Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

lolol

“It’s entirely possible that it’s a coincidence,” Zezas also offered, referring to any such correlation between reelection and the economy.

entirely possible!

should Sanders get the nom there's gonna be a lot of stories about "worried investors" and how the market will tank 3000 points the instant he gets sworn in and I'm guessing that will not help

a lot of stories about "worried investors" and how the market will tank 3000 points the instant he gets sworn in

The usual FUD-mongering: fear, uncertainty & doubt.

one of the earlier instances of the veil dropping for me regarding the 'dispassionate' forces of the market was watching a parade of CEOs and Wall Street goons, after getting bailed out and then subsequently soothed and stroked by Obama and Tim fucking Geithner, come on tv and wring their hands about the "fear, uncertainty and doubt" they had about the administration.

and that's when i realized the market might not be rational, but it's almost definitely racist.

so yeah, there will be a ton of doomsday scenarios floated. and every person who writes one in an op ed section or spouts one on cable tv should be spat on in public for the rest of their natural lives.

because the market is racist, irrational, greedy, emotional, paranoid etc. there will definitely be a dip in the stock market if/when Bernie wins. This will have negative consequences that ripple throughout the economy. I don't see how this prediction is contestable - capitalists are scared of Bernie and will react accordingly.

There’s an incongruity among some Sanders supporters where he’s simultaneously the best shot for radical structural economic change and also anyone afraid of radical structural economic change from Sanders is an idiot fear monger. There’s gaslighting going on but I can’t tell by whom.

I think you may be hallucinating Mordy

Good economic times can be the best times to implement social democratic programs. Might be good for Dems to stress this, although it would also be giving Trump some credit so idk.

a Sanders presidency would be unequivocally bad for certain sectors, no doubt

How many Sanders supporters do you know of who don't want *substantial* structural economic change? "Radical" is a loaded adjective that means different things from nation to nation and era to era, so I'm not using that.

xxp

a Sanders presidency would be unequivocally bad for certain sectors, no doubt

― frogbs, Wednesday, February 12, 2020 1:23 PM (fifty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

My thoughts & prayers go out to those sectors.

The bipartisan Reagan Revolution of the last 40 years is the radical change I want to roll back.

i guess my point however inartfully expressed was that if Obama made them piss their pants (though i suspect some of this was performative), then trying to placate these scumbags is a sucker's game. and thus centrism is stupid. or something.

xposts

petitioning the thread to refer to Klobuchar as 'Klobocop" from now on

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/03/amy-klobuchar-drug-prosecutions-history/

anyone afraid of radical structural economic change from Sanders is an idiot fear monger

You added an inaccurate and unnecessary "idiot" to your characterization there, mordy. Peddling fear, uncertainty and doubt in regard to the economic consequences of Sanders being elected is without any doubt a form of fear-mongering, made solely for the purpose of stoking whatever fears of radical structural economic change are latent in the electorate.

I would simply point out that the actual economic consequences of Sanders being elected are completely unknown. First, because no one can accurately predict the future of the economy even in times of structural 'stability', because there is no such thing as certainty or stability in our present economy. Predicting the future is a gamble, as one may easily discern by recalling the predictions being peddled in 2006-7. Or today.

Further, the mere election of Sanders would not necessarily result in any kind of radical restructuring of the US economy. Our political system militates against rapid change and the very fact of the US Senate and the present conservatism of the federal judiciary will provide an enormous bulwark against such rapid or radical change.

Floating excessive fear about god knows what might happen if you vote for Sanders is purely political. A measured and reasonable economic argument would be aimed at specific policies, not at a person. Theoretically, elections are the proper venue for airing such arguments, but you and I know that they never are. What we'll get is what we always get, a little simplistic policy debate, well-mixed of ad hominems and fear-mongering. Try to tell me otherwise. I'll listen.

Mordy I think some of that gaslighting is a pissed-off reaction to half a century of gaslighting from the center and right, whereby the only “radical structural change” identified as such is progressive reforms from left-of-center. Meanwhile, the oligarchs and their enablers can eviscerate unions, change the tax system from progressive to de facto regressive, deregulate the financial sector, bail it out when necessary, divert trillions of taxpayer dollars into the black hole of the defense industry, divert more trillions into wars, crank up the surveillance state, eliminate habeas corpus, bestow human rights and liberties unto corporations, segregate and incarcerate and cage citizens who happen to have darker skin, etc etc , and none of this gets called radical anything or structural anything but is simply t be accepted as the natural order of things... not that far from divinely ordained when you think about it... and the worst are not the frothing MAGA types who at least feel like something viscerally existential is at stake or otherwise make outward displays of aggression, of being at war (don’t tread on me , etc), but the bland centrists who tolerate 90%!of the above with equanimity and reserve their outrage to the most blatant breaches of constitutional and moral decorum from DJT, while dividing their sense of alarm equally between said individual on the one hand and the “radical left “ on the other, having lost all semblance of Overton drift after these 40+ years of neoliberal revolution.

warren didn't put on some glasses and position herself as a 'wonky politician' for branding purposes. she was an acclaimed academic who happened to get into politics.

Imo, the narrative that Sanders has dreams and ideology while Warren has plans largely does come down to branding.

*reserve their outrage *for*

*having lost all *sense* of Overton drift..,

Sorry I wrote this in a rush

general question. is it concerning that the plurality of democratic voters (47.1%) are supporting the moderate-ish candidates, vs only 35.2% for the Sanders+Warren?

LEFT: 35.2%
Sanders: 22.3%
Warren: 12.9%

MODERATE: 47.1%
Biden: 20.1%
Bloomberg: 13.1%
Buttigieg: 9.6%
Klobuchar: 4.3%

???: 3.5%
Steyer: 1.9%
Gabbard: 1.6%

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/national/

i realize the counterpoint is that once the candidate is chosen, most will gravitate toward them. in 2016, of course, a bunch of bernie supporters ended up voting for clinton in the end.

my rose-tinted take is that there are just more moderates in the race

but i guess what i'm thinking is that if three of the four mods dropped out, would it essentially be one of them at 47% vs sanders at ~25%

Again thats similar to Trump’s initial primary numbers iirc

again? sorry if i missed conversation upthread, work has been a nightmare

fwiw i'm not responding to anything said upthread

i feel like if all the other candidates dropped out bar sanders and the mayor then bernie would lose

he needs the centrist vote split

the theory (one i also sorta buy) is that much like trump had the largest base in a highly divided field and the opponents didn't consolidate quickly enough to offer an alternative b4 the delegate lead got out of hand bernie is potentially benefiting from a similar set of circumstances

the mayor(s)?

is it concerning

Speaking purely as someone who has never seen his early first choice gain the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, unless you count McGovern, who I couldn't vote for because I turned 18 the day after the 1972 election, I have given up on being 'concerned' by the nature of US national elections. They are as little under my control as acts of God or the forces of nature.

xp i agree with you on branding sund4r, but i think the difference in their hands-on experience with the interests of the right is different, and that warren—outside of academics and as legislator—has better nous regarding their methods practices, perhaps their impulses too. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-corporations.html

Hence whynthry hate her most.

*why they

I think it's a mistake to assume that the supporters of one moderate candidate will move en masse to another moderate once their favorite drops out. Moderates are largely pretty ideologically squishy, that's part of why they're moderates. I think a lot of them are supporting their chosen candidate because they like his/her personality or think he/she is "electable" or whatever. I bet a decent chunk of, e.g., Biden supporters end up moving toward Bernie when Biden drops out.

Does the average voter even know Warren is closer to Bernie than Pete policy-wise? Even the chapo boys, who make money doing this, treat her as a nemesis

xp Also that poll is only of Democratic voters. Sanders's argument is that he can more votes from outside that group (especially non-voters) than any of the others.

that he can *get* more votes

In theory a good portion of those warren votes could go to a moderate. I think people’s problem with sanders is often more style than substance—like they are fine with raising taxes and shoring up the safety net, but resent “divisiveness.” Warren is divisive among some top hat/long coat boomers I know but her brand is much different—championing working families rather than the international proletariat

xps - Sanders seems to pull best among the young and among the more ideologically leftist, neither of which describes the average Biden supporter. That's not to say you are wrong, non-ideological voters can make strange decisions, but only that I can't see much firm ground upon which to base that conclusion.

It's almost over for the Booty Judge.

I would like to see a poll breakdown of moderate voters' second choice. I have no empirical data to back it up but I think a non-negligible segment are ranking the most palatable moderate/the moderate they think most likely to beat Trump first and more progressive "this is how I really feel" candidate second; I think a good chunk of Warren's issue right now is that she is everyone's second-favorite candidate, which is the absolute worst place to be in a winner-take-all contest.

the theory (one i also sorta buy) is that much like trump had the largest base in a highly divided field and the opponents didn't consolidate quickly enough to offer an alternative b4 the delegate lead got out of hand bernie is potentially benefiting from a similar set of circumstances

don't Republicans do "winner take all" for most states? even though Bernie has won the popular vote he's still 2 behind in the delegate count. I don't really know the way the remaining states work.

re: unperson's Guardian link; this is the exact conversation happening among black/Asian friends of mine from college on Facebook today

I would like to see a poll breakdown of moderate voters' second choice. I have no empirical data to back it up but I think a non-negligible segment are ranking the most palatable moderate/the moderate they think most likely to beat Trump first and more progressive "this is how I really feel" candidate second; I think a good chunk of Warren's issue right now is that she is everyone's second-favorite candidate, which is the absolute worst place to be in a winner-take-all contest.

― totally unnecessary bewbz of exploitation (DJP), Wednesday, February 12, 2020 2:17 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I posted this on the Bernie thread earlier. It's from the Quinnipiac poll from the other day; I have to imagine NH results will move some of these numbers around. (Also, since it's a little confusing, the 1st-choice candidates are in the columns, and the 2nd-choice candidates are in the rows.)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQi5wnnXUAIVEt5?format=jpg&name=medium

ha, I still got it *brushes imaginary dirt off shoulders*

also lol at "if not Buttigieg, then Gabbard"

like, wtf are you smoking

"If I can't have the gay candidate, I want the candidate who backed conversion therapy because no one should get to be attracted to their own gender if Pete can't be POTUS"

They want someone young presumably

Gabbard is the only other candidate under 40

Or they’re ex military, and don’t trust a commander in chief who isn’t a veteran.