2020 Democratic presidential primary

choosing Bloomberg as veep?

sorry bizarro, Biden has been chosen by god to lead us to the compromised land

well, i was thinking 'drop out' but that would work too xp

"the compromised land" is very elegant, applause.

if you're only planning on serving one term, you should just drop out of the fucking race

Bernie has indicated that a one-term presidency isn’t out of the question for him, too.

because they're fucking old men

and old men themselves as well

saw that as soon as I hit "submit"

"the compromised land" is very elegant, applause.

yes

A piece about Buttigieg and how he represents the crumbling of gay radicalism:

Over Thanksgiving weekend, a new Buttigieg TV ad airing in Iowa started making the rounds on Twitter. “I believe we should move to make college affordable for everyone,” Buttigieg says in the ad. “There’s some voices saying, ‘That doesn’t count unless you go even further, unless it’s free even for the kids of millionaires.' But I only want to make promises that we can keep.” (As Politico reporter Alex Thompson pointed out, this indirect dig at Sanders and Warren overlooks the fact that they’ve both suggested programs that would be paid for primarily by taxes on millionaires and billionaires.)

In a Twitter thread responding to Buttigieg’s new policy position, professor and BuzzFeed News contributor Steven Thrasher pointed out how strange it is that 18-year-olds — legal adults who can be “sent off to war to die” — are still legally dependent on their parents for things like health insurance and student aid. “By demanding LGBTQ young adults specifically (& young adults in general) be bound to their parents’ earnings … Mayor Pete is using the family as a locus of social control in the most cynical, conservative way,” he wrote.

Thrasher points out that an unfortunate historical turn in the gay rights movement was the pivot from advocating for universal health care to the less ambitious goal of expanded private health insurance access through same-sex marriage, which has left gaping cracks in the system. Given those gaps, a young person (or anyone) without familial ties, which is very common in the LGBTQ community, might be left without coverage granted by state-sanctified marriage, family, or employment. (Buttigieg’s “Medicare for All Who Want It” program, which is decidedly not Medicare for All, emphasizes “affordability and choice.”)

“Pete is trying to reinforce the existing, conservative social order,” Thrasher finished. “Bernie is offering something akin to queer liberation by way of liberated access to learning & health.”

Bernie has indicated that a one-term presidency isn’t out of the question for him, too.

― 💠 (crüt), Wednesday, December 11, 2019 5:55 PM (one hour ago)

i missed this -- when did he say this?

i think it's surreal that any candidate would make this promise; giving up the advantage of running as an incumbent is crazy

For candidates in their late 70s, it may just be realistic?

Running as a desiccated corpse propped up on a podium is NAGL (and yeah sure, insert lame-ass "Weekend at Bernie's" joek here)

like Blanche duBois, voters dont want realism, they want magic

they get realism after the oath of office

78 is already way way too fucking old to be president, but even 78-year-olds who want to be president know that 82 is way way WAY too fucking old to be president.

Bernie would end his 2nd term at 86 years old--RBG's current age

if one were agnostic on what actually happens in the world and just followed politics as spectacle biden's state of the union address in his final year of his 8 year presidency would be entertaining at least

86 is too fucking old to be president. 65 is too old to be president honestly but I'm realistic, both parties really like running people who should be retired.

well that's because their "young talent" consists of unprincipled shits like Buttigieg

lol you are forgetting somebody

ie the biggest rising star in the party

thanks for your vote of confidence Shakey but I'm 52

xp I think we're talking about the current presidential field

Today in "fuck Pete Buttigeig" (it's just a Jacobin essay, not a news story about some new shitty thing he did)

Using old age as the first disqualifier is a problem when it eliminates the only good candidates. I wish it was otherwise, but not for me. My single issue is I want to soak the rich to pay for my cancer costs before I am broke or dead. Hence, I'm left with one candidate.

I've basically come around to Morbs' angle on the primary, honestly. I'm an M4A voter in this race and it seems like there's only one full-throated, unapologetic, uncompromising advocate for it. Why fuck around?

Did I post this exact post itt already?

As for Sanders being old, I'll think about that tomorrow (2024).

a one term promises may be realistic, but it seems like bad electoral politics. who thinks "i'm not sure about that candidate, but since they implicitly concede that they're not really cut out for the job, i'm going to vote for them"?

didn't Ross Perot run on an "I'm going to go in & fix stuff & I have no interest in a second term" promise?

TBF Perot really did seem like the kind of guy who would voluntarily surrender power once he had it.

Maybe the idea is that he'll let his young veep get 4 years of experience and emerge in 2024 as unbeatable? That veep may well be Pete, but still.

I know I'm getting old because I was thinking "hmm, they really don't make em like Perot anymore"

I'm hoping we get a solid veep choice no matter who the candidate is

I was reading some tweets yesterday implying Tim Kaine was one of the worst choices, and I kept thinking back to my first time voting for president and how fucking Joe Lieberman was on the goddamn ballot

Re Perot: Yup.

The Dallas billionaire repeated many of the points and some of the one-liners he used in Sunday's first debate. He reiterated his vow to serve only one term if elected. And he urged that others elected this year pledge to step down if they do not cut the federal budget deficit in half in four years. He joked that Democrats and Republicans are so busy denying responsibility for the avalanche of red ink, "somewhere out there there's an extraterrestrial that's doing this to us."

Many voters believe in balanced budgets too, and I never have the opportunity to explain how stupid they are.

ugh why are we talking about ross perot. idiotic dyed in the wool government-drowners don't exist anymore thank god. it's a completely different and ancient phenomenon compared to biden promising only one term as illustrated by this enjoyable osita nwanevu piece

https://newrepublic.com/article/155943/elected-joe-biden-president-five-minutes

Term limits and "I'm going to be a one-term President" appeal to a strain of 'common-sense (white, suburban) man' that's pretty much nonexistent now.

to explain how stupid they are

voters rarely understand this issue because it takes a commitment to learning about somewhat complicated ideas that go against the grain of what they think they know from managing their own personal finances. which ignorance makes them easy marks and patsies for the con artists who feed them this stupid idea for their own gain.

xp term limits while unrealistic remain a great idea that would go a long way twd mitigating lobbyist influence. Not sure why that’s a white suburban man thing

i missed this -- when did he say this?

i think it's surreal that any candidate would make this promise; giving up the advantage of running as an incumbent is crazy

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, December 11, 2019 1:53 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Bernie didn't promise anything, he just refused to answer the question of whether he would serve one or two terms. From what I've seen he tends to brush off these sort of speculative questions with a "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" sort of response. (I think he's usually in the right when he does.)

term limits are a stupid idea, that's what elections are for. you want to limit lobbyist influence, outlaw lobbyists.

You’re a stupid idea! Ideally congress wld be service-oriented, comprised of highly compensated ppl from all walks of life who after 6 or whatever yrs are by law guaranteed a return to whatever jobs/positions they left.

politicians should be chosen by lottery

^better yet

you want to limit lobbyist influence, outlaw lobbyists

it's always the lobbyist's fault that the elected officials do whatever the lobby says

^better yet

although I understand the sentiment, uh, nope. I agree that it might be a pretty good system in a town of, say, 2000 people. but if we're talking about the USA, then we're talking 330 million people, a budget of trillions, the world's biggest economy, and a nuclear arsenal to manage.

If every kind of expertise is rigorously eliminated from the legislative body the result would be to surrender all governance to the executive branch, which can retain the necessary expertise to exert complete control. Or, if the legislative lottery winners got testy and grabbed at the controls, they'd be flying blind. No, thanks.

^^^

expertise and experience in legislative matters are good things, not to be tossed away lightly

xxp I was kidding, but representation wld def be improved by more “representative” makeup.