Serious 2020 Democratic Primary Thread

Who are your favorite candidates?

  • Kamala Harris

    Votes: 43 8.0%
  • Elizabeth Warren

    Votes: 99 18.4%
  • Julián Castro

    Votes: 16 3.0%
  • Pete Buttigieg

    Votes: 51 9.5%
  • Kirsten Gillibrand

    Votes: 7 1.3%
  • John Delaney

    Votes: 9 1.7%
  • Tulsi Gabbard

    Votes: 63 11.7%
  • Bernie Sanders

    Votes: 338 62.9%
  • Amy Klobuchar

    Votes: 12 2.2%
  • Joe Biden

    Votes: 45 8.4%
  • Andrew Yang

    Votes: 112 20.9%
  • Cory Booker

    Votes: 7 1.3%
  • Marianne Williamson

    Votes: 19 3.5%
  • Mike Bloomberg

    Votes: 12 2.2%

  • Total voters
    537

Stratos

Banned deucer.
there are very few people not voting for Biden because they don't like him. please do not conflate criticism of a candidate to mean not voting for them. there are, however, people who will not vote for him because of his sexual assault allegations as you inferred. that said, tell me why my vote should go to a green party candidate instead of not voting at all. what's the benefit? what does voting for a candidate with no chance of winning do? the DNC learns the hard way either way.
It's the difference between not tipping and tipping a penny
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
So one could plausibly be interpreted as forgetting, while the other reveals that for sure you're an asshole
 

shade

be sharp, say nowt
is a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
would voting green sounds like a fine idea to me if you feel the two candidates are not progressive enough. i assume they have more progressive policies than the major parties? a large turnout for the greens shows the democrats in particular how many votes they could win should their policies be more in line with them.

i'm not american so my opinion doesn't count i just never rate people telling other people what to do with their vote
 

Adamant Zoroark

catchy catchphrase
is a Contributor Alumnus
would voting green sounds like a fine idea to me if you feel the two candidates are not progressive enough. i assume they have more progressive policies than the major parties? a large turnout for the greens shows the democrats in particular how many votes they could win should their policies be more in line with them.

i'm not american so my opinion doesn't count i just never rate people telling other people what to do with their vote
The issue with it is that how the electoral process works here very strongly encourages tactical voting. There are tons of people whose beliefs are more in line with the Green Party (which is by any measure more progressive than the Democratic Party) who nonetheless vote for Democratic candidates they like less for the purpose of ensuring the defeat of the Republican candidate they hate the most.

It's not great, but it's the system we're stuck with until we get ranked choice voting in all elections (which would be near-impossible to get passed in the current climate)
 
I’m obligated to mention that I’m advocating a position that may be seen as politically advantageous to me, as a conservative, in the context of this thread, though I would say it in any other context. Also, this point being followed could possibly lead to a more radical democratic party which I definitely don’t want.

I’m not convinced that voting third party is actually a tactical blunder if it is a reaction against your own party. You may not be getting a say in the race between two evils, but you are incentivizing your party to change. It becomes a short term versus long term kind of scenario, and your third-party vote will probably exert more influence on your own party than it would have had in the national election anyways. This option is 100% valid and arguably isn’t done enough within either party. I don’t think the practice should be disagreeable, even if you disagree with their opinion.

The reason why you vote third party as opposed to not voting is to communicate that you would have showed up if you were being more strongly represented.
 
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only an american would be arrogant and self-centered enough to think the political state of things in the USA has no bearing on the rest of the world
You’re probably way less impacted by Trumps America than the racial minorities, gay people, those seeking abortions, and other marginalized groups that have seen more discrimination since 2017. Very self centered and arrogant to assume your edgy teenager, Accelerationist views are justified when you don’t have to deal with the first order impacts of your actions!
 

THE_IRON_...KENYAN?

Banned deucer.
I wouldnt say that Biden is necessarily the lesser of two evils. This ticky tacky triangulatiion bullshit with fiscal conservatism and female drone pilots that the democrats have been peddling that Joe Biden wants more of is the reason why Trump exists in the first place, so it stands to reason that if you vote for him into office youll get an even smarter, worse trump later. Theyll probably be some white hispanic eco-fascist that will win 40 states. Secondly, Biden is a lot more likely to start an international conflict than Trump, and there are two primo targets for that in Venezuela and Iran that Trump didnt go for the easy chipshot for that Biden probably would. Trump is a pretty peaceful guy all bluster considered.

Trump is actually based and my favorite politician ever but Im laying out the case that from your point of view, Biden is worse.
 

GatoDelFuego

The Antimonymph of the Internet
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2) isn't even american, and so faces no repercussions from this "advice" is even allowed to post here.
only an american would be arrogant and self-centered enough to think the political state of things in the USA, a hegemonic superpower, has no bearing on the rest of the world
What post are you responding to..? Cause u got the wrong username
 
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PDC

street spirit fade out
is a Team Rater Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
thank god i live in a state where it will be 100% blue no matter what so i don't need to vote. if i did live in a tossup state i'd probably be convinced to vote for biden simply because he is, albeit not by much, the "lesser of two evils" and i do believe in harm reduction.

eventually biden will just give way to another, probably more sophisticated, fascist in the future. somebody will need to take trump's place, and given that his platform of petty authoritarianism has become the main platform for the republicans i assume they are due to nominate somebody in the future who has similar policies with a more refined and cunning acumen for politics. this cycle will have to peter out eventually. i'm pretty sure that the democrats desire defeat at this point, articulating their noble struggle by constantly being the intentional underdog.

You’re probably way less impacted by Trumps America than the racial minorities, gay people, those seeking abortions, and other marginalized groups that have seen more discrimination since 2017. Very self centered and arrogant to assume your edgy teenager, Accelerationist views are justified when you don’t have to deal with the first order impacts of your actions!
i agree that termi who i think is spanish or something probably is not as hard hit by his policies as those living in america who will suffer under a conservative supreme court for the next 20+ years or whatever. people living in europe are pretty "safe" from international politics because they align themselves with the united states consistently. for nations in the middle east, central america, south america, and east asia which suffer consequences exceeding a stock market change or some stupid trade war (i.e. canada), termi makes a valid point. the hardships faced by people in iraq, syria, iran, afghanistan, etc. supersede anything we could possibly experience here. 500,000+ people died because of a vote cast thousands of miles away, how strange is that? we treat our own citizens with contempt, but usually we don't slaughter them like we do with foreigners. i don't elevate social problems because "they're our own people," citizenship doesn't influence my interpretation of tragedy. it's just more visible because we live here, and because we live here, we are also morally culpable for what we do across the world. i can't do much to prevent the united kingdom from doing some stupid shit, but i can at least be an activist here.

sidenote: most american conservatives don't even differentiate between iranians/iraqis/syrians whatever. they just see them all as animals. bestial. they don't care if 500,000 of them die because to them their lives amount to that of a chicken. most american liberals are saddened over the 500,000 deaths because it made us look bad.

what myzo/dice/termi are contesting here is how regardless of who we vote, the baseline ideology remains consistent. electoral politics' futility should be apparent to you now. the imf / worldbank will continue dangling massive loans/investment over syria's head in exchange for liberalization policies that facilitated the civil war. we will continue subsidizing our farming industry against provisions of the WTO to force asian countries to become net-import nations because it aids our profits. biden will push for "international cooperation" and stress the importance of these institutions because he belongs to that liberal school of foreign policy. globalization could be a force for good if the wto/wb/imf/un were actually cooperative, instead of tools to open markets or punish countries deemed different.

the electoral system in america is stupid and i'd really like it if we all protest voted in unison and had some massive contested election. until such a movement happens i'll be voting democrat, which is of course incredibly paradoxical, but whatever.
 

fanyfan

i once put 42 mcdonalds chicken nuggets in my anus
I’m back (:
Also voting Green is definitely better than not voting, specifically because there’s a higher chance of them voting blue down ballot. I absolutely advocate voting for Biden but if for whatever reason you won’t vote for Biden and won’t be convinced to do so, voting green then blue down ballot is way better than not voting at all. The presidency isn’t the only race after all
 
man he had a good chance at winning if not for this
the point is he needs to collect more delegates to have any sort of influence at the convention, it’s possible they try nullifying his already collected delegates in other states through some shady shit as well. additionally the presidency isn’t the only race, and suppressing the potential Bernie votes also helps cuomo and his people maintain power for downballot races. great post though
 

SergioRules

||blimp||
is a Community Contributor
Biden talking about why he wants to build a border fence with Mexico, this is one of the reasons I cant vote for him. He is basically blue trump
Seen this take quite a bit and I would just like to remind everyone that no matter how much we hate Biden and his policies (because they are extremely terrible), a Blue Trump who will likely fill the Supreme Court with centrists who will make little to no change in the country is better than a Red Trump who will likely fill the Supreme Court with right-wing conservatives who will probably review a lot of past landmark cases starting with Roe v. Wade.
His policies are fucking terrible but there's no denying that he's better than Trump, even if it's only by a small margin.
 

ManOfMany

I can make anything real
is a Tiering Contributor
Biden is not a Blue Trump. It's not only the Supreme Court that is at stake. He supports increasing healthcare coverage including giving people a public option, while Trump has repeatedly tried to make healthcare more difficult to get. He has a plan to move to renewable energy, while Trump has called climate change a hoax and tried to strike down EPA protections against pollution. He has plans to end discriminatory policies and increase financial assistance in housing. In my opinion, his policies on these issues definitely do not go far enough but they are far better than Trump's policies.

Biden is also a far better representative of the U.S. as a public figure than Trump. Sure, he often makes mistakes and is clearly not as well-spoken as he once was, and he does have a temper. But he doesn't go as far as spewing the blatantly racist and sexist shit Trump has spewed, attacking the media, going on rants on Twitter and lying openly all the time. All of that is not just words- it delegitimizes the country and enables large movements of hateful people like the alt-right to feel like they have a voice.

Most importantly, Biden surrounds himself with better people than Trump. There are many progressives Democrats who are to the left of Biden but will work with him because he is what they've got; meanwhile, it is near impossible to work with someone as disrespectful and confrontational as Trump.

I think it's valid to not vote for either candidate because you feel that they don't speak for you, and you are upset with the Democratic process. But if you are genuinely trying to weigh each candidate against each other from a liberal/left perspective, it is very disingenuous to say they are equal.
 
Biden is not a Blue Trump. It's not only the Supreme Court that is at stake. He supports increasing healthcare coverage including giving people a public option, while Trump has repeatedly tried to make healthcare more difficult to get. He has a plan to move to renewable energy, while Trump has called climate change a hoax and tried to strike down EPA protections against pollution. He has plans to end discriminatory policies and increase financial assistance in housing. In my opinion, his policies on these issues definitely do not go far enough but they are far better than Trump's policies.

Biden is also a far better representative of the U.S. as a public figure than Trump. Sure, he often makes mistakes and is clearly not as well-spoken as he once was, and he does have a temper. But he doesn't go as far as spewing the blatantly racist and sexist shit Trump has spewed, attacking the media, going on rants on Twitter and lying openly all the time. All of that is not just words- it delegitimizes the country and enables large movements of hateful people like the alt-right to feel like they have a voice.

Most importantly, Biden surrounds himself with better people than Trump. There are many progressives Democrats who are to the left of Biden but will work with him because he is what they've got; meanwhile, it is near impossible to work with someone as disrespectful and confrontational as Trump.

I think it's valid to not vote for either candidate because you feel that they don't speak for you, and you are upset with the Democratic process. But if you are genuinely trying to weigh each candidate against each other from a liberal/left perspective, it is very disingenuous to say they are equal.
Thoughts on Tara Reade? #MeToo
 
buddy ur an active trump supporter u dont get to say shit abt #metoo

"Buddy," I don't deny Trump's been a sleezebag to women. You don't need to remind me of something everyone knows. Never once have I ever said I would look to Donald Trump as a moral compass, I've spoken about quite the opposite actually. I'm just saying are you gonna hold to your own standard and believe all women? Y'all certainly did during the entire Brett Kanavaugh debacle. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Are you gonna believe Biden's accuser, or like the media and most of Biden's endorsers, are you gonna throw that under the rug because it's on your side? She has people who have corroborated her story unlike Blassey Ford, and she's spoken about this as far back as 1993 on Larry King's show.
 
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Biden is nothing more than a hypocritical right winger who occasionally say liberal stuff to appease his base. His goal is power first, his interests second, and the people last.

Isn't it interesting that there's some remarks from leftists on here worrying about Trump going after Biden from the left. Well yeah, that's true. Trump is a more of a leftist than Biden is. Trump is culturally conservative, however left on everything else. If you're a leftist, you should seriously considering voting for the candidate that wants to hand out money to Americans directly and support Americans before foreigners rather than a cosmopolitan globalist who only serve the 1%. Why are you against a sitting leftist in your president office?

It's worth remembering that it was globalist policies that allowed Cornoavirus to spread so far and so quickly while recommending that people don't wear masks.
 
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Trump is a more of a leftist than Biden is. Trump is culturally conservative, however left on everything else. If you're a leftist, you should seriously considering voting for the candidate that wants to hand out money to Americans directly and support Americans before foreigners rather than a cosmopolitan globalist who only serve the 1% and being held back by the neoconservatives. Why are you against a sitting leftist in your president office?
Is this just some low effort trolling or actual brainrot? I honestly cant tell.
 

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