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

it is time for the nyt to endorse some more candidates

The online left rn:

You signed up for a fight. So fight. No doom shit. It’s on.

— Screamer Jim (@HeheWaitWhut) March 4, 2020

I feel like all the wailing about "the establishment" overlooks the fact that millions of actual real-people voters cast ballots in these races. It's easier to say "fuck the establishment" than "fuck all those regular people who happen to disagree with me," I guess.

How about “fuck trump”

I feel like all the wailing about "the establishment" overlooks the fact that millions of actual real-people voters cast ballots in these races. It's easier to say "fuck the establishment" than "fuck all those regular people who happen to disagree with me,"

No. This is the same problem with saying 'fuck Trump voters'

and 'fuck the establishment' is wrong too. Unlike GOP 2016 they got it together to coalesce around one candidate before it was too late, thats credit to them

The establishment is Reid and Obama calling Klob and Petey and pushing them to drop out and endorse Biden, it's free media coverage for Biden with a post-SC comeback narrative, it's Warren's billionaire Super PAC designed to hurt the left.

i'm all for "fuck trump" but good luck getting that done now

oh, credit to the right-wing warmaking Dem Empire and Darth Joe, for sure

he'll do well in Chinatown, Jake

Biden just confused his wife and his sister in the opening lines of his speech.

— Alex Colston (@re_colston) March 4, 2020

Outside of Maine, Minnesota and MA did Warren really make that much difference, and would her supporters really have gone to Bernie anyway?

oh shit, she got 200K in Texas? scrub that last comment

Persist PACs ads were all in California, Texas and Massachusetts, her percentage made a difference everywhere tonight.

The establishment is Reid and Obama calling Klob and Petey and pushing them to drop out and endorse Biden

I mean, this is literally just politics. What game did you think this was exactly?

I am not a Biden fan in any way. Bernie was my solid second choice after Warren. But the way Sanders supporters react to the most banal political realities just baffles me. Of course other people are going to try to beat you! Other people are always trying to beat you. If you don't want to be in the ring, you don't have to be. But don't get in there and act outraged that people are throwing punches.

I mean, this is literally just politics.

Yes, and do you think American politics as they've existed your entire life are good?

Like 20 minutes ago you were mad that anyone would say Warren should drop out - which is different from "just politics" I guess?

I have to agree to an extent with tipsy mothra here - it is what it is. If Warren had dropped out would her supporters really have switched to Bernie? I'm not so sure.

They cut it really fine in thinning the field but it needed to be done

Polls consistently showed that Warren voters second choice option was Sanders about twice as often as Biden.

https://carlbeijer.substack.com/p/inside-warrens-collapsing-base

Yes, and do you think American politics as they've existed your entire life are good?

Compared to what?

I could list a ton of things I'd love to change, from Citizens United to the structure of the U.S. Senate. Normal jockeying among candidates and their supporters in a primary ranks very far down the list of problems with American politics, to me.

And I wasn't mad people were saying Warren should drop out, I was questioning the line of reasoning that blames her in particular for Sanders' current situation. She is -- or was -- just trying to win like everybody else, it's weird to single out the 4th-place person as the cause of whatever ails him.

If Pete and Amy had pulled out earlier Bernie wouldn't have even got this far, but at time it looked like Biden had checked out mentally and wouldn't be able to go head to head with Trump so didn't look a safe bet. If they had pulled out later Bernie would have cemented front runner status and would probably have been to late for the others.

I take your point on the polls Milo, I'm not entirely convinced when push came to shove those Warren voters would have actually come across to Bernie

oh shit, she got 200K in Texas? scrub that last comment

― anvil, Wednesday, 4 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Is Texas still too close to call?

nyt has given it to biden

Katherine I have noticed parents tend to be hostile when one suggests their children are likely to have miserable lives on a dying earth

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Wednesday, 4 March 2020 04:45 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

hey, you really wanna get to em, try letting slip that you think things will be ok.

Bexar County (San Antonio) is acting very suspicious. It is the most significant county in Texas for Bernie support. Yet, only 1 out of 728 precincts have reported. And now, they are reporting a "software malfunction" with the election machines. Keep an eye on this one.

— Brian Anderson (@bd_anderson227) March 4, 2020

Compared to what?

To not being the way they are?

You start off with establishment in scare quotes, then I explicate by what I mean by establishment (though I hadn't actually used the word in this thread I don't believe), to which you say well that's "just politics."
Yes, that's what the establishment is and what that means - and whether you want to call it the establishment or "just politics," it's lead to the fucked up world we inhabit. When "just politics" intervenes it does so to ensure that nothing good happens, so that somewhere there's an eight year old living the life I did of watching my mom wind up in the hospital with pneumonia because she couldn't afford to go to a doctor until it was too late, followed by seven years of her being terrified of collections calls, or 18-year old me who dropped out of college after two weeks because I needed to work 40 hours to survive or 38-year old me with a lovely list of ailments because I didn't have insurance for the first 35 years and a $5000 deductible that I couldn't meet for three more.

Bernie Sanders is at best a compromise candidate from a left perspective, who might not get a quarter of his desires accomplished, but he is the only national politician of my lifetime who genuinely seems to give a damn that most people lead difficult, shitty lives and fuck anyone standing in the way of him maybe making it a little bit easier on those people whether it's politics as usual or delusion about playing kingmaker.

i deserve th e most mentally ill president imaginable. 99 year old babbling doofus. Send us into the volcano sir

— wint (@dril) March 4, 2020

This. Warren dropping out won't hurt but isn't a solution to the fundamental problem that Bernie has apparently lost the merely-anti-Clinton part of his (already minority) '16 vote, and his theory for what would replace and expand it isn't panning out at all. https://t.co/5NMw7YFdwx

— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) March 4, 2020

Turnout, suppressed.

This is election fraud. https://t.co/HXEO7msomk

— Sssssnake Dave Anthony (@daveanthony) March 4, 2020

This was very good as well: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/4/21164091/sanders-biden-super-tuesday-endorsements-primary-2020

Twitter isn't real life of course, but once those snake emojis started to climb out of the screen and harrass real voters trapping them in their homes, then Biden became an inevitability

"Or perhaps the well has been poisoned by Sanders supporters filling Twitter with tweets calling Warren a snake and the Democratic establishment a cabal."

Is twitter the real world or not? Can't tell anymore. xp

Even Ezra doesn’t believe any of those endorsements would go to Sanders if only he kissed a little more ass.

The last voter at Texas Southern University has walked out of the voting booth. It took Hervis Rogers nearly 7 hours to vote tonight. #supertuesday2020 pic.twitter.com/kEQ0HgPZHg

— ed lavandera (@edlavaCNN) March 4, 2020

Sanders tweeting a few weeks back 'I've got news for the Democratic establishment: You can't stop us!' looks fairly hubristic in hindsight. Took them all of three days... :(

Mobilised voters being suppressed but the real issue is this: 🐍

You need to get away from Twitter, mate

The trouble with the idea that Sanders' problem is that he treats the Democratic establishment as the enemy, is that exactly could have been said about Trump in 2016. And he won.

You need to get away from Twitter, mate

― Frederik B, Wednesday, 4 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

So does Ezra Klein, mate

Fred and xyzzz, it would be cool if you guys don't start a useless fight all night itt

We're not. It's morning in Copenhagen.

Sorry, I'll lay off

its morning here sic

and they have to do it *somewhere*

(((((i will not say politically homeless)))))

Zelda Zonk, the 538 podcast pointed out the establishment probably just learned their lesson from Trump 16. If Bernie wanted to repeat what Trump did, then it looks like he miscalculated.

Fred and xyzzz, it would be cool if you guys don't start a useless fight all night itt

― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Wednesday, 4 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

All big amigos here, mate

The Democratic establishment's problem is definitely snake emojis and saying mean things and not the policies that he represents.

Warren was taking very similar shit in her time as front-runner.

(She, of course, took Ezra's advice and positioned herself as a unifying force between the establishment and progressives, quickly lost all the moderate support and finished third in her home state and won't be viable in most Super Tuesday states.)

I really don't think Warren was saying stuff like 'the establishment can't stop us'?

But they balked anyway, that's true, the wealth tax was bad enough.

Yeah, that was the point - she didn't use this supposedly problematic rhetoric and they were going to gun for her anyway, because the establishment's actual problem is with ideology not politesse.

Ezra is rehearsing arguments liberals will use when Trump is re-elected.

Obama just got rich, a wealth tax before he could really enjoy it would be cruel.