Biden isn't left. Beto isn't left.

        "Listen up, Democrats--that's why no one outside of your right-wing neo-liberal bubble believes for a second that your super-duper progressive platform means jackshit. *cough*  Beto  *cough*"

      

     "We are not going to rally around corporate establishment candidates. We meant it in 2016, and it goes double now."

            Kathy Copeland Padden. Bernie supporter.

Trump has the big tent. Democrats have two tents.

The GOP is Trump's party now. He protects them from the Democratic enemy. He has his 40%.

Social media reveals the deep fracture in the American left.  Some of it is the unhealed wounds of 2016, but it is also a fundamental choice between incremental change as good, or as failure. For some of the most involved activists on the left, there is no such thing as "pretty good." Pretty good is dangerous because it validates and sustains the economic and political system they consider fundamentally wrong. 

Plus, it's a sellout. Evil is evil.

Real Clear Politics posts polls I consider misleading as a guide to the 2020 election. Their February and March polls showed Joe Biden leading Trump by ten points, 55-45, and Bernie Sanders leading Trump by 2 points, 51-49. Biden could be encouraged by that. Centrist Democrats might be as well. It appears to show the best path to Democratic victory in 2020, a candidate who represents a non-Trump stability. A moderate. Not Bernie, who would be demonized as a Communist. Bolshevik Bernie.

Biden is understood to be a liberal by the standards of the previous thirty years, but a moderate-centrist by the standards of the current environment. Beto is getting attention because he appears to be a fresh, new, charismatic version of Biden's politics.  

These polls reflect views before Trump-- and the left itself--pounds the wedge between the two sides of the left. There are significant numbers of votes on the left that will not be available to Biden and Beto O'Rourke.  Democrats need to understand this. The 2020 election will be a difficult one for them. 

What is my evidence? Voices I hear. 

Some voices praise Bernie Sanders. Some criticize Sanders opposition, and this week has provided an up-tick in criticism of Beto. Beto just announced, just raised six million dollars overnight, and Beto draws crowds. The critics are out. isn't "pretty good." He is bad, a conservative. And a lightweight.

Social media is a form of primary source. Below I post one example, one of many that are available. Kathy Copeland Padden calls herself a "political junkie and history buff alternating between bouts of crankiness and wry amusement while bearing witness to the Apocalypse." She says her name is pronounced "Bernie Would Have Won."  She posts articles under her name in Medium, where readers can find others.

Guest Comment:  "Allow Me to Explain Why Beto Sucks" 

Kathy Copeland Padden 

Padden

"Ah, Beto O’Rourke. The Democratic Party Boy Wonder of the moment. With that boyish charm and Kennedy-esque smile, Beto is basking in the glow of love from those too politically naive to realize he’s about as far from Progressive as it’s possible to be.

Let’s start with his love affair with the fossil fuel industry. He signed on to the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge but accepted $430,000 from Big Oil and Gas. He must have had his fingers crossed behind his back, rendering said pledge null and void. Or he thought the check was from Greenpeace. Either way, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.

And I don’t care that he’s from Texas like that’s supposed to give him a buy here. It does not, it’s completely irrelevant, and ludicrous to boot. I’m from Massachusetts, but I don’t go around burning witches and fawning over Tom Brady. Where you are from is not who you are. I fail to see why perpetrating the worst sins of your home state could ever be considered excusable behavior.

Fossil Fuels are bad. Period. I’ve heard Democrats say it’s “unconstitutional” to refuse donations from corporations hell-bent on destroying humanity for a quick buck. This is the biggest load of horseshit since Trump said Mexico would pay for the border wall. So don’t bother trying to make that fly either.

If that alone wasn't enough to disqualify him as a Progressive, O’Rourke supports the TPP and voted to allow President Obama ‘Fast Track’ authority, completely disregarding the welfare of the American workers and consumers he claims to champion. His position obviously and blatantly disregards environmental responsibility in the name of furthering corporate interests.

But when you are the second biggest recipient of funds from the Fossil Fuel Industry, I suppose trashing the planet really doesn’t matter. He’s only bested by Ted Cruz in that department. Ted Cruz people. Get a grip.

How in any universe is that considered Progressive, or even sane given the dire warnings from climate scientists everywhere? I’ll help you out here. It’s not.

But that was hardly the first or only time O’Rourke championed Big Business over the People. Don’t believe me? Check his voting record. I’ll wait.

And speaking of voting records, the supposedly progressive Beto didn’t support the House bill for single payer healthcare, or the one for debt and tuition-free college. How anyone can believe this corporate kiss-ass has any interest in the will or welfare of the average American is completely beyond me.

So he yammers on about a better future for all Americans while assisting in government-mandated genocide. And then his followers slam the GOP for doing and saying the exact same crap Dream Boy does, only while older, fatter, and balder.

He is more conservative than many self-proclaimed conservatives.

But I’ll hand one thing to O’Rourke — he’s got that old-timey, political glad-handing down pat. He’s the master of comforting catch-phrases motivational poster-style platitudes. He shakes his tousled locks, flashes that Osmond-esque smile and flings the B.S. while the neolib fangirls and boys eat it all up.

So stop trying to make Beto O’Rourke happen. In a world where Bernie Sanders exists he doesn’t stand a chance."