2020 Democratic presidential primary

I've started leaping out at my gf from behind cupboards in an effort that she gets a grey streak like Claire Saffitz from Bon Appetit

don’t know, but obama stans similarly strained to see nth dimensional chess moves behind all his own spineless statements, so I understand the association

― k3vin k., Thursday, May 23, 2019

I guess we can argue about what "spineless" means.

As for chess: she doesn't have the vote for impeachment. That's obvious.

the thought of a long ugly campaign with Trump winning and another 4 years of this surreal bullshit...

I'm starting to freak out a bit.

A friend of mine sort of convinced me that "anybody but Trump" will not work again.

He also brought up a scary thought of people who want to see "shit go down" in their lifetime,
and that electing a crazy fucker like Trump is the best they can do for that.

https://www.alternet.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/trump-cnn-debate-chin-800x430.jpg

i would recommend not talking to your friend about this

I think bernie or biden or warren or whoever would beat him fwiw. Hillary was the unique candidate who could lose for a bunch of reasons, some her fault and some not. But I’m not a pollster

I do fear his re-election obviously. Especially because I think he is going to pursue an even uglier strategy to get re-elected—like he is already trying to open investigations into the democratic candidates

Please don't push me into "Good morning!"-ing this thread too.

Nothing to do, it's up to you

Hello, here is the most depressing elections quote I’ve seen lately: “How do you beat Big Daddy Trump? One of the ideas is that you beat him with Big Daddy Joe.” https://t.co/fdavF2JY80

— Lauren Tara LaCapra (@LaurenLaCapra) May 24, 2019

Big Daddy Joe

"I think bernie or biden or warren or whoever would beat him fwiw. Hillary was the unique candidate who could lose for a bunch of reasons, some her fault and some not."

I hope you're right. It's hard for me to believe that he's not being seriously challenged by his own party. What a bunch of wimps. They would rather see the country further divided than grow a backbone.

That’s true, but he is also still very, very popular among republican voters. So running against him not only requires some spine, but is also almost sure to end in humiliating defeat. And also, who is the upstart republican right now who challenges trump and is somewhat popular?

They should do it anyway if they are really concerned—to make a point. However they won’t because they don’t really care.

Why would any Republican challenge Trump when to do so would risk a Democrat getting elected?

He also brought up a scary thought of people who want to see "shit go down" in their lifetime,

I'm increasingly of the opinion that people with this mindset should be thrown into a pit of hungry bears so that they get their wish without it affecting those of us who see the value in trying to preserve a society.

Exactly. They care more about their party winning than the risk of America being run by a lunatic. Because their agenda is not to govern—they like the “deconstruction of the administrative state” or whatever Bannon called crippling ecological protections, education and healthcare

xp.

Redundant comment but it took a while for me to “get it”

It’s crazy how so many deeply pessimistic people don’t believe that things can always get worse

...good morning! :D

FWIW I think there's a chance of pulling the country back from the brink but it's only a slim chance and we don't seem to be really heading in that direction with any conviction so I maintain optimism but am bracing for a very ugly slow-motion crash nonetheless.

If the GOP flames out I think we could get on a different path.

They are a specific problem. There are deeply rooted pathologies in the country as a whole but they’re magnified but the way the Republican party does things

If the GOP flames out I think we could get on a different path

This is highly unlikely to happen, though, because the system is designed to favor them, particularly in the Senate. Population and demographic trends - the country getting browner in the aggregate, but large numbers of those brown people moving to cities and coastal states - will have the effect of consolidating white power (yes, that choice of phrase is deliberate) in the hands of senators from the empty states in the middle.

It’s true. But for America to become a functional country—not a perfect country, just one that is capable of addressing its problems in some sort of rational way—the GOP needs to no longer be one of our two major parties or else be transformed.

So it’s highly unlikely but deeply necessary.

If the GOP eats it, the country may find itself on the path to a bright new future. If I wake up tomorrow to find a pegasus in my bedroom, I may find myself on the path to magical adventures heretofore undreamt.

You can’t have a party like this control thebgovernment and have liberal democracy

That is true. But here we are.

Even if they were to suddenly become unelectable on the whole, they're still entrenched in the SC until the conservative justices start croaking.

It would be a different landscape if the GOP became a toxic brand—seen as the party of gangsters, con artists, and anti-government cranks. The supreme court would still block many things that need to happen, the fight for reproductive rights and gun control would continue, but we’d be in a different situation

I believe they are seen for what they are by a good number of people. The bigger problem is that this is precisely what a scarily-high percentage of the country wants them to be.

Yeah they’d need to get bored of this ideology

It’s fueled by an entertainment-propaganda system. It’s not just organic, though clearly it’s feeding in to prejudices wtc that were there from the start. But like, idk—fads burn out.

what if the real fad all along,,, was the united states of america

makes u think

From the fake news-induced instigation of the Stamp Act crisis to the rapid rise and fall of our once-beloved Milkshake Duck, we've long been a nation of mercurial hotheads.

It would be a different landscape if the GOP became a toxic brand—seen as the party of gangsters, con artists, and anti-government cranks.

25% of the country are white evangelicals, who voted for Trump 85%-15% - they're not going to suddenly become normal.

For the record i am not predicting this will happen. Just thst something needs to break the back of this party for the country to recover. And also that they’re not a force of nature but political party made of people

And I'm not saying the political situation is hopeless, I'm saying you can't just Thanos snap away the reactionaries with bad branding. No democracy has made it happen.

The gangsters and cranks are doing it FOR THE GOOD OF THE COUNTRY, after all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_far-right_political_parties_in_the_United_States

I don’t think conservatives will become liberals en masse just that the GOP is a specific institution with specific practices that is specifically corrupt—in the case of trumpc even disdainful of the law—and as an entity if it was defeated we would be in a better place

And i think sometimes we confuse deep cultural problems—the thinfs that make the GOP and trump appealing—and the actually people who are exploiting these things and to what ends.

So reactionary politics will never disappear but maybe the party that is promoting them can become fractured and weakened

Yes, that is definitely a list of minor and irrelevant right-wing parties (aside from the Know Nothings... sort of). If an organization never has more than 500 members, it's rather easy for them to disappear. The GOP got 60 million votes in 2016.

the GOP is a specific institution with specific practices that is specifically corrupt

But reactionary politics have more success because the GOP is powerful

Not the other way around?

If you have 40% of the country strongly committed to voting for a reactionary and another 10% willing to consider it... do you think they just don't vote if you erase the party?

Maybe. The GOP inspires strong devotion, like a sports team. And people become more entrenched in their right wing worldviews by consuming media outlets that definitely benefit from there being politicians and candidates they can get behind—a single party with vast power.

There are people who have reported their family members adopted new was of thinking from fox news. Maybe they had some right wing tendencies before but they didn’t build their identity around it until it was presented to them in a certain kind of package.

I think that entire right wing ecosystem—feedback between media and the party—is a maybe deadly illness for the coutnry. Something really needs to change on that side

I’m not predicting it will happen but it just needs to

Politico reports:

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday all but secured a spot on the Democratic presidential debate stage next month, after collecting the 65,000th individual donor of his campaign.

The Democratic National Committee has given candidates two paths to get into its first primary debates in June and July: hitting the 65,000 donor mark or getting at least 1 percent support in three or more qualifying polls. Inslee, who launched his presidential campaign in March, has already passed the polling mark.

Treesh can you confine this shtick to a less silly thread

re Booker's single-digit polling, maybe ppl are reading

https://newrepublic.com/article/153778/cory-booker-foot-soldier-betsy-devos

My God, I just listened to a 15-minute discussion of Booker's Iowa game on WNYC -- all horse race, and it was so. fucking. boring.