Panic In Detroit

Mitch McConnell boasts about having spent his Senate career ensuring that America won't become like Europe (right, good schools, gun control, public support for the arts, a humane criminal justice system, universal health care, high-speed rail, who wants any of that?), and recent polling shows that Democratic voters, while ready for a change from Trump, aren't prepared to go all the way down the European social democratic path anyway.  They may want universal health care, but not Medicare for all.  They may want Amtrak and even local public transit, but the don't want to give up their Explorers and F-150s for Yarises.  They may want immigration reform, but that don't want to decriminalize non-sanctioned border crossings.  They do want a moderate presidential candidate, but they don't want Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.  Though progressives would blame the centrist media for suggesting all that and telling you want to think.  But I, as someone who voted for Jill Stein in 2016, have come to the conclusion that Democrats cannot have a progressive presidential candidate for 2020.  A progressive agenda would have been possible for 2016, but Donald Trump has taken us so far backwards that we have to get back to where we were when Barack Obama left the White House before we can start dreaming big again about emulating European social democracies.

So the two-part debate in Detroit this past week satisfied no one. In the first night, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders stood in solidarity for their progressive goals, but the so-called moderates (any Democrat not liberal enough for the Sanders/Warren crowd is called one) had the upper hand as a group.  But no one centrist candidate dominated the field like Sanders and Warren did, exposing the weak standings of these lower-tier candidates as they wait to take the mantle of the leading centrist or center-left candidate should Joe Biden fumble in the long run.

Biden did not fumble in the second night, despite a mass onslaught from opponents like New Jersey senator Cory Booker, and he did better than in Miami, but he didn't do great either.  This led many to wonder if he can take on Trump in a general election debate.  But what was really eye-opening were the other candidates on the second night going after the President's record.  Not Trump - Obama.  They picked on Obama's various failings as President as if they were running against him.  And Biden, Obama's Vice President, staunchly defended Obama, which makes him look good in the longer run.  The piling on top of Obama's record proved to be too much for many rank-and-file Democrats to stomach, especially when Trump exploited it in a rally in Cincinnati the following day.

The only reason Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez isn't pulling his hair out is because he's bald.    

The primary/caucus debates get harder to qualify for after this, but the field is hardly going to winnow any time soon, because there are likely enough Democratic presidential candidates who can get enough support from the polls and individual donors to keep on going and make the next couple of debates a two-night affair like Miami and Detroit were.  And they'll debate about the same old things - immigration, Medicare expansion - and not talk so much about the economy and the everyday struggles of ordinary Americans.  Good grief, a GM transmission factory in the Detroit suburb of Warren just closed, and even that couldn't spark a discussion among the candidates in the Detroit debate on what they could do for average voters who don't want to hear about exotic or revolutionary programs when all they want to know is how they're going to make it.  The factory closing was a tailor-made subject for someone like Tim Ryan, yet he was unable to get the opportunity to break out of the pack. As for Biden, he wants to talk about meat-and-potatoes issues, but he's constrained by what many of the other candidates want to talk about, and, say, rebuilding our infrastructure isn't one of them.  So don't expect him to stand up for Amtrak - a pet issue of his - any time soon in one of these debates.

And you know the Democrats are in trouble when pundits are actually finding Marianne Williamson impressive.

I'm not supporting anyone for President in the Democratic nomination process because I'm an independent.  Instead, I've been continuing my quixotic efforts to get Volkswagen to keep the standard Golf in its North American lineup when the eighth-generation model debuts.  Between that and supporting a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, I'd rather continue to fight to keep the standard Golf in this market.  At least I know I have a better chance of success there.