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

clouds: to yell at or not to yell at?

I like the "draw a clock" idea.

younger candidates could help by sucking less next time

it seems to me that the desire to be POTUS is usually a red flag that a person should not be considered

I just finished writing a really long thing that I intend to post on FB prior to the Ohio primary next week on why I am voting for Sanders. The older members of my family who are Democrats are all ride-or-die for Biden now and I'm trying to convince them otherwise.

the lord's work

The older members of my family will die.

it seems to me that the desire to be POTUS is usually a red flag that a person should not be considered

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, March 10, 2020 2:11 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

There's a sci fi short story where a guy tries to get his drivers' license but they make him watch movies or do some VR thing of tragic car crashes. At the end it turns out that anyone who still wants their license is disqualified from getting one. I think about that story a surprising amount.

See also: Groucho Marx's "I would never belong to any club that would have me as a member."

Jay Inslee didn’t suck and wouldn’t have been septuagenarian until three weeks after inauguration

100% octogenarian or gtfo, imo.

Biden 2028

inslee might be a good candidate for the 2024 primary that will happen no matter who wins. people will at least hopefully recognize his name enough to keep him afloat for the early part of the primary

Yeah, that's one thing I keep coming back to. All other arguments against elderly candidates aside, should we not be nominating/electing someone who we believe has a reasonable chance of maintaining their wits and their life for another eight years? Like, if Uncle Joe is elected, what kind of state is he gonna be in come 2024?

i'd say no way he'd run for reelection, but the shamelessness of the 'pragmatic' Dems prevents me

"bernie has much more twitter followers than other candidates" (and more online supporters more broadly) makes more sense to me as an explanation than "bernie's big bad mean man behavior uniquely unleashes the ids of leftists" or whatever

That's probably part of it, and a predictable part given the demographics of his supporters. And I don't think many people have said -- here or elsewhere -- that there's something about Bernie personally that either inspires or encourages bad mean behavior. It seems to me it's more that his campaigns have been -- **AMONG OTHER, LARGELY ADMIRABLE THINGS** -- vehicles for an emergent group of online Angry Young Men (not all of them necessarily young or men, but mostly) epitomized by the Chapo gang who would have probably latched onto any candidate running a populist progressive campaign, especially one with Bernie's career bona fides.

I think a lot of Bernie supporters have heard criticism of "the bros" as criticism of the campaign, and of course some of it has been and in any case it's hard to completely disentangle them. But I think the real-if-exaggerated phenomenon we call "Bernie bros" is more a free-floating subset of contemporary American progressivism, in the same way the 4Chan crowd is not in an official part of the Trump apparatus. And I don't think they're equivalent, I'll take mean people on the Internet who support m4a over mean people who want poor people to die, any day. For that matter, I'll take them over civil people who want poor people to die.

But thinking about it as a phenomenon separate from Bernie that has essentially used his campaign as a vehicle for their grievances also highlights the reality that they will continue to be a presence for at least the near future, and future progressive candidates will probably have to reckon with how to handle them.

if a left-wing candidate ever gets a big enough coalition to actually win, "the toxic online discourse" will be shown to be the non-sequitur non-issue (as in, not an issue that actually impacts turnout or results, not to say no one gets harassed etc.) it actually is imho

like, in all the polling that's ever been done of what voters care about / vote for / vote against iver the course of these primaries, has "bernie bros", "civility" or some variant thereof ever turned up?

weird how this became a big issue with the media but not Trump supporters literally sending death threats to journalists on a regular basis

I interpret voters' interest in "climate change" as a desire to change this climate of vicious disagreement and online gif hurling

Family update: teenage son still all in for Biden, preteen daughter, who was a Warren booster with me, is now Biden, not sure how my wife is leaning

lol the Bernie bros shit is an almost exact copy of the “so much for the tolerant left!!!” shite that accompanied Corbyn being elected leader of the Labour Party. It is and always has been a distraction and clear attempt at delegitimising the politicians in question.

Like you had people with high-profile public columns engaging in fake outrage at some rando twitter account while at the same time calling people who were excited about a left leadership “thick as pigshit” (Janan Ganesh) and utterly refusing to discuss policy or the reasons people might have voted for Corbyn. The fact this is so prolonged and just fucking refuses to die is just so damning and everyone giving this oxygen is following the exact same path.

weird how this became a big issue with the media but not Trump supporters literally sending death threats to journalists on a regular basis

Biden now at 99/100 according to 538.

I wonder if there's a way to measure whether the online discourse of the Bernie Brothers is more or less toxic than that of the current President of these, our United States.

Biden on MSNBC last night said of his vote for the Iraq War, "I didn't believe he had those nuclear weapons. I didn't believe he had those weapons of mass destruction."

He said his vote was for inspectors to prove they didn't have WMDs.

This isn't backed by our reporting. pic.twitter.com/O3Tq0Ihzxt

— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) March 10, 2020

I think the toxic behavior of Trump supporters, online and off, has been a central recurring media narrative about him basically since the beginning.

Cool, must be imagining the dozens of concern trolling messages in these and other threads.

I think the vast, vast majority of people don't pay attention to either.

Like, Trump has, what, 70 million twitter followers? And that's for a free global platform that one can just sign up for and follow passively.

I think the vast, vast majority of people don't pay attention to either.

f a left-wing candidate ever gets a big enough coalition to actually win, "the toxic online discourse" will be shown to be the non-sequitur non-issue (as in, not an issue that actually impacts turnout or results, not to say no one gets harassed etc.) it actually is imho

That hypothetical candidate might also have figured out a strategy to deal with/minimize the fallout from such discourse, rather than pretending it doesn't exist.

Neither this candidate we actually had nor anyone itt denied that it existed!

many people commiting themselves to spending months denying things like "the Iraq War vote was a vote to invade Iraq" and "the Obama administration proposed cuts to Social Security"

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) March 10, 2020

unfortunately for my sanity I am "in my 30s" and "was paying attention" and "remember stuff"

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) March 10, 2020

Anyway I agree that Bernie is not going to be done in by any of this. If his base was bigger and broader, it wouldn't matter. If his strategy had worked the way he thought it would, it wouldn't matter. Basically if he won, it wouldn't matter. And it's not going to be the reason he doesn't win. It hasn't helped him IMO, but it's not why he's not going to be the nominee.

xp this is hilarious because this exists for literally every candidate to a greater or lesser degree - the only difference is the amount of coverage. So why would that be? Are they uniquely vicious? More so than the people flinging around racist comments and death threats? Why is Bernie held to a higher standard, especially when he’s consistently discouraged abuse both in his speeches and own actions and when nobody is queueing up to ask Joe Biden about all the racists who seem to be fans of his?

well this is a great time to log off for a week

Kind of a rude way to describe eephus' family xp

Hi ILX, could you plz help me decide between Bernie and Biden? My head spins whenever I try to meditate on it. Thx.

gotta be biden, he stood right next to obama

I'm still voting Bernie next week, idgaf. I'll cross the Biden bridge when we're inevitably nudged hard in that direction half a year from now.

Shocking development

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21169166/elizabeth-warren-working-class-women

I'll vote Bernie later today. It won't slow Biden down, but it'll be a "consider the left, you doddering old fool" message.

you should vote loud then

shout at every boomer you see just to be safe

I think if you feel very strongly they let you vote more than once. Couldn't hurt to ask.

vote or die!

Biden now at 99/100 according to 538.

― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Going the way the wind blows, with data

eff 538

https://images.45worlds.com/s/78/harry-roy-and-his-orchestra-sky-high-honeymoon-parlophone-78-s.jpg

we regret to inform you that Mr. Ketchup sucks ass:

I asked @JohnKerry today about whether he agreed that @BernieSanders Cuba literacy comments were the same as Obama’s 2014 remarks about the island’s education system in 2014. Here’s what Kerry - Sec of State during rapprochement - had to say: pic.twitter.com/rrkjsL6SFb

— David Smiley (@NewsbySmiley) March 9, 2020

swiftboat him