2020 US Election (Part Two)

Excellent. Terwilliger 2020, here we come!

 

In spirit, yes... But pragmatically, I'm in Kansas and if my vote actually mattered Bernie would win a landslide. If it came down to me I'd go with Bernie, if it was between Biden and Trump, I'd lean Trump because of RussiaGate (the Dems can go to hell for that) or vote LP and let the country rerun the election. In 2018 I voted for the Dem running for secyofstate here and I haven't voted for a Republican in 40 years. But I'm not an independent, I've been voting Libertarian for 3 decades ever since Perot dropped in '92.

If it didn't involve his tongue thats not a problem, many people show familial affection that way.

 

Sanders rule Biden drools. I win this debate.

 

I am wondering about this, too, because Bernie was the only candidate with a support base. I do not quite understand the huge margins Biden enjoyed in the Super Tuesday states. The official explanation that the votes came from the other candidates' endorsements does not add up.

I ended up at a polling place on Super Tuesday by accident on the way back from an errand, and I voted for Biden, but I would not consider myself nor these circumstances as representative of his constituency.

 

And this debate, if you've just won with that gem, will lose miserably when facing the champion of the Special Olympics debating event.

 

I’d say you are not the typical Biden voter but share the most obvious trait - fear of change and resistance to new facts. The “get of my lawn, you don’t get to tell me I’ve been wrong all my life whippersnapper”, crowd if you will.

Usually 65+ but also younger especially on the conservative side. Being conservative that is as it should be because preservation of culture and habits are core values - but on the liberal side that’s just counterproductive and self-defeating. Kyle Kulinski had a YouTube piece yesterday about some anchor on MSDNC finally getting it. Followed by a discussion about the media narrative. Fact is more young people are out voting this election but completely countered by the 65+ numbers shooting through the roof. Boomers fired up by the fiscal conservative media like CNN and MSDNC scare propaganda of Bernie and electability lies about Biden. And there is nothing to support the electability. The most parallel examples were 2004 and 2016, Kerry and Hillary. Both ran almost exclusively on electability and without substance on issues – just like Biden does now. Both lost.

There is a real fear of change with older Dems – I think it’s fair to say they are now conservatives that still think they are liberals (because they don’t oppose gay marriage and minorities – that’s not enough).

–“So, you think you could win without Boomers?” I don’t know. But look at the conservatives posing as liberals in this and the former thread. They are very efficient at wet blanketing the progressive discussion. They’re even earn support by many weaker liberal millennials and Xers. That happens at work, and in family gathering as well. It’s hard to know how well a progressive party would be able to do in America because it’s not allowed to exist.

 

It's functionally impossible to get elected.

If Sanders supporters could elect their own party they would be a minor party with maybe 10% or whatever if the US Congress.

You would have 4 or 5 parties as the main 2 would fragment.

 

Except this is wrong poll after poll after poll show popular support for progressive policies.

Assuming that the democratic party went with the policies they support according to polls it would be more like 28%, add in independents who support those policies and it would be close to 38% (minimum from the polling I've seen) which would be a plurality compared to other platforms.

 

I can’t get my head around something I hear and something I see.

What I hear: Sanders’ positions are popular with the public at large when polled.

What I see: Sanders losing primary contests within a party that would generally be more favorable to his positions.

Is there something I’m missing here?

 

Yeah, from my perspective, the '04 convention was when he gained national attention.

Same here.

 

Jake Tapper, of all people, lays this out in this clip Kyle pulled. It's all about who they think is electable. Tim can't figure out why people think he's against single-payer while he full throatedly opposes Bernie. He professes to be in favor of the policy, he just thinks Biden has the better chance.

You don't have to watch the whole video, just the clip from CNN. It's weird to see Jake have such a moment of clarity but he actually does a good job. He uses Kerry v Dean in '04 as his example which isn't a terrible analogy. Dean was the more progressive guy in that primary.

 

I’ll give it a watch when I can. Thanks!

 

Watched it all. Seems reasonable. "Electability" is memetic, defying a uniform characterization. In some way, though, the gestalt choice of Biden over Sanders on this deceptive idea of Biden's higher "electability" expresses where the passion is. We have not been talking passionately about universal welfare and the environment for three years. They have been on the boilerplate, but all the passion was invested in the Mueller report and the impeachment hearings. Biden comes from apparatus engaged in those projects— the top level of the previous admin and the DNC— so while the passion is not in him personally, he has a resume and is tied more closely to the all-consuming goal of getting rid of Trump than the old bolshevik is.

Now that Biden is the frontrunner, if Super Tuesday were re-held next week I would switch to Bernie. Well actually I'd probably just vote in the GOP primary like I was supposed to; like I said this all happened by accident. So, Mr. Biden had better hope I am not typical.

I have been pleased with the changes taking place in the US in the last several years. Progressives have been terrified and outraged by the same changes. All the romance of turning one's own political party inside-out and waging war on the bureaucracy, which hates him, was Trump's GOP. The progressive side is stuck in the relative rut of accepting intel community narratives about Trump relayed to them through legacy media and then voting for Joe Biden. It's pathetic.

 

He can't win 50% if the ones that vote in Democratic primaries.

If the party split most people would stay loyal. Overall at large the Dems have 47% iirc he's not gonna get half that.

You would have the two main parties, probably a hard left and right party and one in the middle. Each smaller party would probably get 5-10% of the vote probably no more than 15%.

You might have more than 4 or 5 initially plus some regional type ones. A popular senator or governor could carry their state.

You still wouldn't get overly progressive parties. Things get dragged towards the center as no party would win a majority.

The minor party leaders would probably become secretary of whatever but the important ones like finance would be in the main party.

The left would also fragment more.

 

^We keep hearing that supposedly Biden voters are always going to vote democrat (which sort of seems plausible, given most of them are very old and they tend to just choose the party instead of a candidate), so if that is true it is correct what Tapper (never thought I'd say this ) said re Bernie. Bernie would then get those boomer "always democrat" votes by default, but crucially would also mobilize independents and first-time voters. Biden won't.
Anyway, it won't matter if Biden gets the nomination. He is likely to go the way of Gore-Kerry-Hillary.

 

The Deep State has been uncovered in the various intel agencies, the FBI, the Dept of Justice more generally, the State Department, and now courtesy of Covid-19 the CDC specifically and HHS generally. It's a wonder that the Bushes got anything done at all, in retrospect. All these theoretically professionally-apolitical organizations that turn out to be conniving to bring down Republican presidents. Madness!

 

I guess the problem for many such people is that Trump, himself, is not a Conservative - except maybe in trade policy, but in so "old school," of a way (tariffs and protectionism), both major parties had long abandoned such ideas for open free trade for decades. But socially, as a person and his own personal beliefs and lifestyle, Trump is one of the least Conservative Presidents to date, period - MAYBE only being given a run for his money by Obama and Kennedy, though for different reasons.

I find it quite amusing that Trump has "legitimized," into popular and accepted, even expected, parlance, what was originally a ridiculed, paranoid, tin-foil-hat, conspiracy theory term coined by Lyndon LaRouche!

 

I don't think of it that way, I figure Trump just expanded the quantity of people that take the term seriously from thousands to millions. It really is still a ridiculed, paranoid, tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory term at root.

 

Can't even tell if this is satire or not.

 

Everyone who opposed the Iraq war had believed in the existence of the deep state by more palatable names for their entire lives. Terms like the MIC have been around since Ike.