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

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

hillary wanted trump. who cares?

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

this was the argument iatee was making in favour of warren's pragmatism - that she isn't going to fight for healthcare. while i don't think warren's stated plan to pass m4a (public option first and then only fighting for m4a after midterms) is particularly well thought out, i don't really doubt that she would fight to achieve it. it just seems to be starting from a weaker position than sanders who is also a stronger believer in movement politics.

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

until now they've been focused on what they considered the real threats, which is why sanders doesn't have any real right-wing memes attached to him and warren and biden do. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that they wanted to run against him. and maybe that's a mistake - the current polls suggest it is - but they're projecting that the guy who looks and sounds like we picked him up from a berkeley bus stop is gonna a pretty good project to work with.

it is true that regardless of who we run they're going to have to deal w/ the putin/fox news machine but I think it's silly to pretend like sanders has gone through the grinder just because dems said his ideas were unrealistic a bunch of times on tv. things never got personal in the way that they're going to get soon.

I kinda feel like Bernie's personality is kind of a positive in that regard?

Re: the discussion of foreign policy, the quite good article that David Klion wrote for the Nation a week back indicates that Warren does want to separate herself from the more standard foreign policy of Obama and the more moderate candidates and hew closer to Bernie's views, but is trying to do that in a way that maintains some ties to the foreign policy establishment. How this works in practice I don't know - Obama had the same ideas, and you ended up with people like Samantha Power making more and more compromises and acquiescing to the wishes of the establishment. But it ends up causing the same problems as her health care proposals - too radical for the moderates and too hesitant for the leftists to fully trust, perfect for a select group of well-educated people who have trouble selling her to anyone who is dubious.

lol at the notion that sanders does not have right-wing memes attached to him

Regarding the forthcoming right-wing attacks, sure, they're coming, I imagine that the polls will tighten, and that they would no matter who is nominated. I think that Bernie has good instincts about what should be responded to and what should be ignored, and he's quite good at taking negative questions and transitioning to his stump speech topics in a way that doesn't come off too weaselly.

i liked his response to bloomberg's calling him a communist during the debate: "that's a cheap shot." then he moved on. bloomberg looked like a prick

this was the argument iatee was making in favour of warren's pragmatism - that she isn't going to fight for healthcare. while i don't think warren's stated plan to pass m4a (public option first and then only fighting for m4a after midterms) is particularly well thought out, i don't really doubt that she would fight to achieve it. it just seems to be starting from a weaker position than sanders who is also a stronger believer in movement politics.

again, I don't believe that this magic 'fight' that you're conjuring can actually do things and in these scenarios you're just letting this word do all the work for you. there is nothing mysterious about how bills become law, you either have the votes or you don't. we are not remotely close to having the votes for m4a, and we won't be remotely close even with 50 senators. it is hard to comprehend the mass delusion that's going on w/ this subject, like the obama years just straight up never occurred for you guys. he just didn't have a true movement? he didn't have fight?

until now they've been focused on what they considered the real threats, which is why sanders doesn't have any real right-wing memes attached to him and warren and biden do.

May I suggest that your awareness of anti-Bernie memes is...flawed? Lacking? I think I will.

I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that they wanted to run against him. and maybe that's a mistake - the current polls suggest it is - but they're projecting that the guy who looks and sounds like we picked him up from a berkeley bus stop is gonna a pretty good project to work with.

It's true; they're gonna call him a Communist. Which as I said way upthread, is likely to be about as powerful as calling him a Fauvist. It's 2020.

things never got personal in the way that they're going to get soon.

Oh, no...Republicans are gonna say mean, unfounded shit to their frothing, knuckle-walking, mouth-breathing voters, all of whom are already 100% in the tank for Donald Trump? This is it — we're doomed for sure!

Seriously, make an affirmative case (or at least an evidence-based negative one): who do you think is leaning toward voting for Bernie Sanders, but can be convinced to vote for Donald motherfucking Trump by a negative political ad/news story? Especially after we've already had four years of Trump?

nobody likes your posts and I’m starting to feel embarrassed as a fellow Warren supporter

xp

it is hard to comprehend the mass delusion that's going on w/ this subject, like the obama years just straight up never occurred for you guys. he just didn't have a true movement? he didn't have fight?

Well, the thing that Bernie supporters often bring up as a criticism of Obama is that he had a grass-roots movement with millions of excited members, who could have been mobilized to support his initiatives, call lukewarm representatives, support endangered candidates in the midterms, etc, but he didn't do that, and instead folded his organization into the DNC.

I like iatee's posts

i like iatee even if i disagree

I'm sorry but I'm going to come right out and say it. I like Warren and would gladly vote for her were she the nominee, but anyone who thinks Warren has better political instincts than Bernie is higher as shit.

high as shit v. higher than shit

May I suggest that your awareness of anti-Bernie memes is...flawed? Lacking? I think I will.

given that trump has actually given a "LEAVE BERNIE ALONE (small voice) i don't agree with bernie but (trump voice again) LEAVE BERNIE ALONE" speech at his rally, they have not appeared to be very consistently messaged

“Surprise guest” and native Texan Marianne Williamson endorses Bernie Sanders for president at his rally in Austin, TX pic.twitter.com/wpBb2MK4iM

— Emma Kinery (@EmmaKinery) February 23, 2020

xpost well, yeah