Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[Rukh]

The way I see it, in the next 4 years we get another chance to elect a progressive. If Biden wins then it's 8 years.

Every poll shows that Sanders best states are behind him. Its time to move on and start working on getting the House to push good policy ideas.

Policy in a democracy will always be a negotiation. You get some of what you want and you continually "Progress". That's what actual progressives know how to do. You don't burn it all down and let things get worse then, underpants gnomes then suddenly everyone decides your ideas are the best for no reason but you somehow think people agree with you they just don't know it yet. That's the opposite of how it works. If you let Republicans dominate 4 more years, they'll strip decades of progress. Anyone who supports that happening isn't a progressive, they're a regressive. By definition.

It's already going to take decades regaining the world's trust from just 4 years of Trump. If he gets 4 more, it may never happen. It's going to take a long time fighting the fights in congress, in the courts, and in people's minds even just simply to get Obamacare back to what it was and possibly then, possibly, fight for a public option. You let Republicans burn it all down, it's not happening while we're alive. It's going to take decades fixing the brain-drain from our government where Trump fired everyone competent and replaced them with incompetent yes-men, and it's going to take decades cleaning out Trump appointment judges. That may be a stain we never see removed already, let alone if Trump gets 4 more years of it.

Thinking oh we'll just give Trump another 4 years of trashing everything is *insane*. Its so utterly the opposite of progress. It's "the guy on twitter whose totally not an enemy plant said we should bomb our own soldiers to kill the enemy!" level of insanity.

The problem seems to be Republicans and so therefore we need to vote them out. Joe Biden won't do that since he's appealing to center right voters.

He's appealing for them to vote DEMOCRAT. That's how you get far-right republicans out. You will never get them out if you just keep yelling at them and telling them how "ideologically cowardly" they are. Neither Sanders nor Biden have control of exactly who will be trying to replace the Republican senators, but if moderates think the Democrats speak for them, they're actually far more likely to turn out for Democrats instead of Republicans, not less likely.

[Levelfive]

Yeah and it will continue to be non-stop. And I'm going to tell you why.

I see an opening with Joe Biden. I want him to win, and through his victory lay progressives so low they won't recover for twenty years. I don't just want them defeated. I want them destroyed.

Why? Because Act II, when Joe Biden becomes President, is through some sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a Justice Department that _will_ prosecute the Trump Crime Syndicate, we'll have to do it to the radical right as well. And Act III will be him shaping the generational turnover the of the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi only has a few years left in her. Biden will be well positioned to ensure the next generation of Democratic leadership does not reflect anything of Bernard Sanders' fake revolution.

This country must see the resurgence of it's historic center-right / center-left balancing act. The far right and far left must be ground to dust.

So yes I will keep hammering. Any true patriot would. Because radicalism must be discredited. People who think for a *moment* there is an excuse for paying compliments to Fidel's Castro regime should not be allowed within a light year of real power. We must rebuild institutions. We must fortify establishments. We must reinvest in consensus-building centers of power that negotiate in good faith, not political absolutionism on the left or the right.


And as I said, I don't expect Sanders supporters to move on. I expect them to say home election day in November. Any that show up is a pure bonus. Some decided to take a proverbial hostage. I decided to, in a sense pre-emptively shoot the hostage rather than negotiate for their release.

The Bernard Sanders left. The Trumphadi right. The same un-American radioactive coin that must be buried so deep nobody finds it for a generation or two. Restoring normalcy and sanity to this country means left/right populism must be destroyed.

You're half right--the radical right, which has really had a hold on the Republican party for decades, needs to be wiped out (to be clear, I mean psychically and in terms of their access to power, not physically). But there's no lucid comparison to be made between Bernie Sanders and his supporters and Stephen Miller and his supporters. Progressives, which I'm distinguishing from Democrats, have been right on pretty much everything: we've been right about Social Security, expanding Medicare, women's right, civil rights, reproductive rights, lgbt rights, voting rights, equal opportunity, healthcare, sex ed, segregation, etc., etc. And a majority of the country agrees with us. Even the stuff Republicans were ostensibly good at, like the economy, they fucked up--"trickle down" and austerity have repeatedly proven to be dogshit stupid destructive policies, aside from being cruel and punitive. Moderate Democrats gave us things like DOMA, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, GLBA, the crime bill, etc.--and they were wrong. We are in complete agreement that this is triage and that nothing is more imperative than removing Trump from office, but the problem for decades has been ever-more radicalized and conservative Republicans who now feel so emboldened, they're not even embarrassed, let alone ashamed, to let their nazi-adjacent flag fly. Trying to equate that with people who support M4A and free college--which works just fine in other countries which happen to be doing very well--is just deeply unserious, if not fucking preposterous.

[Bodakane]

The restoration of political normalcy, rebuilding consensus building, normalizing moderation and rebuilding our national institutions is far more important than any of those goals.

The United States is institutionally in a dilapidated state. The Federal response to Coronavirus shows that. It goes far deeper than Trump. We haven't modernized our fundamdental way of doing business as a self-ruling people in decades, and the rot is showing. This is the foundation for how we are to live as a people. We have fundamental self-government issues right now. America is basically going along on inertia and hoping there isn't a big enough catastrophe that would impose true and lasting consequences. This could be the one. It might not. But it's out there... lurking.

We have to overhaul how government works here, and how we rule ourselves immediately. Before people die to plundering of our inheritance. The problem isn't that there is lack of access to healthcare or the debt or low taxes for the wealthy or a social security deadline far in the future. The problem is we've been aware of these problems and have been unable to devise resolutions - or even minor progress - for many decades. That's not a problem with the issues. That's a problem with our institutions. That's a problem with the foundation.

The things you named? That's stuff to work through when the foundation is repaired. Is it important? Yes. Crucially so. And yet, far less important than the question of "what the hell is the United States anyway?" Because right now we're basically a failed federal state where some high functioning rich states are dragging the rest of the country along, and we just keep getting lucky that our enormous wealth can bail us out from any problem. But institutionally, we're barely functional.

Healthcare can wait. And if you hit me with "well people will die while we wait". Yeah. They will. That's the consequence of becoming consumed with culture war minutiae and less important matters for 40 years. That ships sailed Now comes preventing future losses due to our inaction in the reform this country needs.

Reform. Not revolution.




The part Bernard left out intentionally - and he knew this - is this Castro spread literacy in Cuba in order to speed indoctrination of his political ideology in the previously illiterate population. It wasn't to improve their quality of life and impart a fundamental human right. It wasn't to created a learned population. It was to build a foundation of ideological support by empowering people who never had the means to educate themselves before to only be educated by his Communist political ideology.

The fundamental aim of every authoritarian regime is to maintain and deepen their grip on power. Literacy opens doors to new possibilities. It spreads knowledge of alternatives. Why on Earth would an authoritarian regime want to do that? The answer is they wouldn't, not unless it could be perverted to serve their ends. And that is exactly what Castro did. And for the record, Mao's China did the exact same thing. They also trained hundreds of millions of people to read. And what did they read? The Little Red Book.

"So the fuck what?". It was done exclusively to help entrenched an authoritarian regime. That's "the fuck" what.

So no. It was not a good thing. It was a cynical thing. It was a manipulative thing. And Bernard Sanders left that out because at his core, he's a relic Cold War lefty that never got over the fact that, in his eyes, the wrong side won.

Again everything you’re upset about and screaming and pontificating about is the fault of the party you supported and the ideologies your espousing now.

There’s no antithesis to republican extremism. You, infuriatingly and mind bogglingly think moderation comes when one side is already moderate. That’s never worked in the history of man.

Trump is a monster your political ideologies helped create and you think the most effective way to fight him is more of the same. The arrogance and adherence to your provenly flawed strategy is Trumpian.

[tyrlaan]

I see an opening with Joe Biden. I want him to win, and through his victory lay progressives so low they won't recover for twenty years. I don't just want them defeated. I want them destroyed.

Which is why it's idiotic to treat potential Biden voters as the enemy.

Why? Because Act II, when Joe Biden becomes President, is through some sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a Justice Department that _will_ prosecute the Trump Crime Syndicate, we'll have to do it to the radical right as well. And Act III will be him shaping the generational turnover the of the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi only has a few years left in her. Biden will be well positioned to ensure the next generation of Democratic leadership does not reflect anything of Bernard Sanders' fake revolution.

Wow lots to unpack here.

Unsure why you think Biden has more time on his clock than Pelosi does. Also unsure why you think Biden is going to be some amazing savior and not someone who just brings back the pre-2016 status quo, which, for your information, was not a great or balanced place.

This country must see the resurgence of it's historic center-right / center-left balancing act. The far right and far left must be ground to dust.

Yeah, for sure. But Biden is not going to be hero you think he will be. The pendulum has been skewed since before his time as VP.

So yes I will keep hammering. Any true patriot would. Because radicalism must be discredited. People who think for a *moment* there is an excuse for paying compliments to Fidel's Castro regime should not be allowed within a light year of real power. We must rebuild institutions. We must fortify establishments. We must reinvest in consensus-building centers of power that negotiate in good faith, not political absolutionism on the left or the right.

Oh dear. Oh my. "Any true patriot." "Radicalism" in the context of Sanders. Good lord man, you may not have realized it, but somewhere along the way you sipped some of the kool-aid. Probably not intentionally (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), but you've effectively been compromised. I'm pretty confident from this paragraph alone that your vision of what the "center-right/center-left balancing act" looks like does not balance across the actual center.

And as I said, I don't expect Sanders supporters to move on. I expect them to say home election day in November. Any that show up is a pure bonus. Some decided to take a proverbial hostage. I decided to, in a sense pre-emptively shoot the hostage rather than negotiate for their release.

Good plan to defeat Trump. Go into the fight assuming that certain people - that are not Trump supporters - won't rally against him and therefore instead of remotely trying to convince them to rally against him just goad them into not voting.

How patriotic of you to endorse voter suppression. The current GOP would be so proud.

The Bernard Sanders left. The Trumphadi right. The same un-American radioactive coin that must be buried so deep nobody finds it for a generation or two. Restoring normalcy and sanity to this country means left/right populism must be destroyed.

OMG Sanders "un-American" and "radioactive". You need to reevaluate. A lot of things.

In the meantime, enjoy shooting yourself foot I guess. When Biden loses (and good lord it I hope he doesn't even if I think he's a shit candidate), you've got no justification wagging your finger at Sanders supporters when you literally encouraged them to not vote (though I'm sure that'll be your plan).

"True patriot" indeed.

Not sure why anyone should respect a damn thing you say at this point. Take a time out and sort through some shit.

The alt-reich trolls here annoy me, but they're not the ones who make this thread disgusting.

Right?

[d00mGuArD]

In the meantime, enjoy shooting yourself foot I guess. When Biden loses (and good lord it I hope he doesn't even if I think he's a shit candidate), you've got no justification wagging your finger at Sanders supporters when you literally encouraged them to not vote (though I'm sure that'll be your plan).

Whether they go vote or not, does not really depend on skroe. No matter what he tells to voters, it is the voter's right and duty to vote.
According to their beliefs and whom they choose to represent them. Not according to what anyone else says to them.
Listen, argue, disagree, agree, discuss or whatever. And then make your own conclusions and decide on your own if you will vote or not, and whom you will choose.
That is the voter's choice. Not skroe's choice.

[Skroe]

You're half right--the radical right, which has really had a hold on the Republican party for decades, needs to be wiped out (to be clear, I mean psychically and in terms of their access to power, not physically). But there's no lucid comparison to be made between Bernie Sanders and his supporters and Stephen Miller and his supporters. Progressives, which I'm distinguishing from Democrats, have been right on pretty much everything: we've been right about Social Security, expanding Medicare, women's right, civil rights, reproductive rights, lgbt rights, voting rights, equal opportunity, healthcare, sex ed, segregation, etc., etc. And a majority of the country agrees with us. Even the stuff Republicans were ostensibly good at, like the economy, they fucked up--"trickle down" and austerity have repeatedly proven to be dogshit stupid destructive policies, aside from being cruel and punitive. Moderate Democrats gave us things like DOMA, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, GLBA, the crime bill, etc.--and they were wrong. We are in complete agreement that this is triage and that nothing is more imperative than removing Trump from office, but the problem for decades has been ever-more radicalized and conservative Republicans who now feel so emboldened, they're not even embarrassed, let alone ashamed, to let their nazi-adjacent flag fly. Trying to equate that with people who support M4A and free college--which works just fine in other countries which happen to be doing very well--is just deeply unserious, if not fucking preposterous.

Let's be clear, I would certainly not ascribe moral equivalence between the Trumphadi right and the progressive left. There really is no comparison in that regard. Most progressives genuinely want to help as many vulnerable people as they can. The Trumphadi right is a populist anti-government anti-democracy arsonist cult (among other things). Progressives are just misguided, naive and patronizing. The Trumpahdi right is a threat to American security and basically completely fucking evil.

My objection - and the point I connect the two - is that both the Trumphadi right and the progressive left share a kind of gross misunderstanding about their place in America's political landscape, about how democracy works and some downright dangerous views on institutions and the establishment.

Let's look at it from the progressive angle for a moment. Let's go through what you listed.

You said you're we've "right about Social Security, expanding Medicare, women's right, civil rights, reproductive rights, lgbt rights, voting rights, equal opportunity, healthcare, sex ed, segregation, etc., etc.". That's quite some presumption.

"Social Security" is not a progressive program. It's a government-run entitlement program that was instituted by Democrats 80 years ago that the past 80 years of Democrats and Republicans have largely worked to defend. Progressives don't get to claim this.

"Expanding Medicare". Uh... no. This is exactly what I am talking about. If you're referring to M4A, you have yet to win over the American people with it. It does not poll well. if you're referring to things like expanding Medicare through Part D, that was signed by President George W Bush and came as a result of bipartisan negotiations. Progressives played no role in that.

"Women's rights". That presumes a kind of cultural uniformity this country does not posses. While cosmopolitan Americans have a certain viewpoint of what women's role in society should be (one that I agree with), to this very day there are many, many millions of Women in suburban and rural areas of the country that ascribe to a more traditional mode of gender roles in society. Consider the degrading things people said about Laura Bush when contrasting her to Hillary Clinton. Or say about Mike Pence's wife. I happen to disagree with that traditionalism about women in society, but many, many millions of Americans see it another way. Again, you presume winning an argument that isn't close to being won.

"Civil rights" was not a progressive achievement. It happened because of a broader and fundamentally different political alignment than we have today.

"Reproductive rights"... yeah again, you presume to have won the argument. Americans opinions have been fairly set on the topic since the 1970s: legal under certain circumstances, and rare.




My own position on abortion has radically changed in the past year. I've gone from no opinion because it was outside my wheelhouse to being pro-life. My nephew coming into this world fundamentally changed my position on the topic. Again, you think you've won on something Americans are still very indecisive on.

"lgbt rights"... yeah you won on that. I'll give you that. Progressives were way, way ahead of the curve there.

"Voting rights?" You haven't won the argument. Four in five Americans support VoterID, which progressives fundamentally oppose. Most Americans are opposed to restoring the voting rights of felons. Why exactly do you think you've won this? Again... arrogant presumption.

"Equal opportunity"... progressives don't own this. It was after all a Republican President that signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. Half the country's population lives in states where discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is permitted. That is something I happen to vehemently disagree with to be clear, but it is also something that the people actually living in those States are in no rush to change. Again, you've won the argument only in places where progressives are strong.

"Healthcare"? Well given the wet fart that Bernard Sanders' 2020 M4A focused presidential campaign turned out to be, and the ongoing lack of national consensus whether to leave Healthcare as is, go with M4A, go with public option, or go with something else. No, you have no won any type of argument on the healthcare topic. This is in fact, the best example, and one I continue to give. M4A polls badly. Americans are generally pretty okay with most aspects of their healthcare according to polls. And most of all they are very wary about changes involving it. So where do you people get off thinking you're "right: about this topic. Because the American people just delivered an electoral defeat that says "oh really, now?"

I'll stop there.

What am I getting at? In every case here you think you won a final victory of sorts. Well no. You haven't. You pretty much agreed with yourselves and incredibly extrapolated that to mean "all Americans".

That's my problem.

This country works by consensus. Even our founding document that lays out the structure of our government is a product of consensus and compromise. (literally called "The Connecticut Compromise").

It's impossible to get the entire country to agree on one issue, even as something, to my mind, would be self evident, such as women's rights. That's the difference between people like me an progressives. I respect the existence of differences of opinion in that regard, and anticipate what kind of common ground we could find to formulate a policy. Progressives see something to bulldoze over. They deny the legitimacy of the alternatives. What is the most common retort to thinking M4A or even public option is ill conceived? "Well I guess you just want poor sick people to die", or some variation of that. This was thrown at me in the last two pages for crying out loud!

That is no way to have a body politic conduct its affairs. We must promote a mode of politics where people are happy and proud with the 40% of the loaf they get, because it respects the diversity of opinion that this vast country has. This is why I love bringing up the two year deal budget model. It's one of my go-tos in debating here. Why? Because the budget brinksmanship of the early 2010s gave way to Democrats deciding, now three times and in very good faith, how to split the loaf of bred. The horse traded, and they produced awesome budgets that's made science flush with money, modernized the military, expanded the social saftey net and served the American people well. Consensus made five (soon six) really, really good budgets. Far better than any pure Republican or pure Democrat budget could ever be.

The entire Bernie Sanders con that progressives went along with - attacking institutions, attacking the establishment - is no different than the Trumphadi right in the sense that both see an electoral victory as a carte blanche to unilaterally rule as they see fit. In a sense, Sanderistas would "inflict" Medicare 4 All on us, unilaterally if they could, the same way Trump has inflicted Secretary of Hate Stephen Miller's anti-immigrant agenda - without respect for the vast majority of Americans who do NOT think that their agenda is right.

We must return to a political mode where leadership is about being a custodian of a vast and successful inheritance. America's greatness is built on the achievements of liberals and conservatives and moderates. Democrats and Republicans. Across over two centuries. This thing that Trump and his cult is doing and that the BernieBros wanted to do - treating their time in power as an opportunity to disrupt and make unilateral moves without consensus forming - is un-democratic, un-American and not in the national interests. Trump's cult will pay for this one day, when the shoe is on the other foot and the reckoning for what they did comes and all the criminality is expose and damaged reversed. But the exact same is true of what an anti-establishment Sanders administration would do.

Fundamentally this is about respect. I respect many Democrats. And many real Democrats respect historic Republicans and anti-Trump conservatives like myself. But what do we see here? People poo-pooing the fact that Joe Biden had functional working relationships with Republicans. They're not going away. Neither are conservatives.

The short of it is, we have to respect people with differences of opinion and not presume the monopoly of ideas because it is the only way that a country with this vast and diverse of views and experiences can live together. We must consensus built, not dominate. We must bring in as many stakeholders as possible. Compromise must be a virtue for all of us. The Sanders approach, like the Trump approach is the un-American antithesis of that - the arrogant presumption that their view is already the consensus, when it is not. It is in the end, just their view.

[JohnBrown1917]

Yeah because god fucking forbid we get universal health care like every other goddamn first world nation.
God forbid we get some control on the insane prices of drugs and medication
God forbid college be affordable to everyday Americans, as it is to the British, Canadians, French, Danish, Insert-First-World-Nation-Here
And God forbid we spend any money on any investment that isn't your beloved imperial war machine.

- - - Updated - - -



Oh no. Bernie said Castro had a good literacy program. So the fuck what? Hitler had a great Autobahn program.

Its funny, becease a lot of US presidents have done far more horrible things, including Bush, Obama, Trump... and whoever is next. Even the guy that Castro overthrew, who was backed by the US gov, did far more terrible things.

Most of Castro's "Victims" where either batista supporters or slave owners.

- - - Updated - - -

Ah, the MAGA catchphrase for liberals.

Was it that good back in the Obama days for people?

For people who benefit from the US's many war, like Skroe, yes.

[JohnBrown1917]

There are too many Democratic politicians in bed with health insurance companies and pharmaceuticals.
Same goes for some of the higher-ups in mainstream media, including CNN and Politico.

This is silent class warfare and the victims are poor people dying from lack of accessible healthcare.

- - - Updated - - -

Also Biden is just getting worse. He wandered off the stage last night... :

Dems probably just gonna use Biden's delegates to get another centrist dem nominated if this keeps going on.

[tyrlaan]

Whether they go vote or not, does not really depend on skroe. No matter what he tells to voters, it is the voter's right and duty to vote.
According to their beliefs and whom they choose to represent them. Not according to what anyone else says to them.
Listen, argue, disagree, agree, discuss or whatever. And then make your own conclusions and decide on your own if you will vote or not, and whom you will choose.
That is the voter's choice. Not skroe's choice.

Um, yeah of course. Are you suggesting influence is a myth?

Just confused at what point you are going for here.

[Skroe]

Which is why it's idiotic to treat potential Biden voters as the enemy.

I don't see value in them as voters. According to polling / demographic data, few enough of them live in the six states that matter and will decide the election.

For the umpteenth time, Sanders supporters live largely in all the wrong places. I see no value in winning over Sanders supporters in California or New York. Why bother? And few enough of them live in Florida or Wisconsin to matter compared to the far larger cadre of independents that Sanders supporters have vehemetly denounced a centrist-focused outreach too.

This is the point of my feelings towards Sanders supporrts: in the choice between reaching out to centrist independents in the six states or making a leftward movement to make fans out of BernieBros who don't live in those states, the former is the ONLY winning electoral approach.

You just don't live in large enough numbers in the right places comparatively to make the trade off worth it.

Wow lots to unpack here.

Unsure why you think Biden has more time on his clock than Pelosi does. Also unsure why you think Biden is going to be some amazing savior and not someone who just brings back the pre-2016 status quo, which, for your information, was not a great or balanced place.

Because per the terms of her agreement to return to the Speakership, Nancy Pelosi is to transition out of the House Leadership role starting after the 2022 midterm election. She was given a four year leadership mandate by House Democrats. The other septuagenarian Democrats would follow That means President Biden would see historic House leadership turnover in the middle of his first term.

And I don't think Biden will be some amazing savior. I think he'll do the what I described which is the bare minimum.

Yeah, for sure. But Biden is not going to be hero you think he will be. The pendulum has been skewed since before his time as VP.

He won't be a hero. He'll just be the one present. The Republican Party is held together by fear of Trump's twitter account right now. When he's gone, it's going to be a blood bath as institutionalists who stuck it out try to reassert themselves and the grifters try to entrench their influence, and nobodies who found prominence via Trump like Gaetz and Tucker Carlson try to find new sugar daddies. It'll be up to Biden to exploit those divisions.

Donald Trump's win in 2016 only bought the Republican Party a stay of execution in its current form. It never fully recovered from the Bush Administration and the infection of the Tea Party.

Oh dear. Oh my. "Any true patriot." "Radicalism" in the context of Sanders. Good lord man, you may not have realized it, but somewhere along the way you sipped some of the kool-aid. Probably not intentionally (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), but you've effectively been compromised. I'm pretty confident from this paragraph alone that your vision of what the "center-right/center-left balancing act" looks like does not balance across the actual center.

No. It was a rather straightforward change of opinion. And I'll tell you what did it. It was two things.

First, it was a three year alliance with progressives here on Team Anti-Trump that ended around December when they started to think that "hey, Bernie Sanders / Elizabeth Warren could win this thing!". I said before that, for three years, Trump is a national emergency and removing him will require liberals, moderates and conservatives to work together on the only thing we all agree with - that he has to go. And most pertinently, I said, Trump is not an opportunity. He's a house fire. We get him out by any means necessary, and then we can have a debate about how to reform our country. For three years we had agreement on that, until Bernie started looking like a contender again and Warren's M4A ideas gave progressives a boner. And then progressives did exactly what I was afraid they would do: the started to view Trump as an opportunity. For three years, there was an agreement - Trump was not just any other ol' Republican candidate/President. He was something different. But when Sanders and Warren started looking good, he became little more than George Bush III. This was furthered by progressives, even before that, spending 2019 lying openly about the nature of Nancy Pelosi's 2018 victory. She won it back because she had a platformless anti-Trump campaign that recruited blue-dog Democrats in Trump districts. Progressives created this fantasy where she owed her majority to some Sanderista liberal wave, when polling and even the make-up of the new Democratic majority said nothing of the sort.

So why do I have ill feelings? Because I think we got conned by progressives for a good three years. Because when the time to be strong came, they were weak. When the time came to make sacrifices, the Trump Hotel that Donald Trump set up in the heads so enraged them, that they did what the losing strategy was ALWAYS going to be, which is to double down on their political beliefs rather than ask, shredly and clinically "what is the approach that best wins us the six states that matter".

I thank our lucky Stars Joe Biden pulled a historic win out of his ass, because make no mistake about it: progressives were about to take an awful risk on the future of this country by running a candidate on a platform that does not have anywhere close to a national consensus, rather than run on the one thing that there is a huge degree of consensus on - that Trump is unfit as President. I'll never forget that selfish recklessness. Risking four more years of Trump for a mastubatory M4A fantasy was insanity after 3 years of agreement that the only thing that matters is to win three states Hillary lost in 2016 by any means necessary.

The second thing, as I laid out above, is Sanders supporters response to Bernie's defense of Castro. It's not the comments that I find particularly offensive. It's the defense. It was the complete failure of his supporters to call bullshit on Sanders and ask him why he was shitting away Florida. What we got instead was a very Trumphadi ex-post-facto rationalization. I'll repost what I wrote upthread:

The part Bernard left out intentionally - and he knew this - is this Castro spread literacy in Cuba in order to speed indoctrination of his political ideology in the previously illiterate population. It wasn't to improve their quality of life and impart a fundamental human right. It wasn't to created a learned population. It was to build a foundation of ideological support by empowering people who never had the means to educate themselves before to only be educated by his Communist political ideology.

The fundamental aim of every authoritarian regime is to maintain and deepen their grip on power. Literacy opens doors to new possibilities. It spreads knowledge of alternatives. Why on Earth would an authoritarian regime want to do that? The answer is they wouldn't, not unless it could be perverted to serve their ends. And that is exactly what Castro did. And for the record, Mao's China did the exact same thing. They also trained hundreds of millions of people to read. And what did they read? The Little Red Book.

"So the fuck what?". It was done exclusively to help entrenched an authoritarian regime. That's "the fuck" what.

So no. It was not a good thing. It was a cynical thing. It was a manipulative thing. And Bernard Sanders left that out because at his core, he's a relic Cold War lefty that never got over the fact that, in his eyes, the wrong side won.

Good plan to defeat Trump. Go into the fight assuming that certain people - that are not Trump supporters - won't rally against him and therefore instead of remotely trying to convince them to rally against him just goad them into not voting.

How patriotic of you to endorse voter suppression. The current GOP would be so proud.

No It's not voter supression. It's denial of leverage. Some Sanders voters say "Bernie or bust". I say "Go for it pussy, see if I care."

That's not voter supression. That's a Sanders supporter saying "Fuck you" and me saying "No.... fuck you."

It's not voter supression to state that it's immaterial to what they do. Biden's campaign certainly won't count on them. No sane campaign would. You go with the voters you KNOW will turn out, not the ones you hope do. I deny the existence of the leverage the Bernie or Busters think they have. Again, most of them live in the wrong places. So they can stay home. That's quite okay. It's not voter supression to state "New York is D+40 with or without them".

OMG Sanders "un-American" and "radioactive". You need to reevaluate. A lot of things.

In the meantime, enjoy shooting yourself foot I guess. When Biden loses (and good lord it I hope he doesn't even if I think he's a shit candidate), you've got no justification wagging your finger at Sanders supporters when you literally encouraged them to not vote (though I'm sure that'll be your plan).

"True patriot" indeed.

Not sure why anyone should respect a damn thing you say at this point. Take a time out and sort through some shit.

I don't think I need to re-evaluate anything at all. I think I got Bernie's supporters really figure dout. The thing is, before we get to the general election, we're going to salt the earth regarding a certain kind of political conduct. One that put to risk an anti-Trump strategy in an insane attempt to pull the campaign to the left and make this a policy election, which is the thing Trump wants the most. An election where its a referendum on Trump, Trump will lose badly. An election where policy is at issue, Trump wins. And again, it's arrogant presumption to think that progressive policy is so good, it has a lock on votes in the six states that matter. It emphatically does not.

And for the record, if Biden loses, I will not blame Sanders supporters for anything. I don't blame them for 2016. Why would I blame them this time?

Let me be clear: any Democrat is going to have a hard time this year. I think Biden has by far the best chance. But the topical polling numbers in Wisconsin are fundamentally bad for ANY Democrat. And if a Democrat doesn't win Wisconsin, they have to win North Carolina (which is hard because of Republican-orchestrated voter supression), Florida (which is hard because the Florida Democratic Party is a shitshow of its own making that can't get out the vote and loses vast amounts of money) or Arizona (which Democrats haven't won in recent times).

Any Democrat may lose Wisconsin because in January 50-something % of there citizens said they were better off than they were four years ago. Any Democrat may lose North Carolina because years of Republican voter suppression will be difficult to undo. Any Democrat may lose Florida because the Florida Democratic Party is a circus very fitting of Florida.

And for the record, the same thing applies to Sanders. Were he the nominee, he too would have terrible headwinds in those States. If he lost I wouldn't entirely blame the platform. I'd blame the fact that Wisconsin is likely on its way to being an Ohio-like light-red state by the mid 2020s and Arizona won't be reliably blue to replace it until until the late 2020s, and the Florida Democratic Party is utterly hopeless.

So no, if Biden loses, I won't blame Sanders or his people at all. After all, how can people who don't live in large numbers in the 6 swing states effect the outcome? Even if it is a close election in one of them and Biden narrowly loses, it's not the few Sanders supporters fault for staying home. They have a right not to vote too. Biden would have had a shot in five other states.

Frankly, and I'll put it straightforwardly right now, Democrats need to look more towards Florida or North Carolina than Wisconsin and they need to get the party and campaign adults in the room, early, in the Florida Democratic Party to make sure that the local power brokers don't shit away the election just to enrich their local consultant friends who don't get voters to the polls. Letting the FDP take the lead on ANY Presidential campaign in Florida is a recipe for disaster.

Not sure why anyone should respect a damn thing you say at this point. Take a time out and sort through some shit.

Because I'm the most tenured and consistent anti-Trump conservative on this forum. I'm consistent, very well informed, information dense, incredibly offensive and obnoxiously relentless. I also am a pretty straight shooter. I'll tell you it like it is and have no problem admitting when I'm wrong.

Progressives fucked up since late last year. They endangered the best route to take down Trump since Mueller. They can redeem themselves now though, by forswearing this as a policy election.

- - - Updated - - -

Ah, the MAGA catchphrase for liberals.

Was it that good back in the Obama days for people?

As a European you really should be more concerned with the eradication of lefty political power in Europe than you are the electoral defeat of Progressives in America.

Justify with stuff about America's role in the world all you like. However you cut it, progressives in power in America won't effect your life nearly as much as the absence of democratic socialists in Europe is likely to.

You're hunting for the wrong game, my dude.

- - - Updated - - -

Whether they go vote or not, does not really depend on skroe. No matter what he tells to voters, it is the voter's right and duty to vote.
According to their beliefs and whom they choose to represent them. Not according to what anyone else says to them.
Listen, argue, disagree, agree, discuss or whatever. And then make your own conclusions and decide on your own if you will vote or not, and whom you will choose.
That is the voter's choice. Not skroe's choice.

It's absolutely the voters choice.

But I'm declaring that anyone saying "Bernie or bust" or "Biden better sign on M4A or else" has zero leverage at all.

People can vote or note vote. But I deny the existence of the hostage being taken. Very simply, once again, centrist independents in the six states that matter are far more valuable than the far fewer number of Bernie supporters that live there and the support of Bernie Supporters who live in the other 44 states.

Six states matter in this election. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvannia, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona.

No other states do.

The only game being played is who gets more voters in three of those states. That decides the Presidency. Nothing else. And Bernie supporters have no leverage in those states.

Thus me rhetorically shooting the hostage that they took.

[NED funded]

Its funny, becease a lot of US presidents have done far more horrible things, including Bush, Obama, Trump... and whoever is next. Even the guy that Castro overthrew, who was backed by the US gov, did far more terrible things.

Most of Castro's "Victims" where either batista supporters or slave owners.

Tell that to the marielitos who fled Cuba in the tens of thousands when given a chance.


Most of them didnt even finish highschool and are nowna core part of the cuban american population that despises him.

Leftists support authoritarians because they dont live under them

[Levelfive]

Snipped for space

Sure, let's go through it.

Progressives can absolutely lay claim to the concept of a social net in general. Progressives are Democrats, even when Democrats aren't progressives. On occasion, Republicans have done progressive things, no argument--that doesn't mean that thing isn't progressive. And admittedly, on occasion Democrats have done some anti-progressive things. The fact that there is work left to be done in some states, though, is an argument for more progressivism, not less.

Expanding medicare refers to expanding it to others from what had been Eisenhower's program for military families. And when I say healthcare, I'm referring to the fact that people by and large like the ACA, and now agree that everyone should have access to healthcare regardless of pre-existing conditions and without going bankrupt.

Women's rights refers to voting, equal pay, and yes, the right to birth control and abortion. Most of the country supports that, with most of the country supporting abortion in limited circumstances, but let's be clear, those are rights irrespective of whether they garner majority support. Progressives are on the right side of those issues, which is true for everything else I listed as well, and we've moved the country with us, which is what I mean when I say the country agrees with us--as long as you don't call it socialism.

The fact that Republicans have dragged us back into fights over things like voting rights (which is part of their ongoing campaign to suppress the vote) isn't somehow to their credit--civil rights (which are 100% a progressive achievement--it didn't "happen," they were fought for, hard and ugly, along with the "different political alignment" you credit as if it were an amorphous entity disconnected from the people who made it happen) aren't up for debate, and thinking they are is precisely what makes you a Republican on the wrong side of the issues. Just because Republicans are fighting against people's basic rights doesn't make those issues up for debate, or somehow "unsettled." You shouldn't be able to discriminate against gay [insert any other group] people because some conservatives still think it's oogy--objecting doesn't confer some kind of legitimacy to their position. Women being able to vote isn't somehow "unsettled" because the radical right might have some reservations about it. People being "allowed" to use birth control isn't murky because evangelicals want women punished for having sex.

I 100% agree with you Trump and his cult have to be purged, and that we need to restore sanity and legitimacy to our institutions, but it is Republicans who have both done and countenanced the damage to the Justice Department and the Supreme Court (and here I'm referring to situations like Merrick Garland); it is Republicans who abdicated both duty and common decency during Trump's term and his impeachment. Most of the freedoms and social safety net we enjoy and take for granted came from progressives fighting tirelessly for those things and slowly but surely moving the needle on people's understanding and compassion and conscience, and I believe that will eventually be the case for universal healthcare as well, and then eventually we will be shocked that we ever somehow thought it was evil or even "radical." Democrats main flaw, in fact, has been in capitulating too often to and indulging Republican nonsense, even while Republicans were trying to rig and cheat the very systems they claim to so dearly value.

[JohnBrown1917]

Tell that to the marielitos who fled Cuba in the tens of thousands when given a chance.


Most of them didnt even finish highschool and are nowna core part of the cuban american population that despises him.

Leftists support authoritarians because they dont live under them

Yeah, fleeing because they supported batista, I already got that.


I would rather have an leftist authortian like Castro, a thousand times over, then that shitstain called Batista or any other US backed authoritarian government.

[NED funded]

Yeah, fleeing because they supported batista, I already got that.


I would rather have an leftist authortian like Castro, a thousand times over, then that shitstain called Batista or any other US backed authoritarian government.

I love how you throw the poorest members of cuban society under the bus by calling them Batista supporters. In your mind if they fled Cuba its not because they hated how bad it turned out under Castro but because they missed a dictator 30 years ago or so

[Grapemask]

Oh no. Bernie said Castro had a good literacy program. So the fuck what? Hitler had a great Autobahn program.

Never forget that Skroe and all of the anti-Sanders folks were in here melting down in front of our very eyes because of Sanders' Castro comments, screaming in a frothing rage that he had forever lost Florida and become forever unelectable... and then unironically, one week later, were shrugging off Biden's latest gaffe that alienated a segment of his electorate with, "who will remember this when the election comes around?" Consistently inconsistent.

[JohnBrown1917]

Never forget that Skroe and all of the anti-Sanders folks were in here melting down in front of our very eyes because of Sanders' Castro comments, screaming in a frothing rage that he had forever lost Florida and become forever unelectable... and then unironically, one week later, were shrugging off Biden's latest gaffe that alienated a segment of his electorate with, "who will remember this when the election comes around?" Consistently inconsistent.

Or you know, him hiring an Hindu nationalist/fascist for his muslim outreach.. That is another demographic he is shitting over. If both sides hate muslims, who the hell are they supposed to vote for?


Biden, because he is the 'lesser evil'? Strange how that that does not apply to how Castro was the 'lesser evil' to Batista.

[Draco-Onis]

I see an opening with Joe Biden. I want him to win, and through his victory lay progressives so low they won't recover for twenty years. I don't just want them defeated. I want them destroyed.

Why? Because Act II, when Joe Biden becomes President, is through some sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a Justice Department that _will_ prosecute the Trump Crime Syndicate, we'll have to do it to the radical right as well. And Act III will be him shaping the generational turnover the of the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi only has a few years left in her. Biden will be well positioned to ensure the next generation of Democratic leadership does not reflect anything of Bernard Sanders' fake revolution.

About 1/3 of the US populace say they will follow Trump no matter what throwing in jail won't do anything second Biden has already signaled he is against pursuing Trump in any ways though he will let his AG have free reign. The most likely scenario for the milk toast candidate is the same thing Obama did do nothing in order for the country to "move on".

Joe is not going to rock the boat he isn't going to go after the progressive wing either his entire thing is returning to normalcy. Joe Biden won't be deciding the next generation of leadership if those perfect plans worked then AOC would not be in congress. You keep attributing traits to Biden that he doesn't have, the best you can hope for is state prosecutors going after the Trump crime syndicate.

[Theodarzna]

Ah, the MAGA catchphrase for liberals.

Was it that good back in the Obama days for people?

This is basically the most salient point on the whole "Return to Normalcy".

[tyrlaan]

<bloviating>

Because I'm the most tenured and consistent anti-Trump conservative on this forum. I'm consistent, very well informed, information dense, incredibly offensive and obnoxiously relentless. I also am a pretty straight shooter. I'll tell you it like it is and have no problem admitting when I'm wrong.

<more bloviating>

I'm sure you can back up this claim of tenure and credentials that outshine a forum full of people who's credentials you don't know. Until you do, this is just bullshit dude. It's already clear you like to play the part of being above all or most of the posters here, but just coming out and saying it is one I haven't seen before.

For what it's worth, I don't think you post in bad faith or anything; I'm confident you believe everything you write. Perhaps you'd be more palatable if you got off your self-erected pedestal though. (Or maybe not, being wrong is still wrong no matter the delivery)

[Sunseeker]

Yang showing some regret with the entire situation too:

There's nothing stopping Yang, or anyone else, from endorsing some other candidate, or rescinding their endorsement. Saying you regret doing it is tantamount to rescinding it anyway, though it's not like Yang is a huge influencer, but certainly could start a domino effect if he (or someone similarly notable but ultimately unimportant) rescinded their support from Biden.

And no I'm not saying they should. I'm saying they're free to do so. There should be no need to say "I regret endorsing this guy." if you're not gonna go the full mile and say "I rescind my endorsement of this guy."

Quite frankly I was hoping the DNC primary would last longer. I was hoping Warren would have a much better showing (picking up sizable portions of both progressives and moderates). I was hoping Pete had more passion and wouldn't be a sellout and would pick up more of the moderate vote. Mostly to keep the Republicans guessing until the end, so that there wouldn't be months and months of attacks on one specific candidate. Sort of like the 3-way between Hillary/Obama/Edwards (now there's a dirty image for all ya) back in 2008.

I wouldn't mind in the slightest if the DNC realized that how bad a decision it was to put all their eggs in the Biden basket and throw up a brand new moderate (I'd even take Warren!) at the convention. For no other reason than to keep Republicans on their toes, to let them waste time and energy tearing down Biden or Bernie only for the DNC to pick someone else.

Again, because apparently I have to repeat it since I support Sanders, I'll vote for Biden if he's the guy. I just don't like it in the slightest.