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

there are turning points and key moments/pieces of legislation/rulings etc. but those are all built on the small(er) steps that preceded them

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I'm for Bernie but will vote for Biden if it comes to that, obviously. I worry, though, even if he beats Trump. I worry about the way he views Trump as a fluke that, once vanquished, will reset things back to... the still awful Republicans of the W/Obama years? I'm 35 and all my political life I've seen the right grow increasingly unhinged. Yet folks like Joe seem to still view them as "the loyal opposition", despite many Republicans' view that Democrats/PoC as inherently illegitimate in regards to holding power (such as that move in Wisconsin to sabotage the incoming governor).

I think it is... optimistic to believe that Trump losing will chasten the Republicans into doing their equivalent of the '90s DNC triangulation to the center. If anything, I fully expect them to double-down.

Biden has certainly supported bad policies in the past and generally represents a dated approach to politics that no longer applies. But can we take any comfort from the fact that even he has been pushed more to the left in this primary than he was before, and that his administration would likely find roles for younger, more progressive Democrats?

― jaymc,

I take comfort in Biden not being Donald Trump.

can we take any comfort from the fact that even he has been pushed more to the left in this primary than he was before, and that his administration would likely find roles for younger, more progressive Democrats?

Almost certainly gonna have to find roles for younger Democrats because older ones are, like, dead

every revolution is incremental

― Οὖτις, Thursday, March 5, 2020 12:53 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

I might refine just a touch by saying 'every sustainable revolution is incremental'. You can overthrow the government tomorrow if you want (it's easy if you try!) but I don't know that you'd like what ultimately results from that action.

Yeah my concern is Joe rolls over for belly rubs at every chance and all he gets for his trouble is the gop calling him the leader of a socialist movement trying to destroy capitalism and christianity.

And Joe’s just there grinning like a dipshit and thinking “gee fellows glad we’re all friends again!”

his administration would likely find roles for younger, more progressive Democrats?

well, the first part, sure.

Joe still mystified about "what happened" to his good friend Lindsay Graham

Someone is really going to have to explain the Warren appeal to me that takes into account her MASSIVE FUCKING UNFORCED ERROR with her stupid DNA test! Like this is bring glossed over like it’s a completely normal to do and Warren fans have nothing to be smug about. That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen a politician do and I’m Irish living in the UK! Did you think that would never come back to fuck her up again and again and again? What good is a thoughtful policy platform when you shat the bed under zero pressure? Did you think there was any good precedent to be found in politicians doing DNA tests in response to the shithousing of an opponent? What about this made you think she could go toe to toe with Trump in 2020 and come out a winner?

You can overthrow the government tomorrow if you want (it's easy if you try!) but I don't know that you'd like what ultimately results from that action.

crassbloodyrevolutions.flv

Incremental, honestly lads, the climate hasn’t got time for “incremental”. Just dismissing all radical proposals out of hand without a thought as to why some of them are so radical?

MASSIVE FUCKING UNFORCED ERROR with her stupid DNA test

I voted for Warren in the primary and agree this was just really awful, a true harbinger of her inability to run a successful campaign

I thought it was stupid that she did that but I don't think it actually impacted her run one way or the other. It did call into question her judgement on things to me; but I still voted for her. I don't think the people who didn't vote for her did so because of that.

Warren's DNA test thing was dumb as hell but I'd hardly call it a make-or-break wrt her candidacy/viability as president. I guess I'd like to think that was a teachable moment for her, but who can say for sure.

yeah I agree w akm

But did you think that wasn’t going to be coming up again and again in the general? It’d be months and months of Pocahontas and the worst part would be, it was entirely self-inflicted.

not massive

Maybe I'm just trying to put a rosy spin on a potential Biden nomination, but I'm also trying to answer to people whose support of Bernie is predicated on the assumption that no other candidate could possibly offer anything even the slightest bit progressive. I get why people distrust Biden based on his record, but the direction of the party is moving left, and I have to imagine that any Democratic administration would be shaped by that.

I think she reacted like a human being rather than as a politician. Yes, slightly concerning in terms of her political instincts but also reflective of what I find appealing about her as a politician.

it really didn't bother me but that's me. If i had been told I was part native american growing up I would've believed it until I took a dna test. I probably would not have made a video about it.

it was super fucking embarrassing but i suspect anyone who cares about the Pocahontas shit was voting for Trump anyway

It was lousy political instincts and she could have turned it into something much better about the way many white Americans have been sold a connection to Native Americans through family lore as a way to ignore genocide and land theft but it didn't really matter.

best-case scenario, the legislative landscape breaks down like this:
- House (most progressive)
- Biden presidency (kinda in the middle)
- Senate (least progressive - thx to Manchin, Tester, etc.)

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To look on the bright side: if Bernie fails, he's at least definitively proved it's possible to be nationally viable on a campaign funded almost entirely by small donations / not beholden to the special interests that act as a major blocker to the kind of large structural change people generally seem to want and agree would be a net good. I hope we can all agree that is A Good Thing.

Ppl often talk about the left as a monolith but I doubt many think of Bernie as "the ideal candidate"; most would vastly prefer someone less old, less shouty, less white, less male. Someone more demographically pleasing who could build up enough of a base to make that same funding model work could very well deliver what he may prove unable to one or two or three cycles down the line, and he'll have laid a lot of very important groundwork and precedent. (AOC's her own person obviously, but it's tough to imagine her political awakening and small-donor backing without Bernie's 2016 campaign.) So as much as a Biden win would bum me and many others the fuck out, I can't see this as a total loss.

ie a repeat of Obama in '08-'09

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it's possible to be nationally viable

? he's never won a national campaign

Vindictive Amy Klobuchar Elected Mayor Of South Bend, Indiana https://t.co/UPZKczd4iG pic.twitter.com/GhPIDDasGJ

— The Onion (@TheOnion) March 5, 2020

? he's never won a national campaign

christ, COMPETITIVE. you knew what I meant.

synonyms, how do they work?

at least Shakey's committed to his shtick

I don't think "competitive in a primary" and "nationally viable" mean the same thing...?

I'm also trying to answer to people whose support of Bernie is predicated on the assumption that no other candidate could possibly offer anything even the slightest bit progressive

We're not talking 'no other candidate' though, we're talking about Biden - Iraq twice, brags about actually secretly authoring the PATRIOT Act, Hyde Amendment stan until 2019, bankruptcy bill, drug warrior, mass incarceration. He even opposed Hillarycare in the '90s.

Giving a speech about a $15 minimum wage now doesn't mean terribly much when there's nothing in your five decade political history to indicate you actually care about or will fight for progressive causes. Particularly when you round that speech out with your desire to work with Republicans.

like, was Jesse Jackson "nationally viable"? idk

xpost
good post Simon

I had a realization speaking with a female friend, she just didn't LIKE Bernie on a fundamental level, like he just reminded her (she said) of older men who talk over her in meetings and dismiss her

I think the same way a lot of people didn't like Hillary, they both rub certain ppl the wrong way

(she was a big Warren fan)

I don't like Biden (at all) but I don't think he's an unprincipled right winger as much as someone who follows the political calculus of his party

Iraq twice, brags about actually secretly authoring the PATRIOT Act, Hyde Amendment stan until 2019, bankruptcy bill, drug warrior, mass incarceration

unfortunately Democratic majorities supported all these things

Bernie has won elections in like 22 different states.

(well ok I don't think a majority supported the Hyde amendment in 2019 - he was behind on that one)

xps

she just didn't LIKE Bernie on a fundamental level, like he just reminded her (she said) of older men who talk over her in meetings and dismiss her

I hear this a lot, I think it's a basic component of why he has the ceiling he does tbh

^^^ this is my wife. She thinks Bernie’ a jerk.

He wasn't just a backbench Representative following orders, he was a senior Senator with a profile big enough to run for President multiple times, instrumental in building the party support for most of those things.

no argument there

what % of those do we think those instinctual Bernie dislikers are latent anti-Semites in the same way Warren haters are latent misogynists? I'll take answers off-air. xps

principled leadership is not his thing. making "deals" that appeal to some mythical center is his thing.

what % of those do we think those instinctual Bernie dislikers are latent anti-Semites in the same way Warren haters are latent misogynists?

oh cool are we calling all the women in my family self-hating jews now?

whoa now only the Left can “do tropes”

just saying both sides can play at that stupid game

(ftr I DON’T think ppl who aren’t enamored w Bernie or think he’s shouts are antisemitic)

I don't think there's a ton of anti-semitism in the Democratic opposition to Bernie tbh

now, in the general election it'd be a different story, because anti-semitism nationally will go through the fucking roof

xpost yeah the summary of feedback on bernie I have seen form my friends that agree with his platform yet still think he's a narcissist that spent his political career beautifying the very white Vermont and forgive me hE mArCHeD with MLk.

Side note science question re the DNA test not showing any Native/indigenous ancestry: Do people understand that you only get HALF of each parent's DNA and you don't know which half? So I could have an elephant in my ancestry but potentially not inherit those genes from one parent or the other, but one of my siblings *could* inherit them, so they could get the result of 10% elephant and I could get 0% but we still both "have" the genetic inheritance in an inexact way.

Or I have I completely misunderstood?