2020 US Election (Part One)

[Estebonrober]

He is one of the entrenched political elites though...

just because you are popular at hone does not make you part of the Washington establishment.

 

[Socrates99]

He is one of the entrenched political elites though...

a lifelong independent is an entrenched elite? Lol.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, he's a senator and a millionaire. Most people in politics are part of the elite, though as UK politics has shown of late, anyone can be part of "the elite" if you dislike them enough.

 

[innonimatu]

I think Sanders always had a lead, but the polls were manipulated in an attempt to discourage him and supporters. Now that the real voting is coming the manipulators cannot afford for a big difference to show.

 

[cardgame]

He is one of the entrenched political elites though...

Being elite is when you don't run things and are not respected by your colleagues

Well, he's a senator and a millionaire.

Kind of hard to avoid when you're getting paid, what was it at the latest? $185k annually for two or three decades

 

[Commodore]

a lifelong independent is an entrenched elite? Lol.

Party affiliation has nothing to do with whether or not one is one of the political elite. If you have been in politics for longer than some adults have been alive and you are wealthy, then you are one of the entrenched political elite. Bernie meets both of those criteria.

 

[cardgame]

Just because he isn't a freshman legislator doesn't mean he's a member of the political elite in the way that most people would use it.

 

[Zardnaar]

He's a member of the elite he's not part of the establishment.

 

[Estebonrober]

Party affiliation has nothing to do with whether or not one is one of the political elite. If you have been in politics for longer than some adults have been alive and you are wealthy, then you are one of the entrenched political elite. Bernie meets both of those criteria.

Yea I'm not sure the one man in Washington that wants to truly promote the working class rather than forking them, using them, or tell them whats good for them can be considered part of the elite in Washington.

 

[Ajidica]

I think Sanders always had a lead, but the polls were manipulated in an attempt to discourage him and supporters. Now that the real voting is coming the manipulators cannot afford for a big difference to show.

He may now, but once serious candidates start dropping I'm not sure how well placed Sanders is to pick up their supporters. If/when Klobuchar and Booty-judge drop, their supporters will almost certainly go to Biden. Warren, despite having credentials just as good as Sanders and would probably appoint the same people to the administration, has really struggled to get support from the Democratic left and if she drops out her supporters will probably split 50:50 on Biden and Sanders.

 

[Imaus]

Sanders is ticking up. But Biden isn't ticking *down*; and Bloomberg and Buttigeg are climbing. Steyer, Klob, Yang - where will *their* people go to? And why the devil have they stood on for so long.

 

[innonimatu]

Why? My guess is that certain zombie is still preparing a comeback.

 

[luiz]

Sanders and Warren seem to have almost identical platforms, but my impression is that Sanders is genuine about these ideas and has supported them forever, while Warren is a douchy politician that will support whatever the polls and her marketers tell her to support. Indeed, Sanders might be the only principled person among the top contenders for POTUS.

Of course, he is still mostly wrong about a lot of stuff, and is hopelessly naive about others. As a Brazilian I resent his idiotic support for the convicted criminal Lula. But for what it's worth, unlike Trump or Warren he does not come out as a douche, and unlike Biden and some others he does not come out as totally devoid of real convictions (of course, having the wrong convictions can be worse than having none at all...)

 

[Kyriakos]

Why? My guess is that certain zombie is still preparing a comeback.

Worse than a zombie are followers of the zombie

 

[Camikaze]

No, the point of Sanders campaign is that society comes together so that poor often young working people with children have enough societal safety that they can leave an abusive relationship, employer or whatever life trap without being out on the street, exposed with no healthcare or way of a fair comeback. However, I do no longer expect you to understand that Cami, but you may mislead others with your claptraps.

Clinton is a useful millionaire of the billionaire class. Like a lap dog they let her out to wave her little hands at pride-parades, go dance and speaks with Oprah and Ellen on TV all the while they rob the crowd blind.

Oh, and Cami, did you see Sanders leading the pack nationally, 3% over Biden in the CNN(!) poll yesterday. Imagine if he had taken your advice to pack up and get out a year ago? That would have been stupid. Good thing to not listen to the lap dogs of the lap dogs of the billionaires.

Nice gaslighting, because you're making me do a double-take on whether I ever actually did say something like that? I've started to think that maybe I must have, given you've got the feeling so stuck in your craw? So I went and checked every post I've made in the last year mentioning Bernie or Sanders, and to be quite fair to you I've selected the ones which are as close as it gets, from which I think you might be getting the false impression:

Is there a point at which Sanders should start to worry about his mediocre poll numbers, and where is that point? Polls are relatively meaningless early on, but they do seem to indicate that a large proportion of the people who actually voted for Sanders last time are looking at other candidates now.

Biden has proved to be fairly resilient - it's not like he's lacked moments which, for a lot of people, are virtually disqualifying, but he's retained his support throughout and is now ahead in 3 of the first 4 states, then a bunch after that. His fundraising improved in the last quarter, which was a big weakness for him.

It looked for a while that Warren might be able to take the lead, but she faded, and there's still no sign that Sanders is capable of growing his support beyond his 15-20% base (he has also been remarkably consistent, but not in a great way).

I was particularly tickled to find the post where we went over this very same thing, where I was outright rejecting the idea that I was calling for Sanders to dropout:

I'm just using the RCP polling average. I think we may have gone over this before, but is your response to the general idea about Bernie struggling that actually Bernie isn't hovering in the 15-18% range, and that the reason why he shouldn't worry about that polling average is because it's made up of skewed polls and the actual results are going to be better for him?

I'm curious to see where I've said that Bernie should give up, because I don't recall posting that. If you're assuming the question of whether he should worry is a suggestion that he should give up, that's an odd interpretation. I'm not interested in, like, Michael Bennett's strategy. Usually when someone expresses concern about the effectiveness of a political strategy, it's because they want the object of that strategy to be achieved, but don't see it working.

Now, if we get to February next year and there's evidence to suggest that a) Warren is going to beat Sanders, b) Sanders is dragging down Warren's share of delegates, and c) because of vote share thresholds, Sanders and Warren simultaneously being in the race reduces the delegate share of non-'establishment' candidates, thereby increasing the chances of e.g. Biden winning, then I may be more in favour of Sanders dropping out, on the basis that his strategy has unfortunately not worked to expand his popularity, and his continued place in the race actually has a tangibly counter-productive effect.

That point has not arrived (and indeed, it could work the other way around too).

Likewise, I'm not sure where I've objected to the idea that Bernie has been unfairly treated by the media. You may be reading into my response to the video posted by Kyriakos something which is not there. "This is a poor example of a valid argument" and "this example renders your argument invalid" are two different positions, each of which can be provoked by the same post. You may notice that the example posted by Kyriakos has not convinced anyone. In fact, it might feed into the idea that Bernie supporters are clutching at straws by claiming media bias. Bernie supporters have a strong interest in countering such a narrative and sharpening their argument.

More generally, I'm reading into your posts something which isn't explicitly there: that you're making the mistake of assuming everyone who likes Bernie (or perhaps Warren) shares a whole set of other beliefs or opinions which they do not necessarily hold. In particular, I'm doubting you would accept the possibility of someone genuinely both liking Bernie and Harris, yet that is probably a position held by the majority of Democratic voters. The symptoms of such a position may be to defend Harris from what are seen as undue attacks, but as a matter of logic it would not thereby follow that Harris is preferred.

It's interesting to note that your allergic reaction to any suggestion that Sanders might face difficulties started right at the outset, with a response to that first post along similar lines to your response now. That was really the first time we had engaged on the issue, and you straight away assumed that I must not like Bernie Sanders. I don't know if it's a psychological reflex or a parsing issue, but either way, ever since that time it's clearly just an invention that you've alighted upon.

I think the source of your misunderstanding might be the idea that pointing out the difficulties which a candidate is going to face is equivalent to not liking that candidate or hoping those difficulties are not overcome. Which I think is useful to recognise, as it goes to what my actual dislike is.

Just to be definitive about this: I like Bernie Sanders, that's why he would be my second choice candidate. I dislike how hardcore Sanders supporters express their support for him, because they often seem to adopt a casual relationship to the truth, and a destructive approach to politics (including the well-known abusiveness of the small minority """Bernie bros"""). I do not think Sanders shares these qualities, and think it is a shame that he has to be associated with that sort of support. I also think it is a mistake of his campaign to not more forthrightly denounce such tactics, because it's frankly it makes his fanclub not a particularly attractive one to join. But that doesn't have a huge overall bearing on my opinion of Sanders himself.

One example of such a problem is the frequent cherry-picking of polls instead of relying on averages (or takes like innonimatu's above, which is an outright conspiracy theory). There was also a national poll today from an A+ rated pollster that shows Biden 7 points up. It could be disastrous if Democratic voters thought it safe to assume that a progressive were in the lead and Biden were precipitously falling, because it's not true and could impact upon voting behaviour.

 

[ThERat]

Are you supporting Biden? Cos I have yet to find anyone who likes this guy. Sure loser against Trump....yuck

 

[Camikaze]

Are you supporting Biden? Cos I have yet to find anyone who likes this guy. Sure loser against Trump....yuck

I'm assuming this question is directed at me, but it's hard to tell because my post above quotes me literally saying that I would only want Sanders to drop out in circumstances where doing so is necessary to stop Biden winning.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm assuming this question is directed at me, but it's hard to tell because my post above quotes me literally saying that I would only want Sanders to drop out in circumstances where doing so is necessary to stop Biden winning.

Sanders is #1 in the national polls now, so I guess we can forget about him dropping out. So, which of the oligarchs do you support?

 

[Camikaze]

Sanders is #1 in the national polls now, so I guess we can forget about him dropping out. So, which of the oligarchs do you support?

This is a good example of the problem I was referring to, because it's simply a factually inaccurate statement about polls. As far as I am aware, in the last week there have been 7 national polls released. 1 of them shows Sanders ahead. Singular. Not "polls". 6 of them show Biden ahead. Whichever poll average you look at, Biden is still well ahead.

 

[Kyriakos]

This is a good example of the problem I was referring to, because it's simply a factually inaccurate statement about polls. As far as I am aware, in the last week there have been 7 national polls released. 1 of them shows Sanders ahead. Singular. Not "polls". 6 of them show Biden ahead. Whichever poll average you look at, Biden is still well ahead.

But I was asking about the Biden back-up you favor, not Biden
Besides, Biden won't make it to the end. He is basically senile and is about to get ruined in the primaries.