2020 Democratic presidential primary

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/magazine/pete-buttigieg.html?te=1&nl=on-politics%20with%20lisa%20lerer&emc=edit_cn_20191217?campaign_id=56&instance_id=14598&segment_id=19652&user_id=f0ef51a738774f8c6d037c5c6beb7573®i_id=10110661520191217

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/magazine/pete-buttigieg.html?te=1&nl=on-politics%20with%20lisa%20lerer&emc=edit_cn_20191217?campaign_id=56&instance_id=14598&segment_id=19652&user_id=f0ef51a738774f8c6d037c5c6beb7573®i_id=10110661520191217

Having worked for McKinsey is a Kissinger-grade war crime, as opposed to something all Harvard kids seem to do after graduating.

Hmmmmmmmmm

this "he was just doing what kids like that do" argument might be more effective if it wasn't also around the time mr brightside came out.

coming out of my cage and i've been doing just fine

Well nowadays he has money in the bank, he’s got skin in the game

shooting for the stars when he couldn't make a killing

email subject line:

"Can you help Bernie match Pete's wine cave fundraiser?"

this is probably the sharpest version of Biden's pitch I've seen (it's full of shit but of course it is)

In a new ad airing in the early states, Joe Biden embraces Schlesinger-style New Deal historiography rather than the neo-whig view of Miranda, Howe, and Chernow that’s currently in style among progressives. https://t.co/8vBBmCzce5

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 17, 2019

email subject line:

"Can you help Bernie match Pete's wine cave fundraiser?"

🍷 💰 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 💰 🍷https://t.co/QAl0ZB0GW6

— mike casca (@cascamike) December 17, 2019

That we're even talking about competing visions of historiography when the world is literally on fire... um, okay

Nero my god to thee

I received an email advertising early check-in for the Iowa caucus

this thing is going to be a clusterfuck

Goddamn fuck this shit pic.twitter.com/MZpjuX5B2i

— Justin🦈Boldaji بلداجي (@justinboldaji) December 18, 2019

I can't believe it's happening in my own town

Yang joins the "M4A would be nice and I once explicitly backed it but now here's some other ideas instead" crew

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/16/andrew-yang-2020-election-health-care-plan-085881

the warren e thing is genuinely funny

I lost it at "Regulators...Mowna!"

I still am staring at that

I don't know why I find it surprising after the "Are you Ellie?" debacle but still

that warren shirt is great

no it isn't, it's really fucking stupid

Good morning, I really like Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Joe Biden, and all the rest. Any one of them would use the power of the Presidency to improve the lives of Americans in big and small ways (while being prevented by a likely GOP-held Senate from improving the lives of Americans in other ways.) Kamala Harris was great too. Thanks, that's all for now.

in that spirit, respect to Booker, who I may have unfairly dismissed as a media creature, for this:

don’t think people understand how destructive corporate multinational animal agriculture is to our environment. It’s the main reason for rainforest destruction and the poisoning of our water systems. The way we are doing it is so divorced from our heritage of animal agriculture in this country.

It’s not just these massive CAFOs [concentrated animal feeding operations, a.k.a. factory farms] and the treatment of animals, which would shock the [conscience] of anybody in our country. But it’s also our own survival as a species being deeply compromised by the way that animal agriculture has now evolved into corporate culture, affecting everything from fast fashion all the way to the corporate monopolies that are driving down relative wages in this country.

I believe that our food systems can be made more robust, that farmers can be the pathway out of climate crisis — that there’s so many ways to do this right that can elevate human well-being with a consciousness toward our treatment of animals and our treatment of the environment as a whole.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/17/21019453/cory-booker-2020-policies-interview-ideas

Booker is right, and in ag states there is a whole little-coastally-reported-on THING where GOP state legislators tilt regulations to benefit their CAFO / factory-farm benefactors at the expense of smaller family farms, all the while crowing about how they're the protectors of the golden man-wife-pitchfork farming tradition against environmentalist weirdos, while in fact they are enabling that tradition's destruction by corporate ag that sees the land as merely a resource to be extracted

which is an extension of core evangelical "human dominion over all" philosophy which desperately needs revision as we rush to 8 billion

and he's right about CAFOs, which of course is why states pass laws making it illegal to document CAFO conditions.

i cosign eephus! statement. really need a reset on how every candidate other than one (or maybe two) would be a TOTAL DISASTER JUST AS BAD AS TRUMP MAYBE WORSE

hm yes everything is fine good point

TOTAL DISASTER JUST AS BAD AS TRUMP MAYBE WORSE

more like "this election is the last chance for the American project to turn back onto the rails, but Mayo Pete and Biden are funded by the ppl that have closed the tracks and diverted everyone onto highways, so lets go for better options"

returning to the "status quo" of two years ago just puts us on the path to today, with a quicker route

some of the biggest factors (imo) that led to today's living hell are 1) voter suppression, 2) enormous, untraceable political funding (koch brothers et al), and 3) gerrymandering. all three of those things related, of course.

i haven't seen meaningful movement on any of those since 2016. if anything, it's gotten worse. some of the candidates pay lip service to them, most of them don't. projection: we are in hell

related: after the second election in 20 years that led to the national popular vote loser being awarded the presidency, there is almost no discussion on changing the dumbfuck electoral college. it sure is dumb! sure do wish something could change! oh well! *whistles*

biden won't do shit, pete won't do shit, warren and bernie couldn't do anything because anything they do that's related to election reform would be viewed as a socialist takeover plot. it's like the gun problem - we're just biding our time waiting for the next horrific incident to occur, which will open up a window of 5 to 6 days when it's possible to have as "national conversation" and learn more about how absolutely nothing can be done. looking forward to being bummed about the 2032 election being awarded to the republicans after they lose the popular vote again. "DANG, wish we would have done something about that after 2016, or after 2000! but the singularity is approaching, so now is not a good time..."

I can't follow the discussions that closely for obvious reasons, but if you go to elizabethwarren.com, at the very top of her list of plans is 'Strengthen Our Democracy'. I think originally that and the Wealth Tax were her top priorities. It all kinda got overshadowed by health care.

sic OTM but I feel like a lot of people swerve aside from recognizing that a lot of anti-candidate vigor is also about thinking that Pete, in particular, would lose in November.

if Trump was a long con by shadowy interests to get me to willingly vote for biden (not in the primary obv ffs) then guess what it worked

Pete Buttigieg just kicked off his Hispanic outreach campaign under the same slogan that communist movements, including the governments of Cuba and Venezuela, have used for decades in Latin America. https://t.co/mBQsvkqRmp

— Giancarlo Sopo (@GiancarloSopo) December 17, 2019

that's either the product of brazen chutzpah or profound ignorance

i have my answer

I've been hearing that slogan for decades, it doesn't seem to have a specifically Latin American communist state connection.

Yeah, it’s a chant you hear at demos. Also, the Blaze is Glenn Beck’s outlet so maybe their coverage is a bit tilted

Umm.. everyone in Latin America uses this chant during protests regardless of which side they’re on.

— Cody Weddle (@coweddle) December 18, 2019

Wait no the blaze is tucker Carlson’s rag, innit? Christ I can’t keep track anymore

I first heard that chant from some El Salvadoran communists visiting the US in the mid-80s and have only heard it since at leftist rallies. Possibly because I don't attend right wing rallies.

lmao

lmao at Mayor Pete btw not Aimless

Although Aimless’ gentle joke there is also good, lols all around

this thread feels poisonous to me

This is the least unpleasant thread politics thread bc we don’t talk about Tr*mp or Br*xit