Serious 2020 Democratic Primary Thread

[Divine Retribution]

Hillary rigged the caucuses. You heard it here first, folks.

 

[MikeDawg]

The amazing thing about last night's disaster is that even if it was a total accident and bernie legitimately lost, nobody will believe it now. this could not have gone better for bernie fans, the DNC has to give it to bernie or we are probably getting four more years

Genuinely confused what you're talking about. How in the world does the technical mess (that Bernie's changes caused) imply that it was rigged against Bernie? His supporters calling everything rigged isn't a new phenomenon. In fact, we adamantly called Iowa rigged in 2016 because Hillary won some coin flips (lol). It's hopeless. Just like Trump fans.

If anything, Biden should be the one concerned about rigging. He underperformed polling by a huge margin. If we have to come up with a conspiracy amidst the chaos, that is the most suspicious happening.

 

[Bughouse]

Friendly reminder that it was only a few caucuses ago that the Iowa GOP (which runs WAY simpler caucuses than Iowa Dems do) reported the WRONG winner

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsall...ally-declares-santorum-the-iowa-caucus-winner

The problem isn't an app. The problem is that either Iowans don't know how to count/do pretty basic math, which I don't want to be true since that reeks of provincialism, or that caucuses are just a fundamentally flawed method of voting.

 

[Machoke]

The longer this mess persists the more importance New Hampshire has. I'm ok with this lmao.

 

[termi]

Is this thread really going to devolve into insane Bernie conspiracy theories already? At least give it until the second state.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...ernie-allies-are-still-at-odds-over-caucus-vs

Reminder that Clinton's team wanted to avoid this, but there was pushback from a certain group...

The DNC let Bernie rework the primary process. Now that there are issues stemming from those changes, it's somehow a scheme against Bernie? Jfc.

if the dems dont want to be the target of conspiracy theories, maybe they should work on thwie trustworthiness before anything else. if your legacy is one of constant error, biased leadership, and intransparency, can you really blame voters for being distrustful? it's easy to shout "you're all conspiracy theorists," much harder to do some introspection and understand why your party gave rise to the popularity of so-called conspiracy theories to begin with

 

[PPB]

Anybody ever feel like Bernie Sanders is trying to lose every time? lol...

 

[EV]

Buttegieg - Disqualified

You're predicting he will be disqualified or you think he ought to be? If the latter, why?

 

[MikeDawg]

if the dems dont want to be the target of conspiracy theories, maybe they should work on thwie trustworthiness before anything else. if your legacy is one of constant error, biased leadership, and intransparency, can you really blame voters for being distrustful? it's easy to shout "you're all conspiracy theorists," much harder to do some introspection and understand why your party gave rise to the popularity of so-called conspiracy theories to begin with

You could say the same thing about the conspiracies perpetuated by Trump supporters. In fact, this sounds exactly like something a Trump supporter would say. "If the Dems didn't want people to believe in Pizzagate, maybe they shouldn't have ordered pizza!!"

If that's the legacy you want to assign to the DNC, then that's your prerogative. I don't blame you; it's a natural part of being introduced to politics via Bernie cult. You'd be instinctively and adamantly opposed to a conspiracy around Bernie instead of "doing some introspection". Check your bias.

The "Iowa was rigged" conspiracy is 100% unfounded. You people just needed an excuse if Bernie lost. It's so transparent.

I'm honestly confused though. Your comments were so much higher-quality as Robert Alfons. It's as if Bernie fans are getting even more disconnected from reality.

 

[termi]

You could say the same thing about the conspiracies perpetuated by Trump supporters. In fact, this sounds exactly like something a Trump supporter would say. "If the Dems didn't want people to believe in Pizzagate, maybe they shouldn't have ordered pizza!!"

If that's the legacy you want to assign to the DNC, then that's your prerogative. I don't blame you; it's a natural part of being introduced to politics via Bernie cult. You'd be instinctively and adamantly opposed to a conspiracy around Bernie instead of "doing some introspection". Check your bias.

The "Iowa was rigged" conspiracy is 100% unfounded. You people just needed an excuse if Bernie lost. It's so transparent.

introduced to politics via the bernie cult? bitch u dont know me

anyway i wasn't talking about whether or not the conspiracy theory is correct or not, all im saying is that it seems to me that people have been noticing certain patterns within american politics that makes them distrustful of establishment politicians and within that context it makes sense not to assume that vote counting software funded by buttigieg failing at a critical moment followed by him mysteriously asserting that he won was all accident and coincidence. they could be entirely mistaken, but if you think people only believe that happened because some fuckin 80 year old dude whipped them into a frenzy over socialism and wall street or whatever, you are frankly just kinda moronic

btw idk what ur pizzagate example is supposed to mean exactly but i think there is a difference between "oh american politics has been deeply corrupt for decades so it could be possible that electoral rigging is happening" vs "oh these democrats have been sending weird emails about a pizza party to each other so there must be a pedophile ring hidden under a pizza parlor." not all "conspiracy theories" are made equal, so to speak

 

[ButteredToast]

 

[Chou Toshio]

You're predicting he will be disqualified or you think he ought to be? If the latter, why?

There’s going to need to be investigation into his relationship with the app.

Anyway, 60% now put out.

I think it’s likely that Sanders team is leaking representative samples while negotiating behind the scenes.

Assuming this is the final result; it’s a bit of a closer win than we’d have liked but it is a FANTASTIC ranking— like the absolute ideal for Sanders.

Pete is the least competitive of the competition— with zero black/minority vote and highest weakness to Bloomberg competing.

Warren ends up in 3rd, clearly showing Bernie as the dominant progressive.

And nothing could be better for Bernie that Joe’s decrepit plummet— fiercely competing with top tier wine mom Amy.

Iowa was greeeaaaaaaat for Bernie.

 

[UncleSam]

 

[Machoke]

There’s going to need to be investigation into his relationship with the app.

Anyway, 60% now put out.

I think it’s likely that Sanders team is leaking representative samples while negotiating behind the scenes.

Assuming this is the final result; it’s a bit of a closer win than we’d have liked but it is a FANTASTIC ranking— like the absolute ideal for Sanders.

Pete is the least competitive of the competition— with zero black/minority vote and highest weakness to Bloomberg competing.

Warren ends up in 3rd, clearly showing Bernie as the dominant progressive.

And nothing could be better for Bernie that Joe’s decrepit plummet— fiercely competing with top tier wine mom Amy.

Iowa was greeeaaaaaaat for Bernie.

Where are they releasing this? Since it's coming from the campaign I want to take it with a grain of salt, especially if it's 60% reporting, but seems like it was a pretty good night for Bernie.
I want Amy to surpass Biden soooo bad. It was be HILARIOUS if he came out of Iowa fifth. So much for mr. electable.

 

[EV]

There’s going to need to be investigation into his relationship with the app.

If Pete has influence to exert over the company that operates this app, wouldn't it behoove him to have it generate a legitimate result immediately with clear numbers showing him in the lead instead of a convoluted circus where we suddenly have two, three, or more winners?

I think what really happened is the caucus was poorly equipped to handle the technology shift. I think Pete jumped the gun in declaring victory. I think in a month people will not care about the debacle, except the Republicans who are trying to convince us all this Matters in the long run (see Deck Knight already riding this train).

 

[tcr]

The way I see it there are two outcomes:

1) Pete (and subsequently the shadow cabal of the DNC) were attempting to rig the votes and pulled the plug before bad optics came out.

• The app that the caucus used was Shadow, developed underneath CEO Gerard Niemira who worked on the 2016 Clinton campaign, which mysteriously received funding from both of the prime establishment candidates, Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg.
• Pete announcing his win prior to any results being cast and putting his faith in the caucus system: "Folks are in the room, they see how everybody aligned, so it's verifiable but still very, very frustrating."
• The optics of this seem to deeply align with corporate interests. IF Sanders won, legitimately, this clouds the results and prevents him from making an opening speech announcing his victory. Instead what happens is Pete and Klobuchar get to make speeches (for some reason) giving more media time while people put less value in the Iowa caucus, thus prolonging the electability of candidates who are failing hard (Biden, Klobuchar), and giving screentime to candidates that are in bed with corporate interests (like Pete and his oil conglomerates

2) The DNC is so supremely stupid beyond any reasonable doubt

• Spend years highlighting the fear factor of Russian interference in electronic vote tampering, then when the next election comes around develop a really buggy app to count the tallies of the caucus
• allowing Bloomberg of all people to buy his way onto the debate stage despite getting maybe(?) 1 delegate at most
• This kind of fuckup robs momentum of literally all candidates and makes the Democrats look like absolute fools. Why are people going to be motivated to turn out in droves for a DNC established candidate when they can't even do a simple vote count right? inb4 "lots of math very complicated"

Honestly this was the last result I expected to see when i woke up this morning. it seems like professional inadequacy at this point. From a Bernie standpoint I see these media spins, conveniently leaving Bernie out of poll results (like counting him as "other" with the majority percent) or outright shafting him with headlines while praising minority candidates like Klobuchar (who have zero chance to win). At this point I am convinced that it's not actually a battle for left vs right ideology as that only plays out on surface level. You gotta be shitting me if you don't think that 4 more years of Trump is what CNN / Fox / MSNBC / WaPo / NYT are all shooting for at this point, which is why they prop up ineffective candidates and perpetuate petty squabbles and "coincidentally" have major malfunctions at various integral parts of the election process. Either something fishy is going on or the dudes in charge are Chaplin levels of comically incompetent, and I really don't know which one is scarier

 

[Bughouse]

If you really think that of all elections someone would try to rig the one that’s NOT a secret ballot and you can literally just count the people you see, you’re an idiot.

If you think a candidate would report spending to a tech company they are bribing to report an election incorrectly, you’re an idiot

If you think a tech company would rig an election for the sweet sweet price of maybe 50grand, you’re an idiot.

you’re still probably less of an idiot than the people who decided to use this app and the people who built it... but an idiot nonetheless

 

[MikeDawg]

stuff

I agree with the idea behind your comment, but the execution is way off.

First of all, it's not "people" believing that a tech failure is a sign of rigging, it's Bernie fans. Trouble reporting results -> Rigged against Bernie is a ridiculous non-sequitor. The conspiracy spawned from legit nothing. No other candidate's supporters act like this. It is indeed happening because an 80 year old populist whipped them into a frenzy.

Secondly, the caucus app wasn't "funded" by Pete. This is what I'm talking about when I say you're all misinformed and naive. He contracted the same company a year ago to build the system he uses for text banking.

(Saw this metaphor somewhere else) Pinning the Iowa issues on him is like saying I'm responsible for the iCloud celebrity nude leaks because I bought an iPhone once. The Bernie camp is using a massive reach to drive an unfounded conspiracy.

 

[EV]

I wouldn't go so far as to call them idiots, but the deluge of conspiracies that cloud literally anything remotely controversial is awfully tiresome. I guess my last straw was when the tinfoil madhatter Sandy Hook truthers gained mainstream attention.

But speaking of public voting/caucuses, anyone else think it's stupid? Do you think the spectacle of standing in clumps could cloud a voter's conscience? (e.g. My boss is watching and he's a fervent Candidate X supporter.)

 

[Myzozoa]

accusing ppl of conspiracy theories about unreleased results is all centre dems have left now that warren and sanders swept iowa, this is the distraction their base needs since they gave up discussing policy months ago, and they want to drag out their last surviving argument based on 'electability' for a few more days before the 'official' (nyt isn't official enough apparently) results come out y/n

 

[Celticpride]

2) The DNC is so supremely stupid beyond any reasonable doubt

• Spend years highlighting the fear factor of Russian interference in electronic vote tampering, then when the next election comes around develop a really buggy app to count the tallies of the caucus
• allowing Bloomberg of all people to buy his way onto the debate stage despite getting maybe(?) 1 delegate at most
• This kind of fuckup robs momentum of literally all candidates and makes the Democrats look like absolute fools. Why are people going to be motivated to turn out in droves for a DNC established candidate when they can't even do a simple vote count right? inb4 "lots of math very complicated"

Two issues with this - the DNC and the Iowa Democratic Party are two separate entities. Closely related? Yes. But as I understand it the DNC has little to do with the caucus app.

Second, Bloomberg invested next to no time in Iowa. In fact, he sat out the first four states almost entirely. He’s spending the week touring California, part of his clear aim to make his first big play on Super Tuesday. The national polling numbers bear this out, as he does better there than in any early state poll (over 6 percent in RCP national averages iirc). Steyer by all indications is making a similar play, going all in on Nevada and SC. It’s part of the way to play a field this big, certain candidates (Klob, Yang) feel the need to make a splash as early as possible. Others, especially those with more funding, can focus more on down the road objectives. CA has 10x the delegates IA does. It’s not the worst play one can make. Note that this is not to say I like Bloomberg much at all, but he has a defined and legit strategy.

 

[EV]

accusing ppl of conspiracy theories about unreleased results

So what would you call it, then? It looks to me like people are making assumptions based on unfounded information.

If conspiracy is too strong a word, would you accept conjecture? Either way, it's not based in facts. It's just theorized (oop).

 

[Machoke]

They released 60% but not the whole thing. Jesus what a mess.

 

[MikeDawg]

Results

64% 62% reporting.

Jeez, if Bernie got more realignment votes than Pete but the same number of delegates, there would be hell to pay.

Instead we're going to get "PETE RIGGED IT!!!" Even if Bernie does end up winning

 

[MikeDawg]

So what would you call it, then? It looks to me like people are making assumptions based on unfounded information.

If conspiracy is too strong a word, would you accept conjecture? Either way, it's not based in facts. It's just theorized (oop).

"Conspiracy" is totally fair considering how accusatory the claims are.

If they were just suggesting Sanders was disadvantaged by the tech problems, that's one thing. But these are straight up unfounded (or worse: founded on misinformation) smears targeting specific entities.

 

[Machoke]

64% reporting.

Isn't it 62?