"OK, I've decided I'm going to test the waters. IF I were going to run for president, the GREEN party would be my first choice. I've endorsed the party and I'm testing the waters."
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| Ventura |
Jesse Ventura, April 27, 2020
Bad Ass.
Jesse Ventura fills a niche for the disgruntled left, unhappy with Biden. It is the mix of nihilism, libertarianism, and disappointment that I observe to be flowering within the left.
They don't want peace and normalcy. Ho-hum, screw that.
Donald Trump could not contain his joy when he learned that Justin Amash was running for president as a Libertarian. Trump knows he has enemies. He cherishes having enemies and wins because his supporters love seeing him fight them. Amash will siphon some of their votes and Trump said so aloud: "He almost always votes for the Do Nothing Dems anyway. I like him even more than Jill Stein!"
Jesse Ventura serves Trump far better than does Amash. Amash was always fated to be a small problem. Amash is a punctilious libertarian. He had theoretical ideological appeal to the small-government left. His problem with them was mood and tone. The small government left are not strict-constructionist rule-of-law people. They are under-the-table outlaw people.
Jesse Ventura is more their style. He talks plainly, frankly, unguardedly, without notes. He comes across as a fearless guy. There is something very Trump-like about him in his populist flouting of the rules of political-speak. Give 'em hell.
His positions will appeal to the anarchist-left. Images like this one circulate within the pro-Bernie groups, an impossible but very attractive package to the disaffected left: All the AOC/Bernie policies, plus legalize weed, plus end the wars and abolish the income tax. Sweet.
Democrats who think that the Bernie-left will "come around" and face the reality of the binary choice are partially right, but wrong on the margin and Jesse Ventura changes the size of the margin. Ventura can do what Amash could not. If Amash were the alternative to Trump or Biden a Bernie-orieted voter would be casting a protest vote for a person who primarily identified as a conservative. Maybe, in that case, settle for Biden.
Ventura forces a much harder choice: vote ones values or vote supposedly smart and "settle." Voting for Ventura is a vote of conscience.
Sanders has six months to sell the notion of practicality to his movement supporters, and he will find some success, but Sanders consistently defined himself in opposition to establishment, corporate, sold out Democrats. One can find Facebook quotations to document any argument, but comments in response to my posts have included these:
*** "No DNC Democrat earned my independent vote. It's not a done deal. Foolish DEMs!!!!"
*** "They didn't earn my vote either. #NeverBiden"
**** Biden's a piece of shit. Anyone that supports him is a piece of shit.
**** JOE BIDEN IS A HISTORIC, HABITUAL, PATHOLOGICAL LIAR, NOW IN COGNITIVE DECLINE. I DO NOT BELIEVE A WORD THAT COMES OUT OF HIS MOUTH."
**** "Basically take what Bernie brought to the mainstream and carry the "I don't give a FUCK attitude" that I know that you have and carry that burn it all down energy. Both Biden and Trump are right wing lunatics. Be the only viable pick."
And, of course, there are thousands more like these.
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| Click: Marijuana, Climate, Anti-War |
Burn it all down. The last quotation above adopts the tone that will have appeal to some on the left, with a loss of 3 to 5 to 7 percent of the potential Biden vote. Trump-backed PACs are certain to hype Ventura and remind Sanders supporters how Biden supposedly stole the nomination. Biden is selling normalcy and bipartisanship and political peace, and that message is 180 degree opposite what they want to hear.
Trump burned his bridges with the left. Some may have voted for him in 2016, finding bits and pieces of his populism attractive, but not now. Biden defeated populism; he doesn't embody it. Ventura is a viable alternative to Trump. A vote for Ventura is both a vote of conscience and a message of that enduring Democratic message: hope and change. Ventura surprised everyone once by winning in Minnesota. He will insist he is playing to win. As an Ashleigh put to the many people objecting to my post regarding Biden:
"It's time for you 'Bernie or bust' losers to grow up and back the most likely candidate to beat Trump, JESSE VENTURA."
It got 3,000 likes in short order.
2 comments:
Yikes!
Let's hope it's just talk. In this climate a Ventura candidacy would definitely threaten Democratic unity, and the Green Party has a base.
It seems like Ventura should have endorsed Sen. Warren or Sanders, or run as a Democrat himself, and the fact that he's coming out now strikes me as opportunistic. (Shocking!) Does he really believe he can beat Trump? If he does I would question his rationality and if he doesn't I question his motives.
In a recent interview he was smack talking Trump, but previously expressed admiration.
I can only imagine the debates...
Just what the country needs. Two candidates from the WWE.
I can’t wait to see the two of them in a tag team match against Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.
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