2020 US Election (Part One)

[Kyriakos]

To everyone but Bernie supporters, Warren is an extreme-left candidate. Medicare for all, high wealth taxes and breaking up the big banks and tech companies are pretty far-out policy positions that I don't think Clinton supported.

Warren famously endorsed Clinton, not Sanders, back when it mattered in 2016

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't know, what do you want me to do with your comment? You were just trying to imply that Bernie supporters are crazy, right?

No not at all, just pointing out that to most voters, Warren is a hardcore leftist even if Sanders supporters object to that. I don't think Bernie supporters are crazy!

 

[Estebonrober]

Warren famously endorsed Clinton, not Sanders, back when it mattered in 2016

Yea you do get to drop that on her head. Bernie is definitely for the purists.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Warren is starting to creep up again in the polls. So are Bernie and Bootyjudge. Harris and Yang seem to be fading. The rest should just drop out.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't know, what do you want me to do with your comment? You were just trying to imply that Bernie supporters are crazy, right?

No not at all, just pointing out that to most voters, Warren is a hardcore leftist even if Sanders supporters object to that. I don't think Bernie supporters are crazy!

And why is pointing out the obvious taken as an attack on Bernie supporters?

 

[Lexicus]

No not at all, just pointing out that to most voters, Warren is a hardcore leftist even if Sanders supporters object to that. I don't think Bernie supporters are crazy!

Oh sorry then. Actually, this is a good opportunity to talk about why I see Sanders as a more "hardcore" leftist than Warren: his politics is focused on changing this reality, where the traditional left-liberal approach has been to internalize the defeats of the 1970s and 80s and to assume that nothing big is possible because the voters will reject it.

He has had enormous success at changing the sense of the possible in American politics. The fact that Warren and others have taken these positions, that the Democrats in Congress have taken some of these positions, is in large part down to his performance in the 2016 primary. I do believe that left-populism would have bubbled up in the Democratic party (and outside it) as a response to material conditions with or without Sanders' primary campaign, but we are much further than we would have been without him, and leftist policies are much more mainstream than they'd be otherwise.

And why is pointing out the obvious taken as an attack on Bernie supporters?

I guess because we're crazy and paranoid, amirite?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I guess because we're crazy and paranoid, amirite?

I don't know. I think people think I'm anti-Bernie because of how hard I rail against the Bernie or Bust crowd. I voted for him in the 2016 primaries and I support him and his policies. I prefer Warren partially based on personality and I think she's more electable for factors that aren't even in his control but I'd be thrilled if he got on the ticket.

But I think that between speaking out against people who'd rather sit out the election than vote for not-Bernie and for trying to point out that the electorate is pretty center-right and not fully on board with his agenda in general, people think I'm anti-Bernie. It's pretty frustrating.

 

[Estebonrober]

Yea same. I voted for Bernie last go around too. I’d vote for him again if it looks like Warren is losing pace to him. I want whichever of the two can get out of the primary. I voted for Hilary last time holding my nose because I figured at least she knows how to manage stupid dumpster fires. I guess I’d do so again for the sake of the nation’s foreign policy. (Yes I understand that she is a bit of a war monger but let’s be not equate her with John Bolton and is rather he US have an air of competence rather than this hot mess). Basically I have to always vote against the GOP as it has become a party for permanent destruction of everything good in the world so some of their friends can make some money.

 

[Kyriakos]

Non-Zwarte Pete doesn't like small donors. Only billionaires will do for him

And still his campaign has 20 million dollars less than Bernie's donations.

 

[sophie]

There are a lot of former Hillary supporters in Warren's camp. That doesn't make political sense considering how far apart on the political spectrum Warren and Clinton are. A lot of them just want a female president, as shallow as that is. They're likely to jump to the next most viable woman. That's still Kamala in spite of her drop in polls.

I think it makes perfect sense, for the same reason that Buttigieg is the second choice for a lot of Warren supporters even though they support vastly different policy prescriptions. Maybe I'll do a longer explanation later, but the simple answer is that they are cut from that same Aaron Sorkin-esque Left-Liberal post-ideological cloth, in which politics isn't about Left or Right, and it isn't about principles or values or vision. It's about data and statistics, and the idea that if I simply sit you down and explain the data comprehensively and eloquently enough, you will be unable to bridge any exceptions to the fact that my policy prescription represents the one true, rational, objective, correct answer. It's why they all fetishize "bipartisanship" so much. Politics seen through this lens isn't a pitched battle of fundamentally incompatible ideologies or divergent ethical frameworks, but aesthetic choices which are different only on the superficie, and which rest atop a positivist, empirical, data-driven Base.

Politics, then, isn't a battle of ideology or vision, but one of expertise: who has the best data, and who is the most qualified (and therefore most likely) to evaluate and apply that data "correctly" into pragmatic policy prescriptions. The policy prescriptions, then, between Kamala or Klobuchar, or Buttigieg, or even Warren, become superficial and aesthetic choices. The only question worth asking becomes "who is the most credible?" And the answer to that comes from rattling off line items on a CV: is it Warren, the Law Professor from Harvard, or Buttigieg, who was educated at Harvard and Oxford, speaks 7 languages, and put his data-driven analysis into practice as a mayor who "transformed" (snerk) a languishing Midwestern town, or is it Kamala who made rational, data-driven decisions as Attorney General of California/San Francisco to produce positive economic growth and improved social outcomes.

Framed in this way, it's no surprise that a) Trump, a doddering, populist, deeply ideological buffoon, and a supremely unqualified, data-illiterate (and possibly functionally literal-illiterate) twit to boot represents an existential threat to these people; he's anathema to everything they hold dear, and b) that the universal cry of lament from the Hillary-stans was that she was "the most qualified candidate in electoral history," and, that the fact that she failed to win election has nothing to do with her policy prescriptions or her rhetorical style, and everything to do with, alternatively: stupid, racist Midwestern and Appalachian voters who "don't know what's good for them," "Bernie-or-bust voters who are too blinded by ideology to see the self-evident truth and data behind Clinton's perfectly rational platform," or else some nebulous, nefarious Russian conspiracy to deny our supremely qualified candidate from victory for equally vague and nebulous Reasons (tm). It's the same driving ideology that manifested in the Pied Piper Strategy, in which Hillary literally conspired to advance the candidacy of Donald Trump above other Republicans (because against any other Republican candidate it becomes that selfsame battle of qualifications and 'correct data-driven conclusions' whereas against Trump it's a battle between a supremely qualified candidate and a supremely unqualified candidate, and the winner of that should be self-evident). It's the same reason why Bernie and his supporters are treated on MSNBC and CNN alternatively, either as well-meaning but misguided Liberals who need only to be shown the data so they'll realize the absurdity of their chosen candidate, or, failing that, cajoled or shamed into giving up their candidate in the interest of "party solidarity," or, failing that, suppressed and destroyed because they are ideologically-, rather than data-, driven and that makes them equivalent to Trump - an existential threat to the formulation of rational policies.

To conclude, I will quote Gottfried Leibniz, epitomizing the optimism of the Enlightenment project by positing a supremely rational, positivist future in which:

"[...] if controversies were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two calculators. For it would suffice for them to take their pencils in their hands and to sit down at the abacus, and say to each other (and if they so wish also to a friend called to help): Let us calculate."

That is the modern, post-Clinton Democratic party, neatly summarized.

 

[Kyriakos]

Classy CBS question to AOC, with Bernie present: "as a woman of color, why did you endorse an old white guy?"
WTH :/

 

[Farm Boy]

I think it makes perfect sense, for the same reason that Buttigieg is the second choice for a lot of Warren supporters even though they support vastly different policy prescriptions. Maybe I'll do a longer explanation later, but the simple answer is that they are cut from that same Aaron Sorkin-esque Left-Liberal post-ideological cloth, in which politics isn't about Left or Right, and it isn't about principles or values or vision. It's about data and statistics, and the idea that if I simply sit you down and explain the data comprehensively and eloquently enough, you will be unable to bridge any exceptions to the fact that my policy prescription represents the one true, rational, objective, correct answer. It's why they all fetishize "bipartisanship" so much. Politics seen through this lens isn't a pitched battle of fundamentally incompatible ideologies or divergent ethical frameworks, but aesthetic choices which are different only on the superficie, and which rest atop a positivist, empirical, data-driven Base.

Politics, then, isn't a battle of ideology or vision, but one of expertise: who has the best data, and who is the most qualified (and therefore most likely) to evaluate and apply that data "correctly" into pragmatic policy prescriptions. The policy prescriptions, then, between Kamala or Klobuchar, or Buttigieg, or even Warren, become superficial and aesthetic choices. The only question worth asking becomes "who is the most credible?" And the answer to that comes from rattling off line items on a CV: is it Warren, the Law Professor from Harvard, or Buttigieg, who was educated at Harvard and Oxford, speaks 7 languages, and put his data-driven analysis into practice as a mayor who "transformed" (snerk) a languishing Midwestern town, or is it Kamala who made rational, data-driven decisions as Attorney General of California/San Francisco to produce positive economic growth and improved social outcomes.

Framed in this way, it's no surprise that a) Trump, a doddering, populist, deeply ideological buffoon, and a supremely unqualified, data-illiterate (and possibly functionally literal-illiterate) twit to boot represents an existential threat to these people; he's anathema to everything they hold dear, and b) that the universal cry of lament from the Hillary-stans was that she was "the most qualified candidate in electoral history," and, that the fact that she failed to win election has nothing to do with her policy prescriptions or her rhetorical style, and everything to do with, alternatively: stupid, racist Midwestern and Appalachian voters who "don't know what's good for them," "Bernie-or-bust voters who are too blinded by ideology to see the self-evident truth and data behind Clinton's perfectly rational platform," or else some nebulous, nefarious Russian conspiracy to deny our supremely qualified candidate from victory for equally vague and nebulous Reasons (tm). It's the same driving ideology that manifested in the Pied Piper Strategy, in which Hillary literally conspired to advance the candidacy of Donald Trump above other Republicans (because against any other Republican candidate it becomes that selfsame battle of qualifications and 'correct data-driven conclusions' whereas against Trump it's a battle between a supremely qualified candidate and a supremely unqualified candidate, and the winner of that should be self-evident). It's the same reason why Bernie and his supporters are treated on MSNBC and CNN alternatively, either as well-meaning but misguided Liberals who need only to be shown the data so they'll realize the absurdity of their chosen candidate, or, failing that, cajoled or shamed into giving up their candidate in the interest of "party solidarity," or, failing that, suppressed and destroyed because they are ideologically-, rather than data-, driven and that makes them equivalent to Trump - an existential threat to our democracy and the formulation of rational policies.

To conclude, I will quote Gottfried Leibniz, epitomizing the optimism of the Enlightenment project, positing a supremely rational, positivist future in which:

"[...] if controversies were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two calculators. For it would suffice for them to take their pencils in their hands and to sit down at the abacus, and say to each other (and if they so wish also to a friend called to help): Let us calculate."

That is the modern, post-Clinton Democratic party, neatly summarized.

That's not bad, Owen. Not bad at all. Nails the zealots of the non-god, as I think Tim sometimes puts it, pretty square.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And why is pointing out the obvious taken as an attack on Bernie supporters?

Because Bernie supporters have clearly demonstrated that they are the kind of extremists that demand "you're either with us or you are the enemy and all enemies are the same to us." The hard core Bernie supporters are a lost cause. If they don't get their guy nominated they will look at Trump and whoever the opponent is, shrug, and walk away. Unfortunately they won't make it a long walk off a short pier so we're probably gonna be stuck with them until the center of their personality cult finally croaks off.

 

[Estebonrober]

I think it makes perfect sense, for the same reason that Buttigieg is the second choice for a lot of Warren supporters even though they support vastly different policy prescriptions. Maybe I'll do a longer explanation later, but the simple answer is that they are cut from that same Aaron Sorkin-esque Left-Liberal post-ideological cloth, in which politics isn't about Left or Right, and it isn't about principles or values or vision. It's about data and statistics, and the idea that if I simply sit you down and explain the data comprehensively and eloquently enough, you will be unable to bridge any exceptions to the fact that my policy prescription represents the one true, rational, objective, correct answer. It's why they all fetishize "bipartisanship" so much. Politics seen through this lens isn't a pitched battle of fundamentally incompatible ideologies or divergent ethical frameworks, but aesthetic choices which are different only on the superficie, and which rest atop a positivist, empirical, data-driven Base.

Politics, then, isn't a battle of ideology or vision, but one of expertise: who has the best data, and who is the most qualified (and therefore most likely) to evaluate and apply that data "correctly" into pragmatic policy prescriptions. The policy prescriptions, then, between Kamala or Klobuchar, or Buttigieg, or even Warren, become superficial and aesthetic choices. The only question worth asking becomes "who is the most credible?" And the answer to that comes from rattling off line items on a CV: is it Warren, the Law Professor from Harvard, or Buttigieg, who was educated at Harvard and Oxford, speaks 7 languages, and put his data-driven analysis into practice as a mayor who "transformed" (snerk) a languishing Midwestern town, or is it Kamala who made rational, data-driven decisions as Attorney General of California/San Francisco to produce positive economic growth and improved social outcomes.

Framed in this way, it's no surprise that a) Trump, a doddering, populist, deeply ideological buffoon, and a supremely unqualified, data-illiterate (and possibly functionally literal-illiterate) twit to boot represents an existential threat to these people; he's anathema to everything they hold dear, and b) that the universal cry of lament from the Hillary-stans was that she was "the most qualified candidate in electoral history," and, that the fact that she failed to win election has nothing to do with her policy prescriptions or her rhetorical style, and everything to do with, alternatively: stupid, racist Midwestern and Appalachian voters who "don't know what's good for them," "Bernie-or-bust voters who are too blinded by ideology to see the self-evident truth and data behind Clinton's perfectly rational platform," or else some nebulous, nefarious Russian conspiracy to deny our supremely qualified candidate from victory for equally vague and nebulous Reasons (tm). It's the same driving ideology that manifested in the Pied Piper Strategy, in which Hillary literally conspired to advance the candidacy of Donald Trump above other Republicans (because against any other Republican candidate it becomes that selfsame battle of qualifications and 'correct data-driven conclusions' whereas against Trump it's a battle between a supremely qualified candidate and a supremely unqualified candidate, and the winner of that should be self-evident). It's the same reason why Bernie and his supporters are treated on MSNBC and CNN alternatively, either as well-meaning but misguided Liberals who need only to be shown the data so they'll realize the absurdity of their chosen candidate, or, failing that, cajoled or shamed into giving up their candidate in the interest of "party solidarity," or, failing that, suppressed and destroyed because they are ideologically-, rather than data-, driven and that makes them equivalent to Trump - an existential threat to our democracy and the formulation of rational policies.

To conclude, I will quote Gottfried Leibniz, epitomizing the optimism of the Enlightenment project by positing a supremely rational, positivist future in which:

"[...] if controversies were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two calculators. For it would suffice for them to take their pencils in their hands and to sit down at the abacus, and say to each other (and if they so wish also to a friend called to help): Let us calculate."

That is the modern, post-Clinton Democratic party, neatly summarized.

I agree with all this but still don’t think Warren belongs in the same breath as the others. If purists are all that qualify your lists are going to be very short.

 

[Farm Boy]

She talks sorta like she does, doesn't she?

 

[Lexicus]

I agree with all this but still don’t think Warren belongs in the same breath as the others. If purists are all that qualify your lists are going to be very short.

Reducing Owen's post to "purism" is a really poor take on it, doesn't do it justice at all.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Classy CBS question to AOC, with Bernie present: "as a woman of color, why did you endorse an old white guy?"
WTH :/

She should have said "Women of colour endorsing old white guys is a time-honored tradition in this country... as American as apple pie! So the question you should be asking is 'As a woman of colour why not endorse an old white guy?'"

As intimated above... "because he's old and white" probably isn't a good enough reason, because that's generally the case, historically speaking...

 

[Kyriakos]

She should have said "Women of colour endorsing old white guys is a time-honored tradition in this country... as American as apple pie! So the question you should be asking is 'As a woman of colour why not endorse an old white guy?'"

As intimated above... "because he's old and white" probably isn't a good enough reason, because that's generally the case, historically speaking...

AOC isn't black either, I am sure it would be ridiculously callous to ask her why she would support Obama (assuming Obama can pass as black himself, of course )

 

[Farm Boy]

Who cares. There's a bunch of colors and AgeOfassClown has the popular conception of one.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yes Hispanic is certainly within the spectrum of "person of colour" in these parts, Asian too, ...

AOC isn't black either, I am sure it would be ridiculously callous to ask her why she would support Obama (assuming Obama can pass as black himself, of course )

You what?

EDIT: Oh I get it... No, it is not beyond the realm of reasonable expectation for Hispanic people to similarly be asked by our Murican journalists why they would support a black candidate, particularly when there is an Hispanic candidate available for them to support instead... same goes for gender, religion, etc.