I don’t really have a response to this, because it is far beyond the scope of anything I was arguing about.

The question I am asking is whether you think Biden needs progressives (you know, progressives, that group that doesn’t turn out and apparently doesn’t need to be courted or worried about at all and yet pushed Bernie Sanders to second place in this primary) to win?  Not whether you hope they will turn out or whatever,…

you do realize that there are moderate Democrats, yes

So you think Biden is going to have to win or lose without the progressive vote?

Okay, again, to be clear, what you’re saying is that you don’t think Biden needs progressives to show up and vote for him?

The extension of an invitation to speak at the convention, an extension which even many party elites aren’t afforded, is fairly seen as an endorsement of the speaker. It’s a signal that the party is courting the support of people like Kasich, that the party thinks there is a fairly significant amount of common ground…

I suppose it depends on your definition of base, but even if it’s true that the base made Biden the nominee, so what? It’s pretty widely accepted that the primary factor motivating people to vote for Biden was the perception that he could beat Trump, not any sort of actual excitement, among the base (however defined) o…

I mean, I didn’t say he was “so out of step with the party” so, not really sure how to answer this question, because it’s not something I believe.

They are scared they are going to lose and are willing to reach across the aisle to try to get Republican votes. Not a bad strategy.

Kasich can go out and recruit anti-Trump Republicans on his own time. Biden and DNC do not need to endorse (or appear to be endorsing) his anti-choice, anti-woman, anti-LGBT, anti-worker views by inviting him to speak at the convention.

Then, I guess, Biden doesn’t need progressives to show up to vote for him?  Is that the point here?

Liberals should show up and vote for Biden. Biden and the DNC should also not do shit, like asking fucking John Kasich to speak at the convention, that could alienate the progressive wing of the party.  Probably not a good idea to signal to progressives that their vote isn’t really that important!

And yet, if Biden loses in November, they will blame progressives for it, even though they pull shit like this.

What point do you think you’re making?

If he is the most progressive president in history, it is only because the country will have moved so far left since Obama was elected 12 years ago and Clinton was elected 28 years ago. He will almost certainly remain what he has been his entire career—a center-left corporate-friendly neoliberal moderate, who thinks…

There are a number of ways the federal government can leverage its power to get states to do things like reduce funding for police.  There’s a reason the drinking age is 21 across the country, and it’s not because every state’s citizens thinks it should be.

That and the fact that he’s not a woman or a minority, each of whom are typically viewed as more liberal than they are. After all, Hillary Clinton, a dyed-in-the-wool moderate whose resume was as disappointing to progressives in almost all the same ways that Biden’s is (supported the ‘94 crime bill, supported that…

No. Whatever you think about the merits of “spirit animal” being offensive or cultural appropriation or whatever, if someone in your employ tells you they have concerns that it is, and your instinct is to “yell at” them, you aren’t really fit to manage people, except maybe that sort of management style might be…

Okay, but what you said was “the world will just simply rationalize to the end of time why it’s ok to be antisemitic, no matter your race, but it’s awful to be racist to anyone else,” which is a weird assertion to make in an article describing someone getting swiftly canned over their anti-semitism. I’m not sure how…

I mean, Nick Cannon got fired, so....I think there are people who recognize that antisemitism is wrong and bad and that pushing back against antisemitism is a critical part of being anti-racist.