Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Elections (Page 16 of 19)

These are posts on elections from the blog Base and Superstructure. Topics include international elections, American elections, and local Iowa elections. There’s a particular focus on describing and explaining leftist electoral results.

A One-Liner Against Each Candidate

September 30, 2019 /

Let’s say you put together a team and you’re running for president. You generally don’t make it that far in politics without some bad stuff happening. Taking some corporate donations here. Maintaining the status quo there. You know, politics.

So, what’s each candidate afraid of? For each candidate, there’s got to be a downside. Something about their politics that doesn’t line up with the image they’re presenting to you. After three debates, maybe it’s worth asking.

Eh, or maybe I’m just being dramatic.

But, really though, here’s a post about each candidate’s dark side. If you’re looking for a close and careful reading of the candidates, try some of my other posts. This one’s more in the spirit of fun. Read on for some (probably only mildly) exaggerated takes on what’s wrong with the candidates. A one-line objection to each.

Continue reading

3 Surprises from the 2020 Campaign

September 9, 2019 /

2020 campaign

When the 2020 campaign started, I thought it was relatively open-ended. The key word here is relatively. In fact, we usually have a pretty good idea about who’s going to win a party’s nomination. When the ballot includes an incumbent, the incumbent wins. When the ballot includes a sitting or recent vice president, the vice president wins. Simple enough.

Sometimes surprises happen, but usually not too surprising. Clinton led in 2008 until Obama won the nomination. But Obama was hardly a nobody. And while Trump’s nomination surprised lots of people, myself included, we probably shouldn’t have been too surprised. The polls predicted it early. In fact, even early primary polling predicts pretty well.

But I’ve seen some legitimately surprising things this time. This post is about the surprises of the 2020 campaign.

Continue reading

Drop Out Sanders Warren

Should Sanders or Warren Drop Out?

August 1, 2019 /

The press covers Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as if they were the same. Or at least close enough to be part of the same ‘lane‘ or ‘wing‘ of the Democratic Party. This assumption forms the background to discussion of the issue of whether one or the other should drop out of the race. The idea seems to be that both of them want to move the US much further to the left. Maybe there are superficial differences. And maybe, as Jacobin writers argue, there are differences of political method and approach. But there’s an underlying closeness.

For the record, I think this assumption is false. I think the differences between the two candidates are rather large. But let’s roll with it for a bit. For purposes of this post, I’ll accept that Sanders and Warren are very similar. Where does that take us?

I think for a lot of people in the broader ‘progressive’ arena, it means they need to unite to prevent a more conservative candidate like Biden, Buttigieg, or Harris from winning the nomination. Typically Biden. Maybe one of them should drop out to help make this happen. Typically Sanders.

What should we make of this? Should Sanders drop out? Should Warren? Would it help take down Biden, the worst candidate?

Continue reading

worst democratic candidate beto

Which Democratic Candidate is the Worst?

June 27, 2019 /

It’s the summer, and fewer people read blogs over the summer. It’s true, and that means my traffic is down a bit. Fine. It happens. I promise I won’t pander or write fluff, but maybe things will get a bit more casual between now and August.

Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about which Democratic candidate is the worst. For awhile, it seemed to me it’s obviously Joe Biden. But let’s try to be more systematic about this.

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Base and Superstructure

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑