2020 Democratic presidential primary thread, pt 3: life is very long

If a majority of Democratic primaries voters want what Bernie is selling but not from him maybe a better vector will run next time. If a majority of Democratic primaries voters are better things aren't possible true believers and will stay that way til they die then lol we're all gonna die

I hope Bernie gets enough delegates to extract some useful concessions, whatever those might be.

Ignoring whatever shit everyone's fighting about to publicly complain that there was a debate for every primary/caucus in February and nothing between ST and mini ST. Seems stupid.

It may be true, maybe Bernie has run the best possible Bernie campaign and the reality is that despite fervent hopes of his followers there was just no way to turn him from a cult artist to a mainstream phenom. In which case, you can either say, "Well, I guess he wasn't the figure to lead this particular charge." Or you can say, fuck all these morons who don't know what's good for them. Whichever makes you feel better.

Bernie was never gonna soften his message. That would be a different person. Hence, I repeat, he ran the best campaign *he* could have. Flaws included.

The debate distribution is dumb as hell yes

fuck all these morons who don't know what's good for them

well I wouldn't say "morons"

"fuck all these morons who don't know what's good for them"

This is a great impression of many Warren ppl this week

many x-posts to eephus: David Brooks must have learned it from the Parisians. And if bobos annoy him, I’ll wear the badge proudly.

This is a great impression of many Warren ppl this week

Yep. Losing sucks.

I was a Warren supporter -- she was literally the only one in the field I actually liked -- but it started to look to me last fall like she didn't have her messaging and strategy worked out. That never really changed, and I was disappointed but not surprised by the last few months. It's politics. You have to actually win, everything else is secondary.

"fuck all these morons who don't know what's good for them"

This is a great impression of many Warren ppl this week

On winning: I have a friend whose wife ran for mayor here in my city last fall, and she won in a fairly close race against a businessman who substantially outraised and outspent her. I was talking to my friend afterward about his lessons from the campaign, and one of them was, "WINNING IS AWESOME." When you win, any missteps or second guesses or flops along the way get immediately erased, because you did the one most important thing.

The corollary of course is that losing always sucks no matter how fierce or noble the fight.

If you're on the left, losing is a major part of life

hell yeah mayor mothra's friend's wife tbh, fuck business guy mayors

also cop mayors

All the Warren ppl in my tl are breaking for Bernie, including multiple ppl who worked for her campaign, and I personally have not seen the "I like Liz because she makes me feel fuzzy but I can't vote for that nasty man because of his nasty supporters" drama that I keep seeing referenced.

I am, however, noting a heavy application of pro-Bernie personal/emotional appeals in all my soc med timelines that use stories of medical tragedy and suffering in direct contrast to people who think Warren looks nice in teal (literally one of them was like, "women like Liz because she looks good in a teal sweater"). I *get* the emotional appeal messaging tactic in organizing, but I don't see the phenomenon that they claim is happening, and I especially object to the trivialization of whatever is being characterized as "women's stupid petty concerns" in this messaging.

hell yeah mayor mothra's friend's wife tbh, fuck business guy mayors

It's true, she's pretty awesome. She was by far the most progressive candidate in the field.

xpost to some post above
I thought Bernie was still very popular here on ilx. I thought the feeling of antipathy was because a few people each day have been obsessively posting about it, I guess trying to figure it out and make people on ilx? outside of ilx? on twitter? people they know irl? feel bad about possibly voting for Biden? I don't know what audience anyone is trying to address here anymore.

Warren die hards who can hop to Biden never cared about politics (or even identity), Warren’s existence flatters their self image, much like Obama’s genius and Hillary’s “MOST qualified EVER” status.

Bernie is going to win the poll on this thread like 100 to 0. Or 95 to 5. He doesn't have to worry about popularity on ilx.

ILX is extremely unrepresentative of the wider world I think we can all agree

should still canvass us just to be safe

There are pragmatic reasons why some Warren people would go Biden over Bernie -- mostly if they think he'd be a stronger candidate in November and their A+ number one priority is getting rid of Trump. You can disagree with the calculus, but it's not immoral or anything.

I suspect at least half of the Bernie voters here will mainly be anti Biden folks, mind. Xps

just opened this new thread for the first time and have to report that it is very aptly named

If Biden’s the nominee and loses, I’m looking forward to four more years of RUSSIA.

It's not immoral to think Biden's the stronger nominee, it's just fuckin stupid.

There are pragmatic reasons why some Warren people would go Biden over Bernie -- mostly if they think he'd be a stronger candidate in November and their A+ number one priority is getting rid of Trump. You can disagree with the calculus, but it's not immoral or anything.

the other pragmatic reason is that many people want this campaign to be over and giving bernie any excuse to drag it out needlessly again is not good for our prospects.

I'll out myself as a warren to biden voter. I suspect it won't matter at all by the time new york votes.

We could’ve guessed, bro

lol

Joe Biden is basically the suburbs embodied in one dying man, what happened to principles iatee

If Biden’s the nominee and loses, I’m looking forward to four more years of RUSSIA.

The fun thing is that no matter what, we can't test all possible scenarios -- Biden v. Trump and Bernie v. Trump -- so no matter who the nominee is, if they lose, the Bernie or Biden supporters can always say, "We told you so," and no one will be able to prove them wrong.

I lean more toward the Bitecofer thesis myself, so I'm not even sure it matters all that much in terms of winning the general. But of course nobody actually knows.

I don't love biden and I think he will be a pretty mediocre president if he wins, and I hope he picks a good vp. I think he won't be a drag down ticket, and might even help e.g. it's not some crazy coincidence that bullock decided to run for senate when he got confirmation that he didn't have to defend whatever sanders said today for half a year.

neither sanders nor biden have plans to demolish all american suburbs unfortunately, which makes them equally bad on my key issue.

I suspect at least half of the Bernie voters here will mainly be anti Biden folks, mind. Xps

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Saturday, March 7, 2020 2:45 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

why not both

anyway I don't have the sense that my vote will matter and people fretting about what warren supporters are gonna do are really missing the big picture, which is that there aren't a lot of them and sanders would still lose in a world where he had 100% of them. he lost because he hit his ceiling, and the fact that that already happened makes a comeback even less likely than it would be given the numbers. he had the chance to close as front runner and failed. people across the country had the chance to vote for him or vote for 'basically anything else', and they chose 'basically anything else'. the fact that that biden kinda sucks says something about sanders' appeal.

Many ppl do not think biden sucks

in retrospect the Onion's Diamond Joe bit has a lot to answer for

has bitecofer made a judgement whether bernie is more electable than biden? I'd think they'd get the same number of negative polarization voters, and bernie would inspire non-voters and young voters at a much better rate

biden is such a perfect attack target, the trump campaign can spend all their cash showing how fake his workingman populist image is, along with the three other flavors of bullshit they'll throw at him

the non-voter and youth theory has been disproven by the fact that it...didn't happen

biden is uh totally gonna be a drag downticket. but i get that red state democratic pols don't think so

I feel like people itt are engaging more with the primaries than the candidates are.

don't think primary electorates and general election electorates are the same

I am not an American but Biden seems like a boring/bad candidate even among the moderate Dems. I watched one of the debates and he could barely make a coherent sentence. He'd start a sentence tackling the question asked, then switch abruptly to one of his talking points that says nothing.

https://www.vox.com/2019/4/26/18516645/2018-midterms-voter-turnout-census

Primaries are not the best test to 'disprove' anything about turnout.

We'll see in November! I mean, I might be worried that Bernie almost doubled up on Latinx voters nationally since they're a larger voting bloc than African-Americans and more likely to switch to a Republican.

like until recently 'sanders can make a bunch of young voters and non-voters appear out of nowhere' theory was at least plausible, at this point it's been pretty well tested. it didn't happen. he called for a revolution, nobody showed up. if they're waiting for the general maybe he should have given them better instructions about how this stuff works.

The correct formulation, I'd say, is that youth and non-voter turnout (and turnout among POC) may not "win" elections but it can lose them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5epuPMf-7Y

Warren die hards who can hop to Biden never cared about politics (or even identity), Warren’s existence flatters their self image, much like Obama’s genius and Hillary’s “MOST qualified EVER” status.

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Saturday, March 7, 2020 2:42 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't know if you actually think this is true, or this is some weird trolling tactic, but either way it's rude and mansplainy and a prime example of how Sanders supporters chase away his potential allies.