Democratic Debate: The Knives Come Out For Bernie

I didn't have the time or the energy to watch all of the televised recent South Carolina Democratic debate. My Day Job Boss has made it clear that it would be in my interest to arrive to work earlier. But the parts of the debate that I did see fit perfectly in line with The Janitor's prescient predictions. It was pretty eerie actually. 

As you may have heard pundits, statisticians and self-serving politicians say before, Black people are a slight majority of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina.  Black men are 20% of Democratic primary voters while Black women are 35% of Democratic primary voters.This is thanks to mass incarceration and an almost complete abandonment of the Democrats by Southern whites who have a rather strong dislike of any political party that includes you know who. Any politician worthy of the name knows who his or her audience is. Here is what The Janitor had to say:
Democratic debate tonight in South Carolina so get ready for 2 hours of shameless pandering like:

Warren: "You know when my brothers joined the military they made friends with a black soldier. True story."
Bernie: "I once marched (all the way in the back of the crowd) with Dr. King..."
Klobuchar: "We gave you Prince. You're welcome."
Buttigieg: 😶
Bloomberg: "So about that stop & frisk, you see what had happened was..."
Biden: "O-hibety hoo-blah-Bama..."
Steyer: "I bought the rights to reparations, shrimp n grits, Migos, cocoa butter, Red Lobster biscuits, and Beats by Dre."

And that is pretty much exactly how it went down. I wasn't even that surprised to watch Joe Biden apropos of nothing promise to put a Black woman on the Supreme Court. Okay then.

That aside, the debate's other major theme for everyone (with the general exception of Warren, who continued to try to bury her foot in Bloomberg's behind so deep that when he spoke you would see her toes wiggle) was to try to stop Sanders. 

Many putative Democrats have been horrified to see that Sanders is ahead in national polls, has a delegate lead, and could with a place or show in South Carolina combined with some Super Tuesday wins, build such a commanding advantage that it could destroy the party to deny him the nomination, even if he's slightly short of a majority. 

The establishment Democrat worry is that Sanders' socialist description combined with his past statements of praise for various Communist or socialist dictators or revolutionaries will, even should Sanders somehow win the Presidency, completely destroy Democrats down ballot, especially those Democrats running in "purple" districts or states.

I wonder if socialist is quite the damaging label in 2020 that it was in 1980. Times and people have changed. Moderate democrats didn't win in 2016 did they? But we shall see.
Here are some highlights from the debate.


I can't say who will win. I am amazed that Buttigieg is still in the race. I think he's needlessly smarmy. You already know what I think of Bloomberg. Although I enjoyed this latest incarnation of Senator Warren who is kicking butt and taking names, I think that it's too little, too late. I do think that Biden needs to win big in South Carolina to stay relevant but some of his more recent gaffes have convinced me that age has really caught up to him, as it will with all of us, if we are lucky. 

Sanders hits the mark on some issues I think important but it's going to be very difficult to convince people to give up their private health insurance and pay higher taxes so that they and other people will have a government health plan. After all, most rich people aren't exactly rushing to enroll their children in public schools are they? Same concept, I think.

Time will tell.