Beto is seriously nah

[JackRiddler]

[RocketMan]

Wwwwooow. Good catch. Getting some serious synchronicity vibes over here.

[JackRiddler]

It wasn't me of course. It's already been turned into a meme, four squares with two of this and two of Mayor Pete giving much the same look.

[JackRiddler]

If I were a betting man I'd wager Mayor Petey still has deep ties to the Intel community.

Seconded.

He seems to me to be a skilled opportunist making the most of his cards. It's more like he's calling at the sponsors' door to see if he can get in, than that he was set up years in advance, as Obama was.

So far, Mayor Pete's accomplishment has been to expose Harris and Beto as duds, by outpolling them as a nobody from the gate.

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[liminalOyster]

If I were a betting man I'd wager Mayor Petey still has deep ties to the Intel community.

Seconded.

He seems to me to be a skilled opportunist making the most of his cards. It's more like he's calling at the sponsors' door to see if he can get in, than that he was set up years in advance, as Obama was.

So far, Mayor Pete's accomplishment has been to expose Harris and Beto as duds, by outpolling them as a nobody from the gate.

.

Not to mention there would have been no way to know, too many years in advance, if we'd yet be at a point this cycle where his queer status stood any chance of becoming a historical liberation asset.

edit: Also, Thirded.

[JackRiddler]

More than 7 months ago I told you exactly what would happen, and it was easy. Just observe shit, mofos! Observe!

.

Prediction: Beto's incapable of serving a function other than early stalking horse, a John the Baptist for the as-yet undetermined Player To Be Named Later. His function will be to distract the right-wing heat for a while, then to melt quickly.

Viewing the field for potential ABBs (Anybody But Bernie, which it is superfluous to say is also ABBOTG), and excluding the two governors on late-life benders who might have had a shot in the atmosphere of circa 1980, I had a hunch:

The Betomaniac, Prosecutor Harrisment, and Old Monster Buyed-In may become preludes to sweet young Mayor Booty Kick (actually pronounced Buddha Judge, which is even better) as the Jimmy Carter of 2020. Brainy, sophisticated and contemporary in his triangulation, with RFK-style rhetorical flourishes, he seems to believe what he says, including the bullshit position on Medicare for All and the ultra-bullshit on the Question of American Force.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a ... interview/

Also, he apparently groomed himself for the role when he signed up as a reservist and took an Afghanistan tour. Sorry, does that sound cynical? Don't tell me the son of the Gramsci scholar and Harvard man was not already thinking Presidential.

He seems to have not yet actually been corrupted afaik, but what do I know about politics in South Bend, Indiana? (I'm not checking that: Did I get the town right? #newyorksplaining) But he signals there is little chance he won't be forced to give in, should the right sponsors call with an offer he can't refuse. In Carter's case, that was the Trilateral Commission. (Remember: Carter won, before he lost.) In Buttigieg's case, or rather for anyone in 2019, one would expect the call would be from some group in Silicon Valley. Interestingly he was at Harvard with Zuckerberg, and then entry level at McKinsey, and he goes into tech politics in depth here, again quite intelligently:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/ ... igieg.html

Now who here wouldn't enjoy the following worked into a speech to the DNC?

You're a big James Joyce buff. Is running for president more like Ulysses or Finnegans Wake?

Definitely more like Ulysses than it is like Portrait. Finnegans Wake is dream speak. Ulysses is consciousness meeting reality. But here's why I think Ulysses is extremely relevant. People believe Ulysses is this complex, difficult, inscrutable text full of references. And it is a difficult text, but its subject matter couldn't be more democratic. It's about a guy going about his day for one day. That's the plot of Ulysses. And, to me, that's what makes it very touching. You're in this guy's head, and you're kind of seeing life through his eyes, and at the end through his wife's eyes.

I wonder if he ruminates on the words written thirty years ago by his recently deceased father?

From the detailed and concrete analysis of culture carried out in
the notebooks one discovers that it is impossible to blame solely reaction-
ary elements for the rise of fascism. More important, one also comes to
realize that the socialist and even specifically Marxist antagonists of the
dominant culture did not, indeed could not in many cases, offer a coher-
ent and persuasive alternative-i.e., they could not effectively articulate a
counter culture-because they themselves were lacking in rigor and un-
critically adopted methods and paradigms from the dominant culture. The
clearest evidence of this is found in the pseudo-scientific "sociologism,"
the unexamined positivism to which many notes attribute the debilitating
distortions that vulgarized Marxism and rendered its most widespread ver-
sions ineffectual.

For the Italian Marxism of Gramsci's era, substitute any current change politics approach. It would apply. I wonder if there is any way out of this conundrum?

The way to avoid making such blunders, the prison notebooks suggest, is
to remain true to the methods of criticism and philology. These methods,
as they are employed in the notebooks, also function simultaneously as a
weapon and a shield against all forms of dogmatism and mystification. The
theory and practice of philological criticism found in the notebooks consti-
tute in themselves a most important contribution to the elaboration of an
anti-dogmatic philosophy of praxis.

Now that's beautifully utopian.

All power to the Philologists!

Or is that: Free words for all?

Gramsci's Method
Author(s): Joseph A. Buttigieg
Source: boundary 2, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer, 1990), pp. 60-81
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/303565

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[Laodicean]

^ somethin' about tooting one's own horn...

[JackRiddler]

That part is just a show to get a bit of attention for the point, dear Laodicean. Don't take it any more seriously than I do. I'm wrong all the time. My point is that this was observable, that there is a process here, that Stopping Bernie is the main game for the Democratic PTB, that various characters are auditioning for the ABB role, that Beto was never going to be it but offered an exploitable stopgap to burn while working on the eventual Real ABB.

I'm not sure they're any nearer than before.

[Elvis]

I dunno, I keep hearing it's down to Biden vs. Warren, or now even Warren vs. Trump.

Although someone convinced me it's not a good campaign slogan, I still say NBB (Nobody But Bernie).

[liminalOyster]

Bern or Burn maybe?

[JackRiddler]

I dunno, I keep hearing it's down to Biden vs. Warren, or now even Warren vs. Trump.

Although someone convinced me it's not a good campaign slogan, I still say NBB (Nobody But Bernie).

Biden is in irreversible decline and was always a delusion. Warren's the Safety School and the money's not happy about it.

Bern or Burn spells BOB!

[Elvis]

Bern or Burn maybe?

I like that a little too much.

[PufPuf93]

I dunno, I keep hearing it's down to Biden vs. Warren, or now even Warren vs. Trump.

Although someone convinced me it's not a good campaign slogan, I still say NBB (Nobody But Bernie).

There is mumbling about Hillary Clinton making a comeback. Now that would be a disaster in that the Democratic party could reach the point of no other choice but to split and also could realistically lose to rump again in 2020 (after HRC's comeback scuttles impeachment and dulls the Democratic success in Congress and State and County elections).

[Elvis]

I've noticed that most Democrats are shopping for appeal. It's a lifestyle choice, not a political action. Women especially adore Buttigieg, he's so smart, small, cute, gay—ideally non-threatening male. They don't care about policies. All Democrats are basically acceptable, right? Pick the one that matches your shoes. Biden goes with anything. Bernie's old, is said to insult our intelligence by promising unicorns. Warren resonates but she's a woman, wait that's a good thing, or is it? Wait, what about Harris?—part Obama, part Hillary! Oh right. Well...I hear that BLOOMBERG is standing by.

[JackRiddler]

I've noticed that most Democrats are shopping for appeal. It's a lifestyle choice, not a political action. Women especially adore Buttigieg, he's so smart, small, cute, gay—ideally non-threatening male. They don't care about policies. All Democrats are basically acceptable, right? Pick the one that matches your shoes. Biden goes with anything. Bernie's old, is said to insult our intelligence by promising unicorns. Warren resonates but she's a woman, wait that's a good thing, or is it? Wait, what about Harris?—part Obama, part Hillary! Oh right. Well...I hear that BLOOMBERG is standing by.

I've noticed something like this too but,

Is it true you live in a kind of lifestylish city, largely of professionals?

Is it true you (like 90% of us) see more "Democrats" on social media than in real life?

I'm going to suggest this may be an actual "filter bubble" phenomenon.

Most people are not making decisions on this basis. Most people have made no decisions yet and aren't thinking about it too much before January or February.

"Base" people are thinking it, and I'd expect most of them are in the tank for Bernie.

But all this is, what do you call it, rebbutable presumption or, um, informed intuition, you know?

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