Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[Skroe]

Hill TV is garbage and I can't remember a single time I've ever not regretted clicking on one of those links. John Solomon's impact on the creation of Hill TV persists very clearly.

Also that they resort to garbage clickbait-thumbnails for their YT videos like the one linked above. That alone is a gigantic red flag for me.

Want a better source for daily political news? The NPR Politics podcast is daily and generally both fun and very informative, without coming off as unprofessional.

It's worth restarting that John Solomon and Jonathan Turley (whi testified yesterday in the House) represented pretty much the dynamic duo of "credentialed" Trumpahdi enablers at the hill.

Solomon was spun as some kind of top tier investivative journalist, and spend the entire Mueller investigation creating scenarios where Mueller was going to get arrested, or Democrats prosecuted. And then of course, he created the Ukraine conspiracy theory that Trump fell for, because his staff prints out sycophantic artciles and puts them on his desk to make him feel better.

Turley spun his George Washing University credentials into some kind of authority on Trump's legal realities. But its horseshit. All he ever does is create logic mazes that evade Trump and always end up with implicating those against Trump, or getting Trump off the hook. Legal twitter was amazing yesterday. They basically said all we heard was Turley opinion on what he would like to see different in the US Constitution and US law, and not on the way things are. That he was basically making shit up. Turley too, is passed around by Trump supporters and land on Trumps desk.

Something I've written about a couple of times, that didn't gain much traction as a discussion item, is these writers - of which there are many. I call them the "Notice Me Senpai" crew. It may seem like their writings or statements are meant to feed the Trumphadi's appetite for information that confirms their world view. But really, they're written for an audience of one. They exist to be retweeted by Trump, or be printed out and put on Trump's desk by a staffer. Or repeated on Fox News so Trump sees it. They've adopted the Fox and Friends model, en masse. Get noticed by Trump, raise profile, cash in.

The most egregious of these recently I started a topic on. Hugh Hewitt proposed Trump award the contract for the Navy's new frigate to a shipyard in Wisconsin that makes the Littoral Combat Ship (that the frigate will replace). The likely winners of the frigate competition will be a American-Spanish joint design or a French-Italian design. Both would be produced in states Trump either easily loses or easily wins. The ship that would produced in Wisconsin would be far less capable than either, a derivative of the LCS (called the "Little Crappy Ship). And in any event, the Pentagon decides who wins competitively, not the President. But Hewitt proposed that Trump give that shipyard the contract, in order to return jobs to the rust belt and forestall the big layoffs coming to that shipyard when the LCS contract ends and is not renewed ore placed. The thing about this topic is that it's so wonkish... so specialized for people involved or interested defense procurement and budget matters... it's absolutely nuts that Hugh Hewitt wrote about it in an op-ed in the Washington Post, and then repeated it on his radio show. But it was meant for an audience of one: to get printed out, on Trump's desk, so he could intervene and start saying things about Wisconsin building ships for "his strong navy". And Hugh Hewitt, of course, cashing in.

This is really such a bad practice and the Hill has been a prime facilitator of it.

[Edge-]

This is really such a bad practice and the Hill has been a prime facilitator of it.

Plus, with their incredibly poor quality control on their op-eds. Why they're giving a platform to a putz like Sebastian Gorka is beyond me.

[Skroe]

Plus, with their incredibly poor quality control on their op-eds. Why they're giving a platform to a putz like Sebastian Gorka is beyond me.

Yup. Like here's one, from, you guessed it, Turley. The epilogue to his performance yesterday:
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciar...mp-impeachment

Let me save everyone the time: it is a simplistic maze that plays on Trumphadi imbeciles not understanding the difference between proof and evidence.

Hell, as an aside, the past three years have made me hate the word "proof".

[Kreuger]

Hill TV is garbage and I can't remember a single time I've ever not regretted clicking on one of those links. John Solomon's impact on the creation of Hill TV persists very clearly.

Also that they resort to garbage clickbait-thumbnails for their YT videos like the one linked above. That alone is a gigantic red flag for me.

Want a better source for daily political news? The NPR Politics podcast is daily and generally both fun and very informative, without coming off as unprofessional.

Ok, usually I fint the content unbiased and worth my time

Thanks for the tip about the podcast, will check it out

[Edge-]

IT's a business and click-bait clearly works. Why this offends people is beyond me.

I can't think of a single other reputable news outlet that does garbage like this. This is the realm of clickbait YTers.

NPR is just as biased toward establishments candidates and their way of thinking.

*Citation needed

They've covered Sanders and Yang plenty, for example, and it'd be hard to argue either of them is necessarily "establishment" at all.

It is also very telling you have a problem with the source and not what is actually ever discussed. I try and not put myself into a media bubble.

Because some sources prove to be wholly worthless and uncredible over time, as HillTV has done for me. I'm not going to take ever Infowars post as a one-off and seriously consider it, I'm going to look at the source and go, "Of course reptilian lizard-people aren't secretly taking over the US government, this is fucking stupid."

OP-Eds are exactly that, an Opinion Editorial. Why you would want to "Quality Control" an Opinion is kind of bizarre.

Because not everyone deserves that platform. I have no problem with differing opinions, as long as they're not fucking nonsense.

I don't think, for example, that we have much of anything to gain by reading an op-ed by David Duke, former head of the KKK. Nor Richard Spencer, the "gentleman" Nazi. Or Alex Jones. It just gives them a platform with the credibility of the outlet behind it to support their propaganda, lies, and frequently their actual/borderline conspiracy theories.

[kaelleria]

Bernie's camp finalllllllllly released something condemning supporters acting like jackasses -
https://twitter.com/shaqbrewster/sta...68521207058434

Might be because everyone is tired of their bullshit.

[Skroe]

Bernie's camp finalllllllllly released something condemning supporters acting like jackasses -
https://twitter.com/shaqbrewster/sta...68521207058434

Might be because everyone is tired of their bullshit.

Bernie's goonsquad is always a day late and a dollar short, because they too, are a cult.

[Draco-Onis]

Warren isn't a "centrist", but she is someone who wants to work within the party lines. She doesn't want to overturn the apple cart when many progressive want to do exactly that to the Center-Right DNC establishment.

I don't think many progressives want to turn the apple cart just work from within by electing more progressives into office. That is the Trump supporter type of thinking and some crazy Bernie bros and they all got pie in their face when Trump showed he was more establishment than anyone else.

[kaelleria]

Bernie's goonsquad is always a day late and a dollar short, because they too, are a cult.

It totally doesn't have anything to do with the gif on the front of NBC News or any of the articles written about it today.

[Masark]

Hell, as an aside, the past three years have made me hate the word "proof".

Has it helped you develop a liking for overproof?

[Skroe]

It totally doesn't have anything to do with the gif on the front of NBC News or any of the articles written about it today.

Sanders hasn't done a sincere thing in his entire fucking life.

[kaelleria]

Sanders hasn't done a sincere thing in his entire fucking life.

Twitter isn't real life... but this incident definitely has a lot of people scratching their heads about the Sanders camp. A bunch of Kamala surrogates swore off Bernie.

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Also wtf Joe.

https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/statu...57614817120257

Fighting with voters makes you look like Trump.

[Somewhatconcerned]

Twitter isn't real life... but this incident definitely has a lot of people scratching their heads about the Sanders camp. A bunch of Kamala surrogates swore off Bernie.

- - - Updated - - -

Also wtf Joe.

https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/statu...57614817120257

The best the Dems have to offer, LOL!

If they can't beat Trump in 2020 after all of his misdeeds, they won't hold the presidency for a long, long time.

[Muzjhath]

The best the Dems have to offer, LOL!

If they can't beat Trump in 2020 after all of his misdeeds, they won't hold the presidency for a long, long time.

If the US re-elects Trump no matter who the Democratic candidate is. Even if it's a bagged, rotting, piece of poo. No matter what or who. If Trump is re-elected. The course that'll set for the US is very dire (Sorry Skroe. Your optimism is inspiring however sadly if the country goes to far it won't be "an episode", it'll be the new way).
I'll also make myself ready to accept our new Chinese overlords unless the EU actually grows serious quickly as fuck.

[Skroe]

Twitter isn't real life... but this incident definitely has a lot of people scratching their heads about the Sanders camp. A bunch of Kamala surrogates swore off Bernie.

Something Sanders supporters have never understood is that the Democratic Party is not, or will never be a Workers Party (and the US never has had a legitimate national workers party), and workers parties, like unions, have historically been among the most racist and intolerant, or at the very least racially tone deaf, groupings of people in society. The white working class of the wider western world (say that three times fast), of which workers parties find their base, has never had any love for ethnic minorities or immigrants coming to compete with them.

Bernie's Sanders's years long problems with blacks and hispanics isn't a bug. It's a functional part of his Workers Party-lite political approach (or at least, the approach of his supporters, because Sanders campaign is certainly broader than typical Workers Party faire).

But this is again the crux of the thing I've been saying since 2015. Political parties in the US are Cross-ideological coalitions. The most true thing Trump ever said is that the Republican Party isn't the "Conservative Party", and that if it were, it would be called as such. He is exactly right. Republicans are where conservatives grouped. But social conservatives existed in coalition with business centric Americas (many of whom are socially liberal) and foreign policy conservatives and libertarians, and others. They helped each other, and avoided crticizing each other. The Republican Party was doomed because the Tea Party's social conservative / super-small government nut faction into a take over forced many other types of Republicans to the sidelines on their way out the door, and Trump competed the job. Trump saved them from disaster, because he broadened a far smaller base in 2016 than what Karl Rove created with Bush's 2004 "Big Tent" party coalition, that, let's recall, had big plans to lock down the Latino vote.

Democrats are also a coalition, but the internal dynamics of the party have prevented a far left ideological take over. The only way Democrats will win across the entirety of the US is in coalition. Nancy Pelosi owes her majority to winning in purple and red districts with centrist and conservative Democrats. Loud mouths like AOC represent a minority of her caucus.

Far right and far left groups do what they do because they win in anywhich way. If their party wins, they get to advance their agenda in government. if their party loses, they get to blame more centrist figures for the loss and try to pull the party closer to them, which sees them enriched and their influence grow (basically what the Tea Party did). Losing elections is not a big deal to the standing interest groups on the far right and far left that stand to benefit regardless. People need to drop this highly naive idea about how they operate, especially on the left given the audience here. Winning allows them to utilize their power. Losing allows them to consolidate their power.

This is why the Bernie-inspired leftward tug of Democrats is hugely dangerous to the long term health of the party. Not that the Party shouldn't have a substantial voice for progressives. But - once again - consider the nutters who want to drive out Senator Manchin. How insane is that. They want to drive out the only Democrat who can win in West Virginia? The man who may one day be the guy who gives the 50th or 51st vote to make Chuck Schumer majority leader in the Senate? They want to give that in the name of ideological purity? Are they stupid or just completely insane?


Democrats should focus on building a broad cross-ideological coalition that can win in localities, attenuated to the specific interests of those localities. It should then modernize the process of internal bargaining so that the coalition can present a united front. This is how it wins back governorships. This is how it wins nationally.

Democrats should lament that Bullock isn't running for Senate. That is ominious. It needs to attact politicians that can win, wherever they are, and negotiate their ideological differences once they get elected.

The problem with the Berie Sanders people though is that they don't accept this. This is nothing new. It has ALWAYS been the way of fanatics, on the right, left and in religion, to go after ideological heritics... "the enemy within", as cause traitors. Often times they are considered worse than ideological opponents. Communist and Socialist groups do it (which is why you see so many ideological splits). Independence and insurgency groups do it (see: the IRA). Serious political parties absolutely cannot do it.

This is why I am elated that 2020 represents the end of Bernie Sanders, who will have no real legacy. Oh sure, the progressive left is temporarily re-energized and some ideas from the left have moved into the Democratic mainstream. But that's what they are doing when they are out of power. Things will change when they get a President elected. And even if they hold the House, they'll find themselves well short of 60 votes in the Senate. And President Progressive (let's say) will then, like Trump but on the left, be reduced to signing the same 2 year bipartisan budget bill with $800 billion in defense spending, and no M4A, UBI, or other transformative policies. This, like Obama, will force a centrist push by the elected President, who will prioritize his legacy as President over party ideology. And that is how you'll get compromise policies - so at least there is something - rather than adherence to ideological orthodoxy.

But hey, what do I know... we've only seen this movie many times before.

- - - Updated - - -

The best the Dems have to offer, LOL!

If they can't beat Trump in 2020 after all of his misdeeds, they won't hold the presidency for a long, long time.

I mean I'm certainly glad you've evidently outed yourself as a full blown Trumphadi. Your double game was really so eye-rolling.

But that being said, no, that is not the best Democrats have to offer.

This is closer:


Probably the best ad of the 2020 election so far. And better than almost any 2016 ad I can think of.

If Democrats can win Wisconsin, Trump is finished. And they're working very hard at that. And so is my PAC.

I still give Trump a 60% chance of re-election though. But that's driven by my conviction that enough yokels of Wisconsin are unreliably unreachable. Democrats have done very well in the suburbs. And if their 2018 victories in districts presage victories in the same districts in 2020 (and they should), Trump will lose. But incumbency is a powerful thing.

Biden will do well. But fundamentally - and this is really bad for you - the 2020 election is not about the Democrat. Or the policies. It's a referendum on four more years of the Trump show. This Biden ad smartly makes it about that, even at this early stage.

"Do you REALLY want 4 more years of Trump? Like Really, man?" is a very powerful argument, and will carry any Democrat far.

Trump is running against himself. And the best part is, he's going to become completely unhinged as impeachment moves forward. Democrats trap for him is finely crafted.

[Draco-Onis]

But if she wants to work within the lines of a centrist party, she is by definition a centrist.

There is nothing radical about her programs, she won't change anything and that is why she will lose.
And if the DNC won't change anything then people like Trump will eventually win. They will be back ten times as worse.

You know who will suffer the most from that btw? Not the American population but the South American people, the Middle Easterns, the Asians, the Africans, etc.

For someone who resides in the Netherlands I am sure her agenda isn't radical that said neither Bernie or Warren will win the MSM and the DNC are so against anyone progressive they will throw their lot behind any centrist.

[Dextroden]

So, how do the people who condemned Tulsi Gabbard for being "essentially a Republican" feel about supporting Bloomberg, a man who ran as Republican for mayor? And wouldn't stop and frisk being welded to his name basically make him toxic to minority voters?

What a weird Primary this is.

[Zaktar]

Twitter isn't real life... but this incident definitely has a lot of people scratching their heads about the Sanders camp. A bunch of Kamala surrogates swore off Bernie.

- - - Updated - - -

Also wtf Joe.

https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/statu...57614817120257

Fighting with voters makes you look like Trump.

"You're too old to vote for me." Great line Joe, lucky for you people are more likely to vote when they're young! Wait...

[Dextroden]

I'm sure all the people who were backing Kamala Harris for being a Women of Color candidate and think identity politics are very important will all Support Tulsi Gabbard.

- - - Updated - - -



Joe Biden needs to do a lot more public outings. IT's good for my candidates.

It's either that or vote for one of those ghastly white people.

/Shudder

[Edge-]

"You're too old to vote for me." Great line Joe, lucky for you people are more likely to vote when they're young! Wait...

I mean, did you think a guy buying into the whole Burisma nonsense was going to vote for him in the first place?

Especially when the guy is claiming MSNBC is promoting that debunked theory, when they've actually been one of the great many outlets doing the debunking?