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

when you have coalition parties -- a Dem party that actually has liberal and moderate branches unlike the modern GOP -- you get these fissures.

like everyone I know who supports Biden over Bernie says absolutely nothing about policy, it's all "what matters is getting rid of Trump and people are going to get scared off by sOOOoooOoocialism!!"

Sanders’s 2016 Mich success relied on voters who expected Clinton to win anyway.

Look at “electability.” Clinton beat Sanders 73-27 with “electability” voters. But just 11% of voters prioritized it.

Yesterday, 58% of voters prioritized “can beat Trump.” Biden won them, 62-30.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 11, 2020

bernie vs biden is a pretty stark and obvious difference in personality, policy, ability, in so many areas - it seems impossible imo to say that ppl just didn't know what they wanted

60% of Mississippi Democrats support the abolishment of private insurance in favor of M4A, an idea Biden promises to veto. Biden won 81.1%. South Carolina pull quotes and polling indicated that voters agreed with Sanders more often but simply didn't trust any of it to happen.

People may know what Biden's policies are (may) but that doesn't mean that's what they're voting for.

so Biden is running for fissure king

Bernie's ideas are way more popular than Biden's (at least to the extent that Joe Biden has any ideas)

As demonstrated by all these primary results! Oh, wait.

The former point is demonstrably true, though. They just don't buy that Bernie can beat Trump to deliver those policies.

so Biden is running for fissure king

B+

The former point is demonstrably true, though. They just don't buy that Bernie can beat Trump to deliver those policies.

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.),

this is quite otm. Polled individually the Sanders and Warren policies do quite well.

'Electability' winning opposition primaries is 0-2 this century so fingers crossed everyone.

Janelle Bouie, usually worth reading:

As governor, Northam has been unexpectedly controversial. And true to form, he hasn’t challenged the overall status quo of Virginia politics, where powerful business interests hold huge sway over lawmakers in Richmond. But the anti-Trump wave that put Northam into office also energized progressives, who seized the opportunity presented by a Democratic governor to advance their interests and build power ahead of the next election cycle. When that cycle came, in 2019, progressives spearheaded the charge that broke the Republican Party’s hold on the state Legislature. Years of careful, difficult work — of building relationships and investing in marginalized communities — paid off in a statewide sweep that put Democrats in the driver’s seat of Virginia politics.

Northam is still governor and most of the caucus is either moderate or conservative. But for the first time, progressives have a major say in policy, and they have used it to push an unabashedly liberal agenda through the Legislature, raising the minimum wage, legalizing collective bargaining for public employees and expanding the right to vote. Just last week, Virginia lawmakers — led by Lee Carter of Manassas, a member of Democratic Socialists of America — passed one of the nation’s lowest caps on the price of insulin.

Progressives may have wanted someone else for governor, but for the first time ever, they’ve been able to stake a claim on power in the state. You could dismiss this as half a loaf — especially in light of Northam’s opposition to far-reaching reform, like ending Virginia’s right-to-work law — but I think it’s more significant than that. These are the kinds of victories that can build on themselves. Progressives may not win the governorship in 2021 (Northam is term-limited) or 2025, but they are on the path to winning the reins for one of their own.

*Jamelle

it would be very helpful to know at what point it is permissible to feel despair, given that at all the other points one has this largely involuntary feeling/assessment, they were all “not the time”

xp lol I posted that upthread, and it was roundly scoffed at

it's never the time to criticize any Democrats either

despair is not productive

productivity is a capitalism fetish :)

this is a great time to despair tbh, WAY before the general

xp lol I posted that upthread, and it was roundly scoffed at

― jaymc,

roundly scoffing has come full circle

I posted that upthread, and it was roundly scoffed at

I didn't scoff at it, although I think the degree to which Biden can be pressured from the left once in office will be limited somewhat. He'll pass what Pelosi and Schumer agree on (which is already going to establish limits itself), he's not gonna veto any of that shit. So that means we'd be likely to get some lefty priorities, but not a Sanders-style war on the rich.

xps

lol mordy

xps

Public option has outpolled M4A every time I've looked, though?

The President and the governor of a state are barely comparable in independence or power.

I think Bouie knows that.

like I can see Biden repealing Trump's tax cuts, shoring up financial regulatory authority, passing some kind of healthcare law, increasing the minimum wage, re-committing to Paris Accords + some kind of climate legislation. Lots of stuff. Won't all be great or ideal, but won't be bad either.

And I'd predict he nominates an African American liberal to the SC.

xps

we'd get an assault weapon ban as well, I'd wager

xp -- despair may not be productive but unfortunately, the state of events, as well as of the future, as well as one's internal emotional response, vare not set up to optimize productivity

if you are experiencing a dry cough or fever please DFH

(this is not limited to me, either; everyone I know is either angry, terrified, or despairing. these aren't all sanders supporters by the way, many of them were warren, one or two are "anyone but biden even bloomberg would be ok")

"even bloomberg would be ok" is pretty grim. here were my tiers:

oh, nice!
sanders and warren

not gonna happen, but ok
castro, booker, gillibrand, inslee,

fuck. ok.
klobuchar
pete
harris
steyer
beto
yang

the end times are approaching, so i guess
biden

fuck no
bloomberg
gabbard
williamson

Williamson earns my grudging support for actually being willing to lift a finger for Bernie

I mean... no

in an infinite universe, there exists a dimension that is led by
marianne williamson

sorry by "support" I should clarify I meant "a tiny degree of respect"

I won't actually "support" anything but her eventual ASMR feed

i saw someone praising williamson for staying true to her socialist policy principles over the party and i felt like that really is not what is going on there

we need president williamson now more than ever to help us get through the emotional trauma of covid-19 (aand also to stand boldly against vaccination obv)

everyone get ready.

the answer to covid-19 is...

love

xp — I don’t particularly understand their reasoning, no, they just really hate biden

you forgot about Delaney

fwiw I thought Inslee was just as good as Sanders & Warren but he polled at like 0.00001%

still I have hope he gets in to head the EPA, would be a great pick

Medicare for All is now 20 for 20 in the Dem primary.

That is, 20 states have now voted for president & been asked in exit polls if they prefer private health insurance or single payer. All 20 said single payer — by an average margin of over 20 pts.

State by state tallies 👇 pic.twitter.com/zMeQqrIn34

— Blake Zeff (@blakezeff) March 11, 2020

Williamson endorsed Yang before Bernie. I think her principles are just doing what the Orbs instruct.

i think about this tweet a lot

What worries the left about Biden is not that he might lose to Trump, though they do worry that. The first order worry is that, as president, he'd just grumble "folks, we're better than this" as the GOP stole his lunch money, setting up a GOP comeback in 2024.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) April 27, 2019

but i wonder now if he's so doddery that the left could take his lunch money instead.

still haven't lost my taste for marianne williamson jokes, thanks for the lol on this bleak day karl

He's going to be kept isolated from "the left" just as he's being kept isolated from voters

i don't think that's necessarily true. he's moved left since 2008/2012/2016.

his platform right now doesn't go far enough for almost all the people on this thread, but it goes further than the one he was on in 2012 and the one hilary had in 2016. clearly the outside world has had an influence. he's not howard hughes.

That’s going to be the line for the next seven months but no one will actually believe it any more than Clinton’s “most progressive platform EVAR.”

You can’t evade your resume.

Is the guy who abandoned the Hyde Amendment eight months ago super invested in fighting against it?

Why would he need to fight against something already abandoned?

I think I've seen that empirically speaking, the policy promises that a campaign is running on is a better guide than earlier resume into what an elected politician will try and do.