Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[cubby]

Compared to Biden or Warren? Yes, especially after her attempt to throw him under the bus.

You mean after he said a woman would be a bad idea for President. And then started attacking all over the place. Was that what you meant?

Bernie is a post-heart attack GOP wet dream of a Democratic nominee. Biden is straight and narrow, right up the middle. With Abrams he'd be all bust unstoppable (can you imagine the GOP having to spend money in GA for the Presidential election?). Warren and a good running mate would be terrific.

Bernie looks crazy every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Elections are about looks whether we want them to be or not. Obviously more than that, but it's a factor.

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I wish we had a better system in the US, although it is interesting to see how parties can change despite the 2 party stranglehold. For example, Trump doesn't represent what conservatives used to be.

Sanders isn't what I would have ever called a democrat (because he wasn't obviously). Yet, after 2016 and especially this time around, he's changed the party significantly whether he wins or not.

I'd love to show the door to all of these old school dems. I'd also love the republican party to kick out Trump and do better. It sure would be nice to have better choices.

We need an entirely revamped system. Modeling Canada's election process and moneys would be a good start. Mail-in ballots. National voting holiday. All things the GOP will never allow.

[PACOX]

Steyer derping in there :')

Meanwhile the Warren campaign has started accusing Russia for "spreading the lies".

They spelled CNN wrong.

And of course there just happened to be a hot mic on the stage after the debate.

[Dacien]

They spelled CNN wrong.

And of course there just happened to be a hot mic on the stage after the debate.

Why would CNN want to push a Sanders/Warren feud?

[Adam Jensen]

Compared to Biden or Warren? Yes, especially after her attempt to throw him under the bus.

Yep.

I'm voting for anyone the DNC puts forward because fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Donald Trump, but Bernie is by far my favorite now. Warren was a close behind, but not anymore.

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Why would CNN want to push a Sanders/Warren feud?

To divide progressives further and make Biden stronger.

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You mean after he said a woman would be a bad idea for President. And then started attacking all over the place. Was that what you meant?

Why the fuck would a guy who endorsed Hillary say that?

Bernie's been fighting for feminism for decades.

[Theodarzna]

CNN and every other corporate media chain is strongly opposed to the two most progressive candidates.

Tools of the status quo are going to status quo.

I've read its personal between Zucker and Sanders since Sanders publicly advocated the big Communications Labor dispute that cost CNN a fuck ton of money in court. So some of this bitterness is possibly personal.

[Dacien]

CNN and every other corporate media chain is strongly opposed to the two most progressive candidates.

Tools of the status quo are going to status quo.

That's interesting. I sort of view CNN as just a machine for the left, I hadn't really considered there would be factional preferences. I'm still not convinced; CNN didn't make Warren confront Sanders.

[Elegiac]

Why would CNN want to push a Sanders/Warren feud?

Cause CNN is a corporate entity and thus a) naturally hostile to progressive candidates/causes that aren't in the interests of rich liberals and b) in possession of the profit motive to keep people hooked on a constantly changing 24 hour narrative.

I know y'all like to claim CNN and all the other mainstream news sources have a left wing bias but that is distinctly not the case. There is no left or right wing mainstream media in the US, there's only corporate grift.

[Elegiac]

This dumbass notion that CNN is "left" is just absurd that was started by trump because they criticized him, and we all know if you criticize trump you are a leftist right?

CNN is more moderate and is just another big money company pushing their interests through the news like all the others do. #WheresYang?

"They're left wing because they talk about what I think the left wing thinks and not what they actually believe."

The left wing is talking about shit like climate change, Hong Kong, Chile, homelessness, etc. Shit that is not in the interests of rich liberals and therefore does not get coverage.

[PACOX]

That's interesting. I sort of view CNN as just a machine for the left, I hadn't really considered there would be factional preferences. I'm still not convinced; CNN didn't make Warren confront Sanders.

CNN is full of moderate establishments due paying Democrats. Thats assuming they are Dems. They hate Sanders with a capital H. Warren is tolerated as a convenient tool because she isn't the frontrunner.

[Wyrt]

That's interesting. I sort of view CNN as just a machine for the left, I hadn't really considered there would be factional preferences. I'm still not convinced; CNN didn't make Warren confront Sanders.

CNN isn't left wing. It only appears left wing because US politics are skewed to the right.

The only real "left" policies CNN appears to support are social issues which largely amount to "Let's not be assholes to people for no reason" which shouldn't be a left or right issue, but is in this country for some god awful reason.

[Orbitus]

I'll follow Theo's lead and would like to kindly ask for a citation.

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What's funny about those McCarthy articles was that he was arguing that there never was any Trump/Russia conspiracy regarding the election, and I was convinced of his arguments, and tried to convince people here. That didn't go well. But he was right, almost two years before the Mueller report. Almost from day one. Nobody here wanted to hear anything of it, and I got a fair amount of stuff flung my way for arguing it. Kinda goes back to Theo's comments about the state of discourse. People get entrenched and it sometimes does feel like a waste of time unfortunately.

His arguments of complete bullshit? And he wasn't right, there was instances of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia. And there was certainly a concerted effort to cover it up. Look at the 10 instances of obstruction that he shows.

[Flarelaine]

Similar system is found in many EU countries.
-The parliament seats are assigned to locations.
-Some areas have more people than other areas.
-In an area with 10000 people, someone needs 5001 votes to get the parliament seat.
-In an area with 1000000 people, someone needs 500001 votes to get the parliament seat
-Whichever party wins more seats, wins the elections and elects PM.

So yes, in essence, those 5001 voters and those 500001 voters have elected one person each, which feels like different worth of votes.
I am not aware of any country that uses a different system. There may be some (or many) I don't have knowledge on it.

I challenge you to name a single European country that allows such discrepancy between the size of constituencies. A hundredfold difference in size? Who are you trying to fool here?

[Danner]

I challenge you to name a single European country that allows such discrepancy between the size of constituencies. A hundredfold difference in size? Who are you trying to fool here?

I concur with you.

In Norway, a vote in Finnmark (remotest and least populated part of north-east norway) is worth ~2.6x as much as a vote in the capital of Oslo.
And that's considered fairly extreme.

[Mihalik]

I concur with you.

In Norway, a vote in Finnmark (remotest and least populated part of north-east norway) is worth ~2.6x as much as a vote in the capital of Oslo.
And that's considered fairly extreme.

Spain uses the D'Hontd method (known in the US as the Jeffersonian method) for proportional allocation, the same as Finland.

Although Finland probably doesn't experience the same population density discrepancies as Spain.

The vote of someone from Madrid is worth about 3.8x less than from the least populous region of Soria. Although the average is something like 1.4x to 1.7x less.

100x is simply asinine.

[Mormolyce]

I have no idea about the EC or how it works since I am not from US. I was talking about the voting system in Greece and UK. I specifically said EU countries. (ok the UK will leave, but they did not leave yet).
I am not expert in every system out there that each country uses. But I am sure there are more than these 2 countries in the EU with it.

And I'm telling you that the analogy to the EU doesn't work because the US doesn't use a system like any EU country to elect its head of state. That's why you're failing to follow the argument.

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It's not exactly much different to the first past the post system that the UK has.

The UK's system is shit, yes, but no it's radically different. The Electoral College is a mechanism unlike any in the UK.

The UK elects representatives (members of Parliament), and the party that gets the majority of seats (alone or in a coalition) forms the government. The head of that party is then the Prime Minister, ie the PM is not directly elected. Yes, each electorate uses FPTP (ie the candidate with the majority or at least plurality of votes wins), so vote splitting can occur at an electorate level. But the ruling party is ultimately determined by the number of electorates ("constituencies") voting for that party, and the electorates are of roughly equal population (this is managed by the Boundary Commissions). So vote-splitting aside, the head of state is roughly determined by the number of people across the nation voting for his or her party.

The EC system which is used to elect the President of the US is not like that at all. Voting power is aggregated at state level, where it is already disproportionate to the population. The WTA rule is like FPTP on steroids - whether you win a state by 51% or 99% you take all of the state's EC votes, effectively disenfranchising about 40% of the population in each election. The fact that this happens at the state level rather than the electorate level like in the UK leads to a massive distortion of the voting numbers. Take for example, 3 million more people voting for Hillary than Trump, but her still losing because of a few thousand voters in certain key swing states like Florida.

And yes, the US is also susceptible to vote splitting, so it has all the UK's problems and then way bigger ones of its own. The UK's system is most similar to the system used to elect the House of Representatives in the US. But they have the Senate (similar system but it elects two Senators per state and thus is completely disproportionate to population) and the Presidential elections (which uses the EC, pretty much unique to America).

TLDR: the UK's system to elect its head of state is bad, the US system is much much worse. They are not similar systems at all.

[Wyrt]

The Democratic Party has so much fucking in-fighting, it's amusing how the right believes some liberal hive-mind exists.

Exactly. Republicans like to pretend the "Left" is some monolithic thing where everyone agrees on everything and is NPCs. But in reality this is just more projection from them since they're the ones in so much lock step with Trump that if they speak against him they get primaried and replaced by another Trump supporter.

Republicans even miss the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT of primaries when they try to mock Democrats for having "purity tests." That's the whole point of the nomination, sorting out which policies and ideals the voters support and what they don't.

[rogueMatthias]

Does anyone else keep forgetting that Amy Klobuchar is even there?

[JohnBrown1917]

Cause CNN is a corporate entity and thus a) naturally hostile to progressive candidates/causes that aren't in the interests of rich liberals and b) in possession of the profit motive to keep people hooked on a constantly changing 24 hour narrative.

I know y'all like to claim CNN and all the other mainstream news sources have a left wing bias but that is distinctly not the case. There is no left or right wing mainstream media in the US, there's only corporate grift.

Yeah, it was obvious CNN took the liberal side(Warren) in this whole spat.

[Blade Wolf]

You mean after he said a woman would be a bad idea for President. And then started attacking all over the place. Was that what you meant?

Bernie is a post-heart attack GOP wet dream of a Democratic nominee. Biden is straight and narrow, right up the middle. With Abrams he'd be all bust unstoppable (can you imagine the GOP having to spend money in GA for the Presidential election?). Warren and a good running mate would be terrific.

Bernie looks crazy every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Elections are about looks whether we want them to be or not. Obviously more than that, but it's a factor.

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We need an entirely revamped system. Modeling Canada's election process and moneys would be a good start. Mail-in ballots. National voting holiday. All things the GOP will never allow.

Where's the evidence for him saying it beyond it being gossip?

[JohnBrown1917]

You mean after he said a woman would be a bad idea for President. And then started attacking all over the place. Was that what you meant?

No suprise one of the biggest conservative/pro-war dems on this board would believe such blatant lies[hint, its becease the lies benefit his views].


Bernie in the '80s vs Warren in the '90s.

Gee, I wonder who to trust more.

Bernie is a post-heart attack GOP wet dream of a Democratic nominee.

They are running Trump.