2020 US Election (Part One)

[Truthy]

I have known one person that was a habitual liar and everyone in our extended friend and working group either turned on him or learned to be ok with the constant lying. My anecdote proves nothing of course

I know a guy like that! He’s a horrible horrible person and a lot of good people buy into or overlook his bs

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Timsup2nothin @hobbsyoyo My point was to introduce you all to Murray Gell-Mann. I just needed an excuse. He was also the founder of the Santa Fe Institute. Cool guy.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Point taken.

 

[Lexicus]

I would not have thought it contentious to describe a relative political outsider winning over forty percent of declared delegates "successful". If insisting upon this will cause unnecessary distress, I am happy to amend my claim to "as successful as he has been". But the point remains unchanged: Sanders has successfully appealed to sections of the electorate who are either disenchanted with the Democratic leadership, or actively hostile to it. He did not create this sentiment, he has simply given it voice at a natural level. Pretending that this is not the case because admitting as much is inconvenient for your short-term political goals is, at best, naive, at worst, wilfully self-destructive.

I'm curious as to what substantive concessions are going to be offered to Bernie supporters to bring them into the fold moving forward from the convention. My guess is the DNC will freeze Bernie and his supporters out completely. Maybe Chuck Schumer will even say something like "for every Bernie bro we lose we'll pick up two moderate Republicans."

Couldn't hurt to try?


He wasn't voted in to do it, but it was a priority of a large part of the electorate. He was responsive to that as it was a fairly painless trade to make for the meager agreements he could eek out of Teahadists. Yes, he was responding to racists motivations from racist people, and the policy was not good. But it is unfair to paint it as a direct prelude to the kids in cages of today as if that was the inevitable outcome of Obama's actions. These arguments also absolve Trump of too much responsibility as well.

Trying would simply have made Bernie come across as inauthentic. This whole idea that the Democratic establishment doesn't like Bernie and his supporters bc they aren't nice enough is complete nonsense and everyone knows it. The reality is you cannot meaningfully advance the interests of the dispossessed without alienating the comfortable.

And your second point is disputable given that Obama did put children in cages and only stopped because a court ordered him to.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This whole idea that the Democratic establishment doesn't like Bernie and his supporters bc they aren't nice enough is complete nonsense and everyone knows it.

Good thing, because no one thinks that. Or at least no one thinks it's important. Sure, I "don't like" the Sanders supporters that are glaringly obvious trolls and say stupid nonsense all the time. And there may be some people who outright "don't like" Sanders himself for the acidic rhetoric that he spews, but "dislike" isn't really an issue. "Won't vote for in the primary" is the issue, and yeah, when he says "if you don't support the movement you're the enemy" people are gonna tend to say "oh, okay, well if that's the way it is I guess we're enemies and I just won't vote for you." If you are satisfied with losing with the not enough votes that you have then you don't want to find any common ground and that's fine.

But it doesn't leave him much of a case later when he is whining that the nomination "was stolen" from him. He won't get the nomination if he doesn't get the votes, and based on his speech last night he either lacks the will or the ability to get any more votes. And disillusionment with the inevitability of losing that creates has apparently started to set in among the voters he had, because now he is losing primaries that he won last time. I'm not taking a position on his policies. I'm just looking at the political strategies, and his won't work.

Meanwhile, Mr Authentic, Bernie Sanders, gets caught in a cutter paster ad stringing Obama clips into a fake endorsement. Pile weak tactics onto bad strategy.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Meanwhile Bidens brain continues down the same path as Reagan's

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Meanwhile Bidens brain continues down the same path as Reagan's

You do know that Sanders is older than Biden, right? What gives him immunity to this brain decay you are worried about in everyone else?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

You do know that Sanders is older than Biden, right? What gives him immunity to this brain decay you are worried about in everyone else?

What's with this disengenuous bull man?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What's with this disengenuous bull man?

That's genuine curiosity. I legit don't like the age on any of these candidates, because I have seen how fast a brain can just shrivel away when it turns that corner at eighty. So how is it that none of Sanders followers seem concerned about him when they rant endlessly about every opponent he faces being "on the edge of dementia"?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Because like it or not Biden performances as of late are worrying

 

[cardgame]

That's genuine curiosity. I legit don't like the age on any of these candidates, because I have seen how fast a brain can just shrivel away when it turns that corner at eighty. So how is it that none of Sanders followers seem concerned about him when they rant endlessly about every opponent he faces being "on the edge of dementia"?

Because they are?

You'll notice nobody said Bloomberg was demented, except morally, of course.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because like it or not Biden performances as of late are worrying

I keep hearing that, but all I see is an occasional word stumble, which given the number of speeches these people are making is just gonna happen. It's not like Sanders never trips a word. That's just part of the deal. Obama stumbled words despite being a great orator. GWBush flatly butchered words wholesale on a regular basis. Both of them were young, so that was all just taken in stride. Not my gig to do otherwise here. Maybe if a younger candidate had been in position to stay in the race it would be different.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

There's stumbling words, I get that, then there's nonsense and brain-derived dementia.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There's stumbling words, I get that, then there's nonsense and brain-derived dementia.

Yeah, and I've been around that up close and personal...and that doesn't qualify me to diagnose it from a speech clip.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

But he's going against Trump, doesn't that concern you at least?

Why would I have any sort of positivity with one brain-addled loser going against another, with Trump having no problem whatsoever sinking to the lowest level? Don't you get that, don't you understand that it's not very appealing to me? It's not making me hopeful or optimistic and that's not my problem, that's a problem with who we're effectively being saddled with.

Do you understand? This isn't rocket science or some mysterious art; this is basic human interaction.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Obama did put children in cages

Do you have a link please? Not that I disbelieve you but I would like to read more on this. I listened to some interviews with journalists who covered the border starting with Obama's ramp up and I do not recall that being one of his big border policies. He did build out new facilities and expanded the border patrol (bigly), but the standard policy was to reunite bordercrossers with state-side family pending their hearings. That's not to say there were no abuses, but that's a long way off from making kids in cages official, widespread policy.

Edit: Also! Obama's BP/ICE were using a lot of the cells that Trump is using but only for limited stays - basically they'd throw people in a jail-like cell while their immediate intake paperwork was processed. They were typically out within a day. Trump then converted these temporary holding cells into living quarters to make the misery the point of the thing. Very different situation.

This whole idea that the Democratic establishment doesn't like Bernie and his supporters bc they aren't nice enough is complete nonsense and everyone knows it.

The reality is you cannot meaningfully advance the interests of the dispossessed without alienating the comfortable.

Spoiler :

Am I missing something?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But he's going against Trump, doesn't that concern you at least?

Why would I have any sort of positivity with one brain-addled loser going against another, with Trump having no problem whatsoever sinking to the lowest level? Don't you get that, don't you understand that it's not very appealing to me? It's not making me hopeful or optimistic and that's not my problem, that's a problem with who we're effectively being saddled with.

Do you understand? This isn't rocket science or some mysterious art; this is basic human interaction.

Sure, I understand. Now here's a counterpoint...I'm not hopeful or optimistic about Sanders. I think the man is 90% charlatan, to start with, and has massive vulnerabilities in a general election that would cause real headwinds down the ticket. That's not my problem, that's a problem with your proposed alternative.

But none of that, on either side, matters. What matters is who can get the votes to get nominated...and that depends on how many people feel the way you do as compared to how many people feel the way I do among the people who get a vote. The fact that you feel one way and I feel the other is irrelevant...fine, our votes would cancel if we were handed the same primary ballots. But one guy is gonna get more votes and whichever of us likes it and whichever of us doesn't will ultimately make no difference so long as each of us does the responsible thing and votes as best the circumstances allow. I already said, I'm not gonna be happy-joy-joy voting for someone who will be over eighty by the end of their term, no matter who they are, but that's the world I'm gonna be handed.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I know a guy like that! He’s a horrible horrible person and a lot of good people buy into or overlook his bs

The guy that I know is super gregarious and outgoing. He's fun to be around. It's only after you've been around him for a bit that you realize he's lying about everything. Even then there was a period where we all thought we were going crazy about certain things until it just clicked that he couldn't even be honest about what he had for breakfast. It was so odd. If pathological lying is a real thing, he was a candidate for it.

My guess is the DNC will freeze Bernie and his supporters out completely.

Why? I think this would be foolish.

I think the man is 90% charlatan,

Whoa what ?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Biden ****ing sucks on race alone he is a terrible human being, in his own words he's admitted that nothing will change if he gets in and we have a real opportunity to get someone in who isn't a souless shill for corporations and rampant capitalism and you're poo-pooing the idea because you're so obsessed with electability, against a man who has boasted about sexually assaulting women. Half of this country has no issue with re-electing that man because they've sacrificed their own humanity and views politics as a game in which they get to inflict as much damage as possible to those they view as inherently lesser.

How many more Americans need to suffer before we stop this bull****? Biden sucks on Healthcare, He sucks on War, he sucks on race, he sucks on economic policy, he sucks on taxing corporations, he literally claimed he wanted to work with the GOP, what is this bulls**t? He has learnt nothing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Biden ****ing sucks on race alone he is a terrible human being, in his own words he's admitted that nothing will change if he gets in and we have a real opportunity to get someone in who isn't a souless shill for corporations and rampant capitalism and you're poo-pooing the idea because you're so obsessed with electability, against a man who has boasted about sexually assaulting women.

How many more Americans need to suffer before we stop this bull****?

You don't have a "real opportunity." Sanders couldn't get enough votes to win the nomination four years ago, and he is doing worse now. That's not my fault, that's a result of his political strategies and tactics.

In a nutshell, that's what makes me think of him as a charlatan. He has you, a person I like, among lots of others, wound up in his "if only the enemies weren't everywhere I'd be president" fantasy as if he were running a campaign that stood some sort of chance of winning when he just isn't. And he's 78 years old and has been in politics his entire adult life so as far as I'm concerned he has to know that he isn't.