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

Like, I don't know how the squad does it without fully melting down daily.

I know ppl have qualms with Ilhan Omar but her ability to even go to work every day fucking astounds me.

Bernie’s a great candidate who left and right is being painted as some sort of firebrand. It’s completely against the spirit of his campaign which is oriented toward elevating the voices of struggling americans

― treeship., Friday, March 6, 2020 6:36 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Liz Bruenig's latest column proposes that Sanders win over "normies" by talking more about his plans for child care and paid parental leave:

Americans already support these programs; Mr. Sanders needs to make the case that funding them federally and making them available to all parents is wise, possible and not at all unusual. Here his pitch becomes somewhat paradoxical. While these are workaday government services in many places, America lags our peers here, meaning that introducing them will require a kind of revolutionary politics. But that revolution need not mean what voters fear in the word: chaos and strife. Instead it can be as simple as this: Go to the voting booth for Mr. Sanders, because he wants all kids — your kids, my kids — to be safe and happy. He wants to give all parents time to nurse, cuddle and bond with their newborns without sinking into debt or poverty.

Did the Warren camp complain about snake emojis? Or did the Bernie crew coordinate sending snake emojis, and now they think that's the only thing that happened? I really don't get what happened here, why all of a sudden everyone is pretending Warren is mad about snake emojis

the warren camp complained about snake emojis from bernie supporters for a while back in january, and warren did an interview yesterday complaining about mean bernie supporters online and proposed some sort of nonsensical system for candidates to denounce individual mean tweets made by their supporters?

I'm not saying she's wrong - it could be a winning talking point - but it's almost painfully on-brand that Liz Bruenig thinks Bernie needs to talk about children more

I think it's just a glib way of brushing off the abuse and assholism. SNAKE EMOJIS. FUN! xpost

I honestly haven't paid much attention to the Sanders campaign, mostly because it feels like he's been campaigning for seven years. Sanders fatigue? But I do know a couple of people who, as of several weeks ago, said they had supported and voted for him the last time around but not this time, so I have no idea what changed.

what changed is one of the worst and dumbest human beings in American history wound up becoming the country's most powerful man and broke everyone's brains making every Dem voter's #1 priority become this nebulous thing called "electability"

I don't know what "snake emojis" means either and I haven't bothered to google it, and of the (many) Sanders-skeptic progressives I know or follow online I haven't seen a single person mention it. That it is some kind of default dismissal by Sanders people of concerns raised about his and his supporters' messaging just feels like more denialism to me. But at this point, some of this stuff is just starting to feel like pre-emptive ammo for a defeat. "We lost because a lot of fucking liberals were scared by snake emojis." Maybe that will make some people feel better to say, but it still wouldn't feel as good as actually winning.

so one of my friends is a pastor of a really progressive church. He actually got defrocked in the 80s for marrying same sex couples and although I am not religious at all I listen to his sermons sometimes because they are rooted in science and modernity and reality and acknowledging other faiths. And holy shit, during the snake emoji period he was going to town on Warren's public fb pages in a really juvenile, entitled way. I was shocked. It was really depressing.

"We lost because a lot of fucking liberals were scared by snake emojis."

no one thinks this is why, this is just people expressing frustration with some also obviously too online warren supporters who have directly said "i supported warren and am way closer politically to sanders, but his supporters are Just Too Mean so i'm backing biden."

I have to think that at least a few people who aren't up on The Discourse but do know a thing or two about policy must be wondering why there isn't already a loud and proud Warren/Sanders alliance.

https://i.redd.it/87u4cg0852l41.jpg

Here is a snake emoji explainer: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryancbrooks/warren-bernie-snake-twitter-2020

So, the snake emojis as far as I understood it was after it leaked that Bernie had told Warren that a woman could never be president and the entire rashomon of those events, snake emojis flooded twitter all around the warren campaign as a stand in for her "betrayal" and then add in all the other cesspool types of tweets about her throwing bernie under the bus. xpost

ugh, yeah jaymc's thing is probably better.

I have to think that at least a few people who aren't up on The Discourse but do know a thing or two about policy must be wondering why there isn't already a loud and proud Warren/Sanders alliance.

Because the obsession with "policy" over "politics" is a pretty big blind spot for a lot of Sanders supporters. The two are related but not the same.

xpost lol I had typed out an explanation, too, and then there were so many x-posts that I decided to just post a link.

it was a breakdown of the existing non-aggression pact between their campaigns and seemed like a bizarre, bad faith attempt at a smear so i understand why people were angry with her even if i don't think the way they expressed that was helpful. that's the internet though.

This goes back many xps, but it's funny to me for anyone complaining about Sanders being painted as a firebrand when his entire campaign and presence for the last five years has been REVOLUTION REVOLUTION REVOLUTION.

I have argued to many people, both Sanders supporters and detractors, that his actual record isn't revolutionary at all and he's much less of a radical than people on either the left or right tend to paint him. But you can't blame people for taking the campaign's own marketing at face value.

A better message would've been that US is literally generations behind in development.

Anything’s revolutionary when people are going on about incremental change being the only way forward (and I cbf scrolling back to see if anyone answered the question of how incremental change is going to deal with climate change).

I have argued to many people, both Sanders supporters and detractors, that his actual record isn't revolutionary at all and he's much less of a radical than people on either the left or right tend to paint him

the argument I make a lot is that his goals re: healthcare, education, and taxes are arguably less radical than what we were doing during America's "prosperity" period in the 60s, conditions which a lot of old Trump supporters have directly benefitted from

They only look radical because we've moved rightward since 1966.

sanders has repeatedly made the "my policies aren't radical compared to the rest of the world and america's past" point

And he's right. But he's also running on REVOLUTION.

I saw a good post on a friend's FB page the other day by someone saying that it seems like a fundamental difference between Sanders' base and the rest of the Democratic primary electorate is that his base thinks this is a change election -- this is where we finally start to take apart the late capitalist machine, throw all the bourgeois pigs against the wall, etc. And for the rest of the electorate, who probably have a range of feelings about that machine, from rage to affection, it's not a change election, it's three-alarm fire response to get this fucking guy and his whole terrible party out of the White House. Those aren't necessarily conflicting impulses, you can want to do both of them, but they come from different directions and are ultimately headed different places.

I hate to speculate on what he should or should not say, but imo it's not hard to make the case that any attempt to retreat to a bygone era or "restore norms" without serious structural change is doomed to usher in bigger fires later. (In the case of climate change, quite literally.)

Anything’s revolutionary when people are going on about incremental change being the only way forward

Given the gradual rightward drift over the last half century, incremental change has its work cut out to stand still

Well yeah. Be nice to see people drop the ReVOlUtIoN argument in that context...

@tipsy: Yep, I think that's right. It's also the difference between the Democratic and Republican electorates. Dems have more affection for their establishment, so it's hard to make a REVOLUTION message appeal broadly.

Maybe part of the problem is that most liberals can:t imagine anything worse than Trump.

I hate to speculate on what he should or should not say, but imo it's not hard to make the case that any attempt to retreat to a bygone era or "restore norms" without serious structural change is doomed to usher in bigger fires later. (In the case of climate change, quite literally.

The key is to put it in a framework that people feel is consistent with American values and traditions. More New Deal, less Denmark.

i don't understand the dem affection for their useless establishment at all. trump is the most dangerous president ever!!! but also we should try to compromise with him on everything too in the spirit of bipartisanship? as an outsider it's completely baffling

I have to think that at least a few people who aren't up on The Discourse but do know a thing or two about policy must be wondering why there isn't already a loud and proud Warren/Sanders alliance.

I don't know what the Discourse is, but this could once again mark the difference between message and messenger. Warren being the much better merger of the two, but America (and most places) are pretty misogynist.

any attempt to retreat to a bygone era or "restore norms" without serious structural change is doomed to usher in bigger fires later. (In the case of climate change, quite literally.)

True. And that kind of structural change is really hard, for all the obvious reasons (entrenched interests, inertia, inherent fear about change in general). So to make it happen, you need a big mandate. For a big mandate, you need a lot of people with you. Effective campaigns of all kinds are the ones that get that mass of people, which comes through alliances and coalition-building.

I know Michael Harriot isn't popular with everyone, but in his column about black voters and the Sanders campaign the other day, he ended by saying, "You need more voters." You need more voters.

Warren being the much better merger of the two, but America (and most places) are pretty misogynist.

And yet Hillary, who I think we can all agree was a v flawed messenger and also a woman, got 3m more votes than Trump.

and obama solved racism.

and the Electoral College exists.

good thing the establishment is lined up behind someone who wants to get rid of it. oh wait, nvm

most recent episode of Ezra Klein's podcast was v interesting, he and Yglesias envisioned what Sanders and Biden presidencies would actually look like. they didn't say anything particularly surprising but the discussion did crystallize some of the difficulties Sanders might be inviting in terms of compromising not with Republicans but with members of his own party. obviously Bernie has worked on things with his colleagues in the past but not when he's in the position of being the POTUS, and I think there are legitimate concerns Klein and Yglesias expressed that Sanders might have a hard time choosing between compromising with centrist Dems to push his policies forwards vs. having a fight about it.

(in fairness, this was far from a Bernie-bashing exercise, they were quite positive about his foreign policy prospects as a skeptic of American power, though even then they did acknowledge Bernie is going to run into staffing issues exacerbated by the fact that he doesn't have a whole lot of relationships with entrenched government types).

i don't understand the dem affection for their useless establishment at all. trump is the most dangerous president ever!!! but also we should try to compromise with him on everything too in the spirit of bipartisanship? as an outsider it's completely baffling

― ufo, Friday, March 6, 2020 8:27 AM (six seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think it's less about specific Democratic leaders and more about a general faith in norms and institutions, which carries over into the political establishment. Upholding the status quo is a form of #resistance. This is the MSNBC worldview in the Trump era.

i mean if anyone is actively working on the bernie campaign you should listen to tipsy. Although I kind of figure if anyone is actively working on the bernie campaign, you wouldn't be posting here right now.

and there won't be a hint of change under Biden xps

I think if you’re leaning hard on misogyny being the reason for either Clinton or Warren’s losses, you’re only fooling yourself. It’s a factor, but by no means the only one.

The one time Sanders-supporting friends on FB change the subject is when I ask, "Even given how the two campaigns don't want to seen by Alabamans and Virginians working together, will Sanders support Doug Jones in his Senate race or, say, Abigail Spanberger in her House race?"

If I was on the Bernie campaign, I would simply try to get more voters. If I was running for president, I would simply get more votes. Genius analysis. Now, let’s go back to sticking at the same two anti-Bernie points the last few hundreds of replies have circled obsessively.

 it's not hard to make the case that any attempt to retreat to a bygone era or "restore norms" without serious structural change is doomed to usher in bigger fires later. (In the case of climate change, quite literally.)

I think some people see it as retreat to norms is less likely to cause bigger fires later than a guy who will literally spend the next four years pouring gas on said fires

*I voted for Bernie don't cyberbully me

In the absence of a potentially viable left-wing challenger in either case, I don't see why not? xps

Well, on the "more voters," there's an inherent conflict between "we are running to destroy you, the liberal establishment" and "we are running to help you fight those other people you hate." The former works ok for an insurgent campaign up to a point -- the point we are at now, basically -- and then if you want to be more than a leftist splinter movement and take on the mantle of one of the two (very flawed, deeply problematic) major political parties in the country, you have to lean a lot more heavily on the latter. There are probably candidates and campaigns smart and effective enough to do that. We'll see if this is one of them.

I think some people see it as retreat to norms is less likely to cause bigger fires later than a guy who will literally spend the next four years pouring gas on said fires

Many people absolutely do see it this way. The trick is how to convince them that's not at all the case, and I'd be lying if I said I had a good strategy to do it. I do think many of the proposed talking points itt are either misconceived or have already been tried (or both), but I mean, this is the difficulty with running a campaign that is in many ways totally unprecedented. The thing about uncharted territory is it's easy to get lost! And anyone who thinks there's a simple or obvious solution is kidding themselves. (And tbc I don't think a Warren coalition would be a surefire winner or campaign saver, just that it might help allay some people's concerns.)

In re Warren and sexism, this is kind of the same thing. I do think sexism was a huge factor for her to overcome, as it was for Hillary, as it will continue to be for women in leadership roles everywhere for some time to come. But also, that's the landscape, those are the obstacles. You can't wish them away, you have to overcome them. I liked Warren way more than I liked anyone else running for president. I do think her failure is a sad sign of the ongoing strength of sexism in America in general and American politics in particular. But she's smart, she knew that going in. It turns out she wasn't the candidate to break through it. She didn't run whatever campaign would have succeeded, and she didn't get enough votes.

Sanders trying to get more votes is a good strategy, and he should change his campaign to try and do that, instead of, as they said, going for 30% and betting it would be enough in a fractured field. The question is how to do so