2020 Democratic presidential primary

do you reckon that's a "deluded" point of view?

considering the Democrats are the only party to consistently pass legislation regulating the finance industry, yep. also don't think it's accurate to say the working class has abandoned them in droves.

poor white people have abandoned them in droves, because they aren't as racist as they used to be, is more or less how I break it down.

As the party of bland neoliberal technocracy, the Democratic Party is obviously better at throwing sops to the working class than the bloodthirsty, reactionary, fascist Republican Party. But our entire government has steadily ratcheted ever to the right since the New Deal era.

Calling the working class racist is a terribly classist way to try and apologize for the Democrats' complicity in this rightward shift.

Obama the neoliberal who did a whole bunch of things neoliberals hate like a stimulus package, the ACA, environmental regulations, financial regulations, raising taxes, and all sorts of neo-keynesian stuff that the Chicago school has tried to dismantle for decades.

Calling the working class racist is a terribly classist way

lol read a book

I mean I see the frame you're fitting everything into and it's ahistorical and innacurate, sorry to be a dick about it.

no u read a book

Why do I even bother

Calling the working class racist is a terribly classist way to try and apologize for the Democrats' complicity in this rightward shift.

Defining the working class as the angry white people who think Sharia Law is coming to take the country away from them is also racist.

Didn't mean to imply those were the only working class voters who have abandoned the Democrats!

loads of the working class are still hardcore Democrats - Richard Trumka isn't a Republican, large majorities of non-white low-wage workers are a core Democratic constituency etc. The constituency that has abandoned the Democratic party are non-college educated white males. This is a demographic fact. If you want to argue that those people represent the "working class" in this country I think you are sadly mistaken and also maybe a little racist.

I have a hard time reconciling the argument Sanders has lost to Clinton/is losing to Biden because of 'name recognition' and their association with popular Obama and the other argument that democrats have been left in droves, that they can't help themselves but enact or promote unpopular policy proposals. Which one is it?

Didn't mean to imply those were the only working class voters who have abandoned the Democrats!

so non-racist non-college educated, white, low-wage workers have abandoned Democrats for the Republicans? huh. show me the data.

xp

Trumka might have more to work with if he had a Democratic Party as a full partner

thinking maybe I should step away from this convo tho

The thing that bums me out about these never-ending arguments is that I think at bottom it's perfectly reasonable to be disappointed in the Democratic party as a whole and their failure to stop/willingness to capitulate to right-wing demogoguery and nonsense, especially during the Clinton-Bush years when this dynamic was really at it's worst. I just hate seeing things sloppily argued, with no grounding in reality about how the party actually functions and what it has (or hasn't) done.

Wow, Mr. (or Ms.) "^^^deluded" and "read a book" just hates sloppy argumentation. Apologies, oh high minded one. I guess my rhetoric was just too sloppy, that's why you had to step in.

But our entire government has steadily ratcheted ever to the right since the New Deal era.

I mean here's some more ahistorical nonsense. LBJ passed shit FDR *would never* have passed (why because must appeal to poor white racists in the South) - namely the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. And then he gets Medicare and Medicaid and the Clean Air Act passed, creates the Federal Transit Administration, creates the NEA and PBS, the Higher Education Act etc. Richard Nixon (Nixon!) creates the EPA. Obama passes the ACA, ARRA, etc. These are huge liberal tools and policies still in place and with huge ramifications for our country. It hasn't all been a "steadily ratcheted" drift to the right. The one Democratic president that really drifted to the right was Clinton - deregulating the financial, pharmaceutical, and telecom industries (which we are also all still reeling from the shitty effects of).

But he bailed out the benks!

Regan's overwhelming victories and successes in the 80s traumatized the party, resulting in all the "triangulation" crap from the Clinton years that were essentially an effort in re-branding. And then all the old Dixiecrats died off. And then 9/11 was another trauma - no one could criticize Dubya/oppose the war for fear of being labelled as disloyal etc (fucking John Kerry ugh). The party couldn't figure out how to maintain it's old coalitions and bases of power, so it floundered (should we be corporatists or pro-labor? how racist/"tough on crime" do we need to be to keep poor white people voting for us? etc.) Obama was a course-correction to a generally more liberal, more inclusive Democratic party than prior eras, and it looks like whoever wins the nomination this time around (unless it's Biden, which I doubt) will further that transformation.

xp

I generally agree with Barney Frank about the bank bailout. I didn't like it (and a whole shitload of people should have gone to jail) but the alternative was pretty grim.

Economist/YouGov Poll, July 21 - 23. "Very + somewhat favorable" and "somewhat + very unfavorable"

Biden        69%  22%
Warren       66%  11%
Sanders      66%  23%
Harris       61%  13%
Booker       55%  13%
O'Rourke     53%  17%
Buttigieg    52%  11%
Castro       52%  11%
Klobuchar    43%  13%
Gillibrand   41%  20%
Yang         33%  19%
Inslee       32%  12%
de Blasio    31%  28%
Hickenlooper 29%  14%
Gabbard      26%  24%
Steyer       25%  16%
Ryan         24%  18%
Bullock      23%  11%
Delaney      21%  16%
Williamson   21%  26%
Moulton      19%  11%
Sestak       17%  11%
Weld         17%  12%
Gravel       16%  10%
Schultz      15%  26%
Messam       13%  10%

^ among those who identify as Democrats

Who is Messam?

wait, Weld is not a Democrat

neither is Bernie lol

I was this week years old when I learned Williamson is from Houston.

is it my imagination or are Biden's numbers not what they were a couple months ago

xp: I hesitated on that, but just decided to data dump. Most important finding: 10-11% of Democrats are cantankerous curmudgeons (no offense) who will dislike anyone...

Biden's unfavorables have doubled in the past few months.

Is Tulsi Gabbard the only one that goes on Tucker Carlson?

10-11% of Democrats are cantankerous curmudgeons (no offense) who will dislike anyone...

if we're using this board as a representative sample--this checks out

The Morbs Caucus.

I will forever call Sestak "Sleestak"

^^^

Biden's unfavorables have doubled in the past few months.

lmao can't imagine why

he started talking iirc

its probably been discussed a lot but Biden definitely does not speak like he did even 5 years ago

As Shakey said, you can't overestimate the degree to which Reagan frightened and still frightens the shit out of a certain generation of Democrat.

Out of curiosity, as an non-tristate ILXor, could someone point me to an expose on just why de Blasio is so disliked? My impression of him from the debates is just "labor/I have a black teen son/labor"...

and it quite offends me when Democrats, usually white and male, use a term called The Working Class, which often implies that blacks and Latinos and gays and women don't comprise The Working Class.

I would replace "often" with "always"

and abortion as "social issue"

and football as “soccer”

and it quite offends me when Democrats, usually white and male, use a term called The Working Class, which often implies that blacks and Latinos and gays and women don't comprise The Working Class.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, August 2, 2019 12:07 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would replace "often" with "always"

― brigadier pudding (DJP), Friday, August 2, 2019 12:08 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah "always" sounds right

Sorry - I did think Democrats had lost ground among black and latino voters too

dems've been gaining with latinos for a while. dubya won 40% of latino voters in 2004 iirc.

that's about when i moved to the UK so i guess I'm just a LEETLE out of date

The bright side:
https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/FT_18.11.09_LatinosMidterms_many-more-voted-dem-than-rep.png?w=420

The perplexing side:
https://www.pewhispanic.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2018/10/PH_2018.10.25_National-Survey-of-Latinos-2018_6-04.png

that could be a phrasing thing. "concern for" is kinda vague.

re de Blasio, NYC hasn't changed much since he entered office re affordable housing, wages, giant commercial boondoggles like Hudson Yards being built, etc, and even tho he has no direct control of the transit system he's getting blamed for that ongoing decline. He also has engaged in some dubious chicanery re donors, favors, and policy.

He polls much better among PoC, and the cops hate him, so I'll give him that.

dems've been gaining with latinos for a while. dubya won 40% of latino voters in 2004 iirc.

― Carisis LaVerted (m bison), Friday, August 2, 2019 12:19 PM (eleven minutes ago)

republicans kind of threw latino voters away. tons of latinos are at least small c conservative and dubya was - in comparison with contemporary republicans - extremely dovish on immigration, and courted latino voters using spanish in campaign adds and speeches (hispandering maybe, but at least he made an effort). so he did really pretty well with latino voters.

compare with mexico are sending us rapists