LaVar Hosting Jeopardy July 26-30 Stan Account 👁

"now I don't go in for all that 'everyone's a racist' stuff. But these guys? They are racist. And that's not what America stands for."

that's the center right now. disagreeing with Kaep's protest but disagreeing even more with Trump's condemnation of the protest.

holding the line against charges of systemic racism but also defending against the resurgence of overt white supremacy...

that's what the "mainstream" of America wants right now. And you can get through a Democratic primary on it.

and at the end of the day, enough POC voters will fall in line that winning all the whites who "just want things to go back to normal"

will carry elections for you. Throw in a dash of "if everybody's a racist, no one is"? Uncle Joe Biden will win two terms with that.

"now this is... this is just craziness. This is craziness. We have got to get back to some normalcy and some decency in this country."

and Uncle Joe's perfect because he will get away with it bc of all the times black folks saw him stare at Barack with hearts in his eyes.

To be clear: this is not a liberatory politic. Far from it. The opposite of it, in fact. But is it the fastest road to political power? Yep.

Uncle Joe could swoop in with 'bring back the public option as a last resort if there's no competition from the market'

with a side of 'let people buy into Medicare at 55' and then some 'we've gotta get some money to these police departments for body cams'

bring back Obama-era immigration policy, get a DREAM act signed (or path to citizenship but only to ppl who don't have felonies)

and of course maintaining America's perpetual war machine bc duh. A little bit of Elizabeth Warren-ism on Wall Street regulation...

(but probably not much legislation bc it will conveniently not be a priority until after he loses majority in one of the chambers)

oh and maybe, MAYBE a bill to subsidize in-state tuition and perhaps even some student loan reform (that's a big maybe too).

and of course it'll all come with pretty big Republican concessions but it'll get done. And American neoliberalism will continue.

Or, we can take the risky road and elect someone on a more ambitious platform that will actually lead towards liberation.

But I don't even see any Dems with liberatory politics on offer, Bernie included, let alone a plan for future challenges.

So we'll probably get a neolib in 2020, or maybe a social democrat with milquetoast antiracism who genuflects to socialism.

But a president with a real, functional, active antiracism? We haven't done the foreground work yet. We barely have antiracist mayors...

much less the antiracist state legislators and governors we need to pioneer and test and build out antiracist policy.

The one thing we might get from Uncle Joe, if we pushed hard, is basically a Civil Rights Act of 2021.

Which would address mass incarceration, police brutality, fix the gaping holes in the VRA, fight gerrymandering and voter suppression...

maaaaaaaaaaaybe some fair housing stuff? But very little that will empower black folks. And even that would be VERY politically risky.

If Obama came out in favor of it, Uncle Joe would basically have no chance. Can't break from your beloved 1st black prez on civil rights.

but real stuff like fighting felon disenfranchisement, not allowing states to count non-voting felon population...? I don't see it happening

But idk maybe I'm being too pessimistic. I do think a Civil Rights Act of 2021 is a feasible goal, if we pushed hard.

but I don't see how we're gonna make the kind of real progress we need to make on the biggest issues. It'll be all incrementalism for 8 yrs.