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

I plan on being disappointed, yeah, I'm not throwing in the towel though. It's fucking Joe Biden.

For the primary math, its key that Warren attracted people with progressive values that wouldn't otherwise vote for Sanders (around half her support). Drop her out of the equation, and Biden would benefit everywhere as much or more than Sanders.

Only two arguments for keeping her around. She's the attack dog that may have saved us from Bloomberg, and these fuckers are 77+ years old in the midst of an epidemic that targets old people.

Also, when is it okay to kvetch about African American primary voters? Never? Fine. But hang around long enough and you'll have some resentments.

They sure do.

easy to forget but Warren is 70

thread keeps discovering new depths congrats all

neither here nor there, but when I voted I saw Castro on the ballot, really like that guy wish he would have stayed in longer

Also, when is it okay to kvetch about African American primary voters? Never? Fine. But hang around long enough and you'll have some resentments.

― Save us, Covid19 (Sanpaku), Wednesday, March 4, 2020 8:57 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

flagged, come the fuck on man.

wasn't just african-american voters springing for biden. they certainly didn't win him massachusetts or maine.

the electability concerns of the older and blacker states are real and fair, but watching my performatively woke friends on social media breathe a sigh of relief today really lays bare that the problems they had with Bernie really were about the fact they might have to pay higher taxes

Biden has barely run a campaign so far. Limited funding, few events, in some states no visits. He had little grass roots financial support, and made few special efforts to court minorities. So what did the Senator from Citibank do to earn such loyalty?

sustained O proximity

afaict at least some part of it (originally said "a lot of it" but I couldn't find actual statistics this granular) is just the same older voter/younger voter split in a different demographic

malarkey levels at an all time low

older voter/younger voter split

this is the shit getting us killed fuckin everywhere

christ, Biden won North Carolina by 19 fucking points. I saw seemingly reputable polls a week ago that had Sanders slightly ahead.

this has probably already been litigated upthread but I think these results show the limits of Bernie's magical thinking wrt enacting change through grassroots revolution. I still think he's an infinitely superior candidate to Biden which is why I voted for him, but I think whether it's black voters or white suburbanites or whomever delivered for Biden, it's clear they're not buying what Bernie's selling and part of that is on him for not being more pragmatic in how he frames things. like, I don't think saying he'd get rid of the fillibuster would have automatically changed his fortunes in any state but that kind of unwillingness to be concrete in explaining HOW he's going to achieve the shit he wants to achieve is symptomatic of his campaign.

“i’m older than dirt but i vote” bumperstickers, they flyin out

after gorging themselves at the all-u-can eat buffet, boomers are not only content to walk out on the check, they’re going to burn the whole restaurant down

Fuck it; raise the voting age to 50. Use it or lose it. (Note: I am 48.)

The entire impeachment hullabaloo was free Biden publicity afaict. Hey, I remember that name!

on one hand I know intellectually generations are fake and generational divisions are unhelpful and too sweeping

but otoh fuck boomers. die faster

And now for a seven month engagement of Weekend at Bidens.

Fivethirtyeight haven't unfrozen their forecast yet, but this writeup is not comforting: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-biden-beat-expectations-on-super-tuesday/ They point out that the three states Bernie won outside of Vermont, California, Colorado and Utah, all vote by mail, so they might not have been as impacted by the shift towards Biden late in the race. That's bad news for next week.

Confusing use of commas there, sorry

It's worth noting that there was a double digit increase in turnout over 2016. More voters were showing up, just not Warren/Sanders voters.

xp -- the second post got eaten but it was along the lines of "black voters aren't a monolith, as far as I can tell younger black voters, like younger voters in general, were more likely to prefer sanders"

christ, Biden won North Carolina by 19 fucking points. I saw seemingly reputable polls a week ago that had Sanders slightly ahead.

Those particular polls did have two other candidates in them tbf!

black voters aren't a monolith but old voters are pretty fuckin close

well, also, no, given that "old voters" also includes many, many trump voters

And now for a seven month engagement of Weekend at Bidens.

Eh, he and Sanders are almost the same age, and only one of them had a recent heart attack (that we know of). Regardless, if either of them was in the WH I can think of so much bad shit that would immediately stop or be reversed (again), and I would breathe a (slight) sigh of relief that the composition of the SC won't get even worse. So I don't see why I should be pooping on Biden when his potential election gets me much of what I'd want from a president for the next four years. Which is to say, what someone here or somewhere else said, a president you can ignore. That's the upside of boring.

(weirdly, I've primarily heard the "they're all so old, why are we electing people who are so old" argument from boomers)

are there any good articles about people who feel “democrat” and “republican” are identities in an id politics way, because

I was just talking Dem voters tbc

I’m not responding to anything in particular, just floating some ideas

I hope all these Biden voters turn out in the general election after the months and months of Biden #metoo, dementia, and Burisma corruption stories we have to look forward to. It's on them now.

Keep at it, man.

Ezra Klein has written about "stacked identities," explaining partisan polarization as a consequence of long-term sorting into parties along demographic lines (rural/urban, white/nonwhite, Christian/other). The idea being that the more demographic identities you have that correspond with one party, the more likely you are to not just support but identify with that party. I think some of this research may be based on the work of Lilliana Mason.

my new take is that neither bernie nor biden should’ve run at all.

raise your hand if you want another fun primary in 2024

that is my old take ^^^.

Frankly the best case is now is that Biden chooses Harris as his VP, somehow wins, then dies approximately one hour after taking the oath of office.

(joking)

man, he might not make it to November

(man used in the colloquial non-gendered sense)

many xxps those Trump tweets aren't angling for Bernie voters, nor does he actually want to face Bernie. I don't get why people are still buying this.

I have no opinion about who Trump wants to face -- I think he is surrounded by bootlickers who are telling him he'll crush any opponent and he probably believes it.

But those tweets are 100% angling at Bernie voters. He's not trying to get their votes, he's trying to bolster their general sense that the system is rigged and there's no point in participating, so they might as well stay home. That's the play and always has been the play. Trump doesn't win by getting people to vote for him, he wins by getting people to feel like it's not worth it to vote against him.

xp:

There's still hope, then.

my new take is that neither bernie nor biden should’ve run at all.

Cosign. I feel like we could be having a lot of the same policy conversations right now if e.g. Warren and Harris were the frontrunners, but it wouldn't be as soiled by people's locked-in issues re Obama and H Clinton, and we'd be talking about two people we were absolutely sure were capable of serving two terms as President.

just looking at these numbers it's not hard to think that if you removed warren and bloomberg biden would've won even more states.

i am cynical about any dem nominee beating incumbent trump in a good economy (obv a recession and/or corona crisis could change that) but there are reasons to think biden could win. he doesn't scan as an elitist at all like gore or kerry and he isn't hated like hillary. maybe he really is the generic democrat who wins against trump in polling. maybe they can just hide him until the election and he can pick a young exciting VP to do most of the campaigning for him?

Hey everybody cheer up United Healthcare stock up 12%

Trump knows Joe Biden has nothing more to offer a critical block of WI-MI-PA etc voters that Hillary didn't. They'll clobber him on trade and jobs.

Hell he's said as much in private—what's he's afraid of is a populist immune to that line of attack.

Hell he's said as much in private

remarks leaked to the press.

I hope all these Biden voters turn out in the general election after the months and months of Biden #metoo, dementia, and Burisma corruption stories we have to look forward to. It's on them now.

― Har Mar Klobuchar (PBKR), Wednesday, March 4, 2020 9:39 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if only there was any indication of this for the last year