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

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.

Her poll numbers started dropping when she unveiled the 'M4A after we lose the midterms' plan, so I don't see that she tried to win Sanders voters over with that, given that it was more of a sop to moderates.

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.

Well, in many ways that's true.

xpost fuck off, dude. I'm voting for Bernie. can you not hold two ideas in your head at once?

― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Friday, March 6, 2020 3:30 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

First off, I’m not a dude.

I don’t care about who you’re voting for tbh but I’ve seen so much handwringing about civility and decorum take up needless space in this race as if policy and class aren’t driving forces at all and that this is all about “fans” or stan or “bro” culture rather than differences that mean fucking life and death for people. I’m definitely not saying people should strive to be jerks but it sucks to see the constant erasure of genuine ideological and demographic fault lines

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

I thought the question was whether he can get enough votes to win the nomination. He's got a movement. He hasn't won the race. He and his supporters need to be trying to get as many votes as they can. I think they've already got all the ones who are going to respond to "Fuck you if you don't vote for him," so let's just hope there are in fact other messages getting out.

xps That's a straight bullshit take from Krugman.

The divide that opened up over M4A was not because Sanders voters are "only partly about progressive policy"; to the contrary it was because EW revealed she might not be. This was was largely because she hedged when pressed on paying for it, in the process revealing she might not be able to take one on the chin down the road; nevermind that she then pretty cynically subbed in a regressive head tax (in lieu of a progressive income tax) just to avoid saying she'd raise taxes.

Yes, she couldn't straight up abandon M4A but she got as close as possible.

Speaking of the Squad, I appreciated this tweet:

Effective organizers are welcomers, natural educators, and positive in their interactions.

They make new people feel like theirs is a movement they want to be part of.

Effective organizers treat the internet as an organizing space (although not the *only* organizing space!).

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 4, 2020

A+ AOC

We can definitely solve this tonight right

xpost fuck off, dude. I'm voting for Bernie. can you not hold two ideas in your head at once?

― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Friday, March 6, 2020 3:30 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

First off, I’m not a dude.

I don’t care about who you’re voting for tbh but I’ve seen so much handwringing about civility and decorum take up needless space in this race as if policy and class aren’t driving forces at all and that this is all about “fans” or stan or “bro” culture rather than differences that mean fucking life and death for people. I’m definitely not saying people should strive to be jerks but it sucks to see the constant erasure of genuine ideological and demographic fault lines

― Ok bloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, March 5, 2020 11:24 PM bookmarkflaglink

soooo, my internet's down and I'm using a mobile hot spot and so many posts have kerplunked out of this thread in the last hour that I can't even find my post or the one I was replying to, but I am 96.3% sure this was a reply to Hadrian and not your post. but I apologize if it appeared that way or I didn't put enough xs in the post.

back to the point, I don't care about 'civility' in the sense that I don't think politicians need to play nice in a campaign but I think some of the things itt are being jedi handwaved away that wouldn't elsewhere on this board.

like watching a Berniebro mansplain two of my dear female Warren voter friends is going to make me intervene, and it's not snowflakey to say 'hey let's cut that out'. I also don't blame Bernie for the fact that it is happening.

We need to get off this antagonistic tip with putative allies. It does nothing but balkanize, which does nothing but strengthen the legit villains.

A lot of mainstream Democrats are legit villains to a lot of Sanders supporters

Speaking of legit villains, actual Nazis crashed the Sanders rally tonight.

(rightfully so)

AOC gets it like usual.

that was an xp not to Nazis w/ Bernie

xxxpost they are! lots of people are abusive cocks in general to lots of people, including Bernie, and it shouldn't be tolerated wherever it comes from.

and there are Bernie supporters who get bullied too! I mean, nobody is saying that Bernie's army is 50 million thugs holding baseball bats and honking horns outside of peoples houses for hours. the only point is "hey this is a thing that is happening and it feels like you're saying nuh uh it isn't happening or it is happening but who cares that it is happening".

to be clear the "antagonism" I am referring to is things like friends or colleagues having their weight, appearance, disabilities, etc. mocked, or being DMed with racial slurs, all of which have happened

I don’t care about who you’re voting for tbh but I’ve seen so much handwringing about civility and decorum take up needless space in this race as if policy and class aren’t driving forces at all and that this is all about “fans” or stan or “bro” culture rather than differences that mean fucking life and death for people. I’m definitely not saying people should strive to be jerks but it sucks to see the constant erasure of genuine ideological and demographic fault lines

I mostly agree with the spirit of this and at the same time am of the belief that there need to be spaces and times where sympathizers of the movement/candidate (i.e., people concerned with the driving forces of "policy and class") can discuss issues of rhetoric (it goes way beyond "civility and decorum" imo). A movement is defined not only by what it cares about but also how it communicates, and how it organizes itself. Effective movements include at least some people who are interested in these things, even while keeping an eye on the prize.

We need to get off this antagonistic tip with putative allies.

More than a few posters ITT consider themselves socialists a good bit to the left of Sanders - for better or worse, liberals and socialists are not putative allies. It's nothing but temporary convenience because of how fucked up our country is.