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Northern Ireland23908 Posts
On September 24 2021 00:55 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +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.
My memory may be deceiving me, I distinctly recall calls for Warren to drop out due to splitting the Progressive vote, although I tend to agree with Christian on that perhaps being a miscategorisation of her.
I’d consider 2016 and some of the shenanigans then much more akin to outright fuckery, last time round felt a clean battle that it sucked to lose if you were batting for Sanders as I was.
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On September 24 2021 00:46 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 00:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: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.
I agree with you. I know I spoke of political alignment between moderate Democrats during the primary, but if we permit more wiggle room and look at the national stage, I think it's clear that many progressives and liberals largely agree on plenty of overarching themes (although perhaps not quite the best strategy or speed to achieve them, as you pointed out). In the same way that in-fighting between primary moderates would be counterproductive for their goal in the primary, I think that obstruction between moderate Dems and progressive Dems is also missing the broader point, when it comes to governing or passing laws: If they have different ways to achieve Goal X, then they should all be figuring out how to advance the narrative as a joint venture, instead of eating each other and leaving the conservatives alone to destroy Goal X.
I think when it comes to Congressional support, moderate Dems and progressive Dems are usually decent at this, except we all know how big of an effect one or two dissenters can have (e.g., Manchin). Getting 47+ out of 50 to agree on something should, theoretically, be impressive... unless you're going up against a reliably 50-out-of-50 Republican wall. "Decent" isn't good enough, unfortunately.
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On September 24 2021 01:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 00:46 Zambrah wrote:On September 24 2021 00:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: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. I agree with you. I know I spoke of political alignment between moderate Democrats during the primary, but if we permit more wiggle room and look at the national stage, I think it's clear that many progressives and liberals largely agree on plenty of overarching themes (although perhaps not quite the best strategy or speed to achieve them, as you pointed out). In the same way that in-fighting between primary moderates would be counterproductive for their goal in the primary, I think that obstruction between moderate Dems and progressive Dems is also missing the broader point, when it comes to governing or passing laws: If they have different ways to achieve Goal X, then they should all be figuring out how to advance the narrative as a joint venture, instead of eating each other and leaving the conservatives alone to destroy Goal X. I think when it comes to Congressional support, moderate Dems and progressive Dems are usually decent at this, except we all know how big of an effect one or two dissenters can have (e.g., Manchin). Getting 47+ out of 50 to agree on something should, theoretically, be impressive... unless you're going up against a reliably 50-out-of-50 Republican wall. "Decent" isn't good enough, unfortunately.
Democrats need to dump the likes of Manchin and Sinema tbh. Even if those seats go back to Republicans I firmly believe that their presence dampening Democrats ability to do anything is harming formerly blue parts of the US. If Democrats fought for worker's rights, and a living wage and the like they could rebuild the blue wall, keep the sun belt, and ignore West Virginia.
I think people are honestly too caught up in the differences and arguments and that at large Democrat voters will respond well to strong actual change, even if imperfect.
Republicans are great at projecting the image that they're fighting tooth and nail to make something happen and their voters respond to that. Democrats project the image that the parliamentarian said they shouldn't so they throw their hands to the sky and plead helplessness.
If they appeared to fight like the Republicans fight, even if they fail, even if there are disagreements about particulars, I believe they'd do a lot better.
Like I've always said, I want them to concentrate more on enfranchising people, inspiring non-voters to vote for them instead of trying to peel off Republican voters. Obama proved a strong message and show of intent can be really motivating (even though Obama did a piss poor job of it.)
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On September 24 2021 01:39 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 00:55 farvacola wrote: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. My memory may be deceiving me, I distinctly recall calls for Warren to drop out due to splitting the Progressive vote, although I tend to agree with Christian on that perhaps being a miscategorisation of her. I’d consider 2016 and some of the shenanigans then much more akin to outright fuckery, last time round felt a clean battle that it sucked to lose if you were batting for Sanders as I was.
I recall hearing this too, although I'm not sure how much of the Warren support actually ended up going to Sanders, as opposed to Biden, since she was somewhere in the middle.
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On September 24 2021 01:48 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 01:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 24 2021 00:46 Zambrah wrote:On September 24 2021 00:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: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. I agree with you. I know I spoke of political alignment between moderate Democrats during the primary, but if we permit more wiggle room and look at the national stage, I think it's clear that many progressives and liberals largely agree on plenty of overarching themes (although perhaps not quite the best strategy or speed to achieve them, as you pointed out). In the same way that in-fighting between primary moderates would be counterproductive for their goal in the primary, I think that obstruction between moderate Dems and progressive Dems is also missing the broader point, when it comes to governing or passing laws: If they have different ways to achieve Goal X, then they should all be figuring out how to advance the narrative as a joint venture, instead of eating each other and leaving the conservatives alone to destroy Goal X. I think when it comes to Congressional support, moderate Dems and progressive Dems are usually decent at this, except we all know how big of an effect one or two dissenters can have (e.g., Manchin). Getting 47+ out of 50 to agree on something should, theoretically, be impressive... unless you're going up against a reliably 50-out-of-50 Republican wall. "Decent" isn't good enough, unfortunately. Democrats need to dump the likes of Manchin and Sinema tbh. Even if those seats go back to Republicans I firmly believe that their presence dampening Democrats ability to do anything is harming formerly blue parts of the US. If Democrats fought for worker's rights, and a living wage and the like they could rebuild the blue wall, keep the sun belt, and ignore West Virginia. I think people are honestly too caught up in the differences and arguments and that at large Democrat voters will respond well to strong actual change, even if imperfect. Republicans are great at projecting the image that they're fighting tooth and nail to make something happen and their voters respond to that. Democrats project the image that the parliamentarian said they shouldn't so they throw their hands to the sky and plead helplessness. If they appeared to fight like the Republicans fight, even if they fail, even if there are disagreements about particulars, I believe they'd do a lot better. Like I've always said, I want them to concentrate more on enfranchising people, inspiring non-voters to vote for them instead of trying to peel off Republican voters. Obama proved a strong message and show of intent can be really motivating (even though Obama did a piss poor job of it.)
Could you please elaborate on what you mean by dumping Manchin? If I remember correctly, he still votes with the Dems on the vast majority of ideas, which makes him far more useful than a Republican taking his place, and I can't see someone to the left of him ever becoming a West Virginia senator. Based on what you said about "ignoring West Virginia", I assume you mean focusing our attention on other purple states to win more senators, so that the WV seat (whether it's inhabited by Manchin or a Republican) becomes less relevant? As in, earning that wiggle room of having 51 or 52 or 53 Dem/Ind senators, instead of exactly 50?
And when it comes to inspiring Dem non-voters to vote vs. trying to move purple voters a little more to the left, I'm sure we could probably do both, if we really tried. But you're right that we're not going to magically convince someone who's substantially red to jump all the way to the blue side.
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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.
I think a lot of this comes down to what people envision such (relatively moderate globally speaking) policy shifts taking 10-20 years to happen (if ever) actually means. Democrats typically are brighter than covid deniers using their dying breath to call covid fake so I'd put it like this.
If that (universal healthcare for example) taking 10-20 years means something like "Hmm, my taxes may go up, healthcare costs down/stagnant, and who knows about getting an appointment?" then electoral incrementalism sounds perfectly reasonable. If it taking 10-20 years means something like "Holy shit! a LOT of people are dying and having their lives destroyed with medical debt every day this isn't resolved and I'm probably going to be one of them if it takes that long" electoral incrementalism is understandably less reasonable.
A lot of people like to talk about politics like people's lives aren't in the balance and that the status quo (even when it favors Democrats) isn't killing people.
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On September 24 2021 02:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 01:48 Zambrah wrote:On September 24 2021 01:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 24 2021 00:46 Zambrah wrote:On September 24 2021 00:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: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. I agree with you. I know I spoke of political alignment between moderate Democrats during the primary, but if we permit more wiggle room and look at the national stage, I think it's clear that many progressives and liberals largely agree on plenty of overarching themes (although perhaps not quite the best strategy or speed to achieve them, as you pointed out). In the same way that in-fighting between primary moderates would be counterproductive for their goal in the primary, I think that obstruction between moderate Dems and progressive Dems is also missing the broader point, when it comes to governing or passing laws: If they have different ways to achieve Goal X, then they should all be figuring out how to advance the narrative as a joint venture, instead of eating each other and leaving the conservatives alone to destroy Goal X. I think when it comes to Congressional support, moderate Dems and progressive Dems are usually decent at this, except we all know how big of an effect one or two dissenters can have (e.g., Manchin). Getting 47+ out of 50 to agree on something should, theoretically, be impressive... unless you're going up against a reliably 50-out-of-50 Republican wall. "Decent" isn't good enough, unfortunately. Democrats need to dump the likes of Manchin and Sinema tbh. Even if those seats go back to Republicans I firmly believe that their presence dampening Democrats ability to do anything is harming formerly blue parts of the US. If Democrats fought for worker's rights, and a living wage and the like they could rebuild the blue wall, keep the sun belt, and ignore West Virginia. I think people are honestly too caught up in the differences and arguments and that at large Democrat voters will respond well to strong actual change, even if imperfect. Republicans are great at projecting the image that they're fighting tooth and nail to make something happen and their voters respond to that. Democrats project the image that the parliamentarian said they shouldn't so they throw their hands to the sky and plead helplessness. If they appeared to fight like the Republicans fight, even if they fail, even if there are disagreements about particulars, I believe they'd do a lot better. Like I've always said, I want them to concentrate more on enfranchising people, inspiring non-voters to vote for them instead of trying to peel off Republican voters. Obama proved a strong message and show of intent can be really motivating (even though Obama did a piss poor job of it.) Could you please elaborate on what you mean by dumping Manchin? If I remember correctly, he still votes with the Dems on the vast majority of ideas, which makes him far more useful than a Republican taking his place, and I can't see someone to the left of him ever becoming a West Virginia senator. Based on what you said about "ignoring West Virginia", I assume you mean focusing our attention on other purple states to win more senators, so that the WV seat (whether it's inhabited by Manchin or a Republican) becomes less relevant? As in, earning that wiggle room of having 51 or 52 or 53 Dem/Ind senators, instead of exactly 50? And when it comes to inspiring Dem non-voters to vote vs. trying to move purple voters a little more to the left, I'm sure we could probably do both, if we really tried. But you're right that we're not going to magically convince someone who's substantially red to jump all the way to the blue side.
Yeah, pretend like we're never getting WV back (though I've posted about their very blue dominated history before, they went from 1983 - 2000 without having any Republican congresspeople!) and focus on places like Ohio and Wisconsin and the like.
The goal would be to whip EVERYONE really hard, but presumably Manchin won't accept that so preemptively write him off. Not to mention, I dont believe he intends to spend that much more time in Congress, he WILL be gone eventually, cut him off as a loss, focus hard on building where you can build instead of trying to keep whats basically lost. Whip everyone you have, create a cohesive set of policy that everyone can adhere to, let people have their local wiggle room, but have a very strong, proactive core of policy you will fight like Republicans to make happen.
Democrats could try to get independent swing voters (what few there are) and the disenfranchised, but I would concentrate more on the disenfranchised for two big reasons,
1. the disenfranchised are a WAY bigger group in the US, you don't need a large portion of that group to pull ahead by incredible margins
2. Trump has proven that they're a more targetable demographic than the typical "they wont vote anyway so why bother" mentality thats dominated the past would suggest.
Not to mention that when they are fired up they are passionate, if Democrats had this kind of voter they could do the kinds of grassroots expansion that would help take back smaller local level elections.
Have to break away from the Democrat orthodoxy, its not the Clinton years anymore, modern politics has a different playing field and they have got to adapt. Im not sure how likely that is given the age of the party leaders, though.
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Northern Ireland23908 Posts
On September 24 2021 02:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 01:48 Zambrah wrote:On September 24 2021 01:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 24 2021 00:46 Zambrah wrote:On September 24 2021 00:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: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. I agree with you. I know I spoke of political alignment between moderate Democrats during the primary, but if we permit more wiggle room and look at the national stage, I think it's clear that many progressives and liberals largely agree on plenty of overarching themes (although perhaps not quite the best strategy or speed to achieve them, as you pointed out). In the same way that in-fighting between primary moderates would be counterproductive for their goal in the primary, I think that obstruction between moderate Dems and progressive Dems is also missing the broader point, when it comes to governing or passing laws: If they have different ways to achieve Goal X, then they should all be figuring out how to advance the narrative as a joint venture, instead of eating each other and leaving the conservatives alone to destroy Goal X. I think when it comes to Congressional support, moderate Dems and progressive Dems are usually decent at this, except we all know how big of an effect one or two dissenters can have (e.g., Manchin). Getting 47+ out of 50 to agree on something should, theoretically, be impressive... unless you're going up against a reliably 50-out-of-50 Republican wall. "Decent" isn't good enough, unfortunately. Democrats need to dump the likes of Manchin and Sinema tbh. Even if those seats go back to Republicans I firmly believe that their presence dampening Democrats ability to do anything is harming formerly blue parts of the US. If Democrats fought for worker's rights, and a living wage and the like they could rebuild the blue wall, keep the sun belt, and ignore West Virginia. I think people are honestly too caught up in the differences and arguments and that at large Democrat voters will respond well to strong actual change, even if imperfect. Republicans are great at projecting the image that they're fighting tooth and nail to make something happen and their voters respond to that. Democrats project the image that the parliamentarian said they shouldn't so they throw their hands to the sky and plead helplessness. If they appeared to fight like the Republicans fight, even if they fail, even if there are disagreements about particulars, I believe they'd do a lot better. Like I've always said, I want them to concentrate more on enfranchising people, inspiring non-voters to vote for them instead of trying to peel off Republican voters. Obama proved a strong message and show of intent can be really motivating (even though Obama did a piss poor job of it.) Could you please elaborate on what you mean by dumping Manchin? If I remember correctly, he still votes with the Dems on the vast majority of ideas, which makes him far more useful than a Republican taking his place, and I can't see someone to the left of him ever becoming a West Virginia senator. Based on what you said about "ignoring West Virginia", I assume you mean focusing our attention on other purple states to win more senators, so that the WV seat (whether it's inhabited by Manchin or a Republican) becomes less relevant? As in, earning that wiggle room of having 51 or 52 or 53 Dem/Ind senators, instead of exactly 50? And when it comes to inspiring Dem non-voters to vote vs. trying to move purple voters a little more to the left, I'm sure we could probably do both, if we really tried. But you're right that we're not going to magically convince someone who's substantially red to jump all the way to the blue side.
I assume the argument is instead of perpetually diluting things to keep a Manchin on side, if you just say fuck it and are a bit more ambitious you’ll take a short term hit but may make bigger gains.
Hey it’s pretty risky, might work might not.
Manchin et al yeah they stay aligned in votes, although the content of what’s in those votes is presumably tailored somewhat to make that happen. ‘Hey you took out everything I disagree with, glad we agree on this bill’ kind of thing.
That said for something like a rust belt regeneration program, which IMO is a rather good idea, is Manchin going to be an impediment on that particular front anyway?
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United States42008 Posts
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."
Personally I’d have liked to have seen RBG parachute out of a plane somewhere over rural Alaska to go on a year long hiking/wilderness survival adventure in the days after her illnesses were recognized as terminal. Sure, everyone would know that she was dead but could they find the body before they lost the Senate? Alaska is a big place.
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Northern Ireland23908 Posts
On September 24 2021 02:40 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 00:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: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." Personally I’d have liked to have seen RBG parachute out of a plane somewhere over rural Alaska to go on a year long hiking/wilderness survival adventure in the days after her illnesses were recognized as terminal. Sure, everyone would know that she was dead but could they find the body before they lost the Senate? Alaska is a big place.
Nah she should have fully replicated DB Cooper’s exit from public knowledge to the letter, in the off chance those retrieving her corpse might stumble across his whereabouts.
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On September 23 2021 11:29 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 05:18 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On September 22 2021 10:54 Salazarz wrote:On September 22 2021 08:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On September 21 2021 16:57 Salazarz wrote:
Think about it for a second. What does China stand to gain from invading Vietnam? Like, literally what would be the point of that? It's just such a dumb idea in 21st century. Call CCP what you want, but they aren't idiots, and they don't do evil shit just for the sake of being evil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_WarI don't know, better ask the CCP that one. They aren't idiots for sure, so just why did China invade Vietnam some 40 years ago, curiously as far away from the 21st century as we are currently into it. You do realize that this war was a skirmish that China started (with US' blessing, ironically enough) in response to Vietnam's repressions against their own local minorities and occupation of Cambodia and that China never had any intent of actually occupying any territory or anything of the sort in this war, yes? Like, this is about as far from 'imperialistic, Asia-conquering ambition' as it gets. Interesting to see how the war was sold to the Chinese. What did China stand to gain from invading Vietnam? China did go ahead and did invade Vietnam, thus invalidating your revisionist history that China did not invade Vietnam. I have never said that China did not invade Vietnam in the past. If you want to play stupid 'gotcha' games, at least make sure your 'gotchas' are actually right. Or better yet, don't play those stupid games at all and have a honest debate instead, with real arguments that actually address the points being discussed.
This isn't an alternate timeline where China did not invade Vietnam no matter how justified you think it was. I just think it is odd that you wrote this as if China did not invade Vietnam within living memory, but it is a historical fact they did. Call it a gotcha if you like, whatever that is, I don't mind.
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Did you read the article you posted? He didn't say they are putting vaccine in salad dressing.
He said
"Somebody sent me a thing this morning where they are talking about putting the vaccine in salad dressing, or salads."
The "thing he was sent" was probably this article from the University of California Riverside where they received a $500,000 grant to see if they could turn lettuce into a mRNA vaccine.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/grow-and-eat-your-own-vaccines
The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories.
Not sure how the media gets away with purposefully misquoting people in such a way "Michael Flynn says they are putting vaccine in your salad dressing" or "Joe Rogan says he is taking horse de-wormer." It's clear why they've lost the public's trust. Not sure why people continue to eat it up.
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United States42008 Posts
On September 24 2021 05:41 BlackJack wrote:Did you read the article you posted? He didn't say they are putting vaccine in salad dressing. He said "Somebody sent me a thing this morning where they are talking about putting the vaccine in salad dressing, or salads." The "thing he was sent" was probably this article from the University of California Riverside where they received a $500,000 grant to see if they could turn lettuce into a mRNA vaccine. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/grow-and-eat-your-own-vaccinesShow nested quote +The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories. Not sure how the media gets away with purposefully misquoting people in such a way "Michael Flynn says they are putting vaccine in your salad dressing" or "Joe Rogan says he is taking horse de-wormer." It's clear why they've lost the public's trust. Not sure why people continue to eat it up.
Flynn is still misquoting it. They use eggs to make the flu vaccine but nobody is putting the flu vaccine in mayonnaise. He’s rightly being ridiculed for going from vaccine manufacturing to salad dressing.
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On September 24 2021 05:52 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 05:41 BlackJack wrote:Did you read the article you posted? He didn't say they are putting vaccine in salad dressing. He said "Somebody sent me a thing this morning where they are talking about putting the vaccine in salad dressing, or salads." The "thing he was sent" was probably this article from the University of California Riverside where they received a $500,000 grant to see if they could turn lettuce into a mRNA vaccine. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/grow-and-eat-your-own-vaccinesThe future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories. Not sure how the media gets away with purposefully misquoting people in such a way "Michael Flynn says they are putting vaccine in your salad dressing" or "Joe Rogan says he is taking horse de-wormer." It's clear why they've lost the public's trust. Not sure why people continue to eat it up. Flynn is still misquoting it. They use eggs to make the flu vaccine but nobody is putting the flu vaccine in mayonnaise. He’s rightly being ridiculed for going from vaccine manufacturing to salad dressing.
Right, he can't complain because he is doing to the researchers exactly the same thing that the media is doing to him. Taking something with a partial-truth and using hyperbole and distortion to make it appear more ridiculous than it is. I just think Michael Flynn ranting on a podcast is not the standard of journalism everyone else should be matching.
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On September 24 2021 07:11 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2021 06:21 BlackJack wrote:On September 24 2021 05:52 KwarK wrote:On September 24 2021 05:41 BlackJack wrote:Did you read the article you posted? He didn't say they are putting vaccine in salad dressing. He said "Somebody sent me a thing this morning where they are talking about putting the vaccine in salad dressing, or salads." The "thing he was sent" was probably this article from the University of California Riverside where they received a $500,000 grant to see if they could turn lettuce into a mRNA vaccine. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/grow-and-eat-your-own-vaccinesThe future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories. Not sure how the media gets away with purposefully misquoting people in such a way "Michael Flynn says they are putting vaccine in your salad dressing" or "Joe Rogan says he is taking horse de-wormer." It's clear why they've lost the public's trust. Not sure why people continue to eat it up. Flynn is still misquoting it. They use eggs to make the flu vaccine but nobody is putting the flu vaccine in mayonnaise. He’s rightly being ridiculed for going from vaccine manufacturing to salad dressing. Right, he can't complain because he is doing to the researchers exactly the same thing that the media is doing to him. Taking something with a partial-truth and using hyperbole and distortion to make it appear more ridiculous than it is. I just think Michael Flynn ranting on a podcast is not the standard of journalism everyone else should be matching. That you think he is some sort of reasonable person having his words twisted by the librul media is hilarious.
This is your modus operandi in these threads on full display here.
JimmiC: Flynn is saying that "they" are putting vaccine in salad dressing to control Americans.
BlackJack: That's not quite what he said
JimmiC: Oh so you think Flynn is a reasonable person
You could have characterized his quote a little more fairly but that wasn't your objective. Your goal is to take just enough liberty with the quote to bait someone into objecting and then you get to paint that person as "defending Michael Flynn" so you could then rant about Michael Flynn taking hydroxychloroquine and being a conspiracy nut or whatever else you want to rant about.
I'm not sure what you get out of this, but I hope you are having fun.
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