Pete: "Normalcy" got us where we are today.

[mobeau69]

Democrats can't turn back the clock to the 90's anymore than Republicans can turn back the clock to the 50's. In order to win we need to look forward, not to the past.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. The first time I heard him say that, I thought "he's right."

Remember: D is for Drive. R is for Reverse.

[Hortensis]

107. And I thought it was blatantly phony. There is nothing normal

about where we are. And "It's the Republicans, Stupid." Huge no to blaming Democrats for Republican crimes by claiming we could have but just didn't bother to stop them. Because, of course, "normalcy."

“We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become,” Cornyn quoted Mussolini saying in the tweet."

WaPo: Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) took to the House floor on Monday to portray President Trump’s detractors as Nazis but ended up slurring them using an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory drawn verbatim from Adolf Hitler’s magnum opus, “Mein Kampf.” ...

“America can either learn from history or be doomed to repeat it,” Brooks warned.

How's that for irony? The man actually accidentally spoke a huge truth. The Republican Party is no longer sloughing toward fascism, Peggy, but embracing it determinedly as a way to keep power.

This isn't about "normalcy" in any way.

[shanny]

2. Bingo.

[SMC22307]

3. Mayor Pete, right yet again. (n/t)

[Otto Lidenbrock]

4. Pete has lived under just two democratic presidents

Both who inherited an economy in recession and turned it around and both who would have handed the reigns of it to fellow Democrats were not for the electoral college (via a dodgy recount / Supreme Court call in 2000 and Russian interference in 2016)

Put some respect on President Clinton and Obama please

[Skittles]

6. he's not disrespecting them

he's simply saying we need to MOVE FORWARD

[Otto Lidenbrock]

8. I understand that but...

Normalcy happens because the last Democratic president to inherit an economy better than what his predecessor found it was Kennedy from Eisenhower. Discounting LBJ, Carter, Clinton and Obama all inherited bad numbers and their first port of call was to turn it around. It's very hard to pursue bold plans without good economic prowess.

So had Gore won in 2000 off the back of Clinton middle class prosperity then the fight against climate change would be way more advanced by now. Had Hillary won in 2016 off the back of the Obama economic recovery then we would have evolution on healthcare, women's rights and education.

The next democratic president may well inherit a downward sliding economy when the tax cuts come home to roost --- if not a recession.

[Skittles]

10. Gore and Hillary DID win

and going backwards is not necessary

[mopinko]

39. i think this might be part of the normal he was talking about.

and a lot of other bullshit that became normal in the last couple decades.

[marylandblue]

41. I think his point is more that there is no such thing as "normal."

Whatever happened in the past, is past. Each point in time had it's own advantages and problems. No matter how good it was, there was nothing "normal" about it. It's simply where we were at that moment.

[betsuni]

100. THANK YOU.

[Celerity]

19. +1

[Cha]

7. Exactly, Otto Lindenbrock..

Thank You!

[cwydro]

16. Reins.

Monarchs reign.

[Skittles]

5. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CORRECT!!!!!!!!!!

[George II]

9. I don't think anyone is saying that they want to go back to the 90s, and the 2016 election....

....was anything but "normal".

[Cha]

63. Right.. This Shite was NOT "Normalcy"..

Breaking: 6 countries involved in election interference

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212154370

Evidence Russia helped elect trump is staggering.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212133245

[Drunken Irishman]

11. Pete is flat-out wrong.

I don't even know what kind of point he's trying to make beyond his usual conflating Democrats with Republicans (which he has a habit of doing).

For starters, who in their right mind is even asking to go back to the 1990s? I could maybe kinda see this argument if it was 2008 and Hillary Clinton was running for president (it felt, for a bulk of the '08 primary campaign, she was playing up the nostalgia of Bill's presidency - but this was much less prevalent in her 2016 campaign). This is a dumb point by Pete, if he really said it (and I am assuming he said it since it appears to be attributed to him).

Secondly, there was nothing normal about the conditions that got Obama elected. It's naive to claim his presidency was normal. There were significant social and economic changes that defined his presidency than anything we're seeing now with Trump. I mean, let's look at the context of the last president:

1) Obama inherited the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. There was nothing normal about that. No president, outside FDR, had a more dire economic downturn to deal with.

2) Obama inherited a nation fighting TWO wars. The only comparable conflict would be Nixon inheriting Vietnam from LBJ.

3) Obama was the first black president in our nation's history. That triggered a bunch of racism that dominated his presidency and ushered in the Era of Trump.

4) We saw some massive advancements in just a short time Obama was in office. Not only did we reform the nation's healthcare system for the first time ever, we went from an economy hemorrhaging 900,000 jobs when Obama took office to creating 200,000+ jobs by the time he left office. There was also a monumental ruling by the Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage, the ending of DOMA and allowing gay men and women serve openly in the military. Obama also oversaw the restoration of diplomatic ties to Cuba.

What Pete daftly refuses to get, either due to willful ignorance or just plain hubris, is that it wasn't the normalcy of that era that got us to where we are today - it was a backlash to the sudden change in the landscape and white conservatives making their last stand as they inevitably lose their grip on power. It was absolutely a rejection of the Obama Era of quick, and sudden, change - the liberalizing of marriage laws and drug laws, healthcare, social justice. The Democrats lost in 2016 because a good amount of 'em became complacent on those changes and stayed home. Republicans won because they were triggered by those changes, the lack of normalcy from what the country had experienced out of the Civil Rights movement, and got to the polls to support their racist, Nazi enabling candidate.

We don't want to turn back the clocks to normalcy - we want a president who is normal, so, again, Pete needs to stop conflating the two (god he's awful at this, btw - I just gotta point it out one more time). If anything, we want to go back to an era of inclusion, progress and hope for progressive ideals, which defined a bulk of the Obama presidency. Not a president whose sole purpose appears to hate - hate on transgender citizens, gay citizens, immigrant citizens, women, black citizens and other people who are not right-wing fascist Nazis.

There was nothing 'normal' about the Obama presidency in terms of the progress we made as a country. The country has never been as progressive and inclusive as it was during Obama's presidency - and that was the problem. Too many liberals took it for granted and too many white conservatives saw the country they longed for changing and freaked out and had a candidate in Trump who spoke directly to their fears.

2020 has to be about reminding this country what we had and Mayor Pete ain't going to beat Trump without it.

[OKNancy]

14. +1

"We don't want to turn back the clocks to normalcy - we want a president who is normal...."

[Celerity]

17. those lazy dogs do not hunt, sorry

Same old boring (and false) positing that he is conflating Democrats with Republicans. Talk about hubris, it sure isn't coming from him. Also, the 'daft' and 'godawful' personal attacks are not coming from him.

This entire thing smacks of some dodgy attacks Twitter trolls tried to spin up a while back and got smacked down by Wonkette here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128733687


I rate this reply/attack an across the board

FAIL

[Drunken Irishman]

18. lol he literally compared Democrats to Republicans...

Democrats can't turn back the clock to the 90's anymore than Republicans can turn back the clock to the 50's. In order to win we need to look forward, not to the past.

Let's be honest, Pete's argument sucks. It sucks right from the start because he's misrepresenting a great deal of Democratic views and wants. I ask you, have you heard one Democrat say we need to go back to the 1990s in the last five - ten years? Because I haven't and I'm sure you haven't, either. Which tells me Pete is either making up an argument as a veiled attack on Biden, or he's just confused. Either way, he looks silly.

[Celerity]

20. that is not saying they are the same, it is a contrast

Just because both approaches will not work does not mean he is saying they (the 2 parties) are same.

[Drunken Irishman]

21. What Democrat is saying we want to go back to the 1990s?

I've not met one.

[Celerity]

24. That is not the underlying point (no matter what decade one picks)

The point is that we have new challenges and a nostalgia-based appeal and form of governance (other than undoing the damage Trump has done, which is not even necessarily nostalgia-based, it is more of an erasure mechanism) is not the way to move forward in a truly positive direction.

[Drunken Irishman]

26. It is the point because he made it the point.

The challenges the next president faces are not that dissimilar than the challenges Obama faced when he took over - as the country today, absent of the president, is pretty much facing the same conflicts as we saw during the Obama administration. To point to what Obama did, and the progress we made as a country, which was extensive, and some of that progress allowed for a man like Pete, now an openly gay man, to serve in the military, is not a bad thing.

I doubt, if elected, Mayor Pete would be radical and I'm sure he'd advance the same causes that President Obama advanced, and Trump is attempting to roll back. So, really, the point should be, 'look to the future by being guided by the past'.

[Celerity]

29. Obviously he is not a 'radical'. If he was I would never be supporting him.

He (and he said the 2000's too, not just the 1990's) is merely stating a truism. There is no going back in time. You are the one trying to draw all sorts of sinister, (or 'daft') projected motives into that innocuous statement.

Pro tip: He is not the one who looks 'silly'.

[Drunken Irishman]

49. He does look silly when he brings up a straw-man argument to make a point.

Any politician who does that looks silly. The fact is, no Democrat running is proposing to go back to the 1990s.

[marylandblue]

53. Why did Biden say he wanted to return to normalcy then?

What point in time was normal enough for us to return to?

[Drunken Irishman]

56. Trump is not normal.

[marylandblue]

66. Correct. But nobody is.

[Drunken Irishman]

69. Sure there are.

Lots of normal people in this race.

[marylandblue]

71. There's no such thing as normal.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-automatic/201905/surprise-there-s-no-such-thing-normal%3famp

[Drunken Irishman]

73. There's the perception of normal.

I would expect that a return to normalcy means we'll have a president who isn't a megalomaniac racist on twitter.

I would also hope Mayor Pete understands the expectations of the office and the customary handling of it. Which, of course, would be the perception, and expectation, of normal.

Trump's bigotry is not normal behavior. His hate-filled rants on twitter are not normal behavior. We should reject it and demand the next president lead - not tweet.

[marylandblue]

76. Sorry, I expect a lot more from a President that just not being an asshole.

I know you do too, but that's sort of the point. Leadership isn't about doing the normal thing or just following a predecessor. It's about trying going above and beyond that. Obama did not run on a return to normalcy, because that's a given. He ran on change, and we need that now more than ever.

[Drunken Irishman]

80. Obama ran eight years after the last Democratic president during an economic crisis.

There was no 'looking back' to anything. Obama also wasn't following an openly vile, racist asshole or I'm sure maybe he would have run on the return to normalcy.

[marylandblue]

81. I really doubt Obama would have run as a return to normalcy under any circumstances.

He himself is well above normal. The joke back then was that he was running as Superman who could fix any problem. That worked and he did a lot in a difficult economic and political environment.

The last President to run as a return to normalcy was Warren G. Harding and look at how much he accomplished.

[crazytown]

85. Obama ended his 2008 acceptance speech as follows

America, we cannot turn back, not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.

America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone.

At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

[Drunken Irishman]

115. Obama's whole reelection campaign was about continuing the normalcy of his administration.

[marylandblue]

116. Every reelection campaign is about continuity over change.

Who says "re-elect me because the last four years were a disaster?"

From Obama's 2nd inaugural address:

"It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. (Applause.) Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law –- (applause) -- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. (Applause.) Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. (Applause.) Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity -- (applause) -- until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. (Applause.) Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm."

[Drunken Irishman]

117. The point is: it's not unheard of to remind people of what worked.

Barack Obama is the most popular politician in America right now. Americans remember his administration fondly. Our nominee can't run solely on that but to suggest they should not hint at the success of the past as a bridge to the future is absurd.

[Cha]

122. I think so.. and whatever

made them think that's where they should go?!

[marylandblue]

125. I'm NOT suggesting not to hint at the past. This is about what you think our biggest problem.

I've heard Biden supporters on DU CONSISTENTLY say that their primary concern is beating Trump. That if we just get rid of him, all the other issues can be dealt with. That's what Biden seems to mean by "return to normalcy." That's why Biden goes after Trump directly more than any other candidate. That's his main mission, to be the anti-Trump. That's why he considered a late entry in 2016, because people were afraid Hillary could not do it. If you think Trump is the Democrat's main problem, then Biden is your candidate.

I do not think Trump is the Democrat's main problem. I think our main problem is that traditional liberalism is not reaching the people it needs to reach. If you believe, as I do, that our biggest problem is that liberalism needs an FDR-scale reboot, then Buttigieg is talking to you. So, in her own way, is Warren.

Buttigieg and Warren are my two favorites for that reason. Both talk about new ideas. Warren is a one-woman idea factory. Neither talks about Trump much. Both want to transform the Democratic Party. Both have criticized Biden, because Biden is the old guard (I don't mean that as a put down, that's one of his selling points). And defenders of the old guard have shot back. At Buttigieg for criticizing Biden, Hillary and Obama. At Warren for being too far left to win.

Get it now? There's a lot of symbolism packed into the return to normalcy theme. Symbols press your buttons either for good or bad. If more people than not like "normalcy," Biden wins. But if more people than not are looking for the extraordinary, then Buttigieg or Warren probably wins.

[Drunken Irishman]

127. And I don't think that's a winning strategy.

This election has to be about Trump for the most part or we're going to lose. Just go back and watch the presidential debates. Hillary was issue-focused and she got nothing out of those debates. Her strongest moment in the campaign, IMO, was when she called Trump Putin's puppet. It knocked him back and he responded with a stupid line that 'she was the puppet' and it was cringy.

When the campaign was focused on Trump, Hillary's polling was at its highest. It was only when Trump was relegated to the sidelines, specifically after the Comey Letter, that her numbers were the weakest. You can't debate policy with Trump and if you try, you're going to find there's no oxygen left in the room for it.

[marylandblue]

128. You are really missing the point. The point is not about what specific tactics work against Trump.

That's a separate conversation. And it's an interesting one, but that's not what this is about.

The point is that by all rights, Trump should have gotten 0 Republican votes and 0 Democratic votes. Something drove his campaign that isn't about Hillary, isn't about Comey and is only partly about Trump. There was something that Trump tapped into that neither party knew was there. But Trump either knew it, or got lucky. If we don't address it, even a Trump defeat won't save us. Even if he went to jail it will not save us. Other Trumps will come for us. Smoother, smarter, more dangerous Trumps. They will learn from his mistakes, tap into the same dark forces that he did, and succeed where he failed.

Whether you agree or disagree with the above, you should at least understand that it is Buttigieg's operating theory of his campaign, and it is the reason he criticized the return to normalcy line.

[Drunken Irishman]

129. I understand it - I don't agree with it.

And no amount of posting the same thing over and over again is going to change my mind. I think Mayor Pete's strategy is weak and not one that will work in a general election.

[marylandblue]

130. No, you don't understand it. You think it's a "strategy." It's not. It's a goal.

Strategy is how you get to your goal. Your goal is to beat Trump. So you are seeing everything in terms of that.

Pete's goal is to be the next FDR. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand at all.

[Cha]

131. And, it shouldn't

work in the primaries, either.

[marylandblue]

48. No, the challenges today are not the same today, nor are the opportunities.

Pete's thinking is based on an influential political science book, "The Politics that President's Make," by Steven Skowornek. That books posits that certain highly influential Presidents set up the assumptions that dominate the next decades. Subsequent Presidents either push back(usually the opposite party) or try to extend that President's ideas (usually the same party). Eventually the whole thing.falls apart and a new President comes to set up new assumptions.

In our case, we are living under conservative assumptions inherited from Reagan. Obama did push back, but his success was limited. In terms of this theory, the Reagan regime was too strong. Many followers of this theory believe that the Reagan era is now ending and the 2020 winner will have a rare opportunity to reshape the country and dominate the next era.

For Pete, this us not some attempt to disparage Clinton or Obama. Rather it is the reason he is running now, despite his youth. Rightly or wrongly, he is probably the first person to base his candidacy on a book.

There are a lot of articles about the book online. Read the articles and you'll see how he echos and applies its themes.

[Drunken Irishman]

50. They pretty much are...

Can you point to one challenge we face today that wasn't there three years ago?

[marylandblue]

52. Trump is the President.

[Drunken Irishman]

55. Yes.

That's not a challenge that will face the next president, however. It's a challenge that will face the winner of the Democratic Party's nomination.

Point to a challenge that President Pete will face that really wasn't there when Obama was president.

Obama had to mend broken ties from the Bush administration. Obama inherited two wars. Obama inherited an economy in crisis. Obama dealt with racism, school shootings, ISIS, global warming, immigration, terrorism, guns, a growing wage gap - these are the same issues we're fighting.

There is nothing inherently new - and all you have to do is look at Mayor Pete's campaign website:

https://peteforamerica.com/issues/

There's nothing on that list that Obama didn't deal with.

[marylandblue]

65. You asked a question, I gave you an answer.

The next President will have to follow the worst President in American history. Orders of magnitude worse than Bush, who was probably only the 3rd worst.

There are lots of other answers I could give. The point though is that each moment in time is unique. It may resemble another moment in some ways, but in other ways it will be very different. Pete is running on the explicit assumption that this particular moment in political time is more like 1980 than 2016. Except now Trump is playing Carter and a Democrat will play Reagan.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. If you think this moment rhymes with 2008, vote for Biden. If you think it doesn't, vote for Pete. Or maybe Warren, who is also talking about fundamental rather incremental change.

[Drunken Irishman]

68. Lots of answers you can give but fail to give.

Trump is a horrible president but his incompetency means he's actually got little to his name beyond judicial appointments and there, Bush had eight years to do his damage (and he did). At the end of the day, what Mayor Pete likely will propose as president won't be that much different from what Obama was pushing during his presidency - which was, without question, the most progressive and saw the most fundamental domestic changes, of any presidency since, probably, LBJ.

[marylandblue]

74. Pete has already proposed things that Obama didn't.

Like reforming the Supreme Court. Warren and Sanders are proposing a fundamental restructuring of the economy. Biden himself is proposing a massive new investment in green technology that is both more ambitious than any prior President's, and the least ambitious of the proposals being made by current candidates.

Thanks to Obama, all the candidates are proposing more ambitious health care plans than he did, with the only argument being between those who want single-payer now and those who think it will come later.

That's just proposals off the top of my head.

Should I go on about all the differences between now and 2008, let alone the 1960s? How can you even compare Obama to LBJ? Transgender wasn't even a thing in the 1960s and people didn't walk around with a computer in their pocket.

[crazytown]

28. From my earlier post

To say we have ‘have more to do’ or ‘further to go' is not good enough. Real wages have not risen since the early seventies for 90% of the population, while the cost of college has spiralled out of control. Upward mobility has stalled; Downward mobility is widespread and feared. There are precious few greenshoots on the graves of American industry while the CEOs who closed the factories flaunt their wealth.

This our normal. This is how it has been been for almost 40 years. Generations have grown up knowing nothing else. Presidents Clinton and Obama were not able to break it. Both confronted economic disasters left by the Republicans and both faced hostile, obstructionist House of Representatives after the first Midterms.

Here is what Pete Buttigieg said at the April CNN town hall.

I think this is really important to understand, because we need to make sure we ... as a party that we don't come to be viewed as the defenders of a system that is letting people down. And we wouldn't be here if the economic and political system hadn't failed people.

(snip) The system needs to be changed profoundly. I guess that's my point. We can't just nibble around the edges and expect people to be happy with us. Now, I've got a slightly different account than my competitors do about how best to do it, but the fundamental lesson is that our economic and political system has been letting people down I would say for my entire lifetime.

[Celerity]

32. and he is saying that the 'normal' (what you laid out) is NOT good enough

I do not see your issue (if you are taking one with him) with what he said. He is agreeing with you.

I agree with your statements:

To say we have ‘have more to do’ or ‘further to go' is not good enough. Real wages have not risen since the early seventies for 90% of the population, while the cost of college has spiralled out of control. Upward mobility has stalled; Downward mobility is widespread and feared. There are precious few greenshoots on the graves of American industry while the CEOs who closed the factories flaunt their wealth.

This our normal. This is how it has been been for almost 40 years. Generations have grown up knowing nothing else. Presidents Clinton and Obama were not able to break it. Both confronted economic disasters left by the Republicans and both faced hostile, obstructionist House of Representatives after the first Midterms.

I have seen nothing to suggest Buttigieg does not share this view.

[crazytown]

33. Exactly

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287102510

[Celerity]

36. I do have to add, my dream ticket is rapidly becoming Warren/Pete

for 3 reasons

1 age (Pete could serve 8 years of VP, and 8 years of POTUS and still be younger at the end than Harris (for comparison) would be the day she is sworn in on January 20th, 2021, so he has plenty of time)

2 as a woman it is high time we immediately (after the Hillary Clinton attacks based solely on gender) punch misogyny in the face by electing a female POTUS

3 Warren's time is now and Buttigieg would be the perfect partner. Together just the 2 of them have more innate intelligence than a baying barking crowd of thousands of Rump goons.

[wasupaloopa]

34. The "Going back to the 90's" language is the dishonest attack statement.

It is a meaningless phrase as this OP is. Nobody is talking about going back to the past.

It is amazing that Pete said that if he did. He should know better.

[Celerity]

38. the quote is not accurate

He also said the 2000's and was stating a simple truism that we cannot go back in time.

[wasupaloopa]

42. Why did he say that. Who was he referring to?

The OP seems to be attacking other Dems

Only the right wants to go back

Mayor Pete seems to be the most in the know candidate we have. I like listening to him

[Celerity]

44. I am not the OP, and Pete was not attacking other Dems, just stating a philosophical truism.

I wish they (OP) would fix it.

[wasupaloopa]

62. The OP says the 50's and the 90's The repubs are not the 90's reference

[Celerity]

67. here is the full quote, in context

Pete Buttigieg: Trump could win again if Democrats 'look like Washington'

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/2020-campaign-california-june/index.html

“Though he is deservedly unpopular, this President really could win again,” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor said at the California Democratic Convention.

“He wins if we look like defenders of the system. He wins if we look like more of the same,” Buttigieg said. "He wins if we look like Washington. And so the riskiest thing we could do is try too hard to play it safe."

Buttigieg stressed that Democrats had to focus on the future to ensure a new political landscape where Trump could not win the presidency.

“There is no back to normal,” he said. “A president like this doesn’t even come within cheating distance of the Oval Office unless there is something deeply wrong with the old normal.”

“In these times Democrats can no more keep a promise to take us back to the 2000s and the 1990s, than conservatives can keep a promise to take us back to the 1950s. We can only look forward,” he added.

[Drunken Irishman]

51. No one wants to go back to the 2000s, either.

[Celerity]

57. again you fail to see the underlying point he was making

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/2020-campaign-california-june/index.html

Pete Buttigieg said Saturday that President Donald Trump could win again if Democrats “look like Washington.”

“Though he is deservedly unpopular, this President really could win again,” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor said at the California Democratic Convention.

“He wins if we look like defenders of the system. He wins if we look like more of the same,” Buttigieg said. "He wins if we look like Washington. And so the riskiest thing we could do is try too hard to play it safe."

Buttigieg stressed that Democrats had to focus on the future to ensure a new political landscape where Trump could not win the presidency.

“There is no back to normal,” he said. “A president like this doesn’t even come within cheating distance of the Oval Office unless there is something deeply wrong with the old normal.”

“In these times Democrats can no more keep a promise to take us back to the 2000s and the 1990s, than conservatives can keep a promise to take us back to the 1950s. We can only look forward,” he added.

If you take issue with that, then IMHO it clear you are just sniping for sniping's sake.

[Drunken Irishman]

58. Sounds like he's the one sniping.

And using straw-man arguments to push a narrative that does not need to be pushed. No Democrat is asking to take this country back to the 2000s and 1990s.

[Celerity]

59. lol, so weak

And your petty personal attacks on Buttigieg are still a FAIL.

Cheers

[Drunken Irishman]

61. Cheers, friend.

Good luck to your candidate - he's likely going to need it.

[Celerity]

64. I may end up voting for Warren, she is quickly separating herself as my main 2nd choice

I vote in the California primary (Super Tuesday) so I will have a a clear choice by then. I fully admit Pete has a big disadvantage due to my fellow PoC's inherent homophobia (I am a lesbian of colour so I am unfortunately well too aware of this), especially amongst older, religious A-A's, especially those concentrated in the South. I am nothing if not a tactical voter, and would be 100% on board with Warren should Pete falter and be too far out to have any hope of winning the nomination.

I also apologise if I came across as being a tad harsh. Vigorous advocacy (perhaps too vigorous, lol) is in my bones.

[emmaverybo]

88. Well done. nt

[Cha]

98. Thanks for calling out Mayor Buttigieg's

statement so Well, DI

[Mr.Bill]

12. Normalcy didn't get us where we are today.

Republican criminals got us where we are today.

[brer cat]

13. Who is asking for a return to the 90's?

I haven't heard that from anyone. It sounds like a straw man someone made up to attack and a waste of time for discussion.

[Drunken Irishman]

15. Yeah. That made me laugh.

No one wants to go back to the 90s.

2009-2017 was the most progressive, inclusive decade America has ever seen.

It's a shame white racists got triggered so much by it and gave us Trump.

[AlexSFCA]

23. 2009-2017 was absolutely the greatest period of my life

so much to be proud of, so many good things happened in the country. However, since 2018 midterms, I now believe, once again, that the best time for our country is still likely to come. Yes, everything will depend on 2020, but I have never seen the level of political awareness among all demographics as I’ve been seeing lately. My millennial relatives were never interested in politics and had only rudimentary knowledge of what’s going on. They are now extremely well versed and following all developments. If there is a silver lining to trump’s presidency, he shined the light on GOP like no one did before, because he is so openly corrupt, not trying to hide behind ‘nicer’ sugarcoating rhetoric like other rethugs. Also, even though I am no supporter of BS, he was effective in bringing important issues to the mainstream politics and forced major media to broadcast it. He may also helped younger people register as dems.

[crazytown]

22. (I don't know) but I think Pete is saying 'We can't go back'

Not exactly an revolutionary idea.

President Obama ended his 2008 DNC acceptance speech with these words: -

America, we cannot turn back, not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.

America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone.

At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

[Kahuna7]

43. Nobody. That's just a way to throw shade at Biden, for no reason other than

his age. They forget that two years ago he was Vice President of the US.

[Cha]

60. That's my impression.. the "shade at Biden" part, and it's not working.

Conveniently forgets.

[emmaverybo]

86. My take too. Biden's critics have made this charge consistently, that Biden wants to take us back to

the past, represents the old Democratic Party, is old...but the other candidates must strive to define themselves as the “not Biden.” I don’t like the way they do that.
I also feel the party needs to grapple more with foreign policy, a challenge in any generation, particularly crucial in this era of aberrant nose thumbing at allies and inconsistent, reckless messaging to democracies’ enemies—indeed, outright collusion with.
I take a return to normalcy as meaning first and foremost to re-establish our trustworthiness with our friends, to take preventative measures against the real possibility of another world war, and to
build on rather than destroy social justice goals that go back to the sixties, and were expanded upon during the Obama years.

[marylandblue]

87. While those are all worthy goals, they are also unrealistic.

Re-establish our trustworthiness with our friends: It will never be the same as it was. The American people have proven themselves to be too stupid. First Bush, then Trump. We are getting dumber. Sure Biden can work to repair the damage. But he'll be gone in four or eight years. Will we elect an even bigger idiot than Trump? Who knows? How can you trust a nation of idiots with nuclear weapons?

Prevent a world war: Yeah, good luck with that. America kept the peace for 70 years, but the world is changing. Our empire is almost finished, and the end of empires usually means war. I don't know what will happen and neither do you, I just don't want Trump to be in charge of the next big war.

Build on social justice goals: Sorry that's pushing ahead, not returning to normalcy. Social justice revolutions never feel normal. I'm backing a man married to another man for President. That doesn't feel normal, it feels strange as shit.

Biden positioned himself as the return to normalcy candidate. Every other major candidate represents change in one form or another. Of course they are against a return to normalcy. You can't return and move ahead at the same time. Either Biden's right or the others are, but we can't have it both ways.

[emmaverybo]

118. We have almost always built on the past and moved ahead. The Iran deal is one example. A decades

long effort to secure a verifiable agreement spanning administrations finally came together, led by the U.S. under Obama, with other world powers joining in—the international community and China and Russia. We need to revisit that agreement as it is vital to some measure of stability in the Middle East.
Our allies have had faith in us and they can again. A return to 70 years of a post World War II alliance severely shaken by a few years of Trump’s aberrant behavior would be a step back into normalized relations with our friends while we find ways to stem the malign Russian influence that is now backing the right wing rise in Europe.
We can return to the long-standing constitutional right to seek asylum in the U.S. while we also work on establishing expedited legal processes and legal aid, humane family housing, giving more resources to asylum seekers than we have in the past and shoring up border control at points of entry.
We can return to work that was being done only a few years ago to pass enlightened comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for workers here for five years and more, a plan for Dreamers, at the same time that we focus on enforcing existing laws.
Reinventing the wheel is not always a good use of our time and resources, and it does not acknowledge political will we can still tap into with a large percentage of Americans who were ready to support sane immigration policy.
Yes, anything we would build with new leadership can be destroyed in subsequent administrations, and we could have, once again, a demagogue puppet a hostile foreign power puts into place.
This is less likely if we work with allies, follow through on investigations into Trump and Russia, educate the American public about the dangers presented, and set a different tone, one I believe Biden attempted to put forth as soon as he launched his campaign.
It is not normal for any Western government to embrace Nazis or Putin. It has not been the case that our intelligence and law enforcement community, our free press, our democratic values have been openly undermined, demeaned, and thwarted by an emotionally unstable president acting in concert with compromised enablers and an inner circle working with and for anti-democracy forces seeking to destroy us, i.e. sleeping with the enemy.
Biden’s call for a return to normalcy is being used against him in interpreting it Intentionally in a way he never intended, but that’s political spin, a traditional response to rivals, to attack them with their own words and use that strategy to simultaneously pump one’s own agenda in opposition. Clever, but transparent.

[marylandblue]

120. This thread started with a clever attempt to manipulate Buttigieg's words

into something they are not, and now you accuse others of the same thing.

The point here is that Trump is not an aberration.

Sure, we've had a decades long attempt to make a deal with Iran. But we have an even longer attempt to control it. We put the Shah in power, and we have never taken responsibility for his repressive rule nor accepted the consequences of his overthrow.

Likewise with so many other problems. There is a dark side to American politics that has always been there. I thought a lot of that was behind us, but I was wrong. It was there, hidden and gaining strength, until it showed as a particularly ugly and virulent example in Trump. It happened here and now due to social and economic changes we have not adequately addressed.

That's the REAL debate we are having. If you think Trump is an aberration, then I agree, lets return to normal and we'll continue as before. But if you think that Trump is part of a larger problem that was there before and will get worse with or without him, then "return to normal" sounds like a return to ignoring the problem we didn't know we had.

[Cha]

89. Well Done, emmaverybo!

Biden's take..

“Specifically responding to things that you’ve said, Bernie Sanders saying you can’t go back to the past, Elizabeth Warren saying…” Saenz continued.

“Who’s going back to the past?” Biden interrupted.

"Look, I understand. I don’t blame them,” Biden continued. “They’ve got to, you know, they’re good folks but, you know, as I said, see you around.”

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=139584

Yes, that's their talking point and they're sticking to it.. "Biden wants to go back in the past".. I've seen it all around.. like some mantra.

And, Sigh.. there's this..

Link to tweet

As for Foreign Policy.. Yes, We need a Leader who's had excellent experience and qualifications.. imo.

And, to Mayor Buttigieg I say..

The infiltration of Foreign Powers to help the Psychotic Pervert in the White House is not "normalcy"... Far From IT..

Breaking: 6 countries involved in election interference

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212154370

Evidence Russia helped elect trump is staggering.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212133245

I take Normalcy to mean.. No more Freaking GASLIGHTING from our Leaders.. No Doormats bowing at the feet of the Fake President.

Link to tweet

[emmaverybo]

90. Good stuff, as always Cha. The Rusher thing not normal. Good links! Thanks! nt

[Cha]

91. Mahalo, emmaverybo!

[Tarheel_Dem]

96. Thanks for that quote from EW. That means that she and Buttigieg are now on the same list with BS..

& Tulsi Gabbard, AFAIC. I would never consider any of them as worthy of my support.

[Cha]

97. I know what you mean,

Tarheel.

I hate seeing that coming from other candidates.. I don't mind if they have a legit complaint but this doesn't make any sense.. sigh.

[Tarheel_Dem]

101. Some of us have long memories. Bashing the party, especially Obama/Biden is a definite line....

in the sand for me. I remember 2016, and certain candidates supporters who spent an inordinate amount of time trashing our Democratic party institutions, while taking advantage of all they had to offer.

[marylandblue]

82. Nothing to do with age, it's about Biden's campaign theme of "return to normalcy."

Maybe it's just me but "return to normalcy" leaves me cold and flat. There has never been a period in my life, either personally or politically, that I would call "normal."

[Kahuna7]

102. People are implying that normalcy means going back in time. That's not

what it means at all. It mean respect for the rule of law and our institutions.

[marylandblue]

104. It seems to mean different things to different people.

Not unusual for a campaign slogan.

[Kahuna7]

105. What's Pete's slogan, "I'm not old?" nt

[marylandblue]

106. "There is no honest politics centered around 'again.'"

Have a problem with that?

[Kahuna7]

108. Yeah, I have a problem with it. It's glib!!!

[marylandblue]

109. Well it captures my feelings well. I don't think we should "return" to anything

Or do something "again," no matter how great it was. And I don't think there is any such thing as "normalcy." So Biden's slogan means nothing to me.

Different strokes for different folks.

[emmaverybo]

126. In a nutshell. Thanks. Nt

[Cha]

95. I know right, brer! Nobody Wants To Go

Back to the Past!

Loud and Clear to Mayor Buttigieg.

[jalan48]

25. Yep-there's no going back on the climate issue. It's here right now.

[Kurt V.]

27. K&R

[Nitram]

30. Who's trying to turn the clock back to the 90s?

[wasupaloopa]

31. Who is looking to the past? I am 73 and I look forward to a Dem government.

The too old, living in the past shit is just that bull shit

[trev]

37. I'm 64, and I do, too. nt

[Skittles]

78. it's NOT just his age

[Cha]

93. Not Biden..

“Specifically responding to things that you’ve said, Bernie Sanders saying you can’t go back to the past, Elizabeth Warren saying…” Saenz continued.

“Who’s going back to the past?” Biden interrupted.

"Look, I understand. I don’t blame them,” Biden continued. “They’ve got to, you know, they’re good folks but, you know, as I said, see you around.”

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=139584

[stonecutter357]

35. what happened in the 90s ?

It's not Democrats , It's Democratic Party Members !

[comradebillyboy]

77. The 90s? Eight years of peace and prosperity under Bill Clinton.

And the 50s? Eisenhower was more liberal than any of today's Republicans. And the civil rights movement really took off.

[IndianaDave]

40. This discussion appears to have gone off the rails!

What I took from Pete's comment is that the problems of the 90's and the problems of the 50's were different from the problems we now face and will face in the future. For instance, in the nineties, Democrats needed to show that we were tough on crime, and established policies that resulted in mass incarceration. The problems we were trying to solve at that time were simply not the problems we face today.

And so it's important to place Pete's comment in the context of his other remarks. He has spoken about new solutions to climate change, the challenges of artificial intelligence, the cyber security risks we face, and so forth. He has never dismissed the accomplishments of former Democratic presidents. He's talking about creating solutions for what we currently face and will face as we move into the future. People are certainly free to criticize Pete and his statements, but please base those criticisms on reality, rather than reading into his remarks things that are not there. Thanks!

[Celerity]

45. he did not just mention the 1990's, he said the 2000's too and was simply making a point

that the clock cannot be turned back. The OP is having a bad effect of opening up Buttigieg to false criticism, regardless of all its good intentions.

[mobeau69]

47. Insecure people always push back against well meaning, constructive criticism.

If Pete makes them uncomfortable speaking truth then I hope they didn't listen to Williamson today.

[Celerity]

54. People are going to take any chance they get at sniping if they see an opening to

diminish a competitor. Especially given some of the new polls.

Here is the full quote by Buttigieg, btw


Pete Buttigieg: Trump could win again if Democrats 'look like Washington'

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/2020-campaign-california-june/index.html

“Though he is deservedly unpopular, this President really could win again,” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor said at the California Democratic Convention.

“He wins if we look like defenders of the system. He wins if we look like more of the same,” Buttigieg said. "He wins if we look like Washington. And so the riskiest thing we could do is try too hard to play it safe."

Buttigieg stressed that Democrats had to focus on the future to ensure a new political landscape where Trump could not win the presidency.

“There is no back to normal,” he said. “A president like this doesn’t even come within cheating distance of the Oval Office unless there is something deeply wrong with the old normal.”

“In these times Democrats can no more keep a promise to take us back to the 2000s and the 1990s, than conservatives can keep a promise to take us back to the 1950s. We can only look forward,” he added.

[mobeau69]

70. Here's a video of what he said today.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/videos/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/06/09/full-speech-pete-buttigieg-iowa-democrats-hall-fame-event-2020-iowa-caucuses-presidential-election/1403233001/

[Celerity]

72. link doesn't work for me

I am out of the US for the summer.

[marylandblue]

79. As usual, he hits the nail on the head.

Trump is a symptom not a cause. Nobody would have voted for him if people were not deeply dissatisfied with the status quo as of 2016.

[mobeau69]

121. You hit the nail on the head, marylandblue.

In "Shortest Way Home" Pete describes getting a call from the Clinton campaign letting him know she was coming to South Bend and asking him to find a location for the event. He set it up to be in the AM General (Hummer) plant in next door Mishawaka.

Pete wrote:

"After Clinton spoke, everyone clapped in their seats. Then she shook hands in a rope line, and was off to the next event. This might sound normal, but I had been at enough campaign events over the years to know that a presidential appearance this late in the game should never end with anything but people on their feet. At the time it just struck me as a little peculiar that a union-heavy and typically Democratic crowd was not standing to cheer; now, with the benefit of hindsight, it looks like a sign or her campaign's fatal lack of enthusiasm among workers in the industrial Midwest."

We, as a party, can either learn from this or deny it and cling to the same-old same-old resulting in the same result as 2016. My fear is that we will choose the latter path.

[Skittles]

75. why WOULDN'T problems of one decade be different than the problems of another decade

that's just a given

[mobeau69]

46. This took guts if nothing else. Marianne Williamson shared interesting observations on the subject.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/videos/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/06/09/full-speech-marianne-williamson-iowa-democrats-hall-fame-event-2020-iowa-caucuses-presidential-elect/1403536001/

[OilemFirchen]

83. That hackneyed trope is demostrably false.

To wit: Were Obama able to run for President in 2020, he'd win in an epic landslide. With Biden at his flank, BTW.

[marylandblue]

84. First, there is no way know that.

Second, if he did run again, do you really think he would run just to return to normalcy? Or would he run on new ideas for new challenges? He never ran as any kind of return of anything, but was always looking ahead for how much he could accomplish.

[Cha]

94. Mahalo, Oilem!

[Honeycombe8]

92. Things have been anything but normal the last 20 years.

Trump
Obama
George W Bush
Clinton

Not one of those Presidents was "normal" in the sense of what we'd experienced before. Not sure what he was referring to.

The Repubs passed large tax cut bills that significantly favored the wealthy, so that was normal. Other than that, neither Trump nor Bush could be considered normal Presidents. Obama was truly not normal. He reformed health care, pushed stronger climate change and environmental legislation, etc. Clinton did the unique NAFTA (I won't state my opinion of that).

Normal? I don't know what Pete is talking about. I'd need to see the context.

[crazytown]

99. That is the point: a return to normal is a nostalgic illusion

- if we could just get rid of Trump we could return to normal.

[betsuni]

103. Did he say normalcy was the 90s?

Sounds like a "neoliberal" insult.

[Blue_Tires]

110. How is he defining "normalcy?"

[marylandblue]

111. I think that is part of his point. It's not something that can be defined.

If it weren't for Trump, he might have said "business as usual." Of course Trump is not normal or usual. But before Trump that meant rising incoming inequality, rising social divisions, declining American power, and gridlock in Washington. We had serious problems before Trump, so what do we want to return to?

[Blue_Tires]

112. Well personally we can START with

not having Nazis march down my block, and not having a President who has made our nation into a laughingstock and not having an entire administration of incompetents bought and paid for by Moscow...Oh, and a return to the rule of law among other things would be nice...

Yeah, pre-Trump America was far from perfect, but it wasn't exactly Hell on Earth, either...

[marylandblue]

113. Problem is, we can't unsee what we have seen.

The Nazis have tasted power and they are radicalizing each other over the Internet faster than we can stop them.

America, unfortunately, is a permanent laughingstock. We were dumb enough to elect Bush, but that could have been an aberration. Then we doubled down on stupidity with Trump. Trump is no accident. There is something deeply wrong, here. We were living an illusion in 2015, at least some of us were. Open your eyes and recognize that Trump is a symptom.of a problem we don't know existed.

Return to the rule of law. Another illusion. It was already under serious assault in the Obama administration. And Bush before that. The old norms that governed our politics are irretreivably broken. Trump has shown that a President can get away with anything as long as his party and his base backs him. I can easily imagine how the next Trump will operate if we don't make a fundamental political shift to change it. The only shift capable of doing that is a new alliance of left and center, much broader than the Obama alliance. We need to pick up the disaffected moderates who really were in hell in 2015.

My career has taken me to some of the crappiest places in this country, both urban and rural. Places everyone else speeds by on their way to somewhere else. But people live there, and some of those places do look like hell. Poverty, particularly rural poverty, is often hidden. We ignored their suffering in 2016 and we are in danger of doing it again.

[Blue_Tires]

114. Do any of those "folks in rural poverty"

even give a shit about the economy? Because last I checked all they gave a shit about was kicking out the Mexicans... If the economy was really an issue they wouldn't be lifelong GOP voters.

Nevermind the fact that a whole lot of black folks live in rural poverty as well -- Don't they get some kind of voice?? We're falling into the same framing trap from 2016 of thinking "rural/working class/whatever" means "white folks only"....

And I still maintain that *NOTHING* during the Reagan/Bush I/Bush II eras was anywhere near as bad as the daily nightmare we're living with now...

So no, "normalcy" did NOT give us Trump. Peter is going to have to dig a little deeper for this.

[marylandblue]

119. I didn't say anything about white or black. That's your frame, not mine.

Nearly 400 years of racism in this country has been sustained by the ability of rich white people to divide poor whites from poor blacks, so they could rob them both.

Lyndon Johnson famously said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

Poor white people have been the victim of a con job for four hundred years, but we still blame the victims instead of the conman. Even liberals buy into to this frame that there is something wrong with poor white people who have been fooled into thinking that 2nd to last is a good place to be.

[Blue_Tires]

123. I hate to sound harsh or unfeeling

But this isn't some one-off anomaly -- I don't want to blame the victims of some big con job, but the 10th or 12th time it happens, even with people like me screaming at the top of our lungs to warn them, what is left?? They had truth on one side and the big lie on the other and they happily made the conscious decision to believe in the lie

[marylandblue]

124. People are dumb. They are easily misled. They don't know how easily they can be misled,

so they are not making a conscious decision to believe a lie. People are not suspicious enough when something comes from a trusted source. On the other hand, they are suspicious of anything that doesn't fit their preconceptions or triggers their anxieties.

If your parents, your teachers and your pastor all tell you that black people and Muslims are bad, you grow up thinking that way and teach it to your own kids. At the same time, politicians, the media, and "damn liberals" tell you the opposite. You don't believe them because that's so different from what you already "know." You learn that your beliefs are not socially acceptable, so you keep quiet, except among like minded friends.

Then along comes somebody who says "you were right along, those people really are bad, and I will protect you from them." He flatters you, feeds your insecurities and offers relief all at the same time. Congratulations, you are a sucker and you don't even know it.