Thursday, November 7, 2019

The 2020 Democratic Primaries Divide In Two: Bernie Sanders—Followed By Everybody Else





My previous blog topic was a perspective on the 2020 United States presidential election that was both anticipation and prediction.

It keeps in mind that, given the date, I can change my mind.

Election 2020 is an incumbent year. This means the people who will vote in the general election have the option to re-elect the incumbent president of the United States, Republican Donald Trump.

For those who actually wonder whether Trump could get unseated just failing to win re-nomination, the answer is yes. Yes—it is possible. At the same time: No—for such likelihood. Only one elected incumbent president was unseated in his effort to win re-nomination by his party: 1856 Democratic incumbent Franklin Pierce.

I see no problem with a 2020 re-nomination for Donald Trump. States like Minnesota and North Dakota are paving the way, with their primaries, for him to not be challenged. So, that helps.

This leaves it up to the Democrats.

After they failed to hold the presidency in 2016, after two terms of Barack Obama and with nominee Hillary Clinton, they say Trump is dangerous and we need him out of the White House.

Impeach the president? As if impeachment means automatic vote to remove Trump by the Republican-held U.S. Senate. Please!

If the Democrats truly want Trump out, they have to go by way of the general election.

The 2020 Democrats, wanting Trump out, have to unseat 45th U.S. president Donald Trump.

So, who should be the 2020 Democratic nominee for president of the United States?

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Before answering specifically who, let us keep in mind a few things:


While this nation has had 43 prior individual (counted as 44) presidents, there have been 10 incumbent U.S. presidents who were unseated. Five of them were during the 1800s: Federalist John Adams (1800); National Republican John Quincy Adams (1828); Democrat Martin Van Buren (1840); Democrat Grover Cleveland (1888); and Republican Benjamin Harrison (1892). Five of them were during the 1900s: Republican William Howard Taft (1912); Republican Herbert Hoover (1932); Republican Gerald Ford (1976); Democrat Jimmy Carter (1980); and Republican George Bush (1992).

There was one example, in the 1800s, in which the White House party switched over two consecutive election cycles with the unseating of incumbent presidents. (There were others; but they didn’t come with unseating an incumbent president.) This happened in 1888 and 1892, in which Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, the only president who did not win two consecutive cycles, unseated each other.

There was one example, in the 1900s, in which the White House party switched over two consecutive election cycles. This happened in 1976 and 1980, in which Jimmy Carter unseated Gerald Ford (who was never elected either president or vice president) and Carter was unseated by Ronald Reagan.

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“Vote Blue No Matter Who,” which really means Surrender Your Mind, does not jibe with electoral reality because…Any Blue Will Not Do.

I related my observations, on August 29, to Tim Black on his live stream of TBTV.

I mentioned the five occurrences of unseated incumbent presidents from the 20th century.

I noted something similar shared by the opposition-party challengers who unseated those incumbent presidents.

What 1912 Democratic challenger and pickup winner Woodrow Wilson, 1932 Democratic challenger and pickup winner Franklin Roosevelt, 1976 Democratic challenger and pickup winner Jimmy Carter, 1980 Republican challenger and pickup winner Ronald Reagan, and 1992 Democratic challenger and pickup winner Bill Clinton had in common is this: They not only ran on change; they delivered change—not just to the nation, and its people, but also to their respective political parties.

You take the two biggest standout examples—Roosevelt and Reagan—and there is no spinning that their political parties were not the same as before following their first-term election victories.

The last three times the presidency switched White House parties—2000, 2008, and 2016—were term-limited years; meaning, we had to elect a new president. A successor, a Republican or a Democratic pickup winner, can change his party. But, it really happens especially in an incumbent year in which a Republican or a Democratic challenger unseats an incumbent president.

When an incumbent gets unseated, by the nominee of the opposition party, it is the voters rejecting the incumbent’s arguments to stay the course—and it is the nation and its voters insisting the country head in a different direction. That cannot be done without vision. That cannot be done without an agenda. That cannot be done without a change to the very political party of the nominated challenger—and one who is certainly a true leader—who succeeds in unseating the incumbent president.

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The 2020 Democrats who are thinking they need to nominate someone in line with the 1992 period, the previous change to the Democratic Party via the corporatism of Bill Clinton, have it wrong.

I think some of them do not know this.

I think some of them do know this.

There is no one in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries—certainly not the likes of status-quo party-establishment types like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg and not even the progressive posturing of capitalist-to-her-bones Elizabeth Warren—who represents an individuality that is also a philosophy and form of leadership which can deliver change to how the Democratic Party operates…with the exception of the junior United States senator from Vermont.

The 2020 Democratic Party and their presidential primaries voters, if they actually want to unseat Republican incumbent U.S. president Donald Trump, have one option which speaks to the tide of history and the change in the direction in which their party’s base of young voters are heading.

The 2020 Democrats need to nominate Bernie Sanders.

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