Blackbeard
partly because her name can’t be taken off the general ballot in multiple states
Again, where is your proof of this? Ballots haven’t been finalized anywhere in the country, as Biden isn’t even officially the nominee yet. You keep saying these things as if they’re set in stone, but from what I can tell they’re not. Do you have proof that ballots have been printed before the convention, or that states have closed the registration window for running mates before closing the registration window for candidates?
Note: I agree with the rest of what you said, for the most part.
And sadly, the campaign response to this sentiment is not inspiring a lot of faith in their judgment. This after the NYT Editorial Board called on him to step aside:
Does he think that “LOL! Fuck you!” is the correct response here? The chorus of people in every corner of the country calling for him to step aside is deafening, and all he can muster is a Trump-style clapback?
Furthermore, at this point I’m having a hard time envisioning a scenario where asking the incumbent to drop out would be more justified. Like, how bad would it actually have to get for the party to admit, “hey guys, this isn’t fixable, time for Plan B”? Incumbency advantage is huge, but it’s certainly not all-powerful.
The subtext here is just as important as the main story. The reason the EPA has had to try desperately to stretch their interpretations of statutory authority into gray areas that are vulnerable to judicial review, is that Congress has utterly failed to pass any truly meaningful environmental protection laws for decades. The Clean Water Act, for example, has only been meaningfully amended once since it was passed 50 years ago, and that resulted in a huge (albeit slow) improvement in stormwater management in urbanizing areas. The last time we had a bipartisan interest in curtailing the excesses of industry, the Cuyahoga River was routinely catching fire and places like Love Canal had children playing in actual toxic sludge.
There have been very few times that the EPA has been granted any kind of legal authority since the 1970s, and most of them were intentionally ambiguous. Bush II’s Clean Skies Act, for example, was a direct result of the Kyoto fiasco and actually weakened a lot of environmental regulations from the 1970s. In contrast, things like Obama’s Clean Power Plan were simply agency-level policies devised to get around the fact that Congress hadn’t amended the Clean Air Act since 1990. Since they were policies and not laws, they could be subsequently gutted by future administrations (i.e. Trump) and the courts. Policies and rules have no staying power.
Congress has done fuck all for the environment since Nixon, and that lay at the feet of the Reaganite neoliberal coalition wedded to the free market which had champions in both parties for several decades. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is a fucking awful ruling because it’ll take away the few powers the EPA tried to devise in the absence of Congressional action, but it’s actually overdue because Congress should have dealt with these problems long before now.
In the end, voters are left with a choice. Start giving enough of a shit to vote for politicians that will pass environmental laws, or live in the regulatory world that stopped evolving before the personal computer was invented. We’ve been able to eke out a meager existence because things like Superfund and NPDES exist, but as we can see from the Flint and GenX disasters, we’ve taken clean water, soil, and air for granted for far too long. It’s not the job of the EPA to devise creative ways to get around the shitty, intansigent Congress we keep sending to DC. It’s our job to send better politicians to DC to help them keep us safe.
If Biden decided to step down, his delegates are pledged to support Kamala Harris.
I’ve tried to verify that this is the case and can’t find evidence anywhere. Can you point me to a source? I was under the impression that they’d be expected to turn to her, but that they’re not required to.
Edit: After lengthy back and forth, it finally became clear that this is simply an opinion. User has absolutely no proof.
I’m sorry, but what universe are you living in? You don’t remember this exchange?
We’re going to have to start organizing at the grassroots level. Folks will need to develop a class consciousness that transcends cultural boundaries and harnesses the power of the internet. The major eras of civil rights expansion and reversal of the otherwise upward mobilization of wealth only came with significant grassroots organization, public protest, political activism, and sadly, bloodshed.
Rights aren’t granted. They’re taken.
Yes, and the rules were voted on by party members before the primary started. They’re now in place, and they’re obligated to respect them until this process plays out. Same thing happened in 2016. Say what you will about whether the rules were “fair” or not, they were agreed upon before Iowa, and they were respected through the Convention.
The way you use “kneecap progressives” tells me you’re conflating DNC primary rules and campaign finance. The two are not the same thing. They could do to Biden what they did to Bernie and blast the airwaves with damaging, misleading attacks, but none of that would fundamentally change the fact that the primary rules were agreed upon and are immutable until the Convention comes to a close.
And to reiterate, it’s not “principles” that are holding them back. It’s a contractual obligation whose violation would open them up to civil litigation. Voters picked delegates and they’re obligated to respect the voters who selected them. The DNC can’t just tell them to take a hike.
But Biden can.
edit: AP just put out a piece that confirms what I’ve been saying. They’d be sued into oblivion if they usurped the process right now. The ball is very much in Biden’s court.
