Could be it, I just get a blank black screen - even if incognito mode with adblock/addons disabled.
Given the climate change situation, Gore is probably the best possible person to be our next president.
I struggle against the impulse to say “it ain’t gonna happen,” because the reason things ain’t gonna happen is by people initially believing it ain’t gonna happen.
But it is hard to see a path.
Surely he’d be a better VP to a young presidential candidate?
So how far should Democratic voters commit to the “we should pick the person most likely to beat Trump” mantra? I was thinking that the Democratic candidate with the greatest probability of beating Trump is Mike Pence. So, there’s got to be a line somewhere.
Personally, I would hate to see an incoming Dem President that was fairly indifferent about climate change. Most other policy issues I could probably make compromises on for my support (although I am only providing moral support as not American).
The Pod Save America folks like to point out that President Barack Hussein Obama was immediately followed by President Donald J. Trump, so traditional judgments of “electability” may not be altogether reliable these days.
What’s maddening of course is that the ‘electability’ question is a sort of meta-narrative that contaminates the very discussion it is meant to illuminate. People can be unelectable just because they’re called unelectable and people start to think of them that way, sort of like how you can be famous for being famous.
In terms of ‘electability’ (oh god I said the word)? Maybe. But he would be a better president than whoever young person because he understands climate change better than almost anyone else who is not a climate scientist. I mean he was basically grown in a petri dish to swoop in at this our species’ darkest moment, except, presumably, he can’t win, assuming he has even considered running. Churchill, one may note, was in the wilderness for a time too, but I fear the analogy wouldn’t hold all the way.
Even the Green New Deal still doesn’t get it (“here comes the airplane to get you to swallow this bit about KEEPING THE FUCKING EARTH HABITABLE”), but I will certainly take it over the contemptible, borderline criminal do-nothingism of the GOP.
Basically when I survey the political landscape vis-a-vis climate change I feel a lot like Ripley in the board room scene in Aliens.
‘Electable’ means polling well in the approximately ten states that matter.
BTW, on Saturday from 11 am EST to noon, I’ll be hosting and running a swarm with a group of people we’ve identified as likely 2020 Democratic primary voters. I’m writing up my question set now, but it’s going to be all kinds of different questions, about the candidates themselves as well as policy endeavors that are important to Democratic voters.
Feel free to come by and participate if you like and you’re a person who’s likely to vote in one of the Democratic primaries. It should be pretty fun and interesting. (And full disclosure, that time and setting is because while we’re answering questions about the 2020 primaries as a swarm intelligence, it’ll also be part of our SxSW presentation. I’ll post details here on Saturday morning of how to join us for anyone who’s interested. (And you don’t need to come and spend an hour; if you just want to swing by and join for a little bit, that’s fine.)
Although indifferent might be too strong a characterization, probably most of them don’t see it as a priority. Although the Obama administration managed to get the world to sign onto the Paris accords (no small mean feat) and issued the clean power plan (that probably won’t survive SCOTUS), his administration didn’t want to expend political capital on being more aggressive or even making the case more forcefully to the public.
Until climate change starts registering with the public as the existential crisis that is, taking the legislative steps necessary to mitigate it will continue to face headwinds. While I’m not suggesting that a president has magical powers of persuasion, we’ve seen how the media covers immigration and that’s nowhere a crisis. (Then again given the asymmetrical media coverage of political parties and leaders, they’d probably just end up covering Republicans blathering about “socialists taking your hamburgers away” or some stupid shit and then we’ll spend the next twenty years debating whether socialists really want to ban meat.)
I honestly don’t expect to see aggressive action even should a Democratic win. New administrations get to do one (or if they’re lucky) two big things before the mid-terms start, and that big thing they’ll probably end up pursuing is health care and/or tax policy reform To be sure, both necessary, but both more politically palatable. The country simply lacks leadership on galvanizing sufficient public opinion. That’s going to need to come from grass roots activism which we’re now starting to see (with very young people) in Europe but is still largely getting ignored by the media there.
I suppose I could have saved a lot of words and simply wrote ‘we’re fucked.’
Would have meant Gore would have gotten blamed for the 2008 financial crisis, and Tax and Spend would likely have another generation.
This timeline could be so much worse than what it is.
No way to know, but it’s likely the regulatory environment that contributed to the crisis would have been much different under Gore.
Gore likely would have have lost in '04 because Republicans (aided and abetted by mass media) would have blamed him and Democrats for 9/11.
Notice though how we can play out these scenarios and intuitively I think we all know that Republicans shed blame like snakes their skins* but the same doesn’t hold true for Democrats. This is not to suggest Democrats shouldn’t ever be blamed or not own mistakes they make, but Republicans just are not held to the same standard. Witness the penalties they paid for Nixon, Reagan and Bush. Should trump lose in 2020 it’ll be like he never existed in the 2022 mid-terms.
*Not meant to impugn snakes in any way. Here’s a quick video of the largest snake I’ve ever seen.
For primaries? Not very far at all. They should vote for the candidate that best matches their criteria. Settling for the, “would probably win,” might be for others here, but not for me. It doesn’t mean I won’t support whomever is chosen as the victor in the Democratic primaries, it just means I’m not picking someone because of their appeal to other voters, just to MY vote.
Sherrod Brown is a NO. Not running.
I think we’re nearing the end of the announcements - Beto, Biden, and some minor players (e.g. Swalwell) Am I missing anyone?
I’d really like to set a Beto v trump poll from TX.
Mine right now which Dem do I think would best stop Biden. (which is either Harris or Bernie most likely)
I mean, I’d vote for him in the general, and feel better than I did voting for Hillary, but I think we can do a lot better.
Democracy!
I AM IN A STATE THAT MATTERS SO I DON’T CARE!
Is that why he just flew here in a private jet for a winery conference?
The GND may very well end up being a different political animal than its economic roots, but one of the original economists just wrote
If everyone sees the world through the MMT lens, then they would immediately reject a politician who tried to claim we cannot save the planet because we do not have enough money.
and his readers constantly comment on the stupidness of the upcoming ecocide, so I don’t agree with that.
I don’t know what that has to do with his knowledge about climate change, but I’m not interested in debating the hoary “let’s ignore everything Gore says about climate because he has a big carbon footprint” line of logic. It’s pure ad hominem and not worth the brain cells and breath expended on it.