1. #15741
    Quote Originally Posted by kaelleria View Post
    Tonight is the night that rest of America learns that Bernie is full of shit.
    This debate won't matter because Coronavirus is dominating the headlines and Sanders was deep under water for the Tuesday elections anyway. But it is a long overdue clarification of how bizarre and pathological Sanders' positions are. Thank god he'll never be more than an unimportant Senator.

    It's good he won't be President and it's good this is his last act. Biden should refuse to debate him again after he vanquishes him on Tuesday (having vanquished his fake-revolution last Tuesday).

    Biden is the only one on the stage who has any business being President.

  2. #15742
    Banned JohnBrown1917's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kaelleria View Post
    Tonight is the night that rest of America learns that Bernie is full of shit.
    Man, you guys really get angry at anything even close to centre-left, don't ya?
    But hey, how else are you going to ignore how senile Biden is?

  3. #15743
    Merely a Setback PACOX's Avatar
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    Biden sure is lucky people don't vote based on actual policies and ideology.

    Resident Cosplay Progressive

  4. #15744
    Quote Originally Posted by Grapemask View Post
    Right, but you can't say "we don't have Congress so there's no point wishing for anything." This mostly sounds like an excuse to try to make the progressives be quiet, because of the very fact that the Senate can flip in the same year that we're electing the president, neutering "we have to win it, then start talking about change." Ignoring that "We can't do anything, vote for me just to make sure the other guy doesn't do anything" doesn't get people to the polls.

    When Obama was pushing his healthcare message in 2008, he had every reason to think it would never pass. People had been promising healthcare since the beginning of politics and nothing ever happened. But moreover, Republicans had the Senate by a larger majority than they do today. 55 seats. But he won, and the flipped the Senate - even if only by virtue of two Democrat-leaning independents to give them a slim 51 seat majority.
    If we don't have congress, any sort of actual change in policy is going to be extremely difficult and will mostly be a task in limiting destruction. That battle is extremely important. It's not about progressives being quiet, it's about progressives understanding the entire game and not shooting off their nose despite their face with being short sighted and doing the easy thing of attacking the "establishment" to help Sanders. It's about people who are trying hard to lose the war to win a battle. They can support Sanders. Don't make the congressional races harder to do it.

    The presidential race is of course still important even if we don't take congress, but the congressional races are extremely important.

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    Quote Originally Posted by PACOX View Post
    Biden sure is lucky people don't vote based on actual policies and ideology.
    People vote on congress people based on policies. People actually vote more than they should on president based on policies.
    While you live, shine / Have no grief at all / Life exists only for a short while / And time demands its toll.

  5. #15745
    Quote Originally Posted by CommunismWillWin View Post
    Whatever helps you guys make excuses to back a senile candidate. Really goes to show you don't really care about your country(and that the rest of the world can go fuck itself).
    When this comes from someone that hates my country, I kind of think I'm on the right track.

  6. #15746
    Banned JohnBrown1917's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PACOX View Post
    Biden sure is lucky people don't vote based on actual policies and ideology.
    Americans vote based on how senile and ""christian"" somebody is. And Bernie is Jewish and not senile, he never had a chance.


    Speaking of that, rather funny how in 2016 and 2020, Clinton/Warren being a woman was repeated and repeated as having the first female president would be a huge thing... but nothing about how Sanders would be the first Jewish president.

  7. #15747
    Quote Originally Posted by Themius View Post
    No... it seems quite different.

    Biden's misspeaking seems to happen most when he is flustered. Tonight he appears quite calm, he is almost barely misspeaking at all. After winning SC he has been far far far better and far less stuttering and far less misspeaking.
    I don't recall the source, but I recall listening to a podcast recently (maybe Ezra Klein or The Weeds) where they were mentioning that Biden has privately admitted that he's been occasionally struggling with stuttering as he did in his youth. Obviously that's still not a great sign, but it's certainly preferable to him actually forgetting pretty basic things. I guess we'll see in coming months as he takes center stage more frequently. This evening he certainly doesn't seem like a guy that's declined sharply.

  8. #15748
    Quote Originally Posted by CommunismWillWin View Post
    And Bernie is Jewish and not senile, he never had a chance.
    Are you sure about that? I very clearly heard him say a word wrong, and as we've all been told that means his brain is going. Sorry, it's just a fact. You say the wrong word, its brain worms.
    While you live, shine / Have no grief at all / Life exists only for a short while / And time demands its toll.

  9. #15749
    Quote Originally Posted by Grapemask View Post
    Right, but you can't say "we don't have Congress so there's no point wishing for anything." This mostly sounds like an excuse to try to make the progressives be quiet, because of the very fact that the Senate can flip in the same year that we're electing the president, neutering "we have to win it, then start talking about change." Ignoring that "We can't do anything, vote for me just to make sure the other guy doesn't do anything" doesn't get people to the polls.

    When Obama was pushing his healthcare message in 2008, he had every reason to think it would never pass. People had been promising healthcare since the beginning of politics and nothing ever happened. But moreover, Republicans had the Senate by a larger majority than they do today. 55 seats. But he won, and the flipped the Senate - even if only by virtue of two Democrat-leaning independents to give them a slim 51 seat majority.
    If Democrats did not fuck up holding Senate seats in 2018, I would agree that policy SHOULD be at the forefront.

    But in my estimation, they lost 2 too many seats in 2018. Losing Florida particularly was catastrophic. Bill Nelson should not have lost that seat.. He lost the seat against a governor with a 29% approval rating because he forgot to campaign until September 2018 while Rick Scott organized one of the best campaign organizations in America. If Democrats held Florida + one other, the situation for retaking the Senate would be dramatically different.

    As it stands right now, with the likely loss of Doug Jones in Alabama, that means Democrats will fall to 46 seats (from 47) provided no others change hands. Which means they need 4+ the Presidency or 5 total, to regain control. This means winning;

    4 out of the 5 of:

    Arizona (McSally)
    Colorado (Gardner)
    Maine (Collins)
    North Carolina (Thom Tillis)
    Iowa (Joni Ernst).

    Or somehow save Doug Jones and with 3+President or 4.

    Of the above list, as of right now, it's likely Democrats take out Garnder in Colorado (so we return to 53/47) and probably McSally/Arizona (so 52/48). Collins in Maine will be hard. Thom Tillis in North Carolina will be hard. Joni Ernst in Iowa will be hardest. Everything else would be far too hard.

    So it would be really nice if Democrats could save Doug Jones. But realistically, us saying that there is no chance for any big items isn't to keep progressives down... it's to focus on the 95% scenario where Democrats are in the Minority 53/47, 52/48 or 51/49, rather than the 5% scenario where they pull out a 50/50 or 49/51.

    You plan for the likely case. Not the ideal case. If we lived in a world where Democrats were only down by 51/49 now ( having held 2 more seats in 2018), I'd be counseling a more ambitious policy agenda. But that's not that world.

  10. #15750
    To be fair to Biden, this is probably the first night that he has actually sounded presidential. His constant shouting of Obama up to this point made him sound like nothing but a pathetic old man desperately clinging onto a better guy in order to get in the door. If he's mentioned Obama at all tonight, I've missed it, but he sounds like he actually has his own place in this now.

  11. #15751
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    GOD BLESS BIDEN MAKING BERNARD SANDERS EAT HIS WORDS ON CUBA/RUSSIA/CHINA.

    THANK GOD.

    And now Bernard is going to commit suicide on a hill. Here he goes. Going for the Defender-of China/Cuba/Russia dictatorship votes.

    Walk into the trap you fucking idiot, lol. Die on this hill. God I love behind right about this maroon.
    While the primary was basically over, that little snippet was the final nail in the coffin for normal Americans. There really isn't any need to keep looping back to why actually the Great Leap Forward had a lot going for it.

  12. #15752
    Hasan mad. Lmao, get fucked grifter.

  13. #15753
    No matter who you think won, Sanders needed an absolute miracle of a debate, and that didn't happen.
    While you live, shine / Have no grief at all / Life exists only for a short while / And time demands its toll.

  14. #15754
    Quote Originally Posted by PACOX View Post
    Biden sure is lucky people don't vote based on actual policies and ideology.
    Been saying this since November. Progressives wouldn't listen. I will never understand why the lot of progressives wanted to live only in their ideologically happy place rather than move out of it and scrutinize where they were weak. Too many progressives started to talk about governing and policy details that excited them, rather than how to simply get more as many voters as possible.

    The only way to beat Donald Trump is to build a massive coalition whose unifying interest is their rejection of Donald Trump. There is broad agreement on that. You can win more states with that than with any policy set. That is far, far more voters than people ready for M4A or the rest of the progressive slate. The sale job on the progressive slate has barely begun.

    If only progressives listened to that and didn't spend months trying to pull the primary to the left and endangering the entire anti-Trump effort by making this a policy election. A policy election is exactly where trump wants it. A referendum on Trump as a leader is where Trump will be obliterated and he knows it.

  15. #15755
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    GOD BLESS BIDEN MAKING BERNARD SANDERS EAT HIS WORDS ON CUBA/RUSSIA/CHINA.

    THANK GOD.

    And now Bernard is going to commit suicide on a hill. Here he goes. Going for the Defender-of China/Cuba/Russia dictatorship votes.

    Walk into the trap you fucking idiot, lol. Die on this hill. God I love behind right about this maroon.
    Bernie response is the sane logical one. If we want them to change we praise them for what they do right and rail them for what they did wrong. We aren’t going to war and forcibly changing them.

  16. #15756
    Quote Originally Posted by Spectral View Post
    While the primary was basically over, that little snippet was the final nail in the coffin for normal Americans. There really isn't any need to keep looping back to why actually the Great Leap Forward had a lot going for it.
    I told the BernieBros here this this other day, but the point at which I finally lost my shit at Bernard Sanders supporters is when he goes and starts talking about Cuba's literacy program and how it was a great thing. And rather than criticize the infallible Saint Sanders for saying something which in no way advanced his electoral agenda, they too did the very Trumpahdi "well what he meant was" act.

    It was an outrageous event in two ways.

    First of all, the facts. I'll just repost that part of it:

    The part Bernard left out intentionally - and he knew this - is that 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.



    Secondly, the ONLY objective of any campaign should be to expand the number of voters it it reaches and can turn as supporters. It's not a matter of right or wrong. Campaigns are about winning, not about making points. So any Bernard Sanders supporter not asking "Bernard, how does this grow your coalition?" was doing a disservice to his primary (and presumed general election) campaign. It doesn't matter if it was factually right and nuanced (it wasn't). It mattered what the end point of the comment was. And the only end point of EVERY comment in EVERY campaign should be to grow the support base. Bernie endangers the anti-Trump effort when he gets on TV and starts saying shit like this because defeating Trump will rely on attracting voters not at all interested in his or his supporters "WELL ACKSHUALLY" excuse making for why Cuba or China wasn't that bad.

    Even tonight, Bernie said nice things about China and literacy and poverty reduction. I even mentioned that yesterday as I posted above a day before he did. Mao spread literacy in China not to educate, but to speed indoctrination via the Little Red Book. And Sanders knows this! And he is defending it anyway.

    He's a shitty person.

  17. #15757
    Quote Originally Posted by PACOX View Post
    Biden sure is lucky people don't vote based on actual policies and ideology.
    Look at our current president,
    hillary clinton had a plan for every single policy issue of the day,
    she had an economic plan, she had a foreign policy plan, she had a healthcare plan. trump had NO plans except building a great wall, ( which never happened and never will, his current " wall" is just a fence")
    but americans specifically the rustic midwestern ones decided hillary threatened their mascuilinity and voted for drump the russian agent "to shake things up" IE destroy democracy, plans dont matter when you have a group of voters who feel so threatened by social change theyd vote for authoritarian dictator to protect them from it

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    Also on that note, we need a path to victory that dosent include michigan or winsconsin, those states are long gone, im hoping for texas becoming urbanized like how virginia was being near DC. If texas is in play, it would really fix our electoral politics where the gop would have to stop pandering to the lowest common denominator in the midwest states and maybe actually be focused on conservatism rather than nationalist socialism.
    Last edited by arandomuser; 2020-03-16 at 02:18 AM.

  18. #15758
    Quote Originally Posted by Themius View Post
    Bernie response is the sane logical one. If we want them to change we praise them for what they do right and rail them for what they did wrong. We aren’t going to war and forcibly changing them.
    Horseshit. Because "what they did right" wasn't done for the reason Bernie is telling progressives (who don't know better because they aren't educated on the topic). Mao and Castro did not spread literacy to improve peoples lives and build an educated society.

    Literacy in China and Cuba were done to speed indoctrination of communist ideology by the regime, not to expand western-style education and openness to ideas through reading. How Westerners think about literacy - the major gateway to knowledge and understanding and new ideas - is in fact an existential threat to Authoritarian regimes that demand a monopoly of ideas and a conformity in thought.

    Bernie's response was not sane or logical. It was a rancid rape of of history by an old lefty who laments capitalists won the Cold War.

    And with China in particular, 25 years of carrots have lead to nothing positives. It is absolutely going to come to war with them, probably within our life times. That ship has largely sailed already. If you think the United States isn't going to use the Corniavirus to roll back China's global influence as punishment for their failure to contain it at the end of last year, you're wrong. The New Cold War is here. And there is Bernie Sanders, coming down on the wrong side of it.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Rukh View Post
    No matter who you think won, Sanders needed an absolute miracle of a debate, and that didn't happen.
    This is entirely true. I think Biden crushed Bernard, but that's immaterial really. Bernard didn't have the night he needed to. And it was very, very far from what Bernard Sanders' supporters had hoped for.

  19. #15759
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    <snipping a bunch that I strongly agree with>

    Even tonight, Bernie said nice things about China and literacy and poverty reduction. I even mentioned that yesterday as I posted above a day before he did. Mao spread literacy in China not to educate, but to speed indoctrination via the Little Red Book. And Sanders knows this! And he is defending it anyway.

    He's a shitty person.
    Yep, agree with all of the above, but this bit in particular. I turned to my wife as that exchange was happening to say, "I don't think Bernie's a communist, he's just the kind of guy that we all know from academia that insists on telling you how communism just hasn't been tried right". Through the whole thing, he insisted on saying the problem is authoritarianism while slide-stepping around the clear and present problem that there's a specific variety of authoritarianism being discussed there.

    Anyway, I hope Joe's composure and clarity is more representative of his current capacity than the stumbles over the last few months. If it is, I think he wins and I that seems about fine. Not great, not amazing, not a fix for everything that's wrong, but a pause on the weirdest and worst parts of things. Maybe.
    Last edited by Spectral; 2020-03-16 at 02:28 AM.

  20. #15760
    I enjoyed this one. Pretty much the first actual debate we've had. Only two candidates and no audience is a good format.

    I have to say Biden did better than I expected. He looked very presidential and was much better at actual debating than I expected. Like what he said about countries living in the shadow of authoritarian regimes resonated with me, despite just being mental gymnastics to justify a bit of a double standard.

    Bernie did well too, but I don't think he exceeded any expectations here either. I kinda expected him to give Biden a harder time, but maybe he was just playing nice. In any case, it's always interesting to see him go off-script.

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