Serious 2020 Democratic Primary Thread

[Stratos]

I mean honestly I agree with Sam. Looks to me like he's saying "You need to pay more taxes but it's not because I hate you, it's because I don't want you to be literally guillotined." Probably he could have been more clear about it but (plausible deniability / he's getting too old and feeble)

 

[Lrr]

I mean honestly I agree with Sam. Looks to me like he's saying "You need to pay more taxes but it's not because I hate you, it's because I don't want you to be literally guillotined." Probably he could have been more clear about it but (plausible deniability / he's getting too old and feeble)

My main issue is it reads like he wants to do the bare minimum to appease people, he's all but stated he would veto M4A. It's possible he has good intentions but that doesn't change that it's not enough

 

[BigBallerBrand]

"chyna"

 

[Laurel]

still trying to wrap my head around why people think joe "nothing will fundamentally change" biden is an inspiring candidate.

i mean, i could possible see a large turnout solely to counter trump based on some of the primary turnout, but democrats might learn again that "not trump" isn't enough of a platform to run successfully off of.

nothing is inspiring about Biden. he is not Donald Trump and not a socialist

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

dont trust any system of rating presidents that doesnt have dubya in last

I realize you're (probably) being facetious, but G.W. does at least have the undeniable benefit of not being Franklin Pierce.

 

[TheValkyries]

Individualist level political analysis is rampant in America and it needs to die because it just makes everyone stupider.

“Corona virus is bad because of Trump” is such an intellectually piss poor take that’s being bandied about like the Latest silver bullet to take him down. No you dickweeds, Corona would be this bad even if Clinton or Biden or Obamas third term, or if it was Jeb or any other Republican. The problem is the system.

Honestly I feel like most of America wants to hold elections for a monarch rather than a democratic system, because that’s the level they wish to engage politics at.

 

[Myzozoa]

I realize you're (probably) being facetious, but G.W. does at least have the undeniable benefit of not being Franklin Pierce.

theyre actually similar types of presidents from a regional/historical perspective, theyre both 'border-rancher-defender' types if you will, that sought to advance imperialism in US politics. it would be a good phd project to look at the history of this type of president if only because the roots of american imperialism are extremely under-studied. the relevant presidencies/time frames are Pierce as the earliest, then T Roosevelt, then Wilson through to WW2, then Bush Jr and Bush sr.

imagine thinking biden is gonna beat trump cause of coronavirus

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Individualist level political analysis is rampant in America and it needs to die because it just makes everyone stupider.

“Corona virus is bad because of Trump” is such an intellectually piss poor take that’s being bandied about like the Latest silver bullet to take him down. No you dickweeds, Corona would be this bad even if Clinton or Biden or Obamas third term, or if it was Jeb or any other Republican. The problem is the system.

Honestly I feel like most of America wants to hold elections for a monarch rather than a democratic system, because that’s the level they wish to engage politics at.

An epic take, indeed, indeed, ignoring that the administration has been handwaving the virus away until 2 weeks ago. We had knowledge to prepare for the worst in February but trump decided to put all his free effort into fondling the balls of the stock market (strongest its ever been!) instead of doing everything we're doing today, a month ago

 

[vonFiedler]

Compromise take:

Trump HAS royally fucked this up but I doubt it'll be what ends his presidency once he gives us all 1000 Yang bucks.

 

[politics understander]

I'm sorry, but they're Trump bucks™ now. Respect his idea.

 

[EV]

As we've seen with the impeachment sham, nothing will end his presidency. Not Rona, not Uncle Joe, not term limits. Nothing.

 

[Lrr]

Compromise take:

Trump HAS royally fucked this up but I doubt it'll be what ends his presidency once he gives us all 1000 Yang bucks.

it's almost like progressive policies ARE popular

this will 100% be spun as "Trump may have fucked up but still did what was right for the American people because he cares about them" in the general

although plenty of other western countries are having huge issues with covid without having an imbecile in charge because the average person isn't taking it seriously, and I don't think any other potential president would've gone "SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN" mode enough to curb things well enough

 

[fanyfan]

Ok I need to rant.
So, why are there so many Bernie or Busters online? I get the anger, the frustration, the sadness of being a Bernie supporter and watch as he apparently clinched the nomination, all the polls were for him, and watch it just slip through his fingers. I was pretty depressed Super Tuesday night and especially the day after. I still went out and cast my ballot for Bernie in Michigan, knowing it wouldn’t matter, and watched as Biden picked up every county in Michigan. When you see a candidate that inspires you, a candidate that really gets you motivated to fight for what’s right, watching them get so close to then just lose, and not just lose but get absolutely crushed, is a really tough pill to swallow.

Now, clearly that isn’t the case for every Bernie supporter. A lot of them probably weren’t as invested as I was. However, it does seem to be the case for a lot of them. There seems to be a lot of people quite sad that Bernie lost and, even if they’re not purely Bernie or Bust, there seems to be a lot of Bernie supporters who really don’t want to vote for Biden.

So, what would lead one to the position of not voting for Biden as a Bernie supporter? I’ve had plenty of arguments with people about this online, so I’ll try so summarize some of the ones I’ve heard:
1. I don’t want to support the corrupt DNC after they refused to support Bernie and rejected his progressive agenda by coalescing around Biden. They don’t seem to care about their young/progressive supporters.
2. If Biden wins, then in 4-8 years there will be another fascist/right-wing populist who will be smarter than Trump and actually know how to get more things done.
3. There’s basically no difference between Trump and Biden, so what’s the point?
4. I don’t want to vote for a lesser of two evils, they’re both evil even if one is lesser.

That’s clearly not all the arguments for BoB, but I hope I’ve captured at least the general sentiment of it. Now, I’ve looked and I’ve tried to understand the arguments. I really have. And I still can’t figure out how one comes to conclusions like “Trump and Biden are basically the same” or even “Biden and Trump aren’t different enough to make me want to vote for Biden over Trump”. It just seems like the Bernie supporters want someone to take their anger out on and the DNC is an easy scapegoat since they have screwed him some in the past. However, I hate to admit it, but no voter suppression, no screwy stuff, nothing from the DNC can explain Biden winning by that much. He crushed Bernie. Not only that, but he (Biden) drew out a ton of turnout among older voters that Bernie just couldn’t with younger voters. This one isn’t on the DNC, it isn’t on Tom Perez or Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi or anyone like that. It was on the voters who came out in droves for Biden.

Now, let me spend some time illustrating the difference between Biden and Trump since I think it’s important.
- Biden will appoint pro-choice judges to the Supreme Court. Trump probably won’t.
- Biden supports getting more people healthcare. Even if you argue that his plan doesn’t go far enough which I agree with, it’s way better than Trump actively taking away people ‘s healthcare
- In fact, that’s true for a pretty good amount of issues. Biden has a more moderate plan than Bernie on an issue, but it’s miles better than Trump setting us back in that particular area. Climate Change, criminal justice reform, etc.
- Biden wouldn’t do things like ban trans people from the military, roll back protections for lgbt+ people, etc that Trump’s been doing
I think there’s lots of things up there that are worth voting for. However, there seems to be a thing among Bernie supporters to not support those things. Why? I don’t understand. Is it just hatred of the DNC? Or, I’m some cases is it something else?

Ok look, I’m a straight while cis male. I was born into an upper-middle class family. I probably have more privileges than I can name. I recognize that. And to me, some of this Bernie or Bust sentiment seems to extend from privilege? I mean, I could not vote for Biden and be just fine. If Trump gets another four years, I’ll be fine. However, do you think the poor person who doesn’t have access to healthcare cares if they get it from Bernie or Biden? I do think they’d care if they don’t get it or get it taken away because Biden lost and now we have four more years of Trump. How about a woman who needs an abortion? Do you think she cares if Bernie or Biden secure her abortion rights? I think she would care if she gets that right taken away due to pro-life Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump. You can rinse and repeat. Basically any marginalized group that I can think of benefits more under Biden than Trump, in some cases substantially more. Now, definitely not all Bernie or Busters have a ton of privilege like this. But I think that is true in some cases.

Ok I need to stop rambling at 2 am and go to sleep so I’ll end it there for now.

Edit: corrected some errors since I wrote this at 2 am

 

[Kingler]

fanyfan i think your post captures it pretty well but this old lawrence o' donnell clip is probably more of a strategic version of your first point. i've been surprised in the last few months too because it's become more and more clear to me that the big positions bernie has taken on the left (m4a, green new deal, free college, legal weed, the works) are pretty much a binary issue for the bernie or bust people, they're kinda single-issue voters in that regard; it's really problematic that biden has a history too because his legacy and voting record is too well-established. a lot of these are independents as well as low-propensity voters as well, so they're not part of i guess what you'd call the "standard" democratic base (the ones who are gonna show up for whoever the nominee is bc trump). even if bernie's campaign ended tomorrow, the stark difference in their voting records was a central focus of the campaign's for a long time and pretty much every person within the movement probably has at least some idea of why they're not big on biden. i think pete and amy dropping out when they did specifically to stop bernie and consolidate around a challenger to him also left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths; it wouldn't personally be an issue for me voting in november because politics is politics, but that's how people think and i don't blame them (seemed pretty scummy to me). i completely disagree with the idea that this is 'privilege' in any sense btw; a lot of the people who aren't gonna vote and were brought into the political process by bernie are people of color and poor people who don't really think voting changes their life in one way or another, and i can sympathize with that (it is their vote after all).

so i think in the end it's pretty much the candidate that these people don't like, and there's nothing that can change that between now and november unless he picks someone really progressive for VP (never going to happen). i think the biden camp expects to lose a significant of the bernie voters, and shift the dem party to the party of the suburbs. this fantastic quote (by the guy who made sure ppl can't discharge student debt) sort of shows why he's getting killed with the young vote in this primary:

"The younger generation now tells me how tough things are. Give me a break. No, no, I have no empathy for it. Give me a break."

i think he wants to get just enough that are terrified of a second trump term and bet on the Hillary Coalition, + the people who realized trump can't actually act like a president after 4 years. hope they hide him from the press enough

 

[Surgo]

"Vote for Biden because he isn't Trump" is such a terrible general election strategy. The equivalent one for Hillary failed in 2016, I'm not sure why anyone thinks it will do better in 2020.

I legit expect Biden's dementia to be a huge problem if/when he takes office so I'm pretty invested in seeing who his VP pick will be.

 

[Machoke]

My biggest opposition to Biden comes from many factors, but the main ones are:

- Trump could literally run to his left on trade and some parts of foreign policy
If Trump of all people could run to your left you know it's a problem. Biden thought NAFTA was a good thing, and still does. He would continue to go for trade deals that would devastate the working class. Additionally, there are places in foreign policy, for example Venezuela, where I don't doubt Biden would have gone even harder in the regime change effort (which is why I'm honestly so confused as to why Tulsi endorsed him recently). As a reminder he was one of the key players in whipping votes for Iraq and when questioned about it he literally just... lies? Trump foreign policy is not good, believe me. But I honestly fear Biden's foreign policy would be just as bad or worse.

- Trump at least pretended to want to "Drain the swamp." Biden doesn't even pretend to care. The swamp is his BFF.
Politics operating as a "one party" system essentially due to the donor class controlling both repubs and dems, administrations full of Goldman Sachs and billionaires and their allies, the interests of a few quashing the interests of the people... This is one of the biggest problems in politics and one of the reasons why nothing seems to change and if it does it's to bail out or benefit those on top and screws over the American people. Biden basically seems nothing wrong with this. "Nothing will fundamentally change." He rubs elbows with the people who are the problem. Seeing those insurance stocks rise up after Biden won was truly disheartening. Time are terrible now, and they have been for people, especially young people, for years. The Biden administration would do nothing to substantially change that.

which kinda bleeds into my next point, of...

- Biden represents no change/incremental change. That is not what we need right now.
People NEED big change. This is a time of crisis. The fact that he would literally veto M4A if it somehow got onto his desk... The fact that his plan doesn't address climate change as the disaster that it is, the fact that his worldview informs him politics to the point that he thinks young people need to just suck it up and deal with things rather than recognize and try to change these systemic problems... It's sickening

- Biden represents everything wrong with the democratic party and how out of touch they are with the needs of the future of this country and how young people specifically, who feel disillusioned, disenfranchised, left behind, broken... are simply left for dead because of the rigidity of the system/establishment/late capitalism/whatever you want to call it.

And on top of all that (which, there's more in his record for example that's terrible but those are the main things for me)... the guy is a huge liar (which like, politician I guess). There's literally tons of contradicting evidence especially when he addresses his terrible record or makes up whack stories trying to paint himself as a hero or when he takes credit for things he didn't do or positions he didn't have. He's entitled, another "it's my turn" candidate. Literally barely campaigned and went off of grabbing rich people's money, saying "obama" and "black people like me" and saying the hopes and ideals for the future that progressives champion are too unrealistic. He's going senile or at the very least becoming incomprehensible compared to a few days ago. I would be lying if part of my dislike toward Biden was his character, which is ironic since he's running on character vs Trump lol yet has such a shitty character.

In short, Biden is America's hawkish and destructive foreign policy. Biden is corruption and proliferation of the swamp. Biden is the donor's, billionaire's, corporatation's friend. Biden is destructive trade deals. Biden is not taking climate change seriously. Biden is business as usual despite the changes needed. Biden is the symbol of the moral bankruptcy of the democratic party. Biden is suck it up and deal with the shitty world. Biden is, simply put, bad.

And I get it, Trump is terrible. But I can't bring myself to validate Biden and what he represents in continuing the democratic party's disregard toward the working class, developing nations abroad, and the future of this planet all for the favor of wealthy elites and donors. I don't want the conditions which rose to Trump in the first place to continue. I don't want the conditions that keep the working class and young people hopeless in their misery to continue. I don't want myself and thousands of others to be left behind again simply because the alternative could be worse.

I will repudiate Biden and what he represents just as I repudiate Trump and what he represents.

If that makes me deplorable or a stupid person or naive or whatever, then fine continue thinking that way idc. Think about that of all the other working class people who have expressed similar sentiments and in 2016 about Hillary too. Think that about the other latinos who realize the foreign policy implications of the increasingly hawkish democratic party players like Biden and Hillary. Perhaps the party elites should have more power in picking the nominee then, since all these stupid uneducated voters like me after all don't wanna unite by abandoning everything they care for to take down Drumph tm.

I also understand the importance of voting in progressives elsewhere but when people like Jessica Cisneros get beaten by Cuellar (Trump's fave democrat), by the same voters who choose status quo Biden on the grounds of him beating Trump it really highlights how rotten everything is and how damaging the status quo candidate is in getting real change.

The last thing I'll say is that Trump is not an aberration, he's a symptom and perpetuator of this hostile late capitalist system that spits on the working class of this country. Biden is also a symptom and perpetuator. I have no interest in letting another person in like that.


Also fanyfan I'm responding to your post in general but I don't mean to be combative, I'm kinda ranting a little too especially at the end. Other people have been really annoying and I've even gotten the Russia Asset allegation already which lol

 

[Kingler]

by the way, the last people have seen of joe biden to the best of my knowledge was his wife having to pull him offstage after he was staring blankly into a camera. even though trump's handling of this has been disastrous people have gotten to see him in a public setting during this crisis, meanwhile no one has any idea where joe is. even i could come up with easy attack ads on him (*trump voice* "Busy giving everyone 1000 TRUMP BUCKS! Where's Sleepy Joe?"), this honestly feels like so much more of a disaster than hillary going into 2016 it's insane. with pelosi basically completely botching the coronavirus response (of course the republicans deserve a lot of the blame, but she's trying to means-test the response in the middle of a pandemic lol), i think the hope that the economic crash ends his presidency by default might be waning.

 

[TheValkyries]

An epic take, indeed, indeed, ignoring that the administration has been handwaving the virus away until 2 weeks ago. We had knowledge to prepare for the worst in February but trump decided to put all his free effort into fondling the balls of the stock market (strongest its ever been!) instead of doing everything we're doing today, a month ago

Yes my mistake it was Trump and ONLY Trump who puts the needs of the economy ahead of the needs of the people. No other public figures are involved. No other high ranking officials are being bone headed morons about this as capitalism fails completely before their eyes.

The right wing: outmaneuvering the Democrats to their left during the crisis.
The Democrats, withering and dying, as they oppose these moves: “the entire crisis is trumps fault actually. He didn’t act fast enough.”

Crisis politics are not about who needs to be blamed they’re about what needs to be done. And any effort spent throwing blame in the moment is an exercise in intellectually masturbatory self congratulation for not having enough power to make their own mistakes.

 

[RaikouLover]

this is what you're missing:

Do you think the guy who lied through his teeth at least 5 times last night has a shot of beating a popular incumbent within his own party? I don’t.

And don’t take it from me, take it from Biden’s favorite site, PolitiFact: he misled or straight up lied to people about multiple things: 1 2 3 (<- this one's for when biden tried to throw in "uhh what about Russia Bernie?" last night)

i just came across this wonderful video on twitter I'd recommend watching too RaikouLover

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1239376892249194496

again, please actually respond to why you think despite all of this baggage that people are going to find out regardless of whether or not CNN or MSNBC does their journalistic duty, people should vote for this guy (keep in mind it's their vote, you have to actually fucking earn it). the vote blue no matter who folks have their reasons, but i feel like you're being incredibly misleading on their behalf

"Baggage" is useless pejorative. Every politician has baggage. Donald Trump has baggage. Barack Obama has baggage. Joe Biden has baggage. Bernie Sanders has a lot of "baggage."

RaikouLover first of all I have outlined why Bernie isn’t performing as well. There’s been near billions of dollars worth of air time devoted to attacking Bernie from the right by every mainstream media outlet not just FoxNews, something done at no cost to Biden as he likes to freely admit “he outspent me massively and I still won!”

Another reason is a generational divide that always seems to happen, whenever there is a movement being charged and gaining steam that leans progressive... in that there is always a massive retaliation from the right. The Civil Rights movement transitioned into the assassinations of a number of its leaders, and a horrible, and violently bloody period of racial strife through the 70s. The first black president was elected and his successor is an out and out Fascist. This country at its core is aggressively right wing, and it will always be hard to win as a left wing candidate.

And you keep insisting that I’m saying Biden and a Trump are the same but you’re wrong. They aren’t the same, but they are still both bad for the country. And the idea that my criticisms from the left are right wing talking points is wildly off base. If anything the reason you would say that is because the right has found extreme success in coopting leftist critiques to weaken the posturing the democrats take, and then using it to continue to push harder right. Obama expanded ICE, but in a way that was palatable to the people not affected. Trump does it in a less palatable way and says “Obama did it so can I” and he’s not wrong. The Democratic establishment and the Republican establishment largely agree on the “what should be done” front and only disagree on the degree of severity in implementation.

Does it ever occur to Bernie Sanders supporters that Bernie himself just is a bad candidate? He's losing even worse than 2016. If he's so great, people would be voting for him.

Even as Bernie wins on the issues, people still don't vote for him!

The idea that you should show up to vote this November just for the sake of the House's electoral reform bill is actually a good one. Unfortunately it's being championed itt by a guy who just reposts the phrases HR1 and D+6 (phrases I can now see swimming around when I close my eyelids) 3-4 times per page without making any effort to tailor his posts to the guy he is addressing, and calls anyone who is disappointed by the victory of a senile centrist an enemy of the revolution

The generic ballot is actually moving further away from Republicans. It is at D+7.4% at the time of posting.

Every other post is about how Biden is a "bad candidate" (i.e. any candidate Bernie supporter doesn't like) followed by rationalizations to support why he can't win. If Democrats are clear significant statistical favorites in November, there are only two possibilities for how Biden will "surely" lose to Trump:

1) 2 years of generic polling is significantly off
2) Voters will split-ticket vote for Trump + Democrats in Congress (split ticket voting barely exists anymore in Presidential cycles)

Which is it?

still trying to wrap my head around why people think joe "nothing will fundamentally change" biden is an inspiring candidate.

i mean, i could possible see a large turnout solely to counter trump based on some of the primary turnout, but democrats might learn again that "not trump" isn't enough of a platform to run successfully off of.

nothing is inspiring about Biden. he is not Donald Trump and not a socialist

Candidates don't need to make our tummy warm and tingly. They merely have to be the best choice. If one can't see a difference between Biden and Trump they likely never intended on voting.

"Vote for Biden because he isn't Trump" is such a terrible general election strategy. The equivalent one for Hillary failed in 2016, I'm not sure why anyone thinks it will do better in 2020.

I legit expect Biden's dementia to be a huge problem if/when he takes office so I'm pretty invested in seeing who his VP pick will be.

Actually, it's a very good strategy when the political climate favors the out party like it does today.

"Biden's dementia" is right wing bullshit. Trump can barely read but it's no surprise Bernie supporters are eating up the baseless personal attacks against Biden.

 

[TheValkyries]

Glad that my entire point about truisms have entirely missed for you.

Has it ever occurred to democrats that not every criticism of your preferred candidate is right wing bullshit. Have you ever considered, have you ever considered have you ever considered that you yourself are not actually correct?

 

[RaikouLover]

Glad that my entire point about truisms have entirely missed for you.

Has it ever occurred to democrats that not every criticism of your preferred candidate is right wing bullshit. Have you ever considered, have you ever considered have you ever considered that you yourself are not actually correct?

"Biden has dementia" first and foremost is a lie. It's an unsubstantiated character smear that makes no attempt to even be truthful (hence: bullshit). Secondly, where do you think that attack came from?

Criticize generic Democratic candidate on merit. Biden's recent support on the Hyde Amendment for example, was probably out of touch with the majority of Democratic base voters.

EDIT: Shifting gears:

More states are moving their primary dates back due to COVID-19 outbreak. Can this primary end already?

 

[termi]

dont mind me im just here to make another "unsubstantiated" claim that joe biden is mentally unfit to be president

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1240989600215994368

it looks like he just keeps forgetting where he is on the reg. is this normal?

 

[politics understander]

I am tired of these slanders. Joe Biden is not 'crazy' or 'demented', his stutter causes him to forget where he is. You really gonna mock a man with a disability?

I expected better of 'smogon'. The people on this site know better than anyone else what it's like to live with disabilities. And now when someone like him is flourishing, you all turn bitter. You are jealous of success.

I might just switch my vote to Joe Biden, it will be like the Make-A-Wish foundation. We need to make this young man from Delaware's dreams come true. Joe Biden is going to be the one to cross the Delaware a second time. This is the second coming of Washington.

 

[Bughouse]

Honestly if I were in Joe’s position I’d be absent too. There’s not much of a winning position to take and he’s not a sitting governor who needs to be directing a response. Sometimes the best move is not to play.

Letting all presidential election media focus entirely on trump’s poor response is a valid strategy

He already initially confronted the issue at the debate to get his basic thoughts out there. What’s the winning play right now beyond that? Seriously?

It’s better for him to just confront the issue later in the cycle with some damn effective attack ads just using a timeline of what trump said and did followed by eventual death tolls, and heck spice it up with some Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler rhetoric too.

 

[Kingler]

well what about the millions of people voting for him who are out of a job and want some reassurance? of course it's the play for him because he can barely get sentences out (i seriously have no idea what he took for that debate), but the ill will he's racking up through this is gonna bite him in the ass.

More states are moving their primary dates back due to COVID-19 outbreak. Can this primary end already?

this is rich, glad all the biden bros cared so much when the bernie camp wanted to push back tuesday's primaries. i guess people's lives don't matter when the narrative fits your guy's end!