Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[Wyrt]

Elizabeth Warren is just throwing shit against the wall trying to make it stick. She said today that she would ignore congress and cancel student debts:


I really liked Ted Cruz's response( I know, I know you guys will hate it):

And if you like this policy, how would you feel if/when a GOP president does it for something you don’t like?

You mean like Trump is doing with his wall? Does Ted Cruz have any self awareness at all or is that beaten out of Republicans before they can run for office?

[TexasRules]

I liked this one. It helped me realize that Biden is not a good choice. If he does get it he might still beat Trump, but it'll be scary getting there.

I'm also moving away from Bernie. I really like the guy and I would like to see what he can manage to pull out of congress as president, but I get a very bitter taste in my mouth every time he says something disparaging about the media under his breath. It's not that he doesn't have a point, but this is absolutely not the time to incite even more passion and anger from idiots towards journalists. I'm all for fighting fire with fire, but replacing one demagogue with another doesn't sit well with me in the grand scheme of things.

As far as the gender argument between Bernie and Warren goes, I think neither of them lied. Bernie very carefully worded his denial, and of course he isn't sexist. He probably said a man might have an easier time beating Trump or something like that. Who knows and who cares. It was a cheap shot from Warren's camp.

Overall I'm getting pretty excited to see what ends up happening in Iowa. As long as it's not Biden I'm good.

The problem with Biden and Sanders is that they have YEARS of crazy stuff in their past that will resurface. They will be easy targets. The only thing Biden has going for him is the black vote. Unfortunately for you, it probably means he will get the nomination.

[Orbitus]

The problem with Biden and Sanders is that they have YEARS of crazy stuff in their past that will resurface. They will be easy targets. The only thing Biden has going for him is the black vote. Unfortunately for you, it probably means he will get the nomination.

You mean like Trump and his raping of women? His fucking racism? His fucking sexual assaults? His ties to Jeffrey Epstein?

Also, I bet they are NOTHING in comparison to what Trump has ACTUALLY done.

[Thelxi]

The problem with Biden and Sanders is that they have YEARS of crazy stuff in their past that will resurface. They will be easy targets. The only thing Biden has going for him is the black vote. Unfortunately for you, it probably means he will get the nomination.

I'm not worried about easy vs. hard targets. No matter who gets the nomination, they will be annihilated and slandered without mercy or reason. At the end of the day Trump doesn't even need an argument, he will just make something up if he feels like it and millions of people will eat it up. I don't think one candidate is more immune to the bullshit than any other; it'll be about how they handle it imo.

I do agree about Biden and the black vote though, and unless I am missing something the ONLY connection he has to black communities is his ties to Obama. I'm not black myself so what do I know, but I do find it a bit depressing that black voters even in these dire straits value simply standing next to Obama over what looks like everything else. This is not the time imo to look at the color of your own or anyone else's skin. Like complaining about lack of diversity on the debate stage when there are two women and an openly gay guy standing right there. Get a grip on what is going on people.

[Wyrt]

The problem with Biden and Sanders is that they have YEARS of crazy stuff in their past that will resurface. They will be easy targets. The only thing Biden has going for him is the black vote. Unfortunately for you, it probably means he will get the nomination.

It doesn't matter if there's real dirt or not. Just look at Hillary and all the "Lock her up" chants just for Trump's DOJ to find absolutely nothing on her after 2 years of investigating.

Trump's just going to lie and slander ANYONE who's nominated.

[Elegiac]

CNN being absolute garbage as usual: quite a bit of the Sanders/Warren stuff is manufactured controversy on the part of a lot of the mainstream media channels because electoral politics needs a reality show narrative apparently.

[eschatological]

Elizabeth Warren is just throwing shit against the wall trying to make it stick. She said today that she would ignore congress and cancel student debts:


I really liked Ted Cruz's response( I know, I know you guys will hate it):

It's not giving away money, which is under Congressional authority. It's forgiving debt. Which is already done by a federal program in the Department of Education called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which forgives college debt for doing public service. Warren just wants to expand this program.

In no way did she ever imply that the funds for her expanded view of this program would come from some other method other than Congressional authority.

Unlike, say, Trump, who did an end-around on the Wall funding by taking it from the national emergency fund at DoD which is not what those funds were intended for.



Like Clinton, Warren's massively in-depth, nuanced policy positions are being used by bad faith actors on the other side of the debate in a reductive fashion, which leads to them screaming about something she doesn't plan on doing, nor said she was going to do. I guess it's better to stick to simple slogans for the people at rallies to chant, like "U.S.A!" or "Lock her up!" (or, to be fair, "Yes, we can!")

[Skroe]

That was pretty much Biden and Klobuchar's debate. Mayor Pete was pretty weak and the mutually assured destruction of Bernie and Warren continues midway through January.

When Bernie gets trucked on Super Tuesday after splitting the progressive vote with Warren, his cult will blame the dastardly DNC because that is their only move. But the real reason he'll lose is because he wasn't man enough to step aside and let a woman finish what he started.

[Omega10]

More over, what is conservative / moderate in this context? Usually this is invoked to say "Lets not rock the apple cart on Neo-Liberalism" or "Lets center the most marginal intersectional person possible" which is fairly cheap because then real policy need only be some token gesture or at worst a pittance of the federal budget.

When they say Conservative they don't invariably mean say Tucker Carlson's social values. There is a reason that when they say "Become more moderate / Conservative" what they mean is become more Libertarian. It is always "Absorb the values of the Koch Brothers" never "Lets talk to Pat Buchannan". Which is itself a betrayal of any sort of Left Wing cause because in the end it all becomes Capitalism but Woke! The biggest reason going moderate hasn't been working, especially lately is because Capitalism is nakedly shit now. Compromising with Libertarians to create Market Friendly answers isn't going to build that pragmatic coalition except to amount to being a Simp to Corporations.

You mean the same Pat Buchannan that recently (January 14) wrote THIS about Bernie Sanders???

https://original.antiwar.com/buchana...ion-to-bernie/

With the killing of the general and the possibility of a U.S.-Iran war rising, Bernie is the Democratic candidate whose antiwar credentials are the longest and strongest and whose position of avoiding war with Iran is most in sync with the majority of the party he seeks to lead.

Sanders could ride antiwar sentiment to victory in Iowa and New Hampshire and have the wind behind him going into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

His socialism may be a bridge too far for most Americans, and an insuperable obstacle to his ever becoming president, but should he win the nomination, he could occupy in 2020 the space Trump occupied in 2016, as the anti-interventionist, antiwar candidate.

And if Bernie ran a "Come Home, America" campaign, half a century after the slogan’s author, George McGovern, lost in history’s largest landslide, Sanders could change the face and future of American politics.

[d00mGuArD]

My only objection is that some people's votes are worth relatively less than others. That is like the old oligarchic democracies where wealthy folks got five votes and poor people only one. Except now for some reason it's alright because a lot of people live in one place and less in another...

In France this would've been punishable by guillotine if you got elected that way.

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.

[Omega10]

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.

So you are saying that since other nations have an unfair version of democracy, it is ok for us to have an unfair version of democracy. I'll pass on that logic.

Actually, your example where 5,001 voters in one area have the same power as 500,001 voters in another area is not just a little unfair, it is downright corrupt.

[Deianeira]

So you are saying that since other nations have an unfair version of democracy, it is ok for us to have an unfair version of democracy. I'll pass on that logic.

Actually, your example where 5,001 voters in one area have the same power as 500,001 voters in another area is not just a little unfair, it is downright corrupt.

How is that corrupt? If both those areas are to elect a candidate to represent them how else would they do it so its not "corrupt" as you call it? isnt majority the way to go? Both have the majority in the areas they are running. If the 5001 people would overrule the 500001 people then that would be corrupt.

[JohnBrown1917]

How is that corrupt? If both those areas are to elect a candidate to represent them how else would they do it so its not "corrupt" as you call it? isnt majority the way to go? Both have the majority in the areas they are running. If the 5001 people would overrule the 500001 people then that would be corrupt.

Because each elected member holds equal power in the nation?

- - - Updated - - -

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.

Not true, and it'll be even less once the UK leaves.

[Mormolyce]

How is that corrupt? If both those areas are to elect a candidate to represent them how else would they do it so its not "corrupt" as you call it? isnt majority the way to go? Both have the majority in the areas they are running. If the 5001 people would overrule the 500001 people then that would be corrupt.

He's not talking about voting for their own candidates. He's talking about the Electoral College, which assigns votes to each state disproportionate to the actual population of those states when electing the President - eg, a Wyoming voter has ~3 times the voting power of a Californian.

It's because of the disproportionate representation of the Senate. The House reps are based on population (although very small states are still disproportionately represented in the House due to the way it rounds) but every state has two Senators - ie Wyoming's <600k people have exactly the same representation as California's 40 million. The number of EC votes is equal to the number of Senators plus the number of House reps - so the Senators throw out the numbers. Wyoming should have 1 EC vote (I think less actually but it rounds up) but it has 3 because it has the minimum of 1 House rep plus two Senators.

So while you could argue the House is fairly apportioned, the Senate definitely isn't and as a consequence neither is the Presidential election.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

No EU country uses a system like the Electoral College for electing the head of state. In fact I don't know of any other Electoral Colleges on the planet.

The EC was a compromise to give the slave states disproportionate power so they could block abolitionism for like a century. That's why only the US has something like that, it's an artifact of its crooked history.

[d00mGuArD]

He's not talking about voting for their own candidates. He's talking about the Electoral College, which assigns votes to each state disproportionate to the actual population of those states when electing the President - eg, a Wyoming voter has ~3 times the voting power of a Californian.

It's because of the disproportionate representation of the Senate. The House reps are based on population (although very small states are still disproportionately represented in the House due to the way it rounds) but every state has two Senators - ie Wyoming's <600k people have exactly the same representation as California's 40 million. The number of EC votes is equal to the number of Senators plus the number of House reps - so the Senators throw out the numbers. Wyoming should have 1 EC vote (I think less actually but it rounds up) but it has 3 because it has the minimum of 1 House rep plus two Senators.

So while you could argue the House is fairly apportioned, the Senate definitely isn't and as a consequence neither is the Presidential election.

- - - Updated - - -



No EU country uses a system like the Electoral College for electing the head of state. In fact I don't know of any other Electoral Colleges on the planet.

The EC was a compromise to give the slave states disproportionate power so they could block abolitionism for like a century. That's why only the US has something like that, it's an artifact of its crooked history.

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.

[rogueMatthias]

Does anyone actually believe Warrens story that Sanders said a woman couldn't become President?

[JohnBrown1917]

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.

2 is not 'many'.

[rogueMatthias]

No EU country uses a system like the Electoral College for electing the head of state. In fact I don't know of any other Electoral Colleges on the planet.
.

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

I think the bigger issue in US politics is the "Two party system". It's caused the parties to have such radically different viewpoints within them. Democrats would be at least 3 different parties in any other country, and if it wasn't for their unity against Trump they would have fractured and torn themselves apart entirely.

[d00mGuArD]

2 is not 'many'.

Well I don't know the exact number of countries using it. I said so from the start.

[JohnBrown1917]

Well I don't know the exact number of countries using it. I said so from the start.

So you have no idea if 'many' countries are using it or not, why did you even make it?