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On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives.
My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries,
+ Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday.
I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic.
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On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic.
Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while.
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On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic.
So, you just insulted the Democrat mainstream as “try-hards”. I hear that insult every once in awhile in video games, but it always comes from the same type of person: the loser.
You don’t hear winners complain about their opponents trying too hard. Should the Democrat mainstream just stop trying so that they too can be losers like the progressive wing?
Or maybe, rather than whining about other people trying too hard, maybe the progressive wing should try hard. Maybe they should work to convince others that their positions are correct and to vote for them. But the first step to doing that is usually to actually listen to other people and not just lecture them.
It would also help to eject the crazies from the progressive movement, but then you wouldn’t have too many people left. I like the Bill Maher quote, “When what you’re doing sounds like an Onion headline, stop.” He’s talking about progressives.
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Northern Ireland24795 Posts
On September 23 2021 12:34 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 11:48 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 23 2021 07:02 JimmiC wrote:
I find it interesting that some people appear to hold both the position that the DNC is unwilling to play dirty and this is why the Reps do so much, and that the DNC plays so dirty that this is why Bernie is not the leader. It is interesting that the dems will play dirty (if one believes that they did, i'm not arguing that) when it comes to beating Bernie, but not when it comes to enacting their policies. It is easier to be a bully than to fight for progress and advancement. For anyone who remembers student government, those are the folks running the DNC. It is a huge mess. The people you don't want in those positions are the people in those positions. The Republican party are plain and simply fighters. They truly believe in the things they are doing and they will go to any lengths to secure it. Just look at all the reports coming out about who knew what about Jan6. The goal is all that matters for republicans. Getting there by any means necessary is what they do and they are damn good at it. Republican leadership competence far outperforms democrats. McConnell as a democrat would reshape the country in like 6 months. Sinema and Manchin would not be pulling the shit they are pulling if they answered to McConnell. On that note, McConnell is one of my top people I would love to interview over a few beers. I have an enormous amount of respect for him as an enemy. It is hard to not respect his performance, even if I loathe everything he's ever done. Having a 100% honest interview with him where I ask about what it means to have an enemy, how to crush enemies, how you subdue your underlings, everything, it would just be an absolute pleasure to hear how his brain works and his perspective on achieving and holding power.
Absolutely, politicians are much maligned, often for good reason but they are, obviously tethered to people’s political whims are the same time.
Would be interesting to hear the unfiltered versions of all sorts of folks in a sitdown over beers and nothing said leaves the room kind of scenario.
Apart from Donald Trump, ok I also know he doesn’t drink but I think the public Trump is unfiltered, what you see is what you get and there aren’t some hidden depths of interest to be chiselled out.
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while.
I haven't stated anything wasn't fair though, just thought I found the Democrats to be kind of sad for having to work so hard to beat what is obviously a far lesser opponent. Plenty of other people have, but I dont know why the belief that the Democrats cheated is attached to me when I haven't said that. I get that what Im saying is kind of morally adjacent, but I dont think the Democrats actively cheated, they just pressed their intense institutional advantages against what I view to be the spirit and worth of a primary.
I dont think what they did is unfair, its like a vastly superior macro players feeling super threatened and resorting to cheese to win a match, its not unfair, but its leaves a bad taste imo.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:24 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. So, you just insulted the Democrat mainstream as “try-hards”. I hear that insult every once in awhile in video games, but it always comes from the same type of person: the loser. You don’t hear winners complain about their opponents trying too hard. Should the Democrat mainstream just stop trying so that they too can be losers like the progressive wing? Or maybe, rather than whining about other people trying too hard, maybe the progressive wing should try hard. Maybe they should work to convince others that their positions are correct and to vote for them. But the first step to doing that is usually to actually listen to other people and not just lecture them. It would also help to eject the crazies from the progressive movement, but then you wouldn’t have too many people left. I like the Bill Maher quote, “When what you’re doing sounds like an Onion headline, stop.” He’s talking about progressives.
It would be nice if Democrats could extend their try-hardness to, good golly gosh, I dunno, stopping Republicans from reverting the US into a Christian fundie hellhole, but I guess their try-hardness only extends to stopping progressives.
The progressives are obviously fucking trying hard, again, the unbelievably stigmatized socialist has made a meteoric rise, progressives are on the up despite lacking the absurd institutional advantages that Democrats have. The primary party apparatus hates progressives, they have to battle encumbents and tons of political money and they do a damn good job despite the chips being so stacked against them. The progressives bust way more ass than the Democrats do because the progressives HAVE to bust ass. they dont have billionaire donors, the dont get to get money from the insurance industry, and the pharmaceutical industry, they don't get to schmooze their way into positions.
The whole fucking progressive movement is considered crazies. The leader of the fucking movement is Bernie Sanders, he is widely considered a dangerous crazy. Tons of people consider AOC a crazy, all of the major progressives are often widely panned as crazies. People like you don't actually care though, this sort of nonsense about ejecting crazies is done to keep the movement leadership stifled because when someone starts looking powerful its easier to denounce them as crazy and call for new, hopefully ineffective leadership to neuter the movement than to acknowledge that the establishment politicians are crap and have been doing a shit job since Clinton.
Incidentally, the Democrats prompt actual Onion articles so... they might want to work on that.
https://www.theonion.com/biden-to-continue-unpopular-trump-obama-bush-clinton-bu-1846992286
EDIT: If you sat down for a beer with Mitch McConnell I dont think he'd say anything he hasnt said plainly in interviews before, dude proudly wears his mantle of the senatorial Grim Reaper.
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On September 23 2021 20:45 Zambrah wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while. I haven't stated anything wasn't fair though, just thought I found the Democrats to be kind of sad for having to work so hard to beat what is obviously a far lesser opponent. Plenty of other people have, but I dont know why the belief that the Democrats cheated is attached to me when I haven't said that. I get that what Im saying is kind of morally adjacent, but I dont think the Democrats actively cheated, they just pressed their intense institutional advantages against what I view to be the spirit and worth of a primary. I dont think what they did is unfair, its like a vastly superior macro players feeling super threatened and resorting to cheese to win a match, its not unfair, but its leaves a bad taste imo.
The original comment was the phrase "play dirty", which (to me) is synonymous with "being unfair", but maybe it just comes down to semantics. I thought the implication was that they ought not to do what they did, but I also think we're pretty deep in the weeds at this point lol.
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On September 23 2021 21:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 20:45 Zambrah wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while. I haven't stated anything wasn't fair though, just thought I found the Democrats to be kind of sad for having to work so hard to beat what is obviously a far lesser opponent. Plenty of other people have, but I dont know why the belief that the Democrats cheated is attached to me when I haven't said that. I get that what Im saying is kind of morally adjacent, but I dont think the Democrats actively cheated, they just pressed their intense institutional advantages against what I view to be the spirit and worth of a primary. I dont think what they did is unfair, its like a vastly superior macro players feeling super threatened and resorting to cheese to win a match, its not unfair, but its leaves a bad taste imo. The original comment was the phrase "play dirty", which (to me) is synonymous with "being unfair", but maybe it just comes down to semantics. I thought the implication was that they ought not to do what they did, but I also think we're pretty deep in the weeds at this point lol.
Thats on LegalLord, lol, thats most probably what he meant, but thats not what I said. Plenty of people are on the Democrats Cheated train, but I choose not to because tbh I hate the discussion because Bernie probably would have lost naturally anyways. Doesnt make the consolidation feel any less like a desperate maneuver imo though.
I do think they shouldn't have consolidated and withdrawn candidates, but I also have different priorities and values than Moderates do, so thats to be expected. though as a rule of thumb I generally prefer a diverse field that gets narrowed down naturally. Like, without a party apparatus choosing to do so, and preferably only once a candidate is pretty firmly non-viable. Obviously that isn't perfect, Trump has showed that, but its a more honest process imo.
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Northern Ireland24795 Posts
On September 23 2021 21:47 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 12:57 Salazarz wrote:On September 23 2021 11:48 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 23 2021 07:02 JimmiC wrote:
I find it interesting that some people appear to hold both the position that the DNC is unwilling to play dirty and this is why the Reps do so much, and that the DNC plays so dirty that this is why Bernie is not the leader. It is interesting that the dems will play dirty (if one believes that they did, i'm not arguing that) when it comes to beating Bernie, but not when it comes to enacting their policies. Do the dems in America actually want to enact their policies, though? Personally, I'm not convinced. The way I see it, status quo is perfectly acceptable to most, and even preferable to a non-insignificant portion of them, and a lot of their ideas and policy proposals are only there to win elections rather than a genuine desire to create meaningful change in the country. Most do not in the way bernie or AOC wants which is where the frustration lies. Most Demorcrats are center or center left in the USA (which is pretty right of center compared to Europe). So by definition they want to change but slowly. The trick to getting a candidate like Bernie to win is not to have enough moderates to split the vote its having enough progressives that they can out vote the moderates. No this does not mean the Dems and the reps are the same, not only because there have been pages of discussions on what the reps are willing to do and the dems are not, but because the Reps are not happy with the status quo and slow forward change. They are actively trying to move back, prime example attack roe vs wade. There is no mass conspiracy to keep bernie out, progressives just dont have even 51% of the support of the dems. With a 2 party FTP system almost no one gets what they want. And if you take bias out as much as you can and really look, yes Biden is a moderate but he has most certainly compromised to the growing left people of his party. Very few people are getting exactly what they want out of the dems because their voting base basically stretch from left all the way to center right. I doubt any other party in tge world has a Manchin and AOC. But such is the case when you have the opposimg party be so far right with a large enough base that within the system they can and do win, unless and continually growing in political diversity group joins together.
To a degree, I think frustration goes a little beyond merely being outnumbered.
Not exactly analogous but there’s a bit of crossover with Labour and Corbyn over here, even when the left did have those numbers do they get to have their crack and have the rest fall in line to get behind the ship? Well no.
You’ll be guilted into ‘letting the Tories in’ for not voting Labour by the same people who shit on the party in every way possible when it was more aligned with your values (well my left-leaning ones).
But yeah, it is a very broad Church in terms of the Dems catchment in the States, which can be difficult to navigate. Biden probably started out better than I expected in terms of nods to the progressive wing.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On September 23 2021 21:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 20:45 Zambrah wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while. I haven't stated anything wasn't fair though, just thought I found the Democrats to be kind of sad for having to work so hard to beat what is obviously a far lesser opponent. Plenty of other people have, but I dont know why the belief that the Democrats cheated is attached to me when I haven't said that. I get that what Im saying is kind of morally adjacent, but I dont think the Democrats actively cheated, they just pressed their intense institutional advantages against what I view to be the spirit and worth of a primary. I dont think what they did is unfair, its like a vastly superior macro players feeling super threatened and resorting to cheese to win a match, its not unfair, but its leaves a bad taste imo. The original comment was the phrase "play dirty", which (to me) is synonymous with "being unfair", but maybe it just comes down to semantics. I thought the implication was that they ought not to do what they did, but I also think we're pretty deep in the weeds at this point lol.
Unfair, underhanded tactics, either one of those are a fine way to interpret them. Whether or not you think the implication is that they shouldn’t do it depends on if you’re in the “Republicans win because they play dirty, so Democrats need to do the same” camp. And the reality is that the Democrats are perfectly willing to do all of that - but only for things that actually matter to them, which certainly isn’t policy.
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I think most people here already agree on why a lot of progressive policy like universal healthcare is better, I dont think theres a ton of friction there. Most of the friction comes from differences in how to achieve that sort of policy, some favoring slow incremental change via the current political establishment a la electoralism all the way through massive societal upheaval to force change, and all sorts of things in between.
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On September 23 2021 22:35 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 21:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 20:45 Zambrah wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while. I haven't stated anything wasn't fair though, just thought I found the Democrats to be kind of sad for having to work so hard to beat what is obviously a far lesser opponent. Plenty of other people have, but I dont know why the belief that the Democrats cheated is attached to me when I haven't said that. I get that what Im saying is kind of morally adjacent, but I dont think the Democrats actively cheated, they just pressed their intense institutional advantages against what I view to be the spirit and worth of a primary. I dont think what they did is unfair, its like a vastly superior macro players feeling super threatened and resorting to cheese to win a match, its not unfair, but its leaves a bad taste imo. The original comment was the phrase "play dirty", which (to me) is synonymous with "being unfair", but maybe it just comes down to semantics. I thought the implication was that they ought not to do what they did, but I also think we're pretty deep in the weeds at this point lol. Thats on LegalLord, lol, thats most probably what he meant, but thats not what I said. Plenty of people are on the Democrats Cheated train, but I choose not to because tbh I hate the discussion because Bernie probably would have lost naturally anyways. Doesnt make the consolidation feel any less like a desperate maneuver imo though. I do think they shouldn't have consolidated and withdrawn candidates, but I also have different priorities and values than Moderates do, so thats to be expected. though as a rule of thumb I generally prefer a diverse field that gets narrowed down naturally. Like, without a party apparatus choosing to do so, and preferably only once a candidate is pretty firmly non-viable. Obviously that isn't perfect, Trump has showed that, but its a more honest process imo.
I feel like this super-standard strategy is independent of political alignment though. If the situation was reversed, I would certainly hope that progressives would eventually consolidate so that they don't throw an election they could otherwise win, and I say this as a progressive who wants a progressive to win. It's common sense, and it doesn't matter whether you're a progressive, liberal, conservative, or anything else. When you want your overall team to win, it's silly for allies to get in each other's way and sabotage the victory. I don't consider this to be playing dirty or being unfair, and I don't think this is impacted by one's position on a political spectrum.
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This is maybe my least favorite discussion this forum ever has. People who are intelligent with interesting opinions I value trend toward insufferable “my opinion is correct and anyone who disagrees with me is stupid” rhetoric whenever it comes up.
Hey as I recall the first several contests in 2020 had a bunch of moderates and only two real “progressive” lane candidates (and I was never sold that was the right classification for Warren anyway). Then for Super Tuesday the only real candidates were Biden, Bloomberg, Bernie, and Warren (two moderates, two progressives by my count).
How does that qualify as moderates winning by consolidating more? Bernie benefited from a very split moderate vote prior to Super Tuesday, and on Super Tuesday, both lanes were split between two candidates. I was (and still am!) a Bernie supporter but this seems like some “the sun was in my eyes” sore loser bullshit.
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On September 23 2021 23:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 22:35 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 21:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 20:45 Zambrah wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while. I haven't stated anything wasn't fair though, just thought I found the Democrats to be kind of sad for having to work so hard to beat what is obviously a far lesser opponent. Plenty of other people have, but I dont know why the belief that the Democrats cheated is attached to me when I haven't said that. I get that what Im saying is kind of morally adjacent, but I dont think the Democrats actively cheated, they just pressed their intense institutional advantages against what I view to be the spirit and worth of a primary. I dont think what they did is unfair, its like a vastly superior macro players feeling super threatened and resorting to cheese to win a match, its not unfair, but its leaves a bad taste imo. The original comment was the phrase "play dirty", which (to me) is synonymous with "being unfair", but maybe it just comes down to semantics. I thought the implication was that they ought not to do what they did, but I also think we're pretty deep in the weeds at this point lol. Thats on LegalLord, lol, thats most probably what he meant, but thats not what I said. Plenty of people are on the Democrats Cheated train, but I choose not to because tbh I hate the discussion because Bernie probably would have lost naturally anyways. Doesnt make the consolidation feel any less like a desperate maneuver imo though. I do think they shouldn't have consolidated and withdrawn candidates, but I also have different priorities and values than Moderates do, so thats to be expected. though as a rule of thumb I generally prefer a diverse field that gets narrowed down naturally. Like, without a party apparatus choosing to do so, and preferably only once a candidate is pretty firmly non-viable. Obviously that isn't perfect, Trump has showed that, but its a more honest process imo. I feel like this super-standard strategy is independent of political alignment though. If the situation was reversed, I would certainly hope that progressives would eventually consolidate so that they don't throw an election they could otherwise win, and I say this as a progressive who wants a progressive to win. It's common sense, and it doesn't matter whether you're a progressive, liberal, conservative, or anything else. When you want your overall team to win, it's silly for allies to get in each other's way and sabotage the victory. I don't consider this to be playing dirty or being unfair, and I don't think this is impacted by one's position on a political spectrum.
Its smart political strategy for Republicans to block Supreme Court nominees too, but I think thats a bad thing to do.
Republicans are the ones who want their overall team to win, Democrats are too busy making sure their biggest faction is appeased at the expense of the other faction for their overall team to win.
Primaries shouldnt be political maneuvering grounds where the party tries to pick its favorite ideology, it should be a proving ground where multiple candidates make their appeals to voters, where ultimately one is chosen to represent the party.
Like, whats the point of a primary if the Democrats are going to try so hard to pick their own candidate anyways, just pick and save yourself the cost of the primaries. Maybe put it towards the local races that Democrats dont participate in.
Incidentally my opinions and values would shift dramatically if Democrats were as politically aggressive about stopping Republicans as they are about stopping progressives. I care way more about Roe v Wade's imminent repeal as opposed any of this inanity, but Democrats won't fight that so... here we are, talking about one of the few things they will fight for
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On September 23 2021 22:52 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 21:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 20:45 Zambrah wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while. I haven't stated anything wasn't fair though, just thought I found the Democrats to be kind of sad for having to work so hard to beat what is obviously a far lesser opponent. Plenty of other people have, but I dont know why the belief that the Democrats cheated is attached to me when I haven't said that. I get that what Im saying is kind of morally adjacent, but I dont think the Democrats actively cheated, they just pressed their intense institutional advantages against what I view to be the spirit and worth of a primary. I dont think what they did is unfair, its like a vastly superior macro players feeling super threatened and resorting to cheese to win a match, its not unfair, but its leaves a bad taste imo. The original comment was the phrase "play dirty", which (to me) is synonymous with "being unfair", but maybe it just comes down to semantics. I thought the implication was that they ought not to do what they did, but I also think we're pretty deep in the weeds at this point lol. Unfair, underhanded tactics, either one of those are a fine way to interpret them. Whether or not you think the implication is that they shouldn’t do it depends on if you’re in the “Republicans win because they play dirty, so Democrats need to do the same” camp. And the reality is that the Democrats are perfectly willing to do all of that - but only for things that actually matter to them, which certainly isn’t policy.
For me, I'd much rather have no one play dirty, but that's obviously pretty naive in practice (sadly). The more I learn about politics, the more cynical I get, and the more I lean towards the idea of "If the other team is going to play dirty anyway, I'd much rather our team get some dirty victories than lose everything except for the moral high ground; the moral high ground doesn't put food on the table for starving children, doesn't create civil rights, doesn't beat pandemics, etc."
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On September 24 2021 00:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 22:52 LegalLord wrote:On September 23 2021 21:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 20:45 Zambrah wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2021 18:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 17:30 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 06:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 23 2021 05:34 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:55 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 04:11 Zambrah wrote:On September 23 2021 04:02 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On September 23 2021 03:45 StasisField wrote:
Email leaks show the Clinton campaign conspired with CNN and other major news networks to prop Clinton up, tear Bernie down, and push "weak" candidates in the GOP primary like Donald Trump, whom they literally called the pied piper. There was also the Nevada delegates fiasco in 2016. There's also the issue of the 2016 DNC selling a t-shirt with an anti-Semitic depiction of Bernie. The DNC also argued in court after the 2016 primary that they are allowed to rig their own elections.
If you don't think something shady happened in at least the 2016 Democratic primary, your head is in the sand. What I'd like to hear from the progressive wing is if Bernie was cheated and it was this obvious why did he run in the democratic primary again in 2020? The moderate Democrats had to pull a maneuver to drop out their serious candidates to consolidate behind one to beat an underdog, sorry but thats sad. Not to mention that if Bernie was such an impossibility to win then why did they have everyone drop out to beat him? His odds were probably still not great, but clearly they were good enough to force the Democrats to make a concerted effort to stop him. The democrats consolidated behind one candidate so they didn't end up like the Republicans in 2016 with Trump beating out a split vote between Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio. Very possibly, which is why I find, - but he simply didn't have the votes. incongruous with, instead of making excuses that Bernie lost because the establishment was being unfair by not throwing the election. If Bernie didnt potentially have the votes then why did they need to have all of their candidates drop out to back Biden is my question. Not that this was my original point, which still is that its pathetic that the dominant faction of the Democrats had to try so hard to beat their significantly less powerful bloc. Its a lot like the Republican primary that Trump won, it was also pathetic that the Republican candidates lost to Trump in the primary. I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Say there is a progressive wing that gets 40% of the vote. The democrat wing gets 60% of the vote. If you split the democrat vote evenly between two parties who wins the election? The democrats want the democrats to win so they force a consolidation behind Biden so he wins with 60% versus 40% instead of losing 40%-30%-30%. What should happen is ranked choice voting so that this consolidation doesn't need to happen behind the scenes. I literally acknowledge this in the first sentence of the post you’re quoting. I am very aware of why they consolidated around Biden, as is everyone else, the fuckin point is that it’s sad that the large powerful majority of the Democrats had to consolidate in order to beat their vastly less powerful minority. I agree about ranked choice voting, it’ll never happen though, neither party wants to lose that kind of control. And DPB, completely disagree with the notion that not consolidating and having an expanded candidate pool is a bad thing, frankly the Democrats gravely need more talent, if we just had one establishment candidate vs. one progressive candidate we’d have a parade of unlikeable Hillary Clinton’s and completely pass over charisma like Obama had. It also completely neuters an avenue for developing new political talent. Consolidating like they did is absolutely sad, and having to be all back room about it is lame as hell. We just fundamentally disagree about what’s sad then, I think it’s pretty clear the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives because they have nigh complete control over the party, seeing the progressives as anything other than underdogs is absurd to me. Massive favorites having to back room deal candidate consolidations because their candidates were so unappealing against an underdog is pathetic and speaks to the hilariously weak state of the Democrats political roster. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, good lord, what a roster we have to look forward to leading the future of the Democratic Party.. The fact that redundant moderates stepped down to consolidate isn't "sad". It would literally be stupid not to do that. Dilution of votes is always going to happen, and it's always going to matter, unless you're talking about 90+% of moderates vs. 10-% of progressives, and thankfully, the disparity isn't that bad. But it's just simple math, and it's silly to expect that one of the moderates should have 10x the votes of the other redundant moderates, if they're all similar, which would have to be the extreme case where there's no reason for them to bother consolidating. I agree with you that the Dems need more talent and a more diverse cast. I'd love to see that. I think that's a great idea. We're talking about what happened in 2020 though, not what ought to happen in the future. And yes, the moderate Dems are a huge favorite compared to progressives, but that's because more Americans are moderates than progressives. My thoughts on considering candidates under an ideological umbrella to be redundant during primaries, + Show Spoiler +A primary isnt exclusively about ideology (which wasnt even perfectly cohesive between the moderates) its also about charisma and personality, and tons of other factors that go into choosing the ideal candidate for the general election. Pete Buttigieg wasn't a redundant Biden, he ran as a moderate so they were similar in that way but as an experienceless young gay veteran he is not redundant with Biden. The women are also not redundant with Biden, they were women, thats a meaning political difference in the US that has a sway on how people vote. Its not useful to lump every moderate in as redundant because they fall under the same umbrella during a primary imo.
It devalues the ability of a primary to build on worthwhile political careers to assume all candidates but one are redundant (not to mention potentially miss out on charismatic all-stars, not that we had any of those in that primary). If they were going to consolidate to win it'd have looked a lot less sad if they had done it way later in the primary, I mean they consolidated around a dude who won all of one state (a red state, aka a state that has no value to the Democrats in the general election, lol) because they consolidated before Super Tuesday. I dont even know why we're still talking about this, its clearly a difference of opinion and you have precisely no chance of convincing me that the vastly more institutionally, monetarily powerful political bloc isn't pretty pathetic for having to try so hard against their vastly less powerful counterpart. Yes, obviously the moderates have more votes, but they had to try awful hard against Bernie Sanders, which is sad given the brutal stigma his political beliefs earn him in the US. Moderates should have the easiest time of their lives. They've got every advantage, but their popularity advantage is slipping away because their beliefs are dogshit and even the unbelievably demonized socialist is starting to make them sweat. Pa-the-tic. Those are fair points about redundancy - I wasn't meaning in terms of them all being the same sex or age or sexual orientation, but rather that their supporters/voters would generally pool together under an overarching moderate umbrella as those candidates started to drop out, as opposed to a situation where dropping out leads to an influx of votes for Bernie. After all, that's what was being asserted in the first place: that the moderate vote no longer being diluted wasn't fair to Bernie. If Bernie had been the one to benefit when the other candidates dropped out, then we wouldn't be hearing progressives complaining lol. And I also agree with you that it's hard to progress a conversation like this in any direction; the topic simply seems to reappear every once in a while. I haven't stated anything wasn't fair though, just thought I found the Democrats to be kind of sad for having to work so hard to beat what is obviously a far lesser opponent. Plenty of other people have, but I dont know why the belief that the Democrats cheated is attached to me when I haven't said that. I get that what Im saying is kind of morally adjacent, but I dont think the Democrats actively cheated, they just pressed their intense institutional advantages against what I view to be the spirit and worth of a primary. I dont think what they did is unfair, its like a vastly superior macro players feeling super threatened and resorting to cheese to win a match, its not unfair, but its leaves a bad taste imo. The original comment was the phrase "play dirty", which (to me) is synonymous with "being unfair", but maybe it just comes down to semantics. I thought the implication was that they ought not to do what they did, but I also think we're pretty deep in the weeds at this point lol. Unfair, underhanded tactics, either one of those are a fine way to interpret them. Whether or not you think the implication is that they shouldn’t do it depends on if you’re in the “Republicans win because they play dirty, so Democrats need to do the same” camp. And the reality is that the Democrats are perfectly willing to do all of that - but only for things that actually matter to them, which certainly isn’t policy. For me, I'd much rather have no one play dirty, but that's obviously pretty naive in practice (sadly). The more I learn about politics, the more cynical I get, and the more I lean towards the idea of "If the other team is going to play dirty anyway, I'd much rather our team get some dirty victories than lose everything except for the moral high ground; the moral high ground doesn't put food on the table for starving children, doesn't create civil rights, doesn't beat pandemics, etc."
I 10,000% agree with you. Its why this conversation is embittering imo, its the Democrats fighting in a way that we don't seem to see them fight against the Republicans.
If the Democrats would show how hard they're willing to fight Republicans like they do progressives we probably wouldn't be talking about this because it'd be their standard behavior. Instead they basically cry foul and then do fuck all about it when it comes to the Republicans.
They seem way more comfortable with an erosion of civil rights, having children starve, and deconstruction of women's right than they do with the idea that Bernie Sanders might be president.
Its very frustrating.
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On September 24 2021 00:33 ChristianS wrote:
This is maybe my least favorite discussion this forum ever has. People who are intelligent with interesting opinions I value trend toward insufferable “my opinion is correct and anyone who disagrees with me is stupid” rhetoric whenever it comes up.
Hey as I recall the first several contests in 2020 had a bunch of moderates and only two real “progressive” lane candidates (and I was never sold that was the right classification for Warren anyway). Then for Super Tuesday the only real candidates were Biden, Bloomberg, Bernie, and Warren (two moderates, two progressives by my count).
How does that qualify as moderates winning by consolidating more? Bernie benefited from a very split moderate vote prior to Super Tuesday, and on Super Tuesday, both lanes were split between two candidates. I was (and still am!) a Bernie supporter but this seems like some “the sun was in my eyes” sore loser bullshit.
I agree and see things similarly.
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On September 23 2021 23:49 Zambrah wrote:
I think most people here already agree on why a lot of progressive policy like universal healthcare is better, I dont think theres a ton of friction there. Most of the friction comes from differences in how to achieve that sort of policy, some favoring slow incremental change via the current political establishment a la electoralism all the way through massive societal upheaval to force change, and all sorts of things in between.
When you have a lot of people who agree that what you need to do is not move, everyone instantly knows the how as well. When you have a bunch of people that agree that what you need to do is get to the other side of the country, everyone will have a different route, mechanism, preferred speed, and so on. Republicans definitely enjoy the advantages that come with the absence of an agenda, where it applies. Their actual goals usually involve just banning or outlawing certain things, or stifling any conversation on the laws they like, so there's really only one way to push for what they do.
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On September 24 2021 01:24 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 23:49 Zambrah wrote:
I think most people here already agree on why a lot of progressive policy like universal healthcare is better, I dont think theres a ton of friction there. Most of the friction comes from differences in how to achieve that sort of policy, some favoring slow incremental change via the current political establishment a la electoralism all the way through massive societal upheaval to force change, and all sorts of things in between. When you have a lot of people who agree that what you need to do is not move, everyone instantly knows the how as well. When you have a bunch of people that agree that what you need to do is get to the other side of the country, everyone will have a different route, mechanism, preferred speed, and so on. Republicans definitely enjoy the advantages that come with the absence of an agenda, where it applies. Their actual goals usually involve just banning or outlawing certain things, or stifling any conversation on the laws they like, so there's really only one way to push for what they do.
Stopping the Republicans from degrading the country would be a nice basic thing to accomplish though, thats on the same level of goal as the Republicans usually have. They just dont have the stomach to do what they need to do to prevent the Republicans from eroding civil, voting, and women's rights.
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EPT
