Obama: Don't go too far left in 2020

[Progressive Pessimist]

Let's not go so far as to call Obama a fraud or sellout, please. He may very well be mistaken here, but there is a reason why he is still the most popular figure within the Democratic Party.

While I appreciate his concern here, he can be proven wrong in the general election. Clinton doesn't get much credit for it, but running against Donald Trump, back in 2016, in an election that ended up not being focused on policy, allowed her to run a more progressive campaign than most Democrats since the 1980's maybe. And that certainly was not a very significant reason why she lost. That will still probably be true in 2020. Of course, Sanders and Warren do have to be a bit attentive with how they run their more left wing oriented campaign because this election is going to come down to whether American voters tolerate Trump more than they like the Democrat, how the Democrat will be characterized by the right wing smear machine, and outside factors beyond their control. I believe that they can run a progressive campaign and manage to avoid being undermined by much of that if they're careful, and vice versa for someone like Biden. I don't think ideology or policy will amount to much in this election either.

It's hard to know for sure, and maybe on November 3, 2020 hindsight will prove Obama to be right here. But for now, I do believe he is being overly cautious. And I don't think there is any way that he won't endorse or support the eventual nominee, no matter who they are.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Judging from the responses in this thread, I assume most people on here consider Obama to be an HP. Which I find to be a hilarious development. Perhaps most on here would have wished for Mitt Romney to be in office right now.

I wouldn't go that far, though my opinion on Romney has softened a bit. And if he were President, I probably wouldn't be particularly happy, but it would not have given us a Trump Presidency.

Hopefully someday a Rick Sanchez inter-dimensional portal device can be invented and show us how that reality would have looked. I can't imagine that it would be quite as bad, though still bad in other respects. It's a pick your poison type of thing.