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

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

I think the other danger of leaning too much on the sexism argument is also that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Any candidate from a marginalised group will have bigotry against them to overcome, but the more people hear that female candidates lost because of sexism the less it seems that they can persevere.

(Not disagreeing with your second point, just thinking).

"Why would I owe anybody an endorsement?" she said. "Is that a question they asked everybody else who dropped out of this race?"

You're right, Liz. They didn't ask Wayne Messam.

Its just pathetic.

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 truth now: do you genuinely believe these words typed in this order to be true, or are you having an aneurysm?

FINALLY

Holy shit he’s REALLY going after Warren now. pic.twitter.com/SoGwLy4vWZ

— Self-Made Debtor (@babadookspinoza) March 3, 2020

Sanders campaign meeting:

"Ok we've decided 30% is our sweet spot. no need to do any further work. everyone can go back to being mean on Twitter"

"Make sure you remind people that they are dumb."

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.

yeah this kept sticking in my mind when all the "Bernie's path to the nom is the same as Trump's" pieces came out. the GOP is more than happy to burn it down. Democrats are not.

some of of the best posts are when Fred lovingly extracts a string of words from his own butt them presents them as fact

That list of Sanders-Warren-Biden policy positions really reminds me of something important, which is that a lot of people, me included, supported Warren because we believe in her competence and intelligence, not because we agree with her on every issue. I don't think college should be free, I don't think we should ban nuclear power, and I don't think we should eliminate private insurance. I still think Warren would have been a better president than the guy who agrees with me on those issues.

i maybe imagine most of my institutionalism is rooted in my feelings about failure mode analyses, by which I mean revolution can either be good, or it can turn out terrible. given the wide range of possibilities in human political order, what we have had has been more stable, tho still v unfair, than usual.

so that said, my support for orderly change is not a devotion to incrementalism at all— rather, “get who you prefer in office. force them to enact what you need. now do it again.” so it is not incremental-“ism,” it is an acceptance of the incremental.

undeniably, it’s also a bit of fearful avoidance of catastrophic disorder. the advantage at that point seems to always seems to go even more abruptly to the privileged and wealthy. NB also, I believe that the benefits of incremental change may often accrue to the privileged and wealthy— hello to the last 40 years of the GOP. we are at the precipice of even worse, at which point who knows what is necessary.

peace to those who are suffering so that “only revolution is sufficient,” I think I understand those feelings, that they are legit and real. i’m still all bernie for his objectives. i don’t think he’d end up as bad at his job as like, a chávez de facto petrogarchy.

my advice is not useful, but I’d focus on persuading people to “you can have it so much better.” Feel like, you get more mileage from “hope and change-y” shit than “eh, we KNEW you are not our allies, we just gonna win without you.”

counterpoint we live in a petrogarchy, he might as well at least be a socialist.

Also, Biden is marked a no on "Focus deportation on criminals and national security threats." This is what it says on his website

"In a departure from their predecessors, the Obama-Biden administration took steps to prioritize enforcement resources on removing threats to national security and public safety, not families. It also issued guidance designed to end mass work-place raids and to prevent enforcement activities at sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals, and places of worship."

and here is a quote from three weeks ago:

"As the Nevada caucus results poured in and the former vice-president’s distant second-place finish seemed imminent, his campaign released a joint statement with Latino Victory Fund, an influential political action committee that endorsed Biden earlier last week, committing to a total moratorium on deportations during his first 100 days as president. This seemed to contradict a claim made just hours earlier by one of Biden’s campaign advisers to BuzzFeed News. “(Enforcement) efforts will be narrowly targeted to those who commit a felony offense in the United States or who present a national security threat,” the adviser reportedly said."

So here I think all three Democrats actually agree, and I agree with them.

eephus! i am kind of opposite. I agree with every single thing on bernie's platform (although I personally have GOP shades of why can't people be responsible and make better choices exasperation) but I know that not everyone was born into the same lot and that makes the ultimate difference. But I still thought Warren was a much better candidate in almost every other way. Hopefully she will back Bernie but I also totally empathize with why she would not.

xp

“You should vote for Trump,” Joe Biden tells @CosechaMovement protester Carlos Rojas at tonight’s town hall in Greenwood, S.C.

Rojas and other protesters from the group were criticizing Obama-era deportations and asked Biden to say he’d end all deportations — which he rejected. pic.twitter.com/od188WIlrQ

— Eric Bradner (@ericbradner) November 22, 2019

I agree with Obama and Biden that we should deport the tiny fraction of undocumented people who are in jail for raping and murdering. So does Sanders, per his campaign manager. "“We’re talking about … violent criminals (sitting) in jail or prison right now, upon their, the end of whatever sentence they may currently have, they would be deported,”

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/biden-and-bernie-pivot-on-deportations.html

I do not agree that Carlos Rojas should vote for Trump.

Were there 3 million cases like that?

I highly doubt it.

so presumably his lack of a checkmark there is based on actions not words

"I agree with Obama and Biden that we should deport the tiny fraction of undocumented people who are in jail for raping and murdering. So does Sanders, per his campaign manager. "“We’re talking about … violent criminals (sitting) in jail or prison right now, upon their, the end of whatever sentence they may currently have, they would be deported,”"

A lot of people in the Sanders movement would go against these narratives and say so. Potential of discourse changing around a lot of issues. Its the danger of any kind of shift rather than #revolution.

Sanders has plenty of problematic history on immigration, including voting for an amendment supporting the Minutemen vigilante patrols, back in his "tough on crime" days.

And guns issues, iirc.

The only revolution I really want right now is significantly more people voting democratic than GOP in every election, local and national, going forward.

Sanders has plenty of problematic history on immigration

nobody's perfect, but pretty much everyone looks good on this next to the deporter in chief's right-hand man imo

Pence?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers/story?id=41715661

I'd rather not get too hung up on the past when the present is beyond the pale.

The past is one of the options being offered up.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/obama-record-deportations-deporter-chief-or-not

If anyone thinks Biden will be as bad as Trump, because Obama, they are welcome to that opinion.

The only revolution I really want right now is significantly more people voting democratic than GOP in every election, local and national, going forward.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 6 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

That's not a revolution, nor is there any sense of urgency on what will need to be done. That's not a strategy for Democrat domination.

Every time anyone talks about Bernie as an “old white man” I’m going to remember that nazis went to his rally and hung a swastika

— Gita Jackson, Mrs. Dr. Caspar Darling (@xoxogossipgita) March 6, 2020

I think the problem that I keep having with my more moderate “but the norms! civility! cheeeto!” friends is that they just don’t appreciate how the Democratic establishment has been infiltrated and taken over by moderate conservatives over our lifetime. Not in any conspiratorial way (per se), but it’s simply what’s going to happen when your focus become corporate and billionaire donors in the neolib era.

As mentioned upthread, the best tactic would be to invoke the OG New Deal.

If anyone thinks Biden will be as bad as Trump, because Obama, they are welcome to that opinion.

Kindly point out where anyone said this thx

If anyone thinks Biden will be as bad as Trump, because Obama, they are welcome to that opinion.

Elizabeth Warren urged by National Organization for Women not to endorse Bernie Sanders, told he has "done next to nothing for women" https://t.co/1jeCk8xQtA

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 6, 2020

still inclined to think she won't endorse anyone (which in practice would be functionally identical to a Biden endorsement imho)

Why would not endorsing anybody be equivalent to endorsing Biden?

I've found Sanders' supporters insufferable this time (and last), and was all-in on Warren, but since she's no longer an option, I just sent my absentee ballot for Sanders. I'm sorry that he's the best option we have at the moment.

Getting one last vote in?

This is sobering, the whole thread:

I've talked to TOO MANY black Southern voters this week (and during my life) I wanna stop and explain the concept of "the establishment" to some people and why a lot of black Southern voters will NEVER vote for Bernie.

— michaelharriot (@michaelharriot) March 6, 2020

Why would not endorsing anybody be equivalent to endorsing Biden?

Agree completely with Simon. When you're philosophically much, much closer to the one candidate than the other and don't endorse, there are a whole bunch of conclusions implicit in that, almost all of them not good for the candidate who's close to you.