2020 Democratic Party primary thread

[highlander]

Regular Democrats Are Just Fine With the Establishment - The Atlantic

Biden could still lose. But his sudden comeback should put to rest facile comparisons between the Sanders and Trump insurgencies. Sanders and Trump aren’t just radically different politicians. They are operating in radically different partisan environments. Four years ago, many Republicans wanted to blow up their party. Last night, Democrats demonstrated that they do not."

And in my reason IMO is sometimes the safe bet is a better one to take. People feel it's much more likely that Biden will win against Trump than Sanders will

Educate me .
I am watching this as a clear outsider but I don't get it.


Everyone is either crying or saying that Biden won the nomination. However I don't see how this is over. On google there are live results I am watching and in my book it seems as if people are overlooking something. Biden votes represent Biden, Pete and Klobuchar, good part of Bloomberg voters jumped on the train (and he quit), Biden won home state of Warren and therefore many of her voters (btw Warren has show her priorities with all this), Beto showed up on the stage, etc. The establishment has thrown literally everything they had on the table to save the game and the score is still 10/9 , and we are only at about 30% of the race. Plus this great consolidation to 2 candidates means there will not be contested convention or whatever, therefore now someone simply needs to grill the nest in which are all the eggs. (which btw has dementia)



To me all of this looks as clear opening of the path to victory rather than a defeat.

What am I missing in perspective !?

Biden doesn't have dementia. He has a stuttering problem. He won't be the greatest of presidents but he seems to be the best chance of beating Trump. Warren is a brilliant but mean and nasty woman. People don't like her. The longer she stays in the race, the longer she sucks away votes from Bernie. I was quite happy she stayed in actually. Worked out quite nicely. Right now, I'm hoping she stays in but my guess is she will swiftly exit which will be a boost to Sanders. Tuesday was an opportunity for Sanders to clinch his lead which he failed to do in large part because Warren stayed in and the moderate candidates who didn't have a chance all bowed out. Sanders' views/policies are simply too extreme. The country isn't ready to be led by a socialist. Trump might be bad but socialism goes against the grain of the spirit of what the US is about.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

And in my reason IMO is sometimes the safe bet is a better one to take. People feel it's much more likely that Biden will win against Trump than Sanders will

People feel that way, yes. I hope that they are right. I am afraid Biden will run the exact same campaign as Hillary and lose again. He uses pretty much the exact same talking points. I suppose he has an advantage in not being a woman and not being a Clinton, though. Plus, he does have a sort of goofy oafish charm that is somewhat endearing on the surface. (I'd rather have good policies, and I like someone who reminds me of my older relatives that have passed on [but probably with better politics], but hey, it's not just up to me.).

I guess I hope that Biden will fight hard to win this thing rather than expecting that simply pointing out that Trump is unhinged over and over again will end with his coronation. I am afraid that he will not.

 

[á´…eparted]

People feel that way, yes. I hope that they are right. I am afraid Biden will run the exact same campaign as Hillary and lose again. He uses pretty much the exact same talking points. I suppose he has an advantage in not being a woman and not being a Clinton, though. Plus, he does have a sort of goofy oafish charm that is somewhat endearing on the surface. (I'd rather have good policies, and I like someone who reminds me of my older relatives that have passed on [but probably with better politics], but hey, it's not just up to me.).

I guess I hope that Biden will fight hard to win this thing rather than expecting that simply pointing out that Trump is unhinged over and over again will give him this thing. I am afraid that he will not.

One fortunately thing is that trump actually is insane and unhinged. In 2016 it could be kinda sorta almost be argued that he wasn't really that stupid or crazy or authoratarian or a russian puppet, and that people just needed to wait or give him a chance. We'll he's definitely proven his fascist dictator ways and his staggering stupidity and ignorance now. So going and running on that message is actually probably going to work to a fairly good extent as it's been proven multiple times a day for years now.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think most Republicans are actually not like [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION] and [MENTION=195]Jaguar[/MENTION]. Most Republicans are probably more like my MAGA hat-owning, gun-owning, blue collar (he's a trucker) uncle in the suburbs that wants to move to Indiana. It's a very different social circle. I can't see my uncle voting for Biden. That's why I think the benefit of the supposed appeal to moderate Republicans of Biden is overstated. I also think moderate Democrats would be inclined to vote for whoever the nominee of the party is.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

One fortunately thing is that trump actually is insane and unhinged. In 2016 it could be kinda sorta almost be argued that he wasn't really that stupid or crazy or authoratarian or a russian puppet, and that people just needed to wait or give him a chance. We'll he's definitely proven his fascist dictator ways and his staggering stupidity and ignorance now. So going and running on that message is actually probably going to work to a fairly good extent as it's been proven multiple times a day for years now.

I think you need to give people positive reasons to vote for you, too. It's unclear that Biden brings anything to the table in that respect. It's all negative in that he's not the other guy. Which is important, but I don't know if that pushes people emotional buttons enough to sway the thing.

 

[Tellenbach]

I think Biden needs a make-over. At one of the debates, he looked ghoulish, like he just stepped out of The Walking Dead. Last night, he looked fine, but I think the guy needs a good hair stylist to put some color back on his scalp and eyebrows.

I also recommend not popping any more blood vessels in your eye because that's just gross.

 

[Maou]

Voter turn out

Trump: ~2million, when no one had to even show up.
Dems: ~ 1.700m

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Democratic Party leaders engineer Biden victory in most Super Tuesday states - World Socialist Web Site

....
The vote pattern in Texas was typical of many of the Super Tuesday states, in that Biden performed poorly in the early votes, but did much better in the votes actually cast at the polls on Tuesday. This reflects the impact of the campaign by the Democratic Party leadership over the past week to unite behind Biden as the right-wing anti-Sanders candidate.

....

The outcome was a rebuff to Sanders’ claims that his campaign can transform the Democratic Party into an instrument for “political revolution” or significant social reform. Instead, the results demonstrate the opposite: the Democratic Party is a right-wing political formation, one of the twin parties of the American capitalist class, unbreakably tied to Wall Street and American imperialism.

Rather than bow to Sanders’ apparent momentum after caucuses in Iowa and Nevada and the New Hampshire primary, the Democratic Party leadership intervened massively to bolster the faltering campaign of the most right-wing of the main contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The first step was delivering Biden a victory in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, where the endorsement of black Congressman James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, played a critical role. This provided the template for Biden’s victories Tuesday in the six states across the South, where he rolled up large majorities among African American voters, as high as 72 percent in Alabama.

The next step was to induce two of Biden’s rivals, Senator Amy Klobuchar and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg to drop out. Former President Barack Obama called Buttigieg and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Klobuchar before each made their decision to endorse Biden on the eve of Super Tuesday.

...

But within the framework of the Democratic Party, the opposition to Trump is being diverted in a right-wing, pro-imperialist direction. The Democratic leadership wants to run the 2020 campaign as an extension of the Mueller investigation and the impeachment drive, portraying Trump as a Russian stooge and appealing for the support of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus for Trump’s removal.

Identity politics is playing the most pernicious role in this process, as Clyburn and other leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, representing a layer of upper-middle class and bourgeois blacks and directing their appeals to millions of poor working class blacks through the medium of the black churches, mobilized opposition to Sanders on the basis of racial solidarity (emphasizing Biden’s association with Barack Obama) and hostility to socialism.

This is an indictment of pseudoleft organizations, such as the Democratic Socialists of America, the most fervent supporters of both Sanders and identity politics. They have been hoisted on their own petard. They glorify racial politics and uphold the authority of the black Democratic Party politicians, only to see them torpedo Sanders and throw their support behind former Vice President Biden.
....

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Democratic Party leaders engineer Biden victory in most Super Tuesday states - World Socialist Web Site

LOL, that looks like a tankie website. You're a tankie now?

It's not all wrong, but it's not news, either. Love the shade throwing on the DSA because they aren't the Socialist Equality Party, which I've never even heard of, though. The wiki page is filled with references to a bunch of super-obscure theoretical struggles, probably written by members. So in other words, it's supposed to be a mass movement that has no interest in actually being intelligible. No thanks. I don't get involved with politics to show how speshul I am.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

LOL, that looks like a tankie website. You're a tankie now?

A tankie? WTF is that?

You are not familiar with WSWS? I read it often. They are old school socialists, not hipster socialists. They see identity politics as the divide and rule scam it is.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

A tankie? WTF is that?

Basically an authoritarian socialist that likes China and the USSR just because the US doesn't like them. It stems from the Soviet reaction to the Prague Spring, I believe. Maybe my initial take on them is wrong, but at any rate, they seem too enmeshed in theory. They remind me of campus radicals in a bad way in that respect, spending too much time talking about how everyone else is wrong without actually doing anything about it.

You are not familiar with WSWS? I read it often. They are old school socialists, not hipster socialists. They see identity politics as the divide and rule scam it is.

To borrow from the guy who you think is going to bring social democracy to the U.S. (as seen by his time hosting The Apprentice and gleefully telling people "You're fired", lol), I like socialists that get elected. The DSA (hipster socialists, I guess) is very smart to work within the party that exists; that is precisely what people need to do. Nader didn't get a national televised audience; Bernie did. They're not so pure in their theory that they run from actually getting things accomplished.

As for identity politics, I'm not sure I want to be so non-woke that I'm chill with putting kids in cages because they're brown, but whatever.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

....

The DSA (hipster socialists, I guess) is very smart to work within the party that exists; that is precisely what people need to do. Nader didn't get a national televised audience; Bernie did. They're not so pure in their theory that they run from actually getting things accomplished.
.....

Nader got a lot of things done over the years. He did great work fighting corporations. He made a huge difference to our world and was never a sellout. He is responsible for more improvements for more people than most any other activist in the last 60 years. Not a bad legacy.....

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Nader got a lot of things done over the years. He did great work fighting corporations. He made a huge difference to our world and was never a sellout. He is responsible for more improvements for more people than most any other activist in the last 60 years. Not a bad legacy.....

Yes, and that had nothing to do with his Presidential bid. I don't blame him for how 2000 shook out, but the nature of our system (until the system is changed) means that third parties are nothing more than protest votes. The last third party to be successful was the Republican Party.

Saying "well, I don't like the DSA because they run as Democrats and the Democrats suck" is sacrificing actually creating change on a bullshit altar of purity. AOC is younger than me and has now held elected office longer than Ralph Nader. Of course, I'm sure AOC is too "woke" for you. I'm hoping to change things for the better; I don't have the luxury of obsessing over whether or not someone is a sellout. I don't particular care whether or not someone defines themselves in terms of a 90's Ethan Hawke character as long as they get things accomplished.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Nice piece from 2019. Well researched and worth the read. I’d ask people who think Biden is so electable to read this and then explain what they find so electable about him.

[Letter from Washington] No Joe! | Harper's Magazine

“ Uncle Joe, champion of yesterday’s sordid compromises.” XD

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I blame white voters for Biden, despite them playing less of a part in his recent primary performances. I’m serious. They haven’t shown they’re truly willing to back en masse any real progressive change that might involve a redistribution of wealth. They always vote for their own bank accounts and vacation funds in the end.

Why Black Voters Back Biden | Black America Web

It’s a pragmatic calculation among many African Americans, especially older ones, who believe Biden will appeal to white voters and can defeat Trump next year.

Makes perfect sense why there hasn’t been wider support for progressive candidates or even some of the younger moderates like Harris, Pete and Amy. It’s not that those demographics are uneducated or less informed per some of the pundits, it’s just pragmatism because white voters can’t be trusted in a GE

Articles like this are very sobering.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Oh holy Jesus

I bet Trump invites Anita Hill to a debate if Joe is nominee. If the dem establishment or media goes after her, it will be shameful and unforgivable

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Educate me .
I am watching this as a clear outsider but I don't get it.


Everyone is either crying or saying that Biden won the nomination. However I don't see how this is over. On google there are live results I am watching and in my book it seems as if people are overlooking something. Biden votes represent Biden, Pete and Klobuchar, good part of Bloomberg voters jumped on the train (and he quit), Biden won home state of Warren and therefore many of her voters (btw Warren has show her priorities with all this), Beto showed up on the stage, etc. The establishment has thrown literally everything they had on the table to save the game and the score is still 10/9 , and we are only at about 30% of the race. Plus this great consolidation to 2 candidates means there will not be contested convention or whatever, therefore now someone simply needs to grill the nest in which are all the eggs. (which btw has dementia)



To me all of this looks as clear opening of the path to victory rather than a defeat.

What am I missing in perspective !?

Usually the democratic candidate to perform best in South Carolina and Super Tuesday becomes nominee. It's not always the case, but if I remember correctly, South Carolina has accurately predicted the eventual dem nominee in most recent election years.

On top of that, the way the party rushed behind Biden in an obvious act of desperation, paired with media pundits repeatedly droning about electability and the dreaded S word, just leaves a very bad taste in the mouths of a lot of progressive democrats--It all felt a little too orchestrated and deliberate to be coincidental or written off as a fluke.

On top of that, they've been trying to run progressive candidates in most recent presidential primaries, always to see their candidates either silenced or to see voters fear mongered out of supporting those candidates in favor of middle-of-the-road establishment centrists, who at best can promise to maintain the status quo and bring little real change unless it's change that benefits their corporate donors. Every time it's "gee gosh, we'd love to run a progressive but this time winning is most important and a progressive can never win".

It's not just frustration over what's happening this year, it's the culmination of repeated frustrations. So when people complain about Sanders supporters being poor losers or whiners, they're not really understanding that it has far more to do with them feeling like their values continue to be ignored and overlooked. It's really not about Sanders so much as it is about the continued effort to bludgeon and keep progressivism on the fringes. It happens every time, and people are sick of it, and they're sick of being written off as whiners by the moderate dems who always get their safe, "electable" nominees.

 

[Jaguar]

Bernie Sanders ad takes Barack Obama out of context - CNN Video

After seeing the data where one of the questions posed to voters was "Do you want to return to Obama policies" and the numbers coming back positive, some adviser must have said, "Hey Bernie, I know you once called Obama 'weak' but let's use the black guy to get some black votes. Our numbers are down with that demographic. I know you have claimed the establishment is trying to hold you back, but no one will blame your for suddenly kissing the ass of the establishment. Shhh, it will be fine."


On a side note - Warren just announced she is out.

Articles like this are very sobering.

Yes, they are:

After his election to the U.S. Senate in 1972, Biden remained a fixture in the black community, a regular at the annual NAACP dinner and a commencement speaker at historically black Delaware State University. He talked to everyone, including the wait staff, according to people who knew him at the time. Most important, he listened, recalled Delaware State’s provost and incoming president, Tony Allen, who served as Biden’s speechwriter and special assistant when Biden was in the Senate.

“It almost seemed like he had a unique familiarity with people who might not have been advantaged,” said Allen. “He was always the last one to leave, making sure he connected with people and knew what their issues were. It’s kind of why a lot of African Americans affectionately call him ‘Uncle Joe.’ We feel like he’s got our back, he’s gonna consult with us and make the right decision.”

[Cedric] Richmond credits Biden’s popularity with black voters to their ability to discern authenticity and the vice president’s relatability that transcends race.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Nice piece from 2019. Well researched and worth the read. I’d ask people who think Biden is so electable to read this and then explain what they find so electable about him.

[Letter from Washington] No Joe! | Harper's Magazine

“ Uncle Joe, champion of yesterday’s sordid compromises.” XD

Yeah, Joe is a huge mess. And a tool for the oligarchs. Pro incarceration, anti bankruptcy, pro banks, pro war, pro cronyism, inappropriate touching of women and girls, etc.

One barometer I like for measuring politicians is "how do they treat staff?" Hoover treated staff like crap, even though he was a famous humanitarian prior to being president. It is pretty telling Biden treats his staff poorly and does not have a large network of supporters and former staff.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

On a side note - Warren just announced she is out.

almost like...






















chess