2020 Democratic presidential primary

please rub my belly worms

How the Cool Kids of the Left Turned On Elizabeth Warren

One of the most poisonous ideas in politics is the idea that there's anything "cool" about it. But this actually isn't a terrible article.

Yeah idk cool but if Jacobin and Current Affairs are now talking about Warren like she's just another Biden or Clinton, that's ridiculous.

I've seen Doug Henwood flip too.

but he's not a cool kid, right

xps - If your basic position is that the political solution to every problem is obvious and no alternatives are worth attempting, then it becomes ridiculously easy to lump together as equally bad and hated all politicians who do not meet your requirements.

It's actually not that clear to me what Jacobin's solutions are, tbh, though I clearly haven't been following closely enough.

"One of the most poisonous ideas in politics is the idea that there's anything "cool" about it."

I got into an FB argument with someone who expressed so much anger at Biden's 'no malarkey' bus slogan because it was 'out of touch' and uncool.

Jacobin could, maybe, just think that most of Warren's recent plan unveilings have been bad.

Crazy idea, coming from a socialist magazine.

i didn't get the fuss over "no malarkey" tbh

some people are ok with a lil malarkey and dont appreciate biden's anti-malarkey extremism

#NotAllMalarkey

Jacobin went anti-Warren a while back, though, so it can't really be explained by recent plan unveilings.

Northeast Democrats like Biden are the most explicit about this but they don't want power. The want divided government. They engineer devided government when the people go and install too many Democrats. https://t.co/BYXyDZDMcS pic.twitter.com/wiHq5YKBpX

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) December 8, 2019

Personally I am ok with malarkey *and* with shenanigans. Also tomfoolery, hubbub, and - heck - even hijinks. So long as the wacky antics, foofaraw, hooha, hootenannies, or whatever are sufficiently unpleasant for Republicans and their evil works.

I draw the line at arglebargles and boondoggles tho

Well, yeah.

One must have standards.

"my party shouldn't have too much power" is such a bizarre thing to say unless you really don't believe in your party's agenda

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) December 8, 2019

Biden senses that the people crave opioid substitutes, and is offering himself as precisely that. He may be in his mid-seventies and flirting with dementia, but he wants us all to return to the womb.

Socialist magazine Jacobin prefers candidate who boosts socialism to candidate who is explicitly anti-socialist, news at 11.

Socialist publications are anti-Warren because this is a presidential primary and Bernie Sanders is right there. If Sanders weren't in the race, they'd be boosting her as the leftmost candidate. It's that simple.

Socialist publications are anti-Warren because...

That is the usual nonsense of creating false dichotomies where reality comes in a spectrum. Being pro-Bernie does not necessarily require being anti-Warren. It could as easily be packaged as "Bernie is a better choice compared to Warren, because whereas Warren says X, which is OK, but has these weaknesses, Bernie says Y, which is far superior, because of these strengths."

right, even Sunkara (who I am no fan of) admits Warren would be well to the left of any other modern candidate

I meant anti-Warren in the sense that it's a contest with only one winner, and the winner they want is not Warren. Certainly some writers like her more and some like her less. The folks going scorched-earth on her are doing so because she's Sanders' closest competition and they want their guy to win.

The folks going scorched-earth on her are doing so because she's Sanders' closest competition and they want their guy to win.

Which level of strategic thinking is barely distinguishable from idiocy.

Only if they continue going scorched earth after she wins the primary.

Do you understand what "scorched earth" means?

nickn otm. Now is the time to boost your favorite candidate and tear down your opponents. That's democracy. AFTER the primary is when you make nice, if you feel like it.

I sometimes wonder if anyone remembers primaries before 2016.

Just saw a Tom Steyer ad bragging about how he built his business into $36 billion and respect to whatever lackeys are taking his checks to pretend that this is a selling point to anyone.

I sometimes wonder if anyone remembers primaries before 2016.

Biden is the frontrunner so no

"most electable"

Biden is such fuckin malarkey, i pray somebody says it to his face in public at length and at volume, and i can imagine a person doing it v well

I think it's wrong to say Biden doesn't want power, and doesn't want to govern undivided. It's more that he doesn't want to govern with Democrats, he wants the old 'neoliberal consensus' to rule like it did for a few decades. If that was still in place, I don't think he'd see any need for the Sanderses or the Warrens or the Trumps to offer up crucial opposition. He reminds me of the Danish party of the Radical Left (which is, of course, the most moderate left party there is). They also want power more than probably anyone, constantly brag about all the big deals they are a part of, but they are centrists, and all they do is based on keeping the status quo. But they want power, and they want consensus. And when they can't have it, they lose their freaking minds.

Today in "fuck Pete Buttigeig":

holy shit

a kid asked pete if he will help take big money out of politics and stop having closed-door fundraisers with billionaires

pete's response?

a curt "no"pic.twitter.com/IjFeH7VVjD

— jordan (@JordanUhl) December 9, 2019

I doubt Buttigieg would allow anyone to fuck him.

innarestin' thread on what mayo pete might have been up to at mckinsey (spoiler alert: it was probably very bad)

BREAKING: As a former corporate exec who worked with McKinsey, I may be able to shed light on one of @petebuttigieg’s unnamed McKinsey clients, and why it’s very significant in this campaign.
(Note: I have not endorsed anyone in this race, nor do I intend to) 1/13

— Wendell Potter (@wendellpotter) December 9, 2019

Butt’s campaign has been saying that they’ve repeatedly asked McKinsey to release him from his NDA so he can speak more openly on it, but McKinsey won’t do it. Any truth to that?

If someone said it was true would you believe it?

Which is to say no, I don’t believe the campaign has asked

The NYT reported it

Sorry, didn’t mean to make that a Gotcha, I’m just walking with a phone

feels like it would be in the best interests of both pete and mckinsey if the nda remained in place, and it gives them a vaguely plausible reason to keep avoiding scrutiny of his lucrative stint personally strangling afghan babies

now that i'm back at a computer, here is the context:

As Mr. Buttigieg explains it, that is not a matter of choice. For all of his efforts to run an open, accessible campaign — marked by frequent on-the-record conversations with reporters on his blue-and-yellow barnstorming bus — McKinsey is a famously secretive employer, and Mr. Buttigieg says he signed a nondisclosure agreement that keeps him from going into detail about his work there.

But as he gains ground in polls, his reticence about McKinsey is being tested, including by his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. Senator Warren, responding last month to needling by Mr. Buttigieg that she release more than the 11 years of tax returns she already had to account for her private-sector work, retorted, “There are some candidates who want to distract from the fact that they have not released the names of their clients and have not released the names of their bundlers.”

(On Friday night, after this article was published, Mr. Buttigieg’s campaign released more information about his McKinsey years, describing his projects in general terms without naming the clients. His assignments, it said, included work for a nonprofit health insurer in Michigan in 2007, a California environmental nonprofit in 2009 and, the following year, a logistics and shipping provider in Washington.

Speaking in Waterloo, Iowa, that evening, Mr. Buttigieg reiterated his request for McKinsey to release him from the nondisclosure agreement. “It’s not like I was the C.E.O. — I was making a lot of spreadsheets and PowerPoints — but people want to know from somebody who proposes to be the president of the United States, what’s in your past,” he said.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-mckinsey.html

the last two paragraphs of that (everything in parentheses) were modified since i originally read the article. before, i believe it said simply something generic like "pete claims he has asked mckinsey to release him from the NDA."

NDA excuse is bullshit

they're not gonna prosecute him

oh noes, i sure wish i could talk about my time working on very normal, non-evil projects for kittencrushers llc but goshdarn it they just won't let me for some reason

The NDA took my Butti away

NDA excuse is bullshit

they're not gonna prosecute him

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, December 9, 2019 8:59 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yah, this is the flimsiest shit ever. tho the pete stans on internet are taking his refusal to violate the NDA as a sign of his honor. like, breaking the NDA would make him no better than trump or something