Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[Skroe]

But this is the crux of my real problem with new Connal: you've changed your views? Cool. You do you. You don't like certain aspects of the left? That's fine. Neither do I. You worry about divisions in society? Great. It's an imporant issue. My real issue is that it seems you've lost so much conviction that you've fully allowed right-wingers to define the left for you- people that not only don't understand the motivations of the "the left" (which of course, isn't a monolith), but also have plenty of incentives to frame their ideological opposition in the worst light possible. You want to be a bridge builder? Excellent. But don't let bad faith actors set all the definitions.

I'll make it simpler.

Connal says some nutty things. We let him know it's nutty. He takes it quite badly. Man doesn't understand why we think its nutty.

Theo, who also says a lot of truly bad faith, out of this world nutty things that nobody really cares for, says nice things about Connal's nutty things. Birds of a feather flock together.

Connal walks down a path to appeal to the literal one person on the forum who says what he spends time typing as any value.

His "change" is not complicated.

[Theodarzna]

I'll make it simpler.

Connal says some nutty things. We let him know it's nutty. He takes it quite badly. Man doesn't understand why we think its nutty.

Theo, who also says a lot of truly bad faith, out of this world nutty things that nobody really cares for, says nice things about Connal's nutty things. Birds of a feather flock together.

Connal walks down a path to appeal to the literal one person on the forum who says what he spends time typing as any value.

His "change" is not complicated.

Bad faith is a weird phrase you aped from me and I used it once in one thread. I guess your charge is ultimately that I don't mean what I say or have some other motive for posting what I post.

Which I guess someone whose personae on the World of Warcraft message board is "I love our CIA Spooks!" would be accusing anyone of having an intent to deceive since the organizations you practically worship and revere literally function off of deception and lies. You've carved out a niche essentially to advocate vociferously, on a World of Warcraft message board, that State appartchiks whose entire job is deception, intrigue, espionage and secrets is basically deserving of universal trust and fidelity whilst saying what few people say "Wait, no, that's bad!" are actually being deceptive?

Do you know what "Bad Faith" means? Do you seriously believe I'm simply posting for what? Do you with all do sincerity believe I'm collecting some paycheck from Moscow? Are you that deep into #McResistance now? Or is the term "Bad Faith" cool sounding and you never bothered to look it up after I used it?

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Of course. You have it all figured out.

I came here to specifically woo @Theodarzna

It’s not at all about what I think is actually correct, or true. No, it’s all to please Mistress Theodarzna; goddess bless her name.

The irony of Skroe, a man or woman whose entire persona here is worship for state bureaucracies whose entire purpose is secrecy, deception and lies to accuse others of lies, deceptions and secrets is a palpable level of projection.

[Theodarzna]

I just find it funny that for some reason I came here to trick people, by posting tech/scifi/science stuff for years... butting heads with you a few times, which people seem to have forgotten, only to then please you, and trick others into... I don't know... turning them into nationalists?

He obviously has it all figured out Natasha.

[...]

In the end, for some people, politics is merely a team sport. Skroe's team seems to be the US Establishment, His team is purely the interests of a Professional Managerial Class and the ideological beliefs that legitimize it and affirm its right to rule over the proles.

Which I suppose is better than "BLUE TEAM GOOD" mouth breathers. Or their "RED TEAM GOOD" siblings. But it still ultimately is a non-politics of power worship. He'd make a good Outer Party man in Oceania.

[Themius]

Bad faith is a weird phrase you aped from me and I used it once in one thread. I guess your charge is ultimately that I don't mean what I say or have some other motive for posting what I post.

Which I guess someone whose personae on the World of Warcraft message board is "I love our CIA Spooks!" would be accusing anyone of having an intent to deceive since the organizations you practically worship and revere literally function off of deception and lies. You've carved out a niche essentially to advocate vociferously, on a World of Warcraft message board, that State appartchiks whose entire job is deception, intrigue, espionage and secrets is basically deserving of universal trust and fidelity whilst saying what few people say "Wait, no, that's bad!" are actually being deceptive?

Do you know what "Bad Faith" means? Do you seriously believe I'm simply posting for what? Do you with all do sincerity believe I'm collecting some paycheck from Moscow? Are you that deep into #McResistance now? Or is the term "Bad Faith" cool sounding and you never bothered to look it up after I used it?

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The irony of Skroe, a man or woman whose entire persona here is worship for state bureaucracies whose entire purpose is secrecy, deception and lies to accuse others of lies, deceptions and secrets is a palpable level of projection.

Theo.. do you think you invented "bad faith" as a phrase or something? Is no one on this board allowed to say it without your blessing or it having been "originated" by you. Like seriously this is the second time I've seen this come up in the past week with the phrase bad faith and you having some "claim" to a common phrase.

[Theodarzna]

Theo.. do you think you invented "bad faith" as a phrase or something? Is no one on this board allowed to say it without your blessing or it having been "originated" by you. Like seriously this is the second time I've seen this come up in the past week with the phrase bad faith and you having some "claim" to a common phrase.

No but he only began using it when I used it and I can't recall it being used by him before.

But even if he's been using it before; that doesn't change that he doesn't know what it means. Or he should really explain his purposes in using it.

[Themius]

No but he only began using it when I used it and I can't recall it being used by him before.

But even if he's been using it before; that doesn't change that he doesn't know what it means. Or he should really explain his purposes in using it.

Skroe first used the phrase 2013 June... before you ever joined the board.

[Theodarzna]

Skroe first used the phrase 2013 June... before you ever joined the board.

Cool, since 2013 he has either used a phrase incorrectly and out of ignorance or has pretty much used it..... "In bad faith" given its being used as a smear and a claim by him to understand a posters "true motives".

I am glad you could confirm just how long he has used a phrase without knowing its meaning, or dishonestly used a phrase simply because it sounds cool.

[Skroe]

The downside of making ignored bad faith posters invisible with uBlock is you see people replying to them. There is nothing that Theo says that I really think it is worth my time, except for the fact that I, like many posters here adopted "Bad Faith poster" from Endus, and we've used it entirely appropriately.

Now moving on from Theo's massive thread derailment...

I think the Corbynite disaster tonight in the UK, while not directly relevant to the Democrats in the US, should make them more cautious than ever about Bernie Sanders.

[Theodarzna]

The downside of making ignored bad faith posters invisible with uBlock is you see people replying to them. There is nothing that Theo says that I really think it is worth my time, except for the fact that I, like many posters here adopted "Bad Faith poster" from Endus, and we've used it entirely appropriately.

Now moving on from Theo's massive thread derailment...

I think the Corbynite disaster tonight in the UK, while not directly relevant to the Democrats in the US, should make them more cautious than ever about Bernie Sanders.

The courage of a man or woman who spends a lot of time talking about someone they have blocked. Even going through the trouble of installing an extension to block someone.

I just click ignore and out of sight out of mind. But this? Amazing. I am truly an obsession for some people. Which is itself the saddest thing of all. His projection onto Connal is amazing, for I think it is Skroe who has the biggest unrequited love on this forum.

[Gestopft]

I think the Corbynite disaster tonight in the UK, while not directly relevant to the Democrats in the US, should make them more cautious than ever about Bernie Sanders.

How much of that is Labour trying to play both sides of Brexit and ending up empty on both sides? Better question for the UK election thread, I suppose. I don't know what the polls on campaign issues look like over there.

That said...I would not want to be the Conservatives if the Brexit fallout does a number on the British economy.

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The courage of a man or woman who spends a lot of time talking about someone they have blocked. Even going through the trouble of installing an extension to block someone.

Here, let me play back every interaction between you and @Skroe

Skroe: (long winded post, usually based on data and/or the intricacies of how government works)
You: (snarky remark instead of engaging on substance, probably about bombing something)
Skroe: Here's years worth of posts showing that I consistently am not for that thing you're accusing me of being for
You: lol technocrat

That's why you're blocked.

[Theodarzna]

Here, let me play back every interaction between you and @Skroe

Skroe: (long winded post, usually based on data and/or the intricacies of how government works)
You: (snarky remark instead of engaging on substance, probably about bombing something)
Skroe: Here's years worth of posts showing that I consistently am not for that thing you're accusing me of being for
You: lol technocrat

That's why you're blocked.

If it were that simple it wouldn't be so emotionally charged nor would I be a person mentioned anyway. The fact that you have to install an extension beyond what the forum allows reveals a much deeper obsession.

I ignore plenty of people. I've never installed a special extension just to SUPER Block someone but still name drop that person despite going through the effort of installing a special plugin to avoid ever even being aware that person even posts.

[Gestopft]

There hasn't been much of the campaign focused on foreign policy, except for the "restore relations with our allies" sort of thing, but I wonder- if I was a foreign country, I would't wonder so much about the next Democrat and what they will do, but about the next Republican after that. Has any Democrat/would any Democrat admit that it could take decades to build back the credibility that has been lost?

[Flarelaine]

Why? My understanding of the UK election is the labour party went down because of a bunch of anti-semitic shit going on in the party.

I suspect that them not having a clear message also played a part.

[Wyrt]

There hasn't been much of the campaign focused on foreign policy, except for the "restore relations with our allies" sort of thing, but I wonder- if I was a foreign country, I would't wonder so much about the next Democrat and what they will do, but about the next Republican after that. Has any Democrat/would any Democrat admit that it could take decades to build back the credibility that has been lost?

Is it possible to build back credibility at this point? The last 2 Republican presidencies have been absolute utter disasters on that front. The only way to regain credibility would be to have stable, sane Republican presidents who don't fuck everything up. Democrats really can't do anything since other nations would, rightfully, expect everything to go to shit the moment a Republican is in power again.

[Skroe]

How much of that is Labour trying to play both sides of Brexit and ending up empty on both sides? Better question for the UK election thread, I suppose. I don't know what the polls on campaign issues look like over there.

That said...I would not want to be the Conservatives if the Brexit fallout does a number on the British economy.

Oh it's a mess of things. It's certainly not 1:1. There isn't that much of a lesson we can draw either which way. The Tory's weaponized fake news in a way that was unprecedeneted (nearly 90% of their messaging according to analysis. As you mentioned Labour trying to play both sides. A muddled Labor message versus a clear Tory one. The rise of the SNP in Scotland has robbed Labour of dozens of seats it used to hold (SNP projected to hold 52 of 59 seats 10 years ago it simply didn't have). Labour's also had several major scandals.

Jeremy Corbyn's seen immense personal unpopularity. But one of the things that undermined Labour even more is that ever since he came to power he and his affiliates have systemically tried to push out any rival bases of power within Labour.

Modern Political parties in the Western World typically have worked along the principle of many bases of power cooperating in coalition. The Democratic Party has, for example the Progressives, the Clintonites, the Obamaites, the Blue Dogs and so forth. From time to time, one takes the lead, the others follows and there is an expectation of team work and bone throwing. It's entirely normal and healthy.

Labour over the past 3 years has gone through the very typical Socialist manuever, because the people Corbyn put into running Labour are idealogues. Rooting out the enemy within. This is the oldest story of extremists there is. Left or right, while there is certainly opposition to the major political rival, an special place in hell is reserved for those of similar persuasion who are not as committed to the party orthodoxy. The enemy within is perceived as a more severe and less forgivable threat than just the opposite side. Why? Because the enemy within represents a future threat to the current group's hold on power. That's what it is always about. Power and control.

Labour over the past 3 years has seen centrist figures purged, centrist groups kicked out. The Corbynistas have built an EXTREMELY monolithic party apparatus, with Corbyn at the top, and a group of ardent socialist orbiting it, keeping rival power bases from recoalescing. Now put aside the actual specifics of the party platform, which were more socialist than they've been since the 1980s... the obvious problem with this approach is that it undermines the ability of candidates to fine tune their message to win in their constituencies. This is even more pointed in a parliamentary democracy because voting against your party is grounds to be deselected. In the US, voting against your party happens all the time. In the UK, it's a major deal. So when Corbyn has policies that are hard left, and is domineering in his control of the party, more centrist can reasonably say "I will balance out the Corbynistas". They simply cannot.

So the main lesson here is that ideological purity in political parties is a big fucking trap. I bring up Joe Manchin regularly because he is a case so good he is grown in a lab. He is frustrating to progressive. He is closer to Republicans on many issues than he is a progressive. He will probably vote to acquit Trump next month. But he is also the guy that, when Chuck Schumer has 49 or 50 Democrats who are more ideological reliable, will be the one to push Schumer and the Democrats into the majority. He is the only Democrat that can win in West Virginia (and remember, until Robert Byrd died, there used to be two). Democrats need seats in places where ideologicial conformity is a problematic, in order to get into the majority.

This may seem self serving because I'm a man without a party, but it's not. Witness Boris Johnson's Tories. With a ~72 seat majority, he won't just Brexit... he'll Brexit on terms designed to make a point that it is his Britain now for the next five years and everyone else can go screw themselves. The deal he worked out this year? Expect it to look a lot more no-dealish just to make a statement of defiance. Corbyn facilitated this by creating a party that is far more ideologically consistent, and now far more in the minority. Transpose that to the United States. An ideologically consistent democratic party may make progressives feel empowered... but it will also let the Republicans - the Authoritarian Party of America - run wild over the Constitution. Democrats are the ONLY bulwark against that.

The lesson in Corbyn's failure for American politicos is that coalition politics is the only path to relevance and majority, and people who push ideological straight jackets are looking out for their own power first, and not thinking about election strategy.

This is the risk of Bernie Sanders. Some of the people in his inner circle are nuts. They are the same type of fanatic as Jeremy Corbyn surrounded himself with. Were he to take over the Democratic Party, they would push for a similar ideological conforming of it. Why? Because should Sanders win, they are in charge. Should Sanders lose, and they've engaged in an ideological purge, they stay the king maker. It is essential that Democrats worry about how to get elected first, and THEN worry about what they'll do with that power.

In short, a read of "Corbyn is a socialist, and socialists can't win" is a wrong and irrelevant read of the situation. A read of "Corbynistas sabatoged their own party and the political strategy was a top to bottom shit show" is a pretty good one. There is a lot to learn about politics - mostly in general with few specifics.

Here, let me play back every interaction between you and @Skroe

Skroe: (long winded post, usually based on data and/or the intricacies of how government works)
You: (snarky remark instead of engaging on substance, probably about bombing something)
Skroe: Here's years worth of posts showing that I consistently am not for that thing you're accusing me of being for
You: lol technocrat

That's why you're blocked.

Bingo.

I'm really not sure how they thought it was going to end when years of me saying "Afghanistan has been a disaster we should have left since 2005", "the Iraq War is the biggest imperial mistake since Napoleon marched on Russia", "the single stupidest thing the US could do is go to war against Iran", was met with "Warmonger Skroe just wants to bomb more brown people".

The best route has been to make a group of them effectively not exist anymore. Its quite clear they are not capable of engaging in good faith.

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There hasn't been much of the campaign focused on foreign policy, except for the "restore relations with our allies" sort of thing, but I wonder- if I was a foreign country, I would't wonder so much about the next Democrat and what they will do, but about the next Republican after that. Has any Democrat/would any Democrat admit that it could take decades to build back the credibility that has been lost?

It won't take decades. It'll take about 5 minutes.

Words an actions are two different things and we often over inflate the importance of the former and downplay the latter.

Obama had the right words on a host of foreign policy topics. But his actions were tepid at best, or non-existant at worst. THe mess we find ourselves in is due in no small part to the fact that he CHOSE not to act on certain problems because he had other political priorities. And those problems metastizied. Consider the problems of Revanchist Russia and the New Cold War with China... how much better off we would have been if Obama acted early, than at the 11th hour. His flowery words about human rights and liberty were great. But he also dragged his feat on doing freedom of navigation patrols through China, authorizing big weapon buys, and moving military forces into Europe.

Trump has the wrong words. The worst words. Insulting, demeaning, stupid words. But the policy, largely as a result of Congress that benefits by simply having an imbecile in the White House and not Obama to obstruct them, is a hell of a lot better. In terms of dollars and steel, the US _is_ laying the groundwork for a very robust defense of our place on the top of the pile, our alliance and the liberal international order. Just today, for example, the US Army test flew a new post-INF treaty missile that flew over 500km. It threw that together in less than year. It's plan? Put a bunch of them on Pacific Islands by 2021 and point them at China. Something Obama would have gone for? Absolutely not. Something that undermines Chinese security? Hell yes.


Trump's words worry our allies deeply. Words DO matter. But words without action don't matter. I think what we're all hungry for is for words and action to match. That's not to say go so far to the defense side of things, but at least to just make them consistent so there is policy clarity rather than contradiction. Because Obama was frustrating for our allies, who heard the words "we will defend you", then saw Obama try and remove combat units from Europe and South Korea.

But here is the key reason our allies won't waste time in restoring full trust: because they can't afford the alternative.

The fact that the United States has the military it has is an emergent property of its size and wealth. 330 million people. 220 million taxpayers. A $4 trillion budget. These are absolutely nutty numbers. The United States will spend more on single weapons programs this year than the entire defense budgets of most of its allies. And that should not be surprising, because most of our allies have populations of 5-30 million, and taxpayer bases of 2.5-19 million. Even at a higher overall rate, the sheer amount of dollars the US taxpayer producers means we can do a lot of things simultaneously in a budget, while our allies have to choose.

In fact, in terms of NATO interoperability, that's been an ongoing question. Does every country HAVE to have an Air Force? Does every country HAVE to have its own Nuclear-Biological-Chemical teams? Does every country have to have its own next generation tank procurement program? It's a old, but effective trope to liken European Countries to matching US states. Denmark is a pretty even match for Massachusetts for example. But we don't ask Massachusetts to fund an independent army-navy-air force. Denmark very much does.

The reason why the US is indispensible to its allies is that the capabilities we provide cannot be replaced easily, or at all. In theory, they could be replaced with a pan-European defense model that eliminated duplication. But that's a much bigger problem and discussion. At the President, they are unwilling and unable to replace what the US offers in a like-for-like fashion. So what's the solution? Make nice and continue to ride the US taxpayer's sheer buying buyer. Some of these countries are buying 6 frigates over 10 years. We're buying 2-3 larger destroyers per year, every year, forever. Simply, it pays to be big.

Now I've evaluated this up to this point in pure military terms. But what of moral leadership? Of reputation as a country where the rule of law and process matters? That hit will take many, many years, and likely a major political inflection point, to turn around. I honestly think the next President is going to have to take a very un-American traditional step and investigate and prosecute the hell out of the Trump administration to bring it about. One of my hold ups with Biden is that I think he'd do a far worse job at that than Warren. I don't quite think Biden and his generation *get* that Trump is symptomatic and they'll excuse it as a hundred year storm, rather than make an example of the Trump regime for all to see.


But moral leadership CAN be rebuilt. Anyone who thinks that one, two or twenty mistakes means its kaput is dead wrong. Fixing it means luck, timing and hard work. We've done it before. We can do it again. And doing it within the framework of alliances like NATO make it easier.

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I suspect that them not having a clear message also played a part.

Absolutely.

A muddled message will sink you every time.

Remember "Make America Great Again" is stupid, and even patrionizing but that message and it's stupid fucking red had were political brilliance.

Consider: in the US, uniformed wings of political parties are illegal. But the fucking MAGA hat created a de facto uniform. And what is the purpose of that? To create a sense of belonging. Of membership to a community. In it's own way, it's as brilliant and as trailblazing as Obama's 2008 campaign. Democrats need to ape it some how next year.

But MAGA is hard to argue against in principle. Indeed, who doesn't want to make America great? It claimed a rhetorical high ground. It's a cruise missile of a message, cut from the same cloth as Obama's "Yes we can", and "Change you can believe in", which demolished McCain's "Country First" and whatever focus group construction Mitt Romney shat out. It claimed the same kind of rhetorical high ground. What's the counter to "Yes We can"? "No We can't?" That's not a real slogan.

"I Like Ike"
"Building a bridge to the twenty-first century"
"For People, for a Change"
"It's Morning Again in America"
"Leadership for the 60s"

Simple messages work. Time and time again.

And what was the Tory's this time? "Get Brexit Done". Stupid. Simple. Not true. But it works in the face of the Labour mess.

[Flarelaine]

Simple messages work. Time and time again.

And what was the Tory's this time? "Get Brexit Done". Stupid. Simple. Not true. But it works in the face of the Labour mess.

Precisely. The Times had a great cartoon around this a few weeks back:



And this one is also relevant, arguably prophetic, even though it is from waaay back, maybe last year:

[Gestopft]

I bring up Joe Manchin regularly because he is a case so good he is grown in a lab. He is frustrating to progressive. He is closer to Republicans on many issues than he is a progressive. He will probably vote to acquit Trump next month. But he is also the guy that, when Chuck Schumer has 49 or 50 Democrats who are more ideological reliable, will be the one to push Schumer and the Democrats into the majority. He is the only Democrat that can win in West Virginia (and remember, until Robert Byrd died, there used to be two). Democrats need seats in places where ideologicial conformity is a problematic, in order to get into the majority.

As I've said before- Joe Manchin fails the easiest test in America.

And to bring a historical example to your point, the original Social Security 'just happened' to omit the most common employment of black Americans...but it wouldn't have passed without racist Southern Democrats. Today, to make up a couple examples- if Democrats want to pass any big new programs with a future coalition, there is an approximately zero percent chance that (specifically undocumented) immigrants will get to benefit from it. If Democrats form a coalition to pass M4A- there is basically no way it will cover gender reassignment surgery, no matter how many town halls on LGBTQ issues they do.

Like I've said, my issue with Red State Democrats isn't that they have to buck party orthodoxy to be electable- it's where they overlap with Republicans that I have a problem with. I'll stand by my previous "give me more Sherrod Browns."

But moral leadership CAN be rebuilt. Anyone who thinks that one, two or twenty mistakes means its kaput is dead wrong. Fixing it means luck, timing and hard work. We've done it before. We can do it again. And doing it within the framework of alliances like NATO make it easier.

Also on rebuilding trust in the world, I was referring specifically to things like Trump's pullout of TPP, the JCPOA, and the Paris deal. This is where I wonder if other countries will hesitate to enter agreements, not knowing whether or not the next president of the other party is just going to ctrl-Z the thing. Or is this more a matter of a) they don't have a better choice, or b) they will make sure that agreements are actual treaties and not 'executive agreements?'

[kaelleria]

As I've said before- Joe Manchin fails the easiest test in America.

And to bring a historical example to your point, the original Social Security 'just happened' to omit the most common employment of black Americans...but it wouldn't have passed without racist Southern Democrats. Today, to make up a couple examples- if Democrats want to pass any big new programs with a future coalition, there is an approximately zero percent chance that (specifically undocumented) immigrants will get to benefit from it. If Democrats form a coalition to pass M4A- there is basically no way it will cover gender reassignment surgery, no matter how many town halls on LGBTQ issues they do.

You know how we have a 0% chance of getting anything passed? Having McConnell as majority leader.

Cutting out red state Democrats effectively means there's no shot at ever passing even the most moderate of reforms.

[omerome]

You know how we have a 0% chance of getting anything passed? Having McConnell as majority leader.

Cutting out red state Democrats effectively means there's no shot at ever passing even the most moderate of reforms.

This is a reason why I contributed to McConnell's challenger. Getting rid of that do-nothing-piece-of-trash is a great way to start getting things done.

[kaelleria]

This is a reason why I contributed to McConnell's challenger. Getting rid of that do-nothing-piece-of-trash is a great way to start getting things done.

Any Republican majority will adopt the same tactics. The only way anything has a shot of passing is with a democratic Senate majority leader and that means accepting people like Joe Manchin.