“This is pathetic,” I said after reading the editorial twice. “What’s going on at the New York Times?”
Swamp Rabbit looked confused. “How would I know? I ain’t no Manhattan neolib. I live in a shack in Tinicum swamp, just like you.”
I was genuinely confused. An endorsement, by definition, involves choosing one candidate over all the others. Why choose two, unless you’re trying to confuse your readers?
Swamp Rabbit took a minute to check the editorial then read aloud from it:
Both the radical and the realist models warrant serious consideration. If there were ever a time to be open to new ideas, it is now. If there were ever a time to seek stability, now is it. That’s why we’re endorsing the most effective advocates for each approach. They are Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.
Warren is the radical, you see, and Klobuchar is realistic. I couldn’t help wondering how often The Times‘s editorial writers venture outside their glass-and-steel tower, and how they’re defining their terms.
Warren is actually a New Deal-style Democrat, with beliefs and policy ideas similar to those of Bernie Sanders, a candidate the Times calls divisive and despises. Klobuchar is middle-of-the-road, a lot like Joe Biden but more bland and not as gaffe-prone. How her politics equates with realism is a mystery to me.
“They mean she’s a go-slow type,” Swamp Rabbit said. “They’re saying she can do what Warren wants to do, but without rocking the boat. Don’t make much sense when you think about it.”
I told him the Times editorial tells us more about the Times than it does about Warren or Klobuchar. The famed newspaper of record badly misjudged the mood of the country when it confidently endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. It still doesn’t understand Trump’s appeal. It’s hoping to get back some credibility by hedging its bets in 2020, by being all things to all people who aren’t Trump-loving troglodytes.
“Who cares about them editorial writers anyway?” the rabbit said. “They all work for corporations. I know bloggers who make more sense.”
I nodded in agreement. He said, “Don’t jump to no conclusions, I ain’t talking about you.”
Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard seems to be back on track.
She had to swim a few laps in a freezing ocean and do 150 push ups to get there, but good for Gabbard.
But, what possessed Hillary to declare war on both Gabbard, “she’s a Russian agent,” and Bernie, “nobody likes him,” only her fevered mind understands. That or she’s got some real dumbasses around her giving her terrible advice.
It’s all quite sad really, because Hillary is even less relevant now then she was in 2016 and she didn’t need to do this.
But here we are.
We all knew that at some point a civil war might break out in the Democratic Party. Even though we were all “wishin and hopin” that it wouldn’t happen.
Establishment Democrats like stumbling and bumbling Joe Biden, are fighting hard to hold onto their power and Progressives are fighting hard to wrest that power away from them.
Klobuchar v. Warren (or Bernie)
May the best message win out Swamp Rabbit.