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

Bernie voters who left voicemails on Roberta Lange's phone in 2016

This is harassment and unconscionable, yes. As Simon notes, also happens to Bernie surrogates.

What happens on a public Twitter feed is very different.

so we've now moved from "hmm she hasn't endorsed Bernie yet, not sure if she will" to "lol she won't endorse Bernie cos someone posted a snake on her twitter page, what a selfish asshole".

xpost it's not real if it's on Twitter!

Warren supporters are...rich?

Relatively speaking, yes - Warren voters were second only to Harris voters in incomes above $100k

nagl to basically tar every Warren voter with that brush.

my feed is full of Warren voters. Most of my female friends, my own mother, all Warren voters. not a damn one of them are rich. actually, most of them are paycheck to paycheck, and some are not doing well at all.

a few of them have even called out Sanders supporters for their toxicity. thanks for the suggestion that they're just coddled bitches guys!

Wait til you hear about poor Trump voters!

Fuck you dude

The Warren and Sanders supporters I know are mostly in the low-to-middle income range, with no real economic difference between them. But I'm sure that overall Warren supporters were more affluent, because her base was small and mostly college educated.

But again, this is the same, "The world sucks so I'm allowed to be a jerk" argument, which is just, like, not true. Those two things aren't connected.

xxxps Neanderthal way harsh?

Anyway, yes, speaking of compartmentalization I can hold the idea that some Bernie Sanders supporters are assholes, and at the same time know with utter certainty that in the big picture a year from now this is all absolutely meaningless.

But what if Bernie wins and appoints JFL6969 Secretary of The Interior!

Xpost Just call Warren supporters snowflakes while you're at it

xps - I very clearly said "if that's her reason." That's the assumption Hadrian is making in their argument. I suspect there's a good chance they're wrong in that assumption, a lot can happen in the next few days and who knows if she's not just taking another angle she thinks will put her in a better position to fight for progressive goals. But if it's the case, yeah, she's a selfish asshole.

Xpxost so you're asking for... civility?

How dare you

Yeah, I am.

I try to be civil with others, and when they are not with me I also try not to react by staying up all night banging my head against a wall. I need my brain for tomorrow.

Well, let's say you just don't buy it, you don't think anyone should care about people being assholes as long as there are worse things in the world. OK. But then you see this small but potentially useful base of Warren voters, 8-10 percent of the primary electorate, which is probably enough to make a difference in this race. And let's say that that 8-10 percent actually does notice and care when people are being assholes, and they're not going to be super receptive to your guy as long as he's surrounded by a buzzing cloud of assholes. And in your heart you think, "Fuck off, who cares about the Asshole Cloud, we're fighting a war here." That's fine, think it. But also maybe, just strategically, not because you really mean it or believe it, you could walk over and say, "Hey, sorry about the Asshole Cloud. Those guys are jerks! But we're not all like that. Have you thought about Bernie?"

IF YOU DO THAT YOU CONDONE MULTIPLE NOTORIOUS GENOCIDES BEEP BLOOP B ERNIE SANDERS BORP

xp thanks for the tip, I've been doing that for months

this is about political calculus on a candidate's part, at the 11th hour of the most important election of our lifetimes

I'm not new here, it's just that all of the horrible things I hear about berniebros I get secondhand from people here complaining about it. I agree with Bernie's platform and so do most of you and so do some assholes on twitter. Everyone wants Trump out, so what's to be done? Do we say, "yeah I'll vote for Bernie in the general, but just look at how stupid and offensive his supporters are. I can't be aligned with that lot"? I'd rather just jump on the Bernie bandwagon and hope for the best.

And let's say that that 8-10 percent actually does notice and care when people are being assholes, and they're not going to be super receptive to your guy as long as he's surrounded by a buzzing cloud of assholes.

No one who would vote for Biden because of snake emojis would have voted for Sanders in a heads-up match.

I regularly see Bernie ppl imploring others to be nice to other candidates' supporters (esp on Reddit). (xps)

This isn't Warren-Sanders where you can argue they stood for the same fundamental policy so feeling better about one or the other can sway you.

Worth a glance:

1/ I run Media Matters (a media watchdog organization). I want to say something about @ewarren's departure from the race. Horserace, polls, nomination aspect aside aside, we will all feel the effects of Warren's absence from the race, whether you realize it or not. Here's why...

— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 6, 2020

Yeah, that's kind of the whole thing. xp

Anyway, yes, speaking of compartmentalization I can hold the idea that some Bernie Sanders supporters are assholes, and at the same time know with utter certainty that in the big picture a year from now this is all absolutely meaningless.

Well, actually no, it won't be meaningless a year from now. A campaign that purports to be a movement will be pretty limited at movement-building, and coalition-building, if it becomes chiefly known for its assholes. The fact that the assholes are concentrated online hardly diminishes this concern, since that's where much movement building actually occurs these days.

So yes, the phenomenon of Sanders-related assholery and bullying is worthy of examination and (for those who care about the candidate and the movement) self-criticism, precisely in order to become more effective.

The media certainly doesn't have anything to do with the narrative - like using tweets from Trump supporters to show what meanies Sanders people are online. That didn't happen over the last month, definitely.

It's an uncontrollable situation - precisely because Twitter is an open, public platform.

if it becomes chiefly known for its assholes

lollll yes Bernie's senate staffers have been known for decades for being SUPER ASSHOLES, they're at the their very douchiest I understand when advocating for more public housing

some straight lunacy up in here

Given that Sanders still has extremely high likability ratings for a politician (for a SOCIALISSSSST politician), I don't think it's particularly a worry, particularly since the 'next Bernie' is unlikely to be an old white guy.

if only Bernie Sanders was better at building movements hmmm

current best conspiracy aside from the weird Russian false time thing where Charlemagne never existed - the DNC is using Biden to lock up the nomination then they'll make him resign for health reasons just before the convention in order to put a better candidate in

twitter psychos don't help anything but...

No one who would vote for Biden because of snake emojis would have voted for Sanders in a heads-up match

is pretty much true.

xp they can just tell him his office is down a well and he'll jump right in

enjoying this circle jerk?

They'd be smarter to Weekend At Bernie's him through the general, then heart attack gun in April and we can have 11.75 years of Buttigieg or Klobuchar

I miss when this thread wasn't twitter

This isn't Warren-Sanders where you can argue they stood for the same fundamental policy so feeling better about one or the other can sway you.

I agree with you and policy and ideology wise I'm with you, but there are a lot of people whose political calculus is not yours. That's always going to be true, it's why every successful movement ends up being a coalition of lots of different interests and perspectives. Figuring out how to make allies is just crucial. And maybe Bernie has people around him who are good at that and are doing it at grassroots levels where it will show up at the ballot box. And we will all say, well done Bernie at building a coalition!

But what is obvious and visible on the surface is not that.

if only Bernie Sanders was better at building movements hmmm

I guess we'll see. That's literally what this whole discussion is about. There's this assurance by Bernie people that they are part of a vast and growing army. We'll all know soon enough.

I mean so are Kiss fans and I still punch them

Ultimately every candidate is responsible for their campaign's failure, so if Warren declines to endorse, I wouldn't say the loss was her fault in the event that Biden wins. But it would certainly be an easier path if the two progressive candidates were presenting a united front, and I haven't seen many indicators yet that Warren intends to help do that, while Bernie hasn't gone negative on her once. That's a fuckin bummer. The centrist candidates had no trouble falling him line and I highly doubt all of 'em think much of Biden.

xxp you don't think he's built a movement?

Win or lose, he's mainstreamed issues that weren't even open for discussion before 2016—with a movement

I mean all she said is she was declining to endorse someone "today", leaving open the idea that it'll happen some time in the future. like...tomorrow?

idk. maybe not. who knows. the political cycle moves so fast and people pivot like they're Kevin Garnett

Sanders has literally no control over what's posted on Twitter, aside from getting elected, nationalizing it and shutting it down. As god wills it, hopefully.

He has built a coalition of lots of different interests and perspectives - he's won with LGBTQ, Latinx and Asian voters, young voters, voters on the lowest end of the income spectrum (who vote Democratic). There are some 'interests and perspectives' that you can't force into a movement, though. It would be great if he did better with black voters - though, based on pull quotes and people I know, if he got in and got M4A passed that would do a lot of the work - but when it comes to po-faced shit like he couldn't 'lock down Clyburn' like that's a personal failing, there are going to be powerful people with their own interests that can't be convinced without betraying all of the principles that started the coalition in the first place. One of those groups most resistant is going to be bougie white people.

if only Bernie Sanders was better at building movements hmmm

He has great strengths as a movement-builder; he has some weaknesses. And they're dynamically related: he is willing to learn from his mistakes, given some time (see for example: the change from 2016 to 2020 in his analysis of the race-class intersection). Obviously there's always more to learn.

for what it's worth, these people have zero effect on my vote, but have a significant effect on my level of volunteering, because of the unpredictable but probably substantial chance of running into the same people I couldn't stand when they were really into cocaine or something awful or whatever

if only people itt had pointed out that they don't blame Bernie for his toxic followers.

He's started three quarters of a movement given The Squad, but if none of them want a higher national profile there's no one next up in line. (Which has been a problem for the gerontocracy of the entire Democratic Party obvs)

It's an aside in this thread but the DSA acting for the last 18 months as a Sanders campaign surrogate has been a mistake (from a longer term perspective).

Cosign Paul Krugman 100%:

About Warren: deeply sad. She was the candidate of ideas, the best hope we had of getting a strongly progressive agenda actually enacted. Plus enormous energy and personal charm. What happened? Well, sexism was a big deal, probably the most important thing.
But she also made one huge strategic mistake: she thought she could win over the Bernie crowd by going for Medicare for All. This was a break with her previous accumulation of medium-sized plans, and opened her for attack. And it didn't win over the Bernistas anyway, because they're only partly about progressive policy; they want someone who channels their sense of grievance. Warren wasn't their type precisely because of the thoughtfulness that attracted her supporters.
And in the end they won't get Sanders either, unless something very strange happens. Among other things, a lot of Warren supporters have come to really dislike Sanders and the people around him. And even if all of them went Bernie, it wouldn't be remotely enough. The only way grievance progressivism could have prevailed was against a fractured field. And the field has unfractured with incredible speed. But progressives shouldn't despair. In many ways they've won the war of ideas. Subject of next tweetstorm

like obviously there's a huge diff between one candidate having asshole voters and him being appalled by it and being comfortable saying so publicly, and a President who has utterly psychotic followers who he eggs and cheers on. there's literally nobody itt accusing Bernie of actually, like, fueling it.

As long as dems keep sniping at one another through November, I'm happy.

― Waifu-ed Around and Fell in Love (Old Lunch), Thursday, March 5, 2020 11:23 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, devoid of context, I would honestly think this thread was the product of people on polar opposite ends of the political spectrum vehemently espousing their wildly-divergent ideologies.

If we were ever to harness just a little of the GOP's self-love we'd be fucken unstoppable.

now I'm imagining Paul Ryan masturbating. thanks

"grievance progressivism"? now there's an asshole.