2020 US Election (Part One)

[Sommerswerd]

If I wasn't afraid of her winning the nomination

Yeah that's a dealbreaker.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, what gives me that idea is the profile of his donors:
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/09/sanders-vs-warren-who-has-more-working-class-donors/



To me this suggests that Bernie is the guy with the potential to move beyond the Democrats' obvious stranglehold on highly educated, somewhat more affluent voters. What worries me about Warren is that I believe her demographic base of support sets us up for Hillary's election loss Mk2. She is strongest among the voters the Democrats can hopefully already count on to vote for whomever the Democrats nominate.

https://boingboing.net/2019/08/11/36m-from-746k-donors.html

This is another reason to think that Bernie has widespread appeal:

They had to make a separate map excluding Bernie to show other candidates' fundraising. Notice how Bernie is the lead recipient of donations in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida: the key states we need to win in order to win this election.

Bernie everywhere. Hindsight was always Bernie 2020.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, what gives me that idea is the profile of his donors:
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/09/sanders-vs-warren-who-has-more-working-class-donors/



To me this suggests that Bernie is the guy with the potential to move beyond the Democrats' obvious stranglehold on highly educated, somewhat more affluent voters. What worries me about Warren is that I believe her demographic base of support sets us up for Hillary's election loss Mk2. She is strongest among the voters the Democrats can hopefully already count on to vote for whomever the Democrats nominate.

https://boingboing.net/2019/08/11/36m-from-746k-donors.html

This is another reason to think that Bernie has widespread appeal:

They had to make a separate map excluding Bernie to show other candidates' fundraising. Notice how Bernie is the lead recipient of donations in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida: the key states we need to win in order to win this election.

Donors are representative of the politically active. That doesn't address the issue of broad appeal. No amount of "look at how fired up the politically active are" is going to change the fact that the vast bulk of the electorate is hardly paying attention yet, and if he gets the nomination then when their attention does turn to the election it will be during a barrage of ads scaremongering about socialism. There are three ways Sanders could win:

1) He has aged so much and so badly that when people see the image of him declaring himself a socialist they can be convinced it is fake.

2) Between now and next November the entire electorate gets reeducated and suddenly comes to an understanding of what socialism actually is.

3) The Trump effect is so powerful that the Democrats win no matter who they nominated.

Number one would involve him denying that he is, or ever said that he was, a socialist. That ain't happening. Two is a total pipe dream since nothing is so secure as the intentional ignorance of the USian electorate. Which leaves three, and we know how counting on that turned out last time.

 

[Socrates99]

Donors are representative of the politically active. That doesn't address the issue of broad appeal. No amount of "look at how fired up the politically active are" is going to change the fact that the vast bulk of the electorate is hardly paying attention yet, and if he gets the nomination then when their attention does turn to the election it will be during a barrage of ads scaremongering about socialism. There are three ways Sanders could win:

1) He has aged so much and so badly that when people see the image of him declaring himself a socialist they can be convinced it is fake.

2) Between now and next November the entire electorate gets reeducated and suddenly comes to an understanding of what socialism actually is.

3) The Trump effect is so powerful that the Democrats win no matter who they nominated.

Number one would involve him denying that he is, or ever said that he was, a socialist. That ain't happening. Two is a total pipe dream since nothing is so secure as the intentional ignorance of the USian electorate. Which leaves three, and we know how counting on that turned out last time.

The flaw with that analysis is that voter turnout in the US is so low that the ignorant USian you describe isn't even likely to bother voting at all.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The flaw with that analysis is that voter turnout in the US is so low that the ignorant USian you describe isn't even likely to bother voting at all.

Presidential elections turnout runs 50-60%, and the politically active account for maybe 20% at the outside. So no, you cannot count on the politically active to carry the day.

 

[Lexicus]

That doesn't address the issue of broad appeal.

*shrug* His donor demographics already show that his appeal is broad imo, at least relative to other candidates who seem to appeal narrowly to the highly educated.

I also think you are drastically overestimating the negative impact of "socialism". How many political taboos does Donald Trump have to break before it dawns on people that the old rules no longer hold?

More importantly, even we accept your arguments as true, what reason is there to think that any other Democratic candidate in the running will do better?

 

[Sommerswerd]

There are three ways Sanders could win:
1) He has aged so much and so badly that when people see the image of him declaring himself a socialist they can be convinced it is fake.
2) Between now and next November the entire electorate gets reeducated and suddenly comes to an understanding of what socialism actually is.
3) The Trump effect is so powerful that the Democrats win no matter who they nominated.

I'm hoping on #3, especially since it includes the idea that there are Trump country folks and people who voted Trump last time to "see what happens" who are at the "eff that, he sucks" point by now. Bernie and Biden seem like the best candidates to get those votes, and Biden loses too much of the youth/hard left vote in terms of motivation.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I also think you are drastically overestimating the negative impact of "socialism". How many political taboos does Donald Trump have to break before it dawns on people that the old rules no longer hold?

More importantly, even we accept your arguments as true, what reason is there to think that any other Democratic candidate in the running will do better?

Trump doesn't break political taboos, he breaks social taboos. Politically he hasn't strayed an inch off of the standard conservative Republican line. If he's paving the way for anyone in that regard it is Buttigieg, not Bernie.

As to why someone else would do better...no one else has such an obvious easy path to being scaremongered that is so hard to counter. Again taking Buttigieg as the example, it isn't like anyone in 2020 is going to be shocked into a personal morality vote against him just because he's gay after four years of "well, the serial philandering and occasional sexual assaults don't really have anything to do with the job." That has been de-politicized.

 

[Socrates99]

Presidential elections turnout runs 50-60%, and the politically active account for maybe 20% at the outside. So no, you cannot count on the politically active to carry the day.

Where are you getting those numbers? Only 20% are educated voters?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Where are you getting those numbers? Only 20% are educated voters?

The turnout numbers are readily available. The "20% at the outside" is a picked from the air number based on turnouts for primaries, attendance at non campaign appearances by representatives, numbers of donors, people who choose a party affiliation in states where it isn't mandatory, and other general observations. "Educated" has nothing to do with any of that, it's a question of interests and priorities.

 

[Lexicus]

Trump doesn't break political taboos, he breaks social taboos. Politically he hasn't strayed an inch off of the standard conservative Republican line. If he's paving the way for anyone in that regard it is Buttigieg, not Bernie.

And politically Bernie hasn't strayed far from the standard New Deal Democrat line.

As to why someone else would do better...no one else has such an obvious easy path to being scaremongered that is so hard to counter.

The Republicans are going to call anyone the Democrats run a socialist. 63% of Republicans believed that Obama was a socialist in 2010. This obsession you have with "socialism" as a liability for Sanders just doesn't compute for me. I suspect it's a generational thing.

 

[Socrates99]

The turnout numbers are readily available. The "20% at the outside" is a picked from the air number based on turnouts for primaries, attendance at non campaign appearances by representatives, numbers of donors, people who choose a party affiliation in states where it isn't mandatory, and other general observations. "Educated" has nothing to do with any of that, it's a question of interests and priorities.

Bernie beat Trump in Texas in a recent poll. If there were ever a state where socialism fearmongering would work its Texas. In order for your hypothesis to hold water you'd have to assume Bernie couldn't flip the three swing states that gave Trump his win. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Two of those voted Bernie over Clinton in 2016 primaries. The idea that Trump would beat Bernie because "socialism" is based on pretty shakey ground.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't think that it is safe to count on the vote of the more indifferent people. Also, they would have to be quite selectively indifferent if (eg) they care about 'Socialism' but not about scandals or establishment born-in-purple's.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

The vice president has called Biden socialist lol. Warren has been called socialist. Andy Beshear in the Kentucky governor elections has been. Bernie being called socialist is like, maybe baggage for 5 people total. It's a meaningless jab. It doesn't matter to the people who the Dems have to work hardest to get to vote.

 

[Socrates99]

I don't think that it is safe to count on the vote of the more indifferent people. Also, they would have to be quite selectively indifferent if (eg) they care about 'Socialism' but not about scandals or establishment born-in-purple's.

The funny thing about those "indifferent" voters is that they jus went through 8 full years of Republican pundits calling Obama and every centrist associated with him a socialist. The socialist fearmongering is as likely to fall on deaf ears with them as any other criticism.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And politically Bernie hasn't strayed far from the standard New Deal Democrat line.



The Republicans are going to call anyone the Democrats run a socialist. 63% of Republicans believed that Obama was a socialist in 2010. This obsession you have with "socialism" as a liability for Sanders just doesn't compute for me. I suspect it's a generational thing.

No one cares what 63% of Republicans believe. It's what the rest of the people believe that matters. It is impossible for me to understand how you don't see a difference between "yeah, the Republicans call everyone a socialist when they run against them, because they know that if they can get that stuck in people's heads they will win," and "well, they have him on tape admitting that he is in fact a socialist so that sticking it in people's heads is pretty much automatic."

Bernie beat Trump in Texas in a recent poll. If there were ever a state where socialism fearmongering would work its Texas.

Absolutely. Which is why if Bernie gets nominated you will see massive socialism fearmongering in Texas. And I agree, it would work.

In order for your hypothesis to hold water you'd have to assume Bernie couldn't flip the three swing states that gave Trump his win. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Two of those voted Bernie over Clinton in 2016 primaries.

Again, primaries are predominantly the turf of the politically active. It really makes no difference who wins the primary in a given state, what matters is how effective the winner of the primary is at drawing votes from the people who didn't vote in the primary but feel "obligated" to cast a ballot in the general.

Anecdotal point: My gf won't vote in the primary next year. She refuses to discuss politics and will make a strong effort to tune out all the political advertising that she can. She watches the late night news on a local station, most nights, paying minimal attention. And she can be absolutely counted on to vote in November. All the "look she said this that means she's a socialist" ads the GOP would undoubtedly run against Warren would pass right by her, but in all likelihood she would be susceptible to a "Bernie's a socialist" campaign because in the ads that she can't avoid she would see him admit it. In my experience my gf represents the "typical voter."

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

His whole socialist/not a Democrat angle couldn't come at a better time. Even though he's been in Congress forever he is still cast as an outsider, which right now is like, such a massive boon. And one of the 3 most important demographics groups for winning the election considers it a good thing. I just think you're giving way too much importance to this. The last 4 years should show us if anything, ideological labels have lost basically any relevancy to how people vote, and they already had little to no value. DSA Dems have won, moderate Dems have won, Republicans running on restricting free trade have won. Like, Trump is the president and the Dem base would vote for Marx himself at this point if it got Trump out. The reality is a Quinnipac poll had over half the polled people saying no, the Dems have not moved too far to the left. That wasn't just Dems, that was just voting adults in general. Only 17% of Dems said they had moved too far left. If you've got over half the voting population saying it's fine, well, that sounds like the entire Dem and Independent voter base you need to win an election.

 

[Lexicus]

It is impossible for me to understand how you don't see a difference between "yeah, the Republicans call everyone a socialist when they run against them, because they know that if they can get that stuck in people's heads they will win," and "well, they have him on tape admitting that he is in fact a socialist so that sticking it in people's heads is pretty much automatic."

I think most people just won't care. The type of people who care aren't going to vote for Democrats anyway.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Bernie is too old; he should get out of the race and pass his support to....Yang!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think most people just won't care. The type of people who care aren't going to vote for Democrats anyway.

You are missing something, and it is revealed in the statement that Bernie hasn't strayed from the policies of the "new deal democrat." You've done canvassing. Certainly you have experienced this:

Canvasser: "Here's a policy the candidate is for <bog standard Democrat position>"
Person: "Wow, that sounds really great."

Repeat several times, going through the catalog of bog standard Democrat positions.

Canvasser: "So <bog standard Democrat> can count on your vote?"
Person: "Wait. What? Isn't he a Democrat? Hell no."

The average not paying attention voter, if presented item by item with the socialist agenda, reacts very much like that. Catch them in a situation where they cannot change the channel and show them an ad. Elizabeth Warren saying something about healthcare for everyone and the Republican response of outraged "look she's a socialist!" What they take away from that ad is "Warren's for healthcare, she's not bad." Show Bernie saying the same thing, followed by a clip of Bernie saying he is a socialist. What they take away from that is not only "Ugh, Bernie's a socialist," but you've poisoned the well for other democrats by marking having a concern about everyone's health care as socialism.