2020 Democratic presidential primary

...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.

how did gabbneb sound?

It was an NJTV reporter, not prestigious enough to be gabby.

No 'kiddie table' at June debate:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/24/democrats-undercard-june-1344368

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

― Trϵϵship, Friday, 24 May 201

This doesn't make any sense? Why would the republicans primary Trump? If I was a republican I'd be annoyed at any chump that tried to primary him, after I'd finished laughing. Trump has 105% approval rating with Republicans, he's giving them what they want

Bill Weld is on the ballot. Recent history shows that incumbent presidents who are even marginally challenged in NH go on to lose the general election:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_kyle_kondik/trump_s_primary_goal_avoiding_a_new_hampshire_hiccup

It makes sense to primary him if you care about anything beyond the success of the party. But they don’t. So yeah, they support him—that’s my point.

But if I think my party is right for the country, why would I want rid of the guy I think is doing great?

And challenge him on what anyway? lack of civility? What exactly is it he's doing that would upset Republicans? All the effort of primarying just to get someone the same but muted and civil? Might as well wait and vote for Biden in the general instead

idk. he seems like a lunatic to me and i think it's dangerous to have someone like that in the most powerful office on earth.

he also has been pretty cruel to individual fellow republicans, from his opponents in the primary to former members of his cabinet and beyond. like, agreeing to have him as the head of your party means you pretty much need to submit to his whims or else get bullied. i wouldn't want to be part of a club like that

the latter concern is less noble for sure

like, i actually get kind of sickened when i see ted cruz suck up to trump, the man who told the world his wife was ugly. it's not even political. as a human being you're supposed to have a backbone.

Sure, these are all great arguments for a) why not to be a republican, and b) not to have Trump in a position of power. But where is c) why would republicans not want Trump in power?

yeah, you're right--to be a republican means you're part of a political project that further benefits the wealthy at the expense of everyone else as well as the environment. so trump is a perfect leader for this movement.

agreeing to have him as the head of your party means you pretty much need to submit to his whims or else get bullied.

Right wing parties always have a preference for hierarchy and the role of a strongman or king. Any dislike for authority is merely upset that is located with the person (or more likely, group of people). Hatred of those below and deference to those above are part of the rules. People loved the king because he was the king not because of how he treated them

Royalists never argued the king had the best policies!

it's the thing that revolts me most in the world, honestly -- this idea of hierarchy

and especially revering some piece of shit grifter who lies all the time, who is devoid of warmth, humor, compassion, and integrity. i've gone through this though.

it's the thing that revolts me most in the world, honestly -- this idea of hierarchy

Right, so expecting criticizisms of Trumps' actions, words or person to make a difference is totally missing the point. If Conservatism is merely hierarchicalism, then attacking the table manners of the king isn't going to work