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

If I was a young person in America staring down the barrel of crushing student debt, nonexistent healthcare and a way of life for my parents that just isn’t possible for me...yeah, I think I’d be “fanatic” too.

except the youth turnout yesterday was deplorable

Some are fanatics, some are disaffected. Both are understandable responses to being deprived of agency and neither is a moral failing.

hard to get to the polls with the student debt weighing them down

younger than average, more poor than average, more vulnerable than average)

more trans than average, more indebted than average, more dead friends than average

Harsh as it sounds, electoral politics are dominated by the average. In local politics, that average is local. To win in national politics you need to build an especially broad coalition and that coalition will be dominated by the national average. I want to live in a country where the young, the poor, the vulnerable, the trans, and the indebted are able to live a decent life with dignity, because widespread misery makes for a miserable society. But that position has to fight raging headwinds caused by capitalism, racism, sexism and fascism.

Also, I'd like to point out that Bernie, while weakened, has not lost. Maybe instead of recriminations and gnashing of teeth, it is a good time to enlarge the coalition.

What percentage of voters in the general are independent and how much do they matter?

xpost after we're done identifying and ousting all the Warren sympathizers and PMC moles

xp - no one doesn't know that - but that was in reference to why tombot can 'be a fucking adult' and the 22-year old trans kid on Twitter making $10 an hour might not react so calmly to possible outcomes.

I feel like that line of argument can't explain why black voters went for Biden?

/ If I was a young person in America staring down the barrel of crushing student debt, nonexistent healthcare and a way of life for my parents that just isn’t possible for me...yeah, I think I’d be “fanatic” too. /

except the youth turnout yesterday was deplorable

NBC only counts about a 50-delegate difference between Biden and Sanders + they are done with the region where Biden has the strongest advantage.

Tbf no 22-yo who is politically engaged and attentive has ever had a calm reaction to an election, however it turns out

Xps to milo, thank you, you put it far better

HRC was ahead by over 200 at this point in 2016 iirc?2xp

From what I've seen most Bernie ppl are sad/mad cause they had higher expectations for Super Tuesday, and also that Biden managed to win in states where they'd made real efforts and he never even so much as visited let alone had a ground game. I don't get the sense they've given up, but they're definitely reeling somewhat.

“reeling” is a choice word for it

they need to stop attacking people who aren't against them and keep working.

we gotta reel in those votes!

are you reeling in the votes
stowing away the votes

NBC only counts about a 50-delegate difference between Biden and Sanders + they are done with the region where Biden has the strongest advantage.

― Sund4r, Wednesday, March 4, 2020 11:53 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

banter heuristic demands the biden vs trump election

also I finally saw that Symone Sanders tackle and it was worth repeated viewing.

HRC was ahead by over 600 delegates after Super Tues 2016!: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/03/02/politics/super-tuesday-results-primary-delegate-race/index.html

It's a gut punch from the quick endorsements and coordinated ad/media strategy from several angles. If it had been a straight Biden/Bernie (or Any Moderate/Bernie) situation from New Hampshire onward, reactions would be less severe.

Bernie isn't out but he probably really really really needs to win in Michigan on tuesday. And the last poll showed Biden overtaking his lead, iirc. But he pulled it off four years ago, so let's keep our fingers crossed!

If it had been a straight Biden/Bernie scenario in New Hampshire Biden would have probably won, btw

I will admit it is a tremendous relief that the Buy The Election Outright approach turned out to be a bust

this is pretty shocking

Joe Biden explains why Bernie Sanders is the best to beat Trump.

(Yes, this is Joe 4 years ago.. I know it's strange watching him talk in full sentences.) pic.twitter.com/5zhs1eYvFu

— Aisha Sharna (@SharnaAisha) March 4, 2020

as I've mentioned before in this thread I've seen Biden make various talk show appearances in '16 and '17 and found myself wishing he'd run

I teach a class and ILX happens.

There's a killer ad just waiting to be cut from that. (Sprinkle in some Obama while yer at it.)

What percentage of voters in the general are independent and how much do they matter?

In Oregon a very large percentage of the voters are registered as unaffiliated, with a few minor parties thrown in for spice, despite the fact of Oregon having closed primaries - something that penalizes them for their lack of major party affiliation, but nevertheless they persist. From that perspective, there are tons of independent voters.

Functionally speaking, almost all those unaffiliated voters tend to vote nearly a straight ticket for one or the other two major parties. From that perspective, the independents are as polarized as the two major parties are.

independent voters are dumbasses

no, they know nothing matters and what if it did

I will admit it is a tremendous relief that the Buy The Election Outright approach turned out to be a bust

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Wednesday, March 4, 2020 2:02 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This can't be stated strongly enough. May it give every other bored Richie Rich second thoughts about similarly pissing their money away.

I need a party that won't drive me crazy.

One that won't make me sick
One that won't make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick

independent voters are dumbasses

ah that reliable ILX nuance

Some party that knows the meaning of, uh “Hey, hit the highway”

My friends, can I interest you in some literature about my good friend, Lyndon LaRouche?

Well, if you change your mind, I'll be in this lawn chair outside the post office all day, and every day for the foreseeable future.

Man, if I'd known a LaRouche reference was all it took to kill this thread stone dead I'da done everyone the favor first thing this morning.

We all spent our lunch breaks furiously crossposting, now everyone is faking a dry cough so they can start drinking before the rush

This is why you need more posters from different time zones btw

First Negroni in an hour!

Warren changing her vague and leftover Republican registration late in life due to realising things and changing her mind is one of the very best things about her, not a disqualifier. Most people don't learn shit the older they get, and even more refuse to acknowledge they have changed, bcz they think it makes them look dumb.

Sanders has often sounded more as if he believes he’s leading his movement in a hostile takeover of the party than a merger with it.

this is also one of Bernie's best features, but yeah it was a misstep to actively campaign on it in the last two weeks.

I feel like that line of argument can't explain why black voters went for Biden?

old black voters in the south are a different demographic from, eg, young black voters in LA. it's not analytically useful to look at who "white voters" went for.

it's like if we'd all agreed to start reading local newspaper comments sections again and spent half the day performatively rolling our eyes at the moronic shit some uninformed and venom-filled insurance salesman in topeka just posted under the local news's reporting about the closing of the Gadsden Galleria Mall. like wtf are we doing here? who cares what these people think? why are any of them being invoked to win arguments? we're smarter than that! ilx can be a space to... not do that!

Dr Casino otm. anyone posting disparagingly itt abt what "berniebros" are saying needs to provide at least 100 citations. every politician ever has loads of idiot or obnoxious supporters, because loads of people are idiots or obnoxious, and loads of perfectly nice people act like idiots or obnoxious dicks if you ask them about two specific topics.

i'll be in I Love Baseball

go to hell, rationalizers

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Thursday, March 5, 2020 5:32 AM (one hour ago)

hi Morbs

btw I stand by the child rapist stuff from right before bedtime last night, death to child abusers in politics

(cool diversion the whole thread can enjoy: his hand-picked successor is enormously worse for the city and at her job)

i wonder what gabneb makes of all this

can I just share with everyone that I’m still chuckling to myself about k3vin’s thinking-out-loud revelation upthread that the D electorate doesn’t really want Bernie? WHAT ARE WE TO DO? truly, incrementalism is so abhorrent, better to go full misanthrope and change your handle to “dr norbius” or something.

hey man, I was being honest about my mixed feelings about how we ended up where we are, which seems to be difficult for a lot of people. I think I’ve been pretty consistent in saying people’s votes should be respected even if their votes and reasons for them are dumb. but go off!

Eh, Warren should not get bonus points because she got it wrong at first. Some of us rarely get to change our minds because we get so many things right the first time, y'know?

Believe me, I know.

Ties into how Bernie's consistency seems to offend some people, like you're dumber if you just always opposed segregation as an innate principle instead of coming to it through learned reflection.

xxpost W O W

That is a hot hot take even for Fred.

tbf he is smarter than everyone here

something you all already know but it is a decades old quote from Gloria Steinem and something that still consistently comes up, that generally "women may be the one group that grows more radical with age" and men grow more conservative due to who loses power and where it shifts.