.

But let's consider another possibility.

I see a lot of people saying things like in a less-skewed system, Biden and Bloomberg would be running for the right-wing party and Warren and Bernie would be vying for the left-wing nomination.

Do you know how we get to that world?

Destroy the Republican Party.

I know there's this idea on the left that the two parties are the same or that the Democrats are *worse* because they co-opt leftist ideals and split off the progressive vote and let people feel like they're voting for change...

And so they're the target, not the GOP.

Mistake.

The GOP is teetering on an actual precipice, heading towards a make-or-break point where either they win everything forever and there's no hope for progressive or liberal candidates. They're both more dangerous and more vulnerable than the Democrats.

There is no actual path to destroying the Democratic Party from the left. Even if you manage to throw the election to Trump to punish them... he might destroy them, and you. And everything. I think there's about a 10% chance he kills the world, if we give him a second term.

But punishing the Democrats at the ballot box isn't going to destroy them, absent a total GOP victory that also destroys the left. It's just going to make them and their voters even less likely to come when you call them next time.

The Republicans, though?

The Republicans could not withstand a sustained cycle of losing. They have overreached their grasp, overextended themselves, overexposed their flanks. Keeping their crimes concealed and their grifts going and their people in power depends on them being the ones making decisions.

Get the Republicans out of power and keep them out of power for a term or two and they are DONE. Stick a fork in them.

At the point, the federal government is Safe Blue.

Safe Blue is where progressives can primary liberals and win. Safe Blue is where you can push leftward.

Like, I see people spelling it out, imagining a country in which Biden is running for the right wing party against a left wing party. You're right! That's the way it should be! And we could have that!

"Oh but we hear this all the time, people keep saying Vote Blue No Matter Who and next time we can vote our conscience."

Vote your conscience during the primary. Heck, vote it during the general. It's not your conscience telling you to stay home or protest vote.

The thing is this theory has never been tested because the left has never actually tried destroying the right in modern US politics. It's always attacking the center, attacking the liberals, attacking the Democrats.

Push the right off the map, the center is the new right.

I know, you're not actually going to listen to me. Because unlike the LARPing accelerationists and the delightful dirtbags of Blammo Mouse Trap, the idea of playing actual politics to achieve actual progress isn't ~*sexy*~. Doesn't make you feel like a rebel or an underdog.

But this is, swear to God, the easiest path to victory that's ever been laid out for anyone in the history of politics. Super easy one-two punch. It's right there. It's right there. Every time one of you points out the centrist Dems should be the rightwing, you see the truth.

You could have that! You could make that happen.

But... hey. Your way, you get to call people "shitlibs". Which is fun! And losing means never having to give up your unearned sense of moral superiority. You're FOR giving us healthcare. Have you done it? No. But you're FOR it.

And your way, you get to be FOR it for the rest of your lives! You never actually have to deliver. You never have to make the transition from ruggedly handsome guerrilla warrior to staid establishment. You can spend your whole "political career" shouting words like "shill". Fun!

I don't know, between being FOR things and DOING things, I'd rather we were doing things. "But we are doing things, we're putting Bernie in office." And if you succeed at that, my hat's off to you. Better get ready to work because the hard part comes after that. I'll help!

This whole thread is predicated on the question of if Bernie's not the candidate, what do you do? Stay home in November and spend four more years being generally FOR things while the Republicans dismantle the apparatus by which you could ever hope to get them? Not a great plan.

If Bernie's the candidate in July then I will not jump on the bandwagon... I will get behind the bandwagon and push it with both hands and everything that I've got. Way more enthusiastically than I will if Biden is the candidate, because I won't have to psych myself up for it.

But if Biden's the candidate... I will push for him, too. Not because I want him to be the president or think he'd be great at it, but because he can be a blunt instrument for hitting the right, and because four years of Business As Usual is a better environment to fight from.

Destroy the right and the center is the right, and the left is wide open. You do know that for 90% of the US, "left" is Democrats? That's not ignorance, that's the actual political spectrum. The actual left is the left fringe.

But it could be where the Democrats are now.

Oh, and I almost hate to tell you this because I know it makes the whole thing sound worse, but if the Republican Party falls and the Democrats become the new right-wing... the left is going to be called the liberal party.

US politics is very one-dimensional like that.

Destroy the Republican Party and all your dreams come true.

Let it continue to consolidate power and we're looking at something far worse than Business As Usual. And I'm not saying that because I'm ignorant of how bad Business As Usual has been.

Now, I should point out that Joe Biden has not won. The doom and gloom fatalism is overblown. Reports of the primary's death are greatly exaggerated. We're only about 1/3rd through and even those results aren't all in. https://twitter.com/dynamicsymmetry/status/1235027490940190720

But it's a closer and more complicated race than anybody hoped for, and it's not too early to start thinking about what you're going to do if your candidate doesn't win.

My answer is: destroy the Republican Party.

I mean, I hate to say that it's time for some game theory, but here it is: when you're fighting two opponents and one of them can deal out heavy damage but doesn't have a lot of staying power, the winning move is concentrate fire on that opponent first.

The Democratic Party is... middling. Just, sort of all around. The Republican Party is extreme. Extremely dangerous, extremely daring and therefore extremely vulnerable.

Dropping the GOP means you prevent more damage for less effort, leaving you safer to attack the medium guy.

I know, I know. Anybody who doesn't think Bernie Sanders has magical powers is a neoliberal shill, so when I say you should work together with the Democrats to destroy the GOP you think I'm saying we should all be friends.

No. It's the tactically sound move.

Look at the most common factor in people voting for Biden. Oh, right, you've got that filter where all you can here is "duh, because I'm a neoliberal shill who hates progress and healthcare". Turn that off and what do you hear: people feel anxious, he seems like the SAFE choice.

Do you know how you neuter the appeal of the safe candidate?

By removing the sense of danger.

Nuke the GOP from orbit and the Joe Bidens of the world don't have much left to run on. The donors will still like him, but how do they sell that to the voters?