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March 3, 2020 - The Muckrake Political Podcast
56:41
Why The Dems Consolidated Against Bernie

In this week’s episode, Jared and Nick break down how the Democratic machinery got Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar to not only drop out of the primary race, but to endorse Joe Biden. And as the coronavirus begins to spread across the United States, how will this affect the country and Donald Trump’s chances in the general election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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*Music* Hey everybody, it is...
we're recording on March 2nd, Monday.
And, Nick, I don't know, it feels like the sky is falling in so many different directions.
It's hard to keep track.
A chaotic Monday before Super Tuesday, where a lot of the primary picture is going to come into focus.
Quick programming note, we are planning on having special Super Tuesday coverage, but before we get there, our regular broadcast.
A lot of stuff going on, Nick.
It's hard to hear you over the mask I'm wearing and the fact that I'm washing my hands constantly right now.
I have to tell you, watching people in public spaces right now wash their hands because of the coronavirus, it kind of shows me what we're capable of doing.
You know, as an NBA analyst, I think every now and then you can see the potential for a player to take the leap.
And I can tell you right now that Americans' ability to wash their hands has been underutilized.
And we're quite good at it when there's something on the line.
Oh, yeah.
Every season I would spend with my teams is teaching them how to wash your hands and then not touch the knob on the way out using the paper towel and then using your foot to keep the door open.
I mean, it's really important.
Again, this is like the upward march of humanity we're talking about.
And that is why you are the best in the business.
My man Nick Halseman, my co-host here on the McCrae Political Podcast.
I'm J.J.
Sexton.
We have a lot to get to and not a lot of time to do it.
First things first, development within the Democratic primary.
After Joe Biden wins South Carolina convincingly, which everybody knew was going to happen, it was not surprising.
It was not It wasn't that shocking of a development, but immediately the Democratic establishment consolidated power and support as Pete Buttigieg, who last I checked was third in the delegate count, actually won the Iowa caucuses and has had a decent showing in the other contests, stood to possibly get some delegates on Super Tuesday, dropped out,
And then today, Amy Klobuchar, who was going to probably win Minnesota.
Uh, dropped out and then they all promptly, um, endorsed Joe Biden, which going into Super Tuesday, I mean, the timing is peculiar and obvious and I'm going to get into a little bit about the process behind all of this stuff and how something like this happens.
It seems mind blowing that it all happens like it does.
I'll get a little bit into the inside baseball, but Nick, what, what's your, uh, what's your, what's your initial reaction to all of this?
Well, you know, putting it in that context, it sounds like there was a lot of, like, arm-wringing where they kind of forced them to back down, which is interesting to me that the Democratic National Committee, I suppose that's who's in charge, has that kind of power where they can once and for all, when they see what's going on, tell someone to do that because we know someone like Bernie would never do that.
And he would never, he didn't, he barely did it in 2016, barely even endorsed Hillary after she got the delegates at the convention.
So that's interesting to me that they had that kind of power and that they would be willing to, like you said, Buttigieg would have gotten delegates.
He's in the race closer than certainly Klobuchar.
So I'm happy that they're out because we need to start consolidating because this is what allowed, I think, Trump to get the nomination.
The longer these other people stayed in, the longer they diluted the voting base, the more Trump was able to win, you know, his 35%, his 38% of those primaries, and that's what put him in position to win the candidacy for the Republicans.
Yeah, and let's be careful on one hand, which is, I would argue, and obviously the big factor behind all of this is Bernie Sanders.
We haven't said his name yet, but that's what's happening here.
It's the Democratic Party, you know, let's use the parlance of the time.
We're fighting coronavirus.
It is like the Democratic Party senses an outside threat.
And is starting to coalesce around attacking the quote-unquote virus, right?
The idea that it's under attack from an outside influence and now it's going to close ranks and it's going to fight that.
So I think we need to be careful that we're not going one-for-one between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
No matter how you feel about Bernie Sanders, I don't think he is an authoritarian despot in waiting.
But that's a different thing altogether.
Can I shout something really loudly though?
Oh boy.
Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat!
Wow.
He's not!
He's not in the Democratic Party!
And you know, saying it out loud doesn't make it, you know, less true.
It's true.
I mean, and that is one of the things.
Like, Bernie has staked his entire political life on being an independent and establishing himself as an independent.
If there was a Democratic Socialist Party in this country that was viable and had electoral chances, he would be a Democratic Socialist.
That would be the party.
So yes, it has not been great for his chances in the Democratic primary to not necessarily be a Democrat.
So yeah, you're absolutely right.
But in this case, this was what you would refer to as do the math time, is what ended up happening here, and why all this stuff happened all at once.
So when you have something like the Democratic Party, Let's take Pete Buttigieg, for instance, who outperformed all expectations of what he was going to do in the 2020 Democratic primary.
Nobody expected that he would win a primary or a caucus.
Nobody expected that he would really have a showing.
I mean, what he did in Iowa, there were a bunch of different factors there that led to it, but nobody really could have predicted this thing when he first got in.
He's playing with House money right now, is what's happened.
Because he has delegates, he has a base, he has gained power within the party.
And we always talk about these things as win, and winners, and losers, and who won this, and who won the nomination, who lost it.
Pete Buttigieg won for his political future.
And this is one of those situations where Pete Buttigieg did the math and realized that he was not going to be the president.
It was not going to happen.
The financial support wasn't there, the polls weren't there, but I'll tell you what is there.
And that is the possibility of, I don't know, running for the Senate in Indiana at some point.
And if you are somebody running, if you're a Democrat running for the Senate from Indiana, you don't usually get a lot of resources.
Because they don't usually think that you can win, even though you're an attractive candidate or a competent candidate who's shown themselves as being possible.
Well, that's one of those situations where it's like, hey Pete, do us a favor, coalesce around the ensconced Democrat, throw your weight behind him, and, you know, we're looking at something like that.
Or, you have the other phone call which is, you know what role I think would really suit you?
It'd be the Secretary of Veteran Affairs.
And by the order, I mean if you really want to get crazy and you really want to put on the charm and you really want to talk about these things, Secretary of Defense.
And that's not to say that these things were offered.
I don't know.
All I know from the Democrats that I've talked to is that the phone lines have been melting down.
And the other thing that happens with all this, and this is the thing that they don't talk about on the news and they absolutely should.
When these candidates endorse other candidates, it's not just going on stage and saying that.
They hand over the apparatus.
The Biden team, and they're not talking about this, Biden's campaign has been awful.
And back when I was in Iowa, I was talking to the campaign.
They told me left and right.
They were like, this thing is a disaster.
And he was really unhappy with how it was run out there.
It was a really bad machine.
Well, bring in some other machines.
Bring in some other apparatus.
And so you get some of their people, and you get their fundraising emails, and you get their communications.
And then, by the way, we're looking at Mike Bloomberg.
Who knows what's going to happen with him?
Mike Bloomberg has one of the most well-paid, talented staffs in the entire country.
And if he gets behind Biden, all of a sudden you bring them in and you revolutionize the staff and the focus and all that.
So what has happened here is behind-the-scenes wrangling, deal-making, and again, it's telling someone like a Klobuchar.
I mean, Klobuchar has a future.
Klobuchar won.
Klobuchar showed that she has more potential than I think anybody thought she had before this thing started.
So it's all about playing with house money and raising your stakes.
And so that's how we end up with Biden getting these two key endorsements on the Monday before Super Tuesday.
Is the implication there that if, let's just say Buttigieg won South Carolina, is he in this position and everyone else is dropping out?
No.
It would not have been that thing.
Because one of the reasons this is happening in the first place is because Joe Biden is the establishment pick of the Democratic Party.
He is a former vice president and he was the presumptive frontrunner before any of this happened.
And which is kind of the... the... the... not maddening thing but I mean he underperformed.
I mean in Iowa it was disastrous and everybody knew it.
And he comes back in South Carolina and he wins a race that everybody knew that he was going to win anyway.
But the narrative churns up.
Yeah.
Because the media and the people who talk about politics and the pundits and the analysts, they were waiting for a challenger to Bernie Sanders because it's the idea of the establishment lane or the establishment of the Democratic Party fighting off an outsider or the insurgency, which we've talked about.
It's every four years.
That's what happens in the Democratic Party.
Well, here's what I want to say about Joe Biden.
wins occasionally an insurgent wins the battle but in this case they they they cracked the whip for lack of a better phrase they said we're getting in line we're making these deals and we're making this happen well here's what i want to say about joe biden for him for him to come back like he has and from virtual death this is like the fiery phoenix coming back from you know obscurity the That is impressive, and it's sort of the idea behind this whole process.
However flawed it is, and however ridiculous, and how much it should be changed, there is something about it that, man, if you can get to this position here and make it through that, and I'm not just saying that the election part of this, He made it through the impeachment process, which is also an impeachment on him, right?
This was Donald Trump being able to impeach Joe Biden by screaming his name to the rafters with his son and corruption and all those different things.
And it seemed like it had worked.
We had at least two podcasts where we discussed, wow, that really worked, even though he didn't get impeached.
And he now has overcome that.
No one is talking about that.
I don't think anyone really will anymore because it brings up impeachment again.
And I don't think Trump wants that.
I think we're going to be talking about Ukraine very shortly.
Okay.
Three, two, one.
Yeah, I think that, matter of fact, I'm going to put my phone over here and, you know, just get ready for it to happen.
If he performs, and I'm a little shocked that Trump didn't get into it already, but it's the coronavirus pandemic that has kept him from doing it.
If that gets worse, or if he's looking for something, or if Biden picks up speed, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about Ukraine.
And here's the really frightening thing about it.
It is a lot like the emails.
You have one person who has a ton of scandals and a ton of problems, and you have one person who has one problem.
And the media will tell both stories constantly.
And that is a worrisome thing.
Trump just tweeted eight minutes ago, quote, they are staging a coup against Bernie!
Exclamation point.
So he's beginning.
It sounds like that's what he's going to try and do the wedge first.
It's like Bernie's getting screwed.
It's rigged.
It's all that stuff, which is what he's already laid the groundwork for.
But don't you have a pandemic to take care of?
Get off your phone.
Well, meanwhile, he's being, you know, hailed as the first black president.
That's what he's doing while this whole thing is going on, too.
And that the image of them all preying over him is all these people.
It just is.
It's just, I don't understand.
It starts to violate separation of religion and state, or church and state.
Right?
I don't know what that is.
You know what, let's all begin here.
When you have a living messiah in office, it tends to break down the wall between church and state.
So I mean that that that's what's happening here and you have the leader of a national neoconfederate called an office it tends to but just just shut up about the Democrats and obviously he won't because I mean he's nothing if not just an angry old dude watching Fox News and yelling at the news I mean that's all he is but but yeah I about Biden I think you're I think you're right in the fact that he was able to come back from Iowa.
And again, his machine in Iowa was so bad.
It was so, so bad.
And I told you, I saw, I was from him to the wall, like away from him at his rally.
He looked bad.
He sounded bad.
His body language was bad.
The optics were bad.
This is one of those cases where they knew they had South Carolina in their pocket, right?
They knew that this was coming and all he he's a he's a really good candidate when things are running well.
Because I don't know if you got to see him, if you stayed up and watched it, his speech after he won South Carolina was the best speech that he's given in a long time.
And it's because Joe Biden, if you want to talk about the actual presentation of Joe Biden, he is best when he's a little bit cocky, he's got a little bit of a sparkle in his eye, and he's a little mischievous because he's feeling good and he's got the wind in his sails.
He's a great candidate when that happens.
The other problem is he occasionally gets off script.
Right.
He occasionally will, you know, fight the wrong battles.
But his debate performances have looked better.
So I think as we got closer and closer to South Carolina, which is all his staff wanted to talk about, eventually the wind started coming in the sails and made him a better candidate.
But now the question is, and talking about Super Tuesday and doing our little preview for it, Bernie's gonna win a lot of delegates.
He's gonna win a lot of delegates on Super Tuesday.
I don't know how it's gonna all shake out, but I mean, when California's done, he is going to walk into the Sunshine State.
And... is it the Sunshine State?
Is that correct?
No, that's Florida.
That's Florida!
Look at this political analyst here.
Can't even tell you what the states are nicknamed.
The Golden State.
So he's going to walk into the Golden State as, like, Caesar.
I mean, he's going to take that.
And then the question is whether or not Biden can keep pace.
And right now it doesn't look like he's going to keep pace.
And then the question becomes, What does this race turn into?
Does it turn into a long trench warfare where they're starving each other out and we're trying to get to a brokered convention?
Or is the math there where all of that support can come and consolidate?
And I have a third thing that we need to talk about.
What about Elizabeth Warren?
What in the hell has happened here?
And how did the media and the Democratic establishment manage to completely lump her in with Bernie Sanders and as a result silence her?
It's a really bizarre thing and you're going to have a party that's going to tear itself apart on national television and on the national stage And the fact that they allowed this to happen and that it went down this road is both predictable but also just maddening.
You won't be surprised if Warren follows suit before Tuesday, before tomorrow, will you?
No, she will be there tomorrow.
That's interesting to me because she's in a worse position than Buttigieg in theory based on the results, right?
And yet he easily capitulated and she won't and that's confusing to me because I feel like she's as much of a soldier in the Democratic Party as Pete is.
If there is a alternate reality machine out there, a simulator that shows how this reality works out, a hundred times, if you ran this scenario, there are still like three to ten scenarios there are still like three to ten scenarios where Elizabeth Warren ends up with a Democratic nomination.
It depends on how everything runs and how everything moves.
She is the most dark horse candidate there is right now, particularly among the top three.
And the top three in the Democratic race right now are Bernie, Biden, and Warren.
And I'll tell you what, there's a chance that she gets it, and there's a chance that she catches fire.
But if she doesn't get some sort of a look from the Democratic establishment, and she doesn't get a look from the media, it's not going to happen.
But she's their dream unifier, and they have just completely erased her, which is just really shocking.
Right.
You know, I'm on FiveThirtyEight right now.
I know that there's perhaps a little controversy about whether we want to trust their numbers, but you've got to use something here.
And as you're scrolling through on this whole Super Tuesday general notion of, like, who's going to win, you're right.
There's going to be a lot of Bernie wins for him in each state.
But there's a lot of Biden.
And on the left here, it does say the average forecast of pledged delegates has Biden 100.5.
And then Bloomberg and Sanders kind of tied below that.
That's interesting to me because we really haven't mentioned Bloomberg that much at all and what's going to happen with him in this race.
He has signaled, though, that he will support whoever wins that nomination with his money, right?
So he's been pretty magnanimous, at least about that.
I mean, have you even heard him?
be combative about, oh, we're taking this all the way to the convention and have the contested convention.
We haven't heard him talk in those words, have we?
I haven't heard him say that.
And I'll tell you what, I know that Mike Bloomberg is paying a lot of talented people a lot of money that they shouldn't be paid for work that they shouldn't be doing.
I don't think even he is so delusional that he really thinks this thing is going to work out or that he's going to end up somehow or another.
I just want to paint this.
Let's go down that logical highway, right?
Let's say that somehow or another, we end up at the Democratic Convention this summer in Milwaukee, and Bernie Sanders, who hangs his hat on destroying the wealthy and the powerful, you know, that's his entire movement, gets the nomination taken away that's his entire movement, gets the nomination taken away By Mike Bloomberg.
I just want people to imagine, like, what that looks like.
It's not like... Yeah, that doesn't work out.
Let me interrupt this.
I misread this, by the way.
The 538 is a little bit confusing.
So I was looking at, like, a specific state and not overall.
It looked like it was overall.
So anyway, forgive me for saying that.
It's gonna be... It's gonna be a lot... And by the way, with these announcements today with Buttigieg and Klobuchar, we really don't know now... We don't have a clue.
Yeah.
So I shouldn't even have those predictions.
But... Yes.
But a lot of voting has already been launched.
Yes, like me.
Well, like you.
There's been a ton of early voting.
So here's what's going to happen tomorrow.
This is my best guess, and I've said this before, that predictive politics is just pretty useless, but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway because it's, you know, our podcast.
I think we're going to walk out of this thing with Bernie and Biden fighting for the nominations, the top two guys.
I think the big story coming out of Super Tuesday is going to be, can people catch Bernie?
And the other part about it Listen, I don't know what our audience demographic is politically.
I don't know who they're pulling for.
And quite frankly, I don't think it should matter.
I think we should all be sitting here talking about things and coming together in like a shared space.
But I will tell you this, for anybody out there who doesn't support Bernie Sanders, I want you to think for a second about Bernie Sanders supporters.
What does it look like that on the day before Super Tuesday, Do you think that Bernie Sanders supporters, and they are large, like we're talking about an actual movement of people that are voting in Democratic primaries and caucuses, how do you think they feel about that?
I mean, it just goes and shows them that all of the concerns they have about the Democratic Party and what it's doing and how it feels about them and Bernie Sanders is true.
So, there is a major logistical and also philosophical problem here, which is, first of all, how do you beat Bernie Sanders if you're the Democratic establishment?
The second thing is, how do you, if you do beat them and you do catch them, how do you fix that?
Do you know what I mean?
Like, how do you repair that relationship?
And if you don't, how do you then bring together a coalition?
Because, I mean, this is like 10 till midnight politicking.
This is a lot of stuff.
Well, we got two things going on here.
I would like to tell you that, oh, look in 2016.
Look at that.
Look how well that worked after Bernie, you know, capitulated to Hillary.
Of course, the opposite happened.
Now, does Bernie learn his lesson from that, and then finally, properly get behind whoever that candidate is if it's not him?
That's the other question, because again, he's pretty consistent of a guy.
He doesn't change.
So, I don't know if he's going to be able to facilitate a smooth transition to whoever the Democrats do nominate if it's not him.
And I do think, you know, we've talked about McGovern as sort of this model why the Democrats are wringing their hands so much about Bernie and so afraid because Bernie's going to lose just like McGovern did.
This actually could be more like Adelaide Stevenson, too.
And I need to kind of get my hat on there.
We're talking about in the 50s against Ike, which is a whole other thing.
We're going back.
What's that?
Yeah.
We're going back here on the McCrake podcast.
The 1950s!
But at the very least, what we're looking at here is there is a history of this where we can't afford to send out the guy that's just going to get slaughtered again.
This is why there's so much hand-wringing about Bernie.
Because again, I think most Democrats would say, yeah, Bernie's policies, most of them are fine.
We can get along with that to the most degree.
Certainly some of the economic stuff is probably going to rub people the wrong way.
But we know that because he has painted himself the way he has, it's just going to be so much fodder for Trump, it's probably going to be better than the emails that were for Hillary.
So, there's only one way that a candidate like Bernie Sanders in a two-party election goes out and gets blown out nowadays.
Because the electorate works this way.
It's going to be a pretty even split, no matter who the candidate is.
That's where we're at.
There's only one way that that happens and that's if a candidate wins the nomination of the party and the party decides to punt the ball and go to the next election.
That they don't want to give the party over to another candidate and their movement and they don't want to move in the direction that that candidate wants them.
And that's the way you get to a point where now in the modern times you can have blowouts.
So you're saying that they pay like lip service to him and the whole thing but they're never really going to get so behind him that they can help him actually win.
Party machinery works like this.
You have the person at the top of the ticket who goes out and gives the message and sells all that stuff.
But one of the things, and I wish more people paid attention to this, the reason that the Biden win was baked into the pie in South Carolina There were numerous reasons.
One is South Carolina's relationship with Barack Obama and how he transferred that over to Joe Biden.
The other thing is that Joe Biden was in South Carolina a lot.
That helped out.
The big thing was Clyburn.
Clyburn is a kingmaker in South Carolina and when he endorsed Biden, which is not what he usually does, he's usually very quiet about his endorsements, when he endorsed Biden all of a sudden you have a person who goes out speaks on your behalf and then transfers authority and gets people behind you.
That's how a presidency works.
You have a bunch of people in every state.
You have all the organization and the party machinery that goes top down.
And, you know, they'll come in and they'll do their rallies or whatever, but all the organization, all the door knocking, all the phone calls, all of that starts from the bottom down.
That doesn't mean that his surrogates aren't going to do it.
It means that the democratic machinery, instead of going at 100 percent, might go at 90 percent.
You know what I mean?
Like that 10 percent makes a big... We learned that with Trump.
It makes a huge difference.
Like, you know, these votes.
I mean, Trump got elected by, what, tens of thousands of votes, right?
And so what ends up happening is, and this is a very Very pessimistic type of politics.
But that's what we're seeing today.
It is obvious why Buttigieg and Klobuchar got out and endorsed Biden.
Because it's about Super Tuesday and it's about the Democratic Party consolidating behind Biden.
That's what happened today.
Yes, that's going to piss off a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters and it's going to lead to a little bit more paranoia and hard feelings.
But they're making the bet that it'll work out in the long run.
Whether or not it works out the other way, if the situation goes the other way, we don't know.
We have no clue.
But I will say really quickly, just one last point.
I was at the 2016 Democratic Convention, and I was outside.
And one of the reasons why I was really skeptical about whether or not the Democratic Party could heal its wounds is because there were riots outside.
The Bernie Sanders coalition, that movement that he started, Felt like they had the election stolen from them for a lot of different reasons, right?
I mean everything from the DNC hack to the way that Bernie was treated in the media and by the higher-ups.
That was a really dangerous situation.
I don't think people realize it because the cameras didn't come out.
People like me weren't actually allowed to report on it.
It was bad.
If that happens again, you know what I'm talking about?
If that happens again, For the second time in eight years.
And if it happens in a brokered convention situation, we could possibly be looking at a 1968 Democratic convention situation.
Because this whole thing is very volatile.
And I don't think people understand how pissed off people are.
Because it's, it's, there's a lot of moving parts.
You don't just put in a candidate and you go.
Like, there's a lot of stuff that's, that's moving and, and transient here.
I agree.
I agree.
And I feel like the result is if Bernie doesn't get it, and by the way, if you go through all the how this whole process works with delegates and superdelegates, if you didn't really focus and study all the rules, it would feel like it's being stolen from you.
And you might not like the rules, and you might not like how they're done.
This is like me when I'm at the argue travel calls on Twitter on the other side with the basketball people.
It's like you might not like the rule, but like they're following the rules.
And there are certain things like superdelegates are not like legally bound to pick, you know, whoever the most of the constituents voted for.
You know, they have leeway here.
And if unfortunately that's how you feel and you're upset about it, you know, it's just how the rules are.
So I can understand to some degree why Bernie's supporters would get upset, but I can't really argue that it's being stolen from them.
However, let's just say the end result is that Bernie does not get the nomination, and it kind of looks like that's what we're moving towards.
They don't vote in the general, right?
They're just going to stay home, I think.
Is that sort of the answer there?
I don't know.
I really don't know, and I don't think anybody knows.
Real fast, I want to bring up a point, a story, that I think has gotten lost in history.
I really think it's just kind of gotten lost in history, and it was a really important, quiet thing that happened.
And that was the night that Hillary Clinton won the nomination of the Democratic Party.
It wasn't because of a primary.
It wasn't because of a caucus.
I don't know if you remember this.
It was like a random Saturday night that NBC News, I believe, tracked down all these superdelegates and started counting up superdelegates.
And they were like, just to let everyone know, Hillary Clinton has crossed the threshold of delegates based on superdelegate commitments to be the nominee.
And Bernie, I think, if I'm not mistaken, had just like placed really well in a primary or won a primary that he wasn't expected to win or place well in.
And I think he was out there giving a speech about how they were gaining momentum.
And Hillary Clinton took that moment and went out and announced that she was the nominee.
And it was time to come together and all this stuff.
And it just happened on like a random Saturday when there wasn't a primary or anything.
So what's been forgotten is that that's about math and prognostication.
And that's backroom dealing in a lot of different ways.
So when you just turn on the TV or you check social media and it's like Hillary Clinton won and you're like, what vote was today?
Maybe I missed that thing.
It feels awful, right?
And that's the other thing.
The perception is there.
People aren't just diehard Democrats.
They're looking for like an organization to believe in that expresses their beliefs.
It's not like it's not like in sports where it's like, yeah, go Cubs.
I don't care who's on the team.
Like people are looking for something to latch on to this thing.
It's very volatile very very volatile and Yeah, I agree.
I think it's going to be, you know, a problem.
And the only hope we can have is that, again, I don't want to talk as if Bernie isn't going to win it, because he certainly can.
You know, if he gets enough delegates, he's going to get the nomination.
Like, they can't really take that away from him at that point.
And he didn't, you know, let's not forget, Hillary did simply, it was the math, she did have a lot more delegates than he had ultimately.
He was surprised when he did, and great for him, but he didn't have it.
She did.
This one, though, it seems like he's going to have a lot tougher of an argument for himself.
And I want to throw this out there, because I thought you made a good point a while ago, which is that Bernie Sanders is nothing if not consistent.
Right?
That's his whole calling card.
That's why he's had the success that he has.
I want people to put themselves in the shoes of, like, a Bernie Sanders.
And let's get this clear.
By almost all standards, Bernie Sanders is a radical.
He wants to change the system that America works by, and always has.
He's always been on the side of insurgents who are trying to topple, you know, a capitalistic, patriarchal order.
And that's something he's dedicated his life to.
He's built a massive movement.
Millions of people in this country believe in him and are dedicated to him and they're more fervent about him than I would argue anybody is fervent about their candidate right now besides maybe Trump.
I want people to think about the fact that he's gotten closer to the presidency than he probably ever thought that he possibly could in his life.
He's had now, you know, what, six years of building a movement and getting all this support.
I don't know if he could look at something like the Democratic Party, even in the face of Donald Trump, and, you know, he's all about decrying, like, these backroom deals and the powers that be.
I don't know that he doesn't come out and just decries the whole thing.
I mean, this kind of stuff, it doesn't change a person, but it sort of brings out parts of their personality that are still consistent, but maybe they're larger and they move in ways you might not expect.
I mean, this stuff, like, I think a lot of people are getting very excited about the idea of, like, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden or whatever, but there are so many moving parts here, and they could be really, really I agree.
And you know, for a minute there, I actually, I can picture this notion, okay, Bernie learns and is able to sort of more magnanimously, you know, endorse whoever gets it and then rallies everybody behind him, because that's exciting.
If he can rally every one of his followers behind Biden, let's say, then I would feel really good about the election come November.
But yeah, he might, he could be that same guy who just sort of pays lip service.
He took too long to do it last time in 2016 anyway, and it fomented all sorts of confusion.
So the only problem we have here again is because it happened already once, you know, he's that feeling for Bernie bros, and that they're already, I have a raw nerve.
We can see it now on Twitter.
We see the way they behave, the attitude.
So they're already rubbed so raw as it is You just did something really important there.
You said, are they Democrats or are they Republicans?
Even if he loses it fairly and squarely and it's clear he loses the nomination, it's a problem.
And it's always been unclear to me when you interact with a lot of these people where they land.
Are they Democrats?
Are they Republicans?
You know what I mean?
You could have people who vote for Trump if Bernie doesn't get the nomination.
You just did something really important there.
You said, are they Democrats or are they Republicans?
Now, they're not really either.
And that's one thing that we're not talking about.
The Democratic Party is trying to have a big enough tent and they're trying to massage this thing.
And by the way, I want to point something out for people.
The Republican Party had to do the exact same thing with a movement of their own.
And that was the Tea Party movement.
And they had to try and build the ceiling over both of them.
It's when a party vacillates.
And I've said this before and I'm going to say it probably on every podcast because it's something we have to remember.
We always make the mistake of thinking that tomorrow will look like today.
We always talk about Democrats and Republicans as if there's always going to be Democrats and Republicans.
Well, guess what?
There hasn't always been Democrats and Republicans.
There is a possibility.
And if you had to put your finger on one party that's going to split and turn into other parties, it's the Democratic Party.
Because this is a big, big tent with a lot of different beliefs that intersect and move.
You want to talk about intersectionalism?
That's what the Democratic Party is.
It's the actual political embodiment of that.
There's no guarantee that these people are going to stay Democrats.
Like, if they can't get a fair shake within the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders is getting older and he probably isn't ever going to run for president again.
They'll find other people.
When you have a movement like this, younger people get excited about it and they form political identities and they start becoming candidates themselves.
So this could be the beginning of, like, an actual Democratic Socialist Party.
This could be the beginning of, uh, who knows what they would call themselves, right?
Like, they could turn into something else.
But we need to stop thinking about the idea that it's just going to continue on into perpetuity, because these two parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, are actually really weak.
Like that's the thing we don't talk about.
They actually don't have that much control over their supporters.
The Republican Party was overtaken by Trumpism.
It's just now like a walking dead, right?
It's like a zombie of a Republican Party that has actually given itself over to Trumpism.
The two really don't have anything to do with each other in terms of ideology, right?
The principles of Trumpism are, whatever's good for me is good for me and screw you, pal.
And the Democratic Party is a coalition of disparate-minded people and groups that just managed to go into a voting booth and maybe pick the D. And that's not always sustainable.
And particularly if people don't feel heard.
I mean, we could be watching a splintering here that could really redefine things for a long, long time.
Okay, well, last question about this, I think, is, okay, Bernie gets the nomination, who's his VP?
Biden gets the nomination, who's his VP?
What do you hear?
Well, I mean, the Biden-Kamala Harris stuff is just reaching a crescendo.
You don't think it's Abrams?
No.
I'll tell you, everything I've heard has been Harris.
And so, here's the thing that's happened just in the last few hours.
So, they're having a rally tonight, Biden is.
And tonight is a big night.
I mean, this is primetime politics on the eve of Super Tuesday.
Biden's holding a big rally tonight, and all of the media notices have come out.
And basically, if you're a part of the media, you get these notices every now and then that's like, hey, we'll be in Albuquerque, you should be there.
The media notices today are like, if you can get on a plane and make this rally, you need to make this rally.
So the question... Where is it?
Where is it today?
I want to say it's in Texas.
Dallas.
Yeah, it's in Dallas.
So here's the thing.
Maybe it's him and Buttigieg and Klobuchar on a stage.
Maybe all of a sudden it's like, I just want everyone to know before Super Tuesday who would be my running mate.
And oh, here's Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams.
Here's how this happens.
Oh wow.
Bernie Sanders is not going to be a predictable candidate in terms of who he chooses.
He's going to choose someone who is ideologically, you know, with him.
Like, that's the thing.
If you got to dance with the one who brought you to the dance, right?
And his has been about being quote unquote ideological pure and consistent.
He's not going to be like, Hey everybody, welcome out.
You know, Democrat X, and it's going to be someone who follows his line, doesn't matter what state they're from or what their past is, he's going to choose somebody that he feels like is his ideological partner.
But yeah, I think Biden will probably announce that here before too long, because that's the antidote to Biden's weakness, is you have to know who Biden's going to have with him, because there are so many questions about him.
And that's the key, I think, with Biden is that I feel somewhat confident that, not confident, what's the word I'm looking for?
I have some consolation that I know that they're going to put a team around him if he gets to the White House that will really help and support him and keep him, you know, from whatever cognitive decline that he's suffering from.
Well, hold on, hold on.
I just want to say, I have to say this simply because it's in the interest of fairness and openness.
A lot of other people were saying that in 2016 with another candidate.
They were.
There, I'm sure there will be adults in there.
Now, by the way, that's not to sit here and say that I think that, you know, Biden would be a dangerous person like Trump, but we just gotta, you know what I mean, though?
You're right, you're right.
It's the same sort of stuff.
But I think, yeah, same sentiment, but like different circumstances.
And, you know, we can only hope and the sense is that Joe Biden clearly doesn't live, isn't a psychopath, basically, or whatever you want to call Trump.
And that's, again, that's why like Bloomberg You know, in theory would be better than Trump, too.
You know, just anybody who's not completely cognitively declined and a psychopath is better.
And also just naturally an authoritarian and a fascist.
Yeah.
But I personally, like if I was on the Biden campaign right now, I would I would be banging the table for hours screaming, get Elizabeth Warren on the phone.
Get her on the phone now.
Why can't she be the vice president?
That's what I'm saying.
Oh.
I would be pushing for that because it's not great that it's Delaware and Massachusetts, but they both, I mean, again, a Democrat with the way of the Democratic Party behind it, you know, is going to be competitive.
But on top of that, that takes care of the progressive part and the center left and the left.
That's the only antidote, because I'll tell you what, the progressives, they've got their problems with Kamala Harris.
They like Stacey Abrams more, but they really have their problems with Kamala Harris.
And that's what I would do, or the route that I would go, and I would just see where it went.
But I don't know.
I don't know how this thing's going to play out.
The irony being that the progressive issue with Kamala Harris is sort of similar to their issue with Bloomberg, in some weird, twisted, twisted way.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
But I'll tell you, and just to talk about the thing that we have to, the elephant in the room, you know, if you're a Democratic nominee right now, why are you not on every channel talking about health care and the care of people and economic inequality and pointing at the coronavirus?
And on top of that, You know, in South Korea, they have these drive-ins where you can get tested for coronavirus, and I think it's free, and 10 minutes later they tell you if you're positive or negative.
You shouldn't be able to walk down the hallway without finding democratic literature about this stuff.
And everybody should be hitting this right now.
You know, in Korea, South Korea, they have these drive-ins where you can get tested for coronavirus.
And I think it's free.
And 10 minutes later, they tell you if you're positive or negative.
You know how much it costs here to do the test?
I want to say I saw like 3,000.
Yeah, I'm seeing reports of that.
I don't know if it's across the board.
Everyone has to pay something like that.
But you know that wherever that exists, and let's just say it's $300, people are not going to get tested simply because of that.
It's outrageous and insane.
And there's not going to be a vaccine for this for a year.
So it's not like we're suddenly going to rush in here and be able to spray like a movie and solve everyone's problems.
Again, it all goes back to how these guys are campaigning.
There is lip service to criticizing Trump for sure, but it doesn't feel like they're hitting the right notes.
And you can only hope that that's what's going to happen as this gets consolidated more.
They're going to be able to figure that out.
And there's no question, with our response to coronavirus, the buck stops all the way at Trump, the way they've handled this has been kind of frightening from people.
Kind of?
Kind of frightening.
You know, to send people to welcome, first of all to have them on the same plane, and then to send people to welcome them as they get there that are not doing the proper precautions.
We've now seen, in fact there's reporting now today, what's the number of deaths up to now in the United States?
It's rising.
I'll just say that.
It's rising.
Yeah.
And meanwhile, we have President Trump, who's doing these press conferences.
And he's literally saying, it's going to be magic.
It's just going to disappear.
In the course of three minutes of speaking, he went from like 15 patients to none.
And then you've got members of the administration who were out there lying, saying it was completely contained.
There was no way it was going to spread.
Trump out there saying that The numbers are going to stay.
They're not going to get better.
No one's going to die from this thing.
Real fast, and I want to put this out there about Trump.
Trump has made a lot of things crystal clear.
One is that rich and powerful people aren't necessarily competent, nor did they earn their power or their wealth.
That was a big favor.
That was a big favor to the American people, showing them that.
But it's also this other thing, which is the presidency is really hard.
It's a really tough job, and trying to organize this stuff is really, really hard.
Quick question, Nick.
Yeah.
Does the economy trust that Donald Trump can handle this epidemic?
I don't think there's any kind of gray area on this answer.
Because it doesn't.
Because the economy, and listen, yes, there's been disruptions in terms of logistics and stuff, but you know what?
The economy and stock markets and all of that, they're about confidence.
That's all it is.
It's about state of mind.
How you feel about the moment.
They do not trust him to run this thing.
So that's number one.
Number two... Well, by the way, it's worth saying right now the Dow is up 1,200 points today, but that's gonna have to change again once these deaths start getting reported and take hold because there's no question they're gonna freak out about that.
It's like a literal EKG is what it is when you look at the stock market.
Okay, two.
Do the American people trust that Donald Trump can handle this epidemic?
No.
I haven't seen polls, I'm assuming that no.
It's gotta be resounding no.
Look around you!
It's this thing where people are freaking out.
And do not get me wrong, this is a frightening thing.
The idea of a new virus that can take off and it can cause untold damage and we don't have our hands wrapped around this thing yet.
But watch the way people are dealing with this.
And epidemics are really frightening.
Pandemics are really frightening.
But you know what adds to the fear?
When you don't trust that somebody is at the wheel.
And the panic that's occurring right now.
So I'm doing this on Monday, March 2nd.
I have a conference to go to in a couple of days.
It's probably going to get cancelled.
And tons of these things are getting canceled.
I mean, the transportation industry, the tourism industry in this country, all of it is going to be bad.
Right.
You know what I mean?
We've talked about this before.
Supply lines in China are already completely broken, have been separate for a couple of weeks.
And then, you know, people reporting from, you know, Chinese public transportation, you know, the subways there.
And they're like ghost towns when normally you can't even get into these.
The cars are so crowded.
Have you noticed, Nick, and just oblige me for a moment, have you noticed that it's really weird how these people who either get elected or appointed as strongman figures in these countries, like I don't know, America and China, it turns out like when the rubber really hits the road, They're not very good at things.
And it's almost like authoritarianism is a side effect of insecurity, of being incompetent.
And it just so happens that you make people tell you how great you are by threatening their lives and taking away civil liberties.
It's so weird that these things weren't just taken care of.
Isn't it?
That's just odd.
Yeah, and you have to imagine now they'll be able to cut a lot of these commercials where they have Trump saying, it's nothing, it'll be gone, whatever.
And then, boom, slam cut to the death toll is now at six, which is what the Washington Post is reporting right now in the U.S.
And that will continue.
I mean, there's no question it'll go up.
Now, the only question here is, will the percentage go down as more cases are reported properly?
That's possible.
But even if it goes down from two percent to one percent, it's 10 times higher than the normal flu, for instance, which, by the way, Trump also tried to deny.
And that's as bad.
That's probably worse than climate denial is when you're trying to say that, like, you know, what we already have is hard and fast numbers for the flu and what people how many people die for that per year.
You can't.
That's just math.
It's the same math, you know, like the trickle down economics works like the math is.
It doesn't work.
Yeah.
The guy that invented it, like did a whole op ed saying it doesn't work like it doesn't, you know. - Yeah.
And I'm glad you brought that up, because that is a large conversation that we need to have, if not today, later, which is this.
This economic environment that we're in is totally conducive to helping an epidemic, because people aren't getting healthcare, they're not getting preventative treatment, They delay going to the doctor because they can't afford it.
They delay going to get tests because they can't afford it.
And you know what?
People go to work sick.
They go to school sick.
They go to public places sick because they can't help it.
They have to.
They're so insecure in their employment and all that.
So it's a breeding ground for all that stuff.
But I want to throw this out there and I want people to hear it.
And I tweeted about this but it's really, really important.
As this thing gets worse, and do not get me wrong, it's going to get worse because, you know, that's what this is.
It's a highly contagious thing.
We're going to have cases.
We're going to have people.
People are going to die.
It's going to get worse and it's going to get worse especially because Donald Trump is incompetent and his team is just trying to turn this into a political salvation is what they're trying to do because it's out of control already.
They did not get out ahead of this thing.
They already fumbled the football, however you want to call it.
I want to put this in people's ears so they hear it and they're ready for it.
As this thing gets worse, if it gets really bad, and I'm talking like pandemic real bad, here's what's going to happen.
And this is simply because I've read enough about authoritarians and I've seen what they do.
They're going to blame it on everybody else.
They're going to scapegoat immigrants.
They're going to scapegoat liberals.
They're going to scapegoat people of color.
And they're going to talk about conspiracy theories, that this is an engineered virus from China, which they've already started.
You call it a hoax already.
But as this thing gets out of control, and it probably will because they're incompetent, you're going to see the authoritarian playbook come out.
And you need to be ready for it because when it happens, you're gonna... Don't be shocked, all right?
You need to be prepared for it so you can call it out and call it what it is.
Absolutely.
I mean, the playbook's already been taken out.
They're playing it already.
That's the thing.
But there's no question that they'll be able to institute a lot of other kind of draconian measures as well that would take away civil liberties in an effort to combat this, which in other situations might not be the worst idea.
But deserves to continue to control and beat down, you know, what we're trying to do.
And then also to be subservient to a president.
Well, in these times of war or pandemics, we have to support the president.
We have to believe that, you know, those things.
Those are powerful moments in U.S.
history that have always galvanized people behind the president.
And that's where it gets scary, too, when you have a guy like Trump.
Well, what's scary is when you have a guy like Trump who views the entire world as opportunities.
You know what I mean?
Like, everything has to... and that is what Trump is.
I mean, every time that Trump ever went through bankruptcy, every time that he ever went through, like, a scandal, he always looked at it and he thought, well, what's the angle on this where I can gain an advantage and gain money?
And that's, that mindset is what leads to all this stuff.
And you're exactly right.
So you have a pandemic that is threatening a bunch of lives and you look at it and you're like, yeah, this is a problem, but how can I also make it to my advantage?
And when you have that mindset working throughout all of this, it leads to ugly places.
And we don't like talking about this either.
There's a thin veneer between society and controlled society, society under siege, that disappears in times of things like pandemics.
Quarantine is a restriction of civil liberties.
That's what it is, right?
A forced quarantine.
This type of stuff can get out of hand really quickly and nobody should trust this guy.
Nobody should expect this guy to take care of it.
Nobody should expect him to handle it with a plum or dignity.
at all.
Right.
And our only hope was that, you know, listen, I don't hope this on anybody.
It's the worst thing.
I don't hope a recession on anybody because those are all terrible things that really hurt people.
But those two things are what's going to make sure he doesn't win again in November.
And so in some weird, twisted, horrible way, you know, that's the path that someone, you know, who's in control of our reality in this matrix, you know, You know, that's the path we're going to have to be on to get rid of them, only because I still don't feel good about any of these guys beating Trump, ultimately, if they get the nomination, be it Bernie or Biden.
And that was your positive 20 seconds of the Muckrake Political Podcast. - Yes, Curtis, my co-host, I have to say, I think this is one of those things that needs to be dispelled.
I don't want a bunch of people to die.
Do you know what I mean?
Man, I would love it if he could... I watched that last press conference where, man, he looked bad.
I just gotta throw that out there real fast.
For anyone who hasn't seen it, go and look.
Who's he?
Donald Trump.
He looks bad.
And I love, one of the things that really inspires faith from a populace in the stock market is when a president's administration tells everyone that he hasn't slept in days.
And it's, you know, proof that he has great endurance.
And it's like, he needs to get sleep.
But, so I watched that.
And, you know, I was watching it.
And I remembered, because so much of this goes through the lens of zero-sum politics.
Like, I win, you lose, you lose, I win.
And I was like, man, I wish he was really, I kept waiting to have hope, you know.
You know what I mean?
I was like, please, show me that you can take care of this.
I don't care.
Like, just show me that you can take care of this one thing and we'll deal with politics afterwards.
And they're out there and they're like, Democrats are hoping that people...
Nobody wants people to die, right?
Nobody wants a society that's coming apart at the seams.
And if this guy could handle this and we could get back to politics as usual, let's do it!
But it's so dumb and it really is indicative of how bad things have gotten.
Yeah, I just don't want the president to argue with a doctor about what the mortality rate is of the regular flu.
They're the ones who are doing the politics with this stuff.
And again, when you have a dictator or a president who simply cannot acknowledge anything wrong ever with anything, Uh, you're gonna get, this is what you get.
You're gonna get some really bad situations, especially with, when you're talking about a pandemic like this.
Because he'll, he'll, he'll, it'll be almost impossible for him to acknowledge that, yes, there's, this is a spread, we have to be very concerned, you have to stay in your houses, whatever they're gonna have to do, he won't be able to say that, and now it's too late.
He might try and backtrack at this point, but he's just looked like even more of a fool, and that might even make him double down.
It's scary.
Yeah, and let's talk about where this all goes.
So, one of the things that has already happened, him saying it was a hoax, right?
I mean, it gave flight to a lot of the conspiracy theorists around him, a lot of the people who share memes, that, you know, and automatically it was like, either this virus isn't real or something else is happening, right?
So, I was raised up in this environment, so let me tell you where this is going to go.
As more people die, it's going to come out that Democrats might have been involved in a New World Order deep state conspiracy to create a biological weapon that's going to take people out.
And it's this and it's that.
And I don't listen to Alex Jones anymore, but I guarantee that's what he talked about today.
I, you know, and people can email me or let me know.
I guarantee that's what he talked about today because it's all about lowering populations and turning people gay so they won't reproduce or whatever.
That's their MO.
That's what they do.
But that stuff, and it's laughable, but in times where society starts to shred a little bit, and pandemics are where that's happened, where the tension goes up and elections are happening, that's when people die.
That's when people pick up their guns or, you know, pick up bombs, make bombs, and then they go out and they kill people because they think they're in a life-or-death alternate reality where they're fighting a New World Order deep state conspiracy.
So, like, there's a lot of stuff that's coming down the pike that's really, really dangerous without all of this.
I'm sorry, Jared.
I'm going to have to go because I have to go to buy my two weeks worth of rations in case anything happens.
So, you know, that's what we're doing.
And that's a serious thing.
We are.
We're now going to start storing up on all the dry goods and all the things we need just in case because, you know, luckily it hasn't really hit LA, but it's certainly hit California and it's on the West Coast.
Yeah, and who knows where this thing goes.
I mean, you know, I keep hearing different things.
I talk to a lot of doctors and a lot of them are like, you know, this is going to be really bad for like elderly people and children and people with compromised immune systems.
And it seems like this thing is spreading really quickly and really efficiently, but it's also sort of like a flimsy virus and it can be taken care of by these means.
But this is a time, and that's the other thing they keep telling me, which is If we just talked about what it was, if we just got the facts, if the president... He got up on there in the press conference.
This is the thing that's crazy.
It's the small things.
He was asked if Americans should change anything that they do and he said no.
And it's as simple as washing your hands and avoiding a lot of contact and reusing or touching surfaces where people have like sneezed or coughed or you know saliva whatever.
And he said no.
Like, this is the kind of stuff that we could take care of if we had a reality where facts matter, but they don't for political reasons.
They've been weaponized, and that's why this is so dangerous.
It's a pandemic that doesn't need to happen, and it's a pandemic that's going to get worse simply because facts and ideas have been weaponized.
- Right, the weird thing about this one is because it's not completely so lethal, and I don't know if it's really affecting kids, it just seems to me like the elderly and people who already kind of have issues, but because it doesn't spread wildfire and kill everybody like Ebola, it stays around a lot longer, Like Ebola burns out because people just die and they can't spread it fast enough because they're dying so quickly.
So this is what's interesting about this one is that because it's not the case, it will stay around a lot longer.
People are going to get a lot more infected.
It will go across the world a lot more.
And the only question now is what are the real numbers?
Is it 2%?
Is it 1%?
We don't know.
Who has it and who doesn't?
We don't know how many Americans have it.
We have no idea how many Americans have it, simply because this administration bungled everything.
Yeah.
And we're, I mean, we have no idea how extensive the infection is here in this country.
And you're exactly right.
If we knew it, and we could wrap our heads around it, that's one thing.
But instead, it's just, this is what happens when you get a pandemic under Donald Trump.
You literally have no idea the scope of it.
And so everybody's paranoia and anxiety gets amped up.
This is why you need actual leaders.
This is why you need somebody that you can trust.
This is why it matters whether or not a president has actual trust.
And he doesn't.
He just doesn't.
So that's as good of a place as any to end.
We're going to wrap this thing up because tomorrow, Super Tuesday, if we still have elections, who knows?
The entire world maybe is in trouble.
I don't know.
We're going to have Super Tuesday special coverage tomorrow.
Probably late, so it'll be probably coming out on Wednesday.
A lot of things are happening.
This race is getting really, really interesting and really chaotic, so please be sure and check that out, probably on Wednesday morning.
In the meantime, thank you, as always, for all the support.
We enjoy it and we really, really appreciate it.
Please like, subscribe, leave a comment.
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They help build momentum and audiences and it all pays off.
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You can find me on Twitter at jysexton.
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