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

Warren was my OG first choice too. I was hoping she’d make a run from way back when she was a thorn in Obama’s ass.

But I guess I’m not going to root against the most popular politician in America with whom I agree on virtually every policy and who currently outperforms every other primary candidate (yeah yeah lol polls amirite) against one of the most despicable humans to ever draw breath.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say this is a gift; we could be stuck w a Kerry or a HRC or a Mondale.

Expart of Languidge (Old Lunch) at 10:17 23 Feb 20

Here's the thing about 'electability' for those still hung up on 'electability': how goddamn 'electable' was Trump before he was ultimately elected?

yeah this drives me nuts, all bets are off!

Right, and then what happened pic.twitter.com/esmnEt5IPu

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) February 21, 2020

Bernie Sanders has a vision that leaves out me, a person who doesn't share that vision and will actively obstruct it. Why is Bernie so divisive, unlike me, who will continue to oppose him at every turn. Why won't Bernie expand the tent to include voters who hate his goals?

— Sigh Hersh, Persuasive Authority (@Ugarles) February 23, 2020

Who is Chris Mathews actually

I regret and apologize for ever defending this guy: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/22/politics/pete-buttigieg-nevada/index.html

(whose views are summarized in the tweet Morbs just linked plus some stuff about downticket races, which obv Buttigieg and not Sanders has been campaigning and raising funds for over the past four years)

I can't even read that CNN piece because I can't stop laughing at one of the writers' names being Dan 'Merica and the other one being named Donald Judd, which just makes me think of stuffing Pete Buttigeig into a gleaming metal box and leaving him in the desert.

stop polluting our deserts

Pete is the most cynical and calculating candidate I've seen in decades. By several miles.

xp -- given that a significant portion of the republican party believes global warming doesn't exist and we should instead be burning shitloads of beautiful, clean coal because AMERICA, I don't really think that will be any more of a political magic bullet

also you seem to have mixed up bloomberg and jay inslee

both bloomberg and jay inslee are good on climate. for bloomberg, afaict, it is his only positive

bloomberg gets a c+ rating from greenpeace for his climate plan fwiw

(bernie gets an a+)

But Bloomberg would be in a better position to enact his plan bc ??????????

Bloomberg's first tranche of TV and youtube and streaming ads were very very heavy on climate change, regardless of the quality of his policy.

bc Bloomberg will personally write checks of $50 million for each and every member of Congress?

If there are no soda bottles, they can't cause pollution.

as mayor bloomberg was more than willing to use his money as muscle to work through resistance and it's not hard to imagine him spending a billion dollars to pass a bill on a subject he already spends hundreds of millions of dollars on. maybe hoards of dedicated sandernistas showing up in west virginia to pester joe manchin will be just as powerful as money though.

as perhaps just as important, he's not signaling that he'd waste whatever political capital he had on a sure loser

not really sure how warren's plan to split her healthcare fight into two, going for a public option first (still likely to be a difficult fight) and then only attempting to pass M4A after midterms is supposed to be any more feasible but ok

health care was never her theme as a candidate, her plans got as much attention as they did completely because of sanders (and to a certain extent the debate moderators)

I wish gabbneb was here for the Bernie meltdown, iatee is much less entertaining.

Why is gabbneb such a legend 'round these parts?

No one else really nailed the feel of afternoon MSNBC host like the gabb.

I mean do you guys just want this thread to be high fiving each other and talking about how sweet the last chapo episode was? xp

if that's your level of cynicism why not just support buttigieg, he's the real "better things aren't possible" and ridiculous cynicism candidate

Buttigieg doesn’t have Daddy Bloomberg’s money to save the world, which history has long shown is the primary aim of oligarchs.

plus, only bloomberg is tough enough to take trump down. if you want to beat trump, you gotta go with bloomberg. he's tough as nails and he'll stand up to trump.

I mean do you guys just want this thread to be high fiving each other and talking about how sweet the last chapo episode was? xp

― iatee, Sunday, February 23, 2020 4:19 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

given that I have not listened to a single episode and hope that I never will, and am generally a very low-irony person, no, I do not

Sanders is more popular and less divisive than Chapo

serious question, iatee: are there parts of Sanders' oft-repeated primary agenda that you would NOT want to see implemented because you think they would be bad for the nation or the world? Or are you just elevating what you see as pragmatism over what you think is Sanders' hopelessly unpragmatic idealism, even though you would happily be proved wrong?

I refuse to listen to Chapo for their record of thinking disablist shittiness is just so hilarious and edgy, but wouldn't associate that with Sanders.

I think warren would be a significantly better leader of the executive branch of government than the mayor of south bend as insofar as any real change is possible in the near future, it’s going to be change that can happen fully under the executive branch. which is why I think it’s extra tragic that we’ve thrown away someone basically tailor made for that job for someone who’s dedicated to the things the president has no control over. there is no mystery as to how a bill gets passed in congress and anyone who thinks that sanders is going to have more success than obama did is drunk on delusion. xp

serious question, iatee: are there parts of Sanders' oft-repeated primary agenda that you would NOT want to see implemented because you think they would be bad for the nation or the world? Or are you just elevating what you see as pragmatism over what you think is Sanders' hopelessly unpragmatic idealism, even though you would happily be proved wrong?

I too want in the White House the intelligent woman who isn't seventy-eight and hasn't a heart condition, but it's looking grim.

next person to mention joe manchin should get threadbanned

moe janchin

— Philip Bump (@pbump) November 29, 2016

I thought you guys were talking about El Chapo the tv series.

part of the deep frustration I have w/ sanders is that he's basically spent the whole campaign promising to start his presidency by punching himself in the face. 'let's completely overhaul american health care' is not a novel idea, it's not something that is just too radical for idk say, hillary clinton. we have multiple historical reference points here. there is no deep mystery about what happens when you start this process.

xps

― iatee, Sunday, February 23, 2020 11:06 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's not a new thing for candidates to tie their campaigns to one major issue

you've managed to convince yourself that this means bernie will do literally nothing in 4 years except wake up every day try to convince joe manchin** to vote for m4a go to sleep

other americans aren't actually that stupid

**would welcome a threadban please kill me

I think Warren would be the best president out of the candidates by my own requirements. But I like Bernie, and have voted for him in the past.

the key difference between warren and sanders if you're assuming an obstructive congress will prevent any meaningful legislative agenda is foreign policy, where indications are warren would likely just be a continuation of obama's failings while sanders at least represents something of a break

idk i'm totally baffled by pragmatism and cynicism being the key reason iatee supports warren over sanders. i could understand it for any of the moderates even if i'd disagree with that reasoning but not for warren who is apparently unwilling to fight much for her own agenda with that being a good thing somehow.

I mean, the pure pragmatic case is that sanders has a significant delegate lead and is polling the best in head-to-heads against trump

‘fighting’ doesn’t matter. it is not a real thing. obama’s presidency was not stymied by his lack of fight. the votes simply aren’t there, they won’t be for warren, they won’t be for biden, and they won’t be for hard-fighting bernie sanders. xp

Yeah so why not vote for the most radical executive if all else being equal no legislation passes other than post office names?

bingo

I would gladly press buttons to magically enact 80% of sanders agenda, m4a is obviously a million times better than our health care system
― iatee, Sunday, February 23, 2020 4:43 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

honestly is m4a the only thing you know about his agenda?

i want m4a more than anything but the reason i personally support bernie over everyone else is that his platform is the best for labor, and i want the industry i work in to unionize. i'm not confident that will ever happen, but i'm more confident it'd happen in bernie's america than anyone else's. his campaign's focus on m4a doesn't make me think he'll throw that labor platform out the window until he can perform the correct sequence of courtly rituals to win joe manchin's heart. not every single thing a president does requires getting joe manchin to support m4a.

again, because warren would make a much better head of american bureaucracy.

I also think that sanders’ downsides as a candidate aren’t fully priced into his polling yet. maybe they are, if it turns out he’s crushing trump in swing state head to heads in 6 months I’ll be glad to eat crow.

xp

warren would make a much better head of american bureaucracy.

Agreed. I have concerns of one kind or another about all the Dem candidates, but for Sanders it has less to do with his ability to move a legislative agenda -- because I agree that's a challenge, regardless of who the president is -- than his leadership of the executive branch. I feel like that rarely gets talked about enough, and it's a huge part of the job. I know Sanders was mayor, but that was of a small city and it was a long time ago. He's so used to and comfortable being a loner that it's a little hard for me to see him actually running something the size of the federal government. My preference for Warren is tied directly to that. I think she would be a much better administrator. And given how important that's become, with both Obama and Trump basically doing any executive end-runs they can around Congress, it's a significant issue.

this was one of the reasons i supported warren from the beginning, and i feel like if she's on the ticket/in the cabinet you can still have this and eat your bernie cake too

will the gop manage to weave a strong narrative about a dude who was basically a bum for a lot of his life and never had a career outside of politics? idk that seems a lot easier than turning war hero John Kerry into a traitor to his country.

xp