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

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

xpost otm warren would be a much better leader/face of the US in most ways. (it's really not that radical to have another white grandpa as president even if it is Bernie.)

Did people actually like Kerry tho xp

No

well, you can see the gop struggling in real time to weave that narrative,

the swiftboat shit was the stupidest shit ever.

will the gop manage to weave a strong narrative about a dude who was basically a bum for a lot of his life

Will a nation of people who put Sprite in water cups to save $1.49 be able to relate?!

Hmmm....

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

Oh hey, James Carville, didn't see you there. This is a bullshit argument for several reasons.

1) It's not 2004. (It's also not 1972, but we've been over that.) Kerry lost because he was going up against a significantly more popular president than Donald Trump has ever been, or ever will be (no, the public celebrations when he finally dies won't count), and because of "wedge issues" like gay marriage, which you may have noticed is a thing now and the country is still standing and most of the people who voted R because of it have conspicuously stopped giving a fuck.

2) There are no swing voters. Especially not in an election where the candidates are Donald motherfucking Trump and Literally Anyone Who Is Not Donald Trump. You're either in the cult, or you're attempting to save America from the cult. Clinton got more votes than Trump, but fewer than Obama, and the distribution was lacking. The Democratic party is not going to let Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin go uncontested in 2020, no matter who the candidate is. And as I mentioned in point 1, Donald Trump is wildly unpopular. The people who don't worship him hate him.

TL;DR: Stop acting like previous elections are models for this one. Shit is different now.

well, you can see the gop struggling in real time to weave that narrative,

xp also because we were a year into a war that hadn't gone completely to shit

but the thing is, the right-wing propaganda does not wait until the primary is over. there's a reason donald trump and fox news and co. have been making pocahontas and burisma comments until their faces turn red: to prime the pump

I don't think Fox News is inviting Sanders on their shows because they want him to be the candidate per se, but because they feel like a Democratic Party with internal strife is useful in achieving their goals.

To an extent it's the same thing that's misunderstood about foreign interference in domestic politics. At one level, there are candidates that the ruling parties of other countries would prefer in place. But more often, it's to amplify internal struggle and keep the national focus off of international affairs or destabilize public support. "Russia wants X candidate to win!" isn't an argument against that candidate necessarily, any more than "wow the soviets are supporting the black panthers" comments were decades ago.

Supporting the causes that pry open the dialogue about the shortcomings and hypocrisy in our domestic policy doesn't mean that those shortcomings don't exist. Nor does Fox's amplifying of a further-left voice mean that there isn't a natural audience for further-left voices.

katherine otm

I also think that sanders’ downsides as a candidate aren’t fully priced into his polling yet.

Unfortunately I think this is true for all the other candidates too

(to address the "why do you know so much about/pay so much attention to this," I have to watch it for a job

theres been leaked conversations where trump has said he thinks sanders is the most formidable candidate and is worried that just crying "socialism" will be effective against him. there is a significant portion of the right-wing media establishment that seems to be underestimating sanders in a similar way to how the dems underestimated trump though.

trump's preferred scenario at this stage seems to be a maximum chaos dem contested convention where sanders barely loses out due to superdelegates and establishment shenanigans so sanders supporters are demoralised, lowering turnout and making a trump victory much more likely. mh otm

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?

lol they elected one last time. being outside politics is a plus. i don’t think they’ll go there. it seems more likely that they paint bernie as a deep stater, inside the beltway lifer. just a hunch though.

not for warren who is apparently unwilling to fight much for her own agenda with that being a good thing somehow.

what evidence have you of this? She took on the Obama admin Wall Street people and was a ruthless questioner in testimony.

"He was a BUM" is up there with "he's not even a real DEMOCRAT" in missing the point.

xpost to myself (which is the title of my next album):

i realise now that’s what you’re saying - that a lot of life outside politics gives them fewer attack lines? but he has had a lot of life inside it too