Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[Nurasu]

The switch doesn't even matter, it's ancient history. It's a Republican deflection from current indefensible events.

[Xyonai]

Agree...the Democratic Party's history is ugly as hell.

As is the history of this country in a lot of ways, but shit in the past only matters if it's still dictating modern policy. We're still feeling the echos of institutionalized racism, but it's not Modern Democrats Waving their Confederate Flags in the company of Neo Nazis and white nationalists.

[Thepersona]

Actually the ideologies were pretty much switched around between WWI and WWII.

Oh interesting!
When i said that i was meaning the southern strategy, but your point is much more correct! The parties should have switched sides before (ideologically speaking)

[Edge-]

Agree...the Democratic Party's history is ugly as hell.

Are we still pretending the Southern Strategy didn't exist?

[Xyonai]

Are we still pretending the Southern Strategy didn't exist?

Honestly I don't understand what point they're trying to make? Like, is it a deliberate lack of understanding context, assuming that because something was one way before that it must always be that way? Or is it just trying to make some stupid 'Gotcha!' point, because one party being shitty in the past means the party being shitty now is entirely justified in doing so?

Or is it just dishonest shitposting because they know what they're posting is fundamentally stupid? We might never know.

[Shadowferal]

It's pretty interesting... party of small government"------"party of big government swapped places.
Republican Teddy Roosevelt and his fifth cousin Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt were fairly inline ideology-wise.

[Gestopft]

Short version, Massachusetts (my state) progressives have are having the bright idea of primarying Senator Ed Markey with 38 year old Rep. Joe Kennedy III.

Minor update: Ocasio-Cortez endorses Markey as Joe Kennedy eyes his Senate seat

Unsurprising: the left wing of the party would prefer Markey over Kennedy

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not sure that I see the benefit of being ruled by the tyranny of the rural minority being any better (as it is right now)...

There is absolutely no argument at all for making some people's votes count less than others... that is quite literally discrimination based on your home city. In France (a republic too, the country that ideologically inspired the founding fathers) it would be reason enough to bring out the guillotines if anyone even dared do that.

Yeah, in addition to how whole 'tyranny of the minority' thing, there always seems to be this weird notion from them that the urbanites are some hive mind that enjoys telling rural people what to do. Just part of their victim complex, I guess.

[Blade Wolf]

Is he starting to go senile with this rambling. This just comes across as sad.

[Felya]

Is he starting to go senile with this rambling. This just comes across as sad.

It will be so hard voting for him... I’ll do it, but I won’t like it.

[Thepersona]

It will be so hard voting for him... I’ll do it, but I won’t like it.

How the fuck does the DNC push for an unlikable candidate... 2 effing election cycles in a row?

[Shadowferal]

Biden is far more likable than Clinton ever was.

[PACOX]

Biden is far more likable than Clinton ever was.

Biden if you mean by whose the bigger clown. Clowns are funny until its time to get serious.

Most people under 40, hell 45, have always viewed Biden as a clown. Obama's comedic VP. Those over 45 who knew him as Senator...I wonder how you could trust this guy to be POTUS. Either way, Obama only VP'd him because Obama lacked seniority in his campaign so he signed on an establishment Senator.

The last debate was boring. Even hot takes on Twitch were dead.

I think people are ready for the primaries. The choices being Boomer Biden, Angry Sanders, 'I'm like you' Warren.

I like Warren, love Bernie's revolution but worried about him, loathe Biden...but of I must vote for him...blah.

[Endus]

Yeah, in addition to how whole 'tyranny of the minority' thing, there always seems to be this weird notion from them that the urbanites are some hive mind that enjoys telling rural people what to do. Just part of their victim complex, I guess.

It's like they honestly don't recognize the demographic issue with their complaint.

Rural concerns get exactly the attention and focus they warrant. Arguably more than their fair share. The issue is that rural voters make up a whopping 20% or so of the American population. That's it. If there's any particular issue which is binary split between rural and urban concerns, at the national level, the urban population will always win out, because 80% of your voters matter more than 20%. 4 times as much, more or less. Because that's how many more of them there are.

They matter as much per voter as rural voters. There's just way more of them.

In the end, the complaint is that democracy doesn't tend to privilege a minority over the majority. Which is sort of the point of democracy. What they're arguing for is a form of agrocracy, where rural agrarians make the decisions, not cityfolk. Which is completely fucking ridiculous.

- - - Updated - - -

How the fuck does the DNC push for an unlikable candidate... 2 effing election cycles in a row?

Honestly, fear and resistance to change. Democrats overall are only marginally better in this than Republicans.

If you look at the reasons to vote Biden, they're all based in fear, really.

A lot of mainstream Democrats, voters and representatives, want things to go back to the Clinton era of the '90s. That was "safe". Well, we don't have a time machine. And there was harmful bullshit going on back then. Digging your heels in doesn't help anything get better.

It's a fundamentally conservative argument. Small-C, actual conservativism, not whatever the Republicans are pushing.

When you bring in representatives like Warren, Sanders, and (though she's not running) Ocasio-Cortez, these folks want them sidelined, because they're afraid of change.

Well, the reality is that change already happened. There's no going back to the time before. And you're not gonna win this by making that kind of appeal. You did that in 2016, and we got President Trump as a result. It's time to start fighting fire with fire, and looking for a progressive path forward, not try and pull back to a comforting bygone era that can't ever be brought back.

[Skroe]

How the fuck does the DNC push for an unlikable candidate... 2 effing election cycles in a row?

(A) Biden has always been extremely likeable. That's never been a thing against him.

(B) The DNC has allowed such a wide open debate season and such a low bar to participation to date - probably too low - that they can't seriously be accused of pushing anybody.

Biden is winning because most of the alternatives are non-starters, Bernie isn't a real Democrat and Warren is more progressive than the party as a whole is.

Medicare for All is the metric here. Biden refused to endorse the idea a couple of months back while the others were tripping over themselves, because Biden's team saw the polls and saw that more Democrats are against the idea than for it, and far more Americans are against the idea than for it. Progressives have to make a case still its good policy and win converts, and have to do so in an environment where, despite it's many inadequacies, most Americans are (A) happy with their healthcare and costs and (B) don't want it fucked with.

I'll say again, people are selfish and about healthcare, Americans are supremely selfish. Pre-Obamacare, 15% of Americans lacked healthcare while 85% of Americans had it. And expanding coverage (the old "Universal Healthcare" cause) was never a political winner. Americans were ready to let the 15% rot to keep their cost down. Obamacare was largely about expanding coverage with suppressing costs (which would benefit people already with healthcare) a secondary feature. Americans did not care about the former, and the latter they only began to saw benefits of years later. Which is why Obamacare was a drag on Obama's popularity for about three or four years.

The argument for Medicare for all has to be that it'll significantly drive down costs for everybody. If Democrats attempt to make a coverage argument, no matter who "right" it is, it's not a political winner.

Biden got this. Which is why the M4A orgy got messy and Biden was the only one not covered in gunk when it was all over... and he saw his popularity rise as a result.

- - - Updated - - -

Honestly, fear and resistance to change. Democrats overall are only marginally better in this than Republicans.

If you look at the reasons to vote Biden, they're all based in fear, really.

A lot of mainstream Democrats, voters and representatives, want things to go back to the Clinton era of the '90s. That was "safe". Well, we don't have a time machine. And there was harmful bullshit going on back then. Digging your heels in doesn't help anything get better.

It's a fundamentally conservative argument. Small-C, actual conservativism, not whatever the Republicans are pushing.

When you bring in representatives like Warren, Sanders, and (though she's not running) Ocasio-Cortez, these folks want them sidelined, because they're afraid of change.

Well, the reality is that change already happened. There's no going back to the time before. And you're not gonna win this by making that kind of appeal. You did that in 2016, and we got President Trump as a result. It's time to start fighting fire with fire, and looking for a progressive path forward, not try and pull back to a comforting bygone era that can't ever be brought back.

There is no path to a House Majority, a Senate Majority or 270 electoral votes without appealing to an extremely large swathe of voters that are not progressive Democrats.

How many maps and polls do we have to produce? It's really getting retarded repeating this point.

->Nancy Pelosi has her House Majority not because of progressives, but because she won districts that went for Trump and districts Democrats have NEVER won in, by rebuilding the Blue Dog Coalition. Her majority is because of centrist and conservative democrats, not the likes of AOC. That needs to be tattooed onto the palm of every progressive out there so they remember that on election day.

-> Chuck Schumer is years away from a Senate Majority, and imperceptibly far away from 60 votes, votes Democrats have lost critical seats in places they used to have, like Florida, Louisiana, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Carolina, South Dakota, Pennsylvania and other places where progressive Democrats usually don't do well at all. There is no route, for example, to 60 votes, without winning back a second seat in West Virginia. And we know how progressives feel about the likes of Manchin, which is the Democrat that can win there. A purist-progressive-y Democrat Caucus in the Senate is maybe 38 Senators. Maybe less. That's all.

-> This is the map that will decide if Donald Trump gets a second term or not. They are colored according to who won them in 2016.



There are no other states that matter. Everyone else can stay home that day. If you don't live in one of the stats above, your vote is irrelevant.

270 is the number that matters. And the road to 270 requires Democrats to hold all the blue states in those maps, while picking up 4 of those states, or PA+2, or Florida +2 or PA+Florida.

Can progressives win in Ohio? Can they win in Pennsylvania? Can they win in North Carolina? You can forget about Florida... that aint happening. The state level Democratic Party operation there is the problem, not whatever candidate. The answer is almost certainly no.

This is what Democrats need to look at:


Can a progressive carry Erie PA? Or that county around State College that flipped? Nope.


This entire "play to the base" strategy - which doesn't work mind you - is pushed by special interest groups on the left and the right who, upon victory of their chosen candidate, would become influential parts of the administration rather than operating at the fringes. And you know where specifically the progressive interest groups learned this from? Their experience embracing Obama as a progressive alternative in the primary in 2008, only to see him hard-sideline them when he ran in the general as a clintonite centrist, and entirely ignored during his Presidency. Bush 2004, Obama 2008 and 2012, and Trump 2016 all won by expanding outside the base.

It is pure insanity to think appealing to base values is the way forward. It defies logic, reason and evidence. Presidents don't win by doing so, period. They just don't. The map of battleground states particularly works against Democrats. Progressives thinking in other terms is pure masturbation based on a badly over-inflated understanding of their importance on their part.

And even beyond that, THIS election specifically is not a policy election. It's a referendum on Trump. The winning strategy is to say basically nothing about what you would do as President, go to the states on that map and ONLY those states and terrorize people living in the suburbs about what 4 more years of Trump would mean to healthcare, their retirement and their jobs. And then pose to them: do you really want 4 more years of the Trump show.

Democrats love their fucking 50 point plans. Donald Trump will pave over any candidate that tries to win in that manner with his stupid MAGA redhat approach. This is not a time to appeal to people's intelligence. It's a time to appeal to their basest emotions.


I've gone from thinking Democrats easily have Trump thinking there is a good chance Democrats blow it. And it's going to be because they cannot help themselves. Because their ideas are *that* fucking important to them over winning. What's going to happen is something like Biden does nothing offensive, but we'll get to early October 2020, and AOC or one of the others in the squad, feeling that progressives are being ignored, will make a scene about some progressive policy, either at some rally and in social media, and it'll force Biden to take a pro-progressive stand that hurts him in the states on those map. That is how Democrats lose. Because not everyone is equally committed to doing anything to win, most especially shutting up and letting Trump beat himself for 6 months.

[segara82]

I wish the DNC would get their heads out of their asses and went full future/tech with John, errr ... Andrew Yang.
Followed him since his interview with Joe Rogan, at least this one knows what he is talking about and what the world has to prepare for.
But alas, I'm not able to support or vote for him, while in my countries upcoming election we will argue about if we want the same thing like last year, or 4 years ago, or ... well, that's about it.

[mvaliz]

A lot of mainstream Democrats, voters and representatives, want things to go back to the Clinton era of the '90s. That was "safe".

I think it's more likely they want to go back to "Obama-era" than Clinton, that's why Joe is constantly touting Obama's name. He's counting on people believing this is an "Undo button" on the Dump administration, not actually pushing a good policy.

That, and most the population of America pays attention to politics the same way an Earwig pays attention to Thermodynamic lectures - as in, they don't and just care only when their next meal is.

- - - Updated - - -

I wish the DNC would get their heads out of their asses and went full future/tech with John, errr ... Andrew Yang.

While I liked some of his ideas and things he talked about, he lost my trust in him as a person with his Car Salesman trick he pulled in the most recent debate. "If you go to my website and sign up, YOU and 9 others can get a chance to win...I mean... test out a Basic Income system for a year!"

When you're stooping that low, you're just another damn salesman. Debate the ideas respectably and treat the people with dignity, don't just appeal to fucking consumer animal instincts. >_<

[PACOX]

Early polling reactions to the debate are going to be published around 3... Apparently there are 2 groups candidates that saw any movement pollingwise -

• Warren, Beto, Buttigieg
• Biden, Castro

My money is on Warren/Beto/Buttigieg getting a bounce and Biden/Castro faltering.

NVM they're up now -
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...eptember-poll/

When every is still along that neutral line and we're trying to judge them according, you know the debate was a snooze fest.

And all of them will be back in October. Biden will remain ahead in the pools because no one outside of political geeks and old people are engaged at this point.

[Blur4stuff]

Biden isn't the best candidate, of course. Even among democrats there are people (especially older) that are scared of change. Some have even bought into the right wing propaganda regarding socialism. But, they are certainly to the left on other issues.

If party nominees were actually the best candidates we definitely wouldn't have had either Clinton or Trump in 2016. Biden isn't even in the top five best dem candidates. I still don't see him getting it.

[kyoloco]

I wish the DNC would get their heads out of their asses and went full future/tech with John, errr ... Andrew Yang.
Followed him since his interview with Joe Rogan, at least this one knows what he is talking about and what the world has to prepare for.
But alas, I'm not able to support or vote for him, while in my countries upcoming election we will argue about if we want the same thing like last year, or 4 years ago, or ... well, that's about it.

YangGang4Life

[segara82]

While I liked some of his ideas and things he talked about, he lost my trust in him as a person with his Car Salesman trick he pulled in the most recent debate. "If you go to my website and sign up, YOU and 9 others can get a chance to win...I mean... test out a Basic Income system for a year!"

When you're stooping that low, you're just another damn salesman. Debate the ideas respectably and treat the people with dignity, don't just appeal to fucking consumer animal instincts. >_<

True, but that would require him being allowed to really participate in the discussion. He gets the least amount of time to talk, gets interrupted by the other candidates and ignored by most of the big news outlets. Hell, MSNBC did themselve a disservice by showing their bias when the got his name wrong.