The various reflections of last night's debate between Democratic party primary candidates give a consistent picture.
- Bloomberg lost. He had brought a wallet to a knife fight and made a generally bad impression. Even the news service that carries his name headlined: Bloomberg Hammered.
- Buttigieg was again exposed as the soulless fluff he is.
- Biden is frail, confused and talks too much.
- Warren gets some points for hammering Bloomberg. But that is it.
- Klobuchar gets points for hating Buttigieg but is otherwise too robotic to attract votes.
- Sanders ably defended his positions against attacks from all sides.
- Tulsi Gabbard was unfortunately not invited.
This impression seems to be correct:
Carl Beijer @CarlBeijer – 3:01 UTC · 20 Feb 2020
Bernie Sanders is debating like a frontrunner, confidently advancing his agenda and fending off attacks.
Everyone else is frantically trying to make some kind of game-changer happen, throwing up one-liners and cutthroat attacks like Hail Marys with the clock winding down.
The Democrats will likely have a brokered convention. If there is no candidate who gets a majority in the first round, hand selected 'superdelegates' will also vote. They will select the candidate the party's paymasters want. They may even try to rerun Hillary Clinton through this backdoor.
Op-eds that argue for such sham democratic processes are already getting published. Even under the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness":
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(The Washington Post changed the above headline after it had caused an outrage on social media.)
All candidates but Bernie Sanders seen to be fine with such anti-democratic schemes. When the moderators asked if the candidate with the most delegates should automatically become the party nominee the answers were:
– Bloomberg: No
– Warren: No
– Biden: No
– Buttigieg: No
– Klobuchar: No
– Sanders: Yes, the inclusion of superdelegates is not indicative of a democratic process.
Sanders economic and domestic policies seem generally okay to me. But his foreign policies are still too aggressive:
In Hungary, far-right authoritarian-nationalist leader Victor Orban models himself after Putin in Russia, saying in a January interview that, “Putin has made his country great again.” Like Putin, Orban has risen to power by exploiting paranoia and intolerance of minorities, including outrageous anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros, but at the same time has managed to enrich his political allies and himself.
Where please is Putin "authoritarian"? When has Putin "exploited paranoia and intolerance of minorities"? When he opened the Grand Mosque in Moscow? And to put the dully elected Duterte of the Philippines and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un into one "authoritarian leaders" pot, as Sanders does in other parts of that speech, makes little sense to me.
Sanders current foreign policy advisor is an aggressive know-nothing:
Matt Duss @mattduss – 1:37 UTC · Feb 20, 2020
"It should come as no surprise, therefore, that those who understand Putin’s kleptocratic system – such the leader of the Russian opposition, Alexei Navalny – are now rooting for Sanders."
Guardian: Hawks say Sanders will be weak on Russia. But Putin should fear a President Bernie
Navalny is a xenophobe and racist nutter. He compared Muslims to cockroaches who should be killed. He does not lead anything and certainly not the Russian opposition. Polls in Russia have him at 1%.
Still – Sanders foreign policy is probably the least aggressive in the field with the exception of probably Gabbard's. Sanders should select her for the vice president position. As a woman of color she would also tick off two now necessary categories.
But first he will have to win the big fight to become the nominee. The powers that be will do their best to prevent that.