Buttigieg Presidential Campaign

[barbos]

Buttigieg decided to become female volleyball player?

 

[Toni]

ALL candidates have a lot of flaws.

No candidate is perfect, so all candidates have flaws. But not all candidates have A LOT OF flaws. And not all candidates are equally flawed.
Kamala Harris is more flawed than most of the candidates who would have participated in the 2024 primary had Biden done the right thing and withdrew in Summer 2023.

Without the concerted disinformation campaign put forth by enemy nations, Trump is absolutely nothing but fatal flaws.

And yet Kamala Harris lost bigly. Dems made a mistake making her their standard bearer, brat summer and coconut trees notwithstanding.

Harris not more flawed than the other candidates unless one dislikes women, people of color or former prosecutors.

 

[scombrid]

Trans athletes are a way bigger worry than Blackrock owning all the housing stock and health care along with all the other oligarch fascist shenanigans.

 

[scombrid]

Don’t look at the GOP dismantling all the agencies that could investigate their scams and prosecute labor and environmental violations.

 

[Toni]

The fact is that people crowing about this are in bad faith.

People are not losing their scholarships to trans players.

It's just a completely disingenuous argument.

These folks number in the tens! There are tens of them, in their massive legions coming for sports, whole tens of them, I say.

Be warned, they are coming for your women's sports. By the tens!

And most of them still get trounced by biological women. Because biological women have MORE hormones and WAY more testosterone than these folks.

We better *checks project 2025 notes*... Send them to gulags in foreign countries to be *checks notes again*... Reeducated through forced labor in their duty to serve the state until *checks notes*... Death.

I absolutely DO recognize that trans female athletes are a tiny portion of female athletes. I applaud their courage, tenacity and skill, as I do all athletes.

That said, it is something that I struggle with a bit because I grew up in the era before and just after Title IX—my school was a slow adapter and I saw how the most talented female athletes were ridiculed and scorned by boys who were less Yale yes and a lot more insecure. As it was, girls were relegated to half court basketball —because -!: I quote my gym teacher: ‘full court was too hard for girls.’ Girls of my era fought hard and long to be allowed to play other than intramural sports and were only allowed access to courts or fields or the track or the like let rooms after every single boys sort team was finished playing or practicing. Girls did not get the support of..anybody at all except each other. No cheering crowds, no cheerleaders. Just a lot of ugly name calling. And always, we were expected to step aside for every whim of any male.

So, while my logical side knows trans athletes are not actually a significant issue, part of me responds to the issue as something else to push girls aside, even though this is not fact based.

At the same time, it is hard for me to not find it galling that the first woman Asst. Sec. of Health was trans and earned her rank and went through medical school as a male during a time when being male was a very real and significant advantage—which I know because we are very close in age. My sisters and I watched our less academically achieving male classmates get appointed to military academies, something we were not even allowed to dream of.

Of course I realize that it was extremely difficult for Levine to go through life in a male body but that male body absolutely bought her access that is girls and women did not have or at least not on equal footing.

So while I absolutely cheer Levine’s courage and achievements, it is nonetheless a bit galling to have her called the first woman Asst. Sec. of anything —because she achieved rank and medical school as a male. She had access to opportunities that most cis girls of her age did not have because they lacked a penis and testicles, not a working brain, drive, commitment and determination or courage.

I realize that is somewhat lost on generations that came after mine because girls and women have been allowed to compete on more equal footing.

 

[Jarhyn]

part of me responds to the issue as something else to push girls aside

Can you not see the people doing this are doing it to attack women's sports, to drive wedges and controversies into it, and that the people doing that are just straight up shitty?

I do think that there are some things that trans people will do first, as you say, because the barriers to women weren't applied to these people.

This is one of the reasons some people detest them so much; none of their normal prejudices work on arguing to keep them out. They are confusing, VEXING even to their worldview that "MEN!"

It brings even more into focus that nothing material is keeping women down but, in fact, "MEN!"

And in "MEN!" I will include every Emily Lake in the world, because they are part of that worship of "MEN!" in the rejection of any acceptance of an alternative, of crossing the categories.

 

[Politesse]

Trans athletes are a way bigger worry than Blackrock owning all the housing stock and health care along with all the other oligarch fascist shenanigans.

5 athletes. We're burning down the entire country to force 5 athletes to compete in a different league.

 

[TomC]

Trans athletes are a way bigger worry than Blackrock owning all the housing stock and health care along with all the other oligarch fascist shenanigans.

5 athletes. We're burning down the entire country to force 5 athletes to compete in a different league.

Nah.
You trans activists are burning down the entire country to force women to accept male competitors in competitive sports leagues.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

Trans athletes are a way bigger worry than Blackrock owning all the housing stock and health care along with all the other oligarch fascist shenanigans.

5 athletes. We're burning down the entire country to force 5 athletes to compete in a different league.

Nah.
You trans activists are burning down the entire country to force women to accept male competitors in competitive sports leagues.
Tom

I'm not a "trans activist". I'm just not an asshole who cares more about bullshit than I do about democracy.

If you want to try and push your religious views on, say, the NCAA, you have every right to do so and I will not stop you from trying. Send them some letters. Shout at their president the next time they have a press conference. Refuse to buy tickets to their matches until they go on a stupid witch hunt for you. Those are all fine. Stupid, but legal. Dismantling the federal government and replacing it with a corrupt autocracy so you can abuse the power of legislature just in order to achieve an undemocratic goal? Is not the same thing.

 

[Derec]

Harris not more flawed than the other candidates unless one dislikes women, people of color or former prosecutors.

That is bullshit. And the more Dems insists that the reasons Kamala Harris lost were sexism and racism, the less likely they are to fix anything and win in 2028.

Kamala Harris was not a good candidate. She was one of the most left-wing Senators during her short tenure. She contested the outside left lane with Bernie and Warren in 2020, when she advocated for cockamamie ideas such as banning fracking and offshore drilling. I guess this was partly motivated by the fact that her prosecutor bona fides made her unacceptable to big parts of the base, but she overshot the mark.

She showed poor judgment in ways other than her ideological positioning. Despite strong fundraising, she ran through her funds before 2019 was over. Her attack on Biden over forcible bussing in the 1970s was also a major misstep.

Her eventually getting picked for Veep in 2020 was classic DEI. Biden pledged to only consider women for the position, and then the George Floyd riots made women with no black ancestry politucally untenable with the base. So Kami was picked despite her manifold flaws. She was never popular as Veep.
Then came the disastrous Biden debate, and his overly long indecision over whether to step down, until Dems had no choice but to hope that she could pull it off despite all odds.

2024 cycle was one where the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party waned in popularity. That Summer, Squad privates Cori Bush and "Fire Marshall" Jamaal Bowman lost their respective primaries. Kamala Harris was poorly positioned in this new landscape due to her past positions. And yet she dug in with expensive spending proposals, like a child tax credit even more generous than what was proposed by Biden in his Spendapalooza. She also proposed $25k for first time home buyers and forgivable loans for black business owners only.

Let's not get me started on her "memes and vibes" centered campaign with coconut trees and Brat Summer, or her choice to pick Tim "Knucklehead" Walz as running mate just because he called Republicans "weird".

Dems need to do better when it comes to selecting candidates.

 

[Toni]

Harris not more flawed than the other candidates unless one dislikes women, people of color or former prosecutors.

That is bullshit. And the more Dems insists that the reasons Kamala Harris lost were sexism and racism, the less likely they are to fix anything and win in 2028.

Kamala Harris was not a good candidate. She was one of the most left-wing Senators during her short tenure. She contested the outside left lane with Bernie and Warren in 2020, when she advocated for cockamamie ideas such as banning fracking and offshore drilling. I guess this was partly motivated by the fact that her prosecutor bona fides made her unacceptable to big parts of the base, but she overshot the mark.

She showed poor judgment in ways other than her ideological positioning. Despite strong fundraising, she ran through her funds before 2019 was over. Her attack on Biden over forcible bussing in the 1970s was also a major misstep.

Her eventually getting picked for Veep in 2020 was classic DEI. Biden pledged to only consider women for the position, and then the George Floyd riots made women with no black ancestry politucally untenable with the base. So Kami was picked despite her manifold flaws. She was never popular as Veep.
Then came the disastrous Biden debate, and his overly long indecision over whether to step down, until Dems had no choice but to hope that she could pull it off despite all odds.

2024 cycle was one where the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party waned in popularity. That Summer, Squad privates Cori Bush and "Fire Marshall" Jamaal Bowman lost their respective primaries. Kamala Harris was poorly positioned in this new landscape due to her past positions. And yet she dug in with expensive spending proposals, like a child tax credit even more generous than what was proposed by Biden in his Spendapalooza. She also proposed $25k for first time home buyers and forgivable loans for black business owners only.

Let's not get me started on her "memes and vibes" centered campaign with coconut trees and Brat Summer, or her choice to pick Tim "Knucklehead" Walz as running mate just because he called Republicans "weird".

Dems need to do better when it comes to selecting candidates.

So what you are saying is that you are a Rockefeller Republican.

 

[laughing dog]

Harris not more flawed than the other candidates unless one dislikes women, people of color or former prosecutors.

That is bullshit. And the more Dems insists that the reasons Kamala Harris lost were sexism and racism, the less likely they are to fix anything and win in 2028.

Kamala Harris was not a good candidate. She was one of the most left-wing Senators during her short tenure. She contested the outside left lane with Bernie and Warren in 2020, when she advocated for cockamamie ideas such as banning fracking and offshore drilling. I guess this was partly motivated by the fact that her prosecutor bona fides made her unacceptable to big parts of the base, but she overshot the mark.

She showed poor judgment in ways other than her ideological positioning. Despite strong fundraising, she ran through her funds before 2019 was over. Her attack on Biden over forcible bussing in the 1970s was also a major misstep.

Her eventually getting picked for Veep in 2020 was classic DEI. Biden pledged to only consider women for the position, and then the George Floyd riots made women with no black ancestry politucally untenable with the base. So Kami was picked despite her manifold flaws. She was never popular as Veep.
Then came the disastrous Biden debate, and his overly long indecision over whether to step down, until Dems had no choice but to hope that she could pull it off despite all odds.

2024 cycle was one where the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party waned in popularity. That Summer, Squad privates Cori Bush and "Fire Marshall" Jamaal Bowman lost their respective primaries. Kamala Harris was poorly positioned in this new landscape due to her past positions. And yet she dug in with expensive spending proposals, like a child tax credit even more generous than what was proposed by Biden in his Spendapalooza. She also proposed $25k for first time home buyers and forgivable loans for black business owners only.

Let's not get me started on her "memes and vibes" centered campaign with coconut trees and Brat Summer, or her choice to pick Tim "Knucklehead" Walz as running mate just because he called Republicans "weird".

Dems need to do better when it comes to selecting candidates.

So what you are saying is that you are a Rockefeller Republican.

Why insult an extinct breed?

 

[Toni]

part of me responds to the issue as something else to push girls aside

Can you not see the people doing this are doing it to attack women's sports, to drive wedges and controversies into it, and that the people doing that are just straight up shitty?

I do think that there are some things that trans people will do first, as you say, because the barriers to women weren't applied to these people.

This is one of the reasons some people detest them so much; none of their normal prejudices work on arguing to keep them out. They are confusing, VEXING even to their worldview that "MEN!"

It brings even more into focus that nothing material is keeping women down but, in fact, "MEN!"

And in "MEN!" I will include every Emily Lake in the world, because they are part of that worship of "MEN!" in the rejection of any acceptance of an alternative, of crossing the categories.

I do see that!

I do not claim that I am in the moral right, if there is such a thing.

What I am explaining is the perspective of some women of my generation feeling once again pushed aside and told we are not good enough.

For me, trans girls in girls sports is less galling than to have to swallow the fact that the first woman Asst. Sec made her bones with a penis and testicles which were very close to mandatory during her youth.

I do NOT fail to recognize that she had an incredibly difficult path being trans. Even more than the difficulty of attaining her station and rank, period. But the fact is that it would have been nearly impossible for her to have achieved rank without the penis and testicles.

I am very happy that she is living her life as she chooses. But it galls me that she won that first when so much of what helped her achieve what she did was the gender she appeared to be.

 

[Jarhyn]

part of me responds to the issue as something else to push girls aside

Can you not see the people doing this are doing it to attack women's sports, to drive wedges and controversies into it, and that the people doing that are just straight up shitty?

I do think that there are some things that trans people will do first, as you say, because the barriers to women weren't applied to these people.

This is one of the reasons some people detest them so much; none of their normal prejudices work on arguing to keep them out. They are confusing, VEXING even to their worldview that "MEN!"

It brings even more into focus that nothing material is keeping women down but, in fact, "MEN!"

And in "MEN!" I will include every Emily Lake in the world, because they are part of that worship of "MEN!" in the rejection of any acceptance of an alternative, of crossing the categories.

I do see that!

I do not claim that I am in the moral right, if there is such a thing.

What I am explaining is the perspective of some women of my generation feeling once again pushed aside and told we are not good enough.

For me, trans girls in girls sports is less galling than to have to swallow the fact that the first woman Asst. Sec made her bones with a penis and testicles which were very close to mandatory during her youth.

I do NOT fail to recognize that she had an incredibly difficult path being trans. Even more than the difficulty of attaining her station and rank, period. But the fact is that it would have been nearly impossible for her to have achieved rank without the penis and testicles.

I am very happy that she is living her life as she chooses. But it galls me that she won that first when so much of what helped her achieve what she did was the gender she appeared to be.

It does suck. I was trying to make clear that I really do acknowledge that the apparent gender through childhood is a big contributor.

Women have gotten a lot of firsts. Maybe it will help the intuition to remember that of all the firsts in the world, trans women should be expected to beat women in a percent of all women's accomplishments and because of the lack of discrimination in education, overrepresented.

That makes me feel angry too, because it highlights the real effects of that discrimination and the reality of toxic gender enforcement.

 

[Derec]

So what you are saying is that you are a Rockefeller Republican.

I wasn't even born when Rockefeller was Veep, so no.
I think it is quite sad that you think wanting Dems to choose a good candidate is somehow being a Republican.

Do you have any actual comments about the points I made, or do you just have snark to throw around?

 

[TV and credit cards]

Harris not more flawed than the other candidates unless one dislikes women, people of color or former prosecutors.

That is bullshit. And the more Dems insists that the reasons Kamala Harris lost were sexism and racism, the less likely they are to fix anything and win in 2028.

Kamala Harris was not a good candidate. She was one of the most left-wing Senators during her short tenure.

Seems to me anyone paying enough attention to politics to know how far left Harris is on the political spectrum would also recognize what a danger Trump is to our country.

And all the rest.

She contested the outside left lane with Bernie and Warren in 2020, when she advocated for cockamamie ideas such as banning fracking and offshore drilling. I guess this was partly motivated by the fact that her prosecutor bona fides made her unacceptable to big parts of the base, but she overshot the mark.

She showed poor judgment in ways other than her ideological positioning. Despite strong fundraising, she ran through her funds before 2019 was over. Her attack on Biden over forcible bussing in the 1970s was also a major misstep.

Her eventually getting picked for Veep in 2020 was classic DEI. Biden pledged to only consider women for the position, and then the George Floyd riots made women with no black ancestry politucally untenable with the base. So Kami was picked despite her manifold flaws. She was never popular as Veep.
Then came the disastrous Biden debate, and his overly long indecision over whether to step down, until Dems had no choice but to hope that she could pull it off despite all odds.

2024 cycle was one where the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party waned in popularity. That Summer, Squad privates Cori Bush and "Fire Marshall" Jamaal Bowman lost their respective primaries. Kamala Harris was poorly positioned in this new landscape due to her past positions. And yet she dug in with expensive spending proposals, like a child tax credit even more generous than what was proposed by Biden in his Spendapalooza. She also proposed $25k for first time home buyers and forgivable loans for black business owners only.

Let's not get me started on her "memes and vibes" centered campaign with coconut trees and Brat Summer, or her choice to pick Tim "Knucklehead" Walz as running mate just because he called Republicans "weird".

Dems need to do better when it comes to selecting candidates.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Trans athletes are a way bigger worry than Blackrock owning all the housing stock and health care along with all the other oligarch fascist shenanigans.

5 athletes. We're burning down the entire country to force 5 athletes to compete in a different league.

I agree. It's completely disproportionate to vastly more important issues. However, the symbolism of this issues has been easily exploited by the right and was a contributor* to losing in 2024. In addition, the outsized internet voices who harass and demonize people like JK Rowling and Dave Chapelle further aggravates the problem.

If we do get to vote in fair elections again, it's going to be time to put practicality before ideology.

*Please note the word "contributor" does not mean "sole reason."

 

[Toni]

So what you are saying is that you are a Rockefeller Republican.

I wasn't even born when Rockefeller was Veep, so no.
I think it is quite sad that you think wanting Dems to choose a good candidate is somehow being a Republican.

Do you have any actual comments about the points I made, or do you just have snark to throw around?

So you don’t know what a Rockefeller Republican is. Google could have helped you.

Here’s a link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Republican


I wasn’t being snarky but trying to make a point. I actually think you would very much be in line with this ideology. That is not an insult of any kind.

You seem to be anti-‘big government’ and vehemently opposed to what you consider identity politics, at least in so far as they give equal weight to women and persons of color. I, myself wish that it were not relevant what a person’s gender or race or religion or orientation or country of origin were but we are definitely not there. YOU are very far from there as afaik, no female or POC candidate or officeholder can be mentioned without you fixating on the sex/gender and/or race.

You rail about how far left Harris is which is quite laughable. But then you think I’m far left radical. My kids tend to see me as at best, middle of the road.

My POV is that race, gender, religion, country of origin should have no role in determining fitness for any job or office. You are among those who demonstrate that those things do matter to people like you and in your mind, the only reason that individual is selected for anything good.

 

[Politesse]

In addition, the outsized internet voices who harass and demonize people like JK Rowling and Dave Chapelle further aggravates the problem.

Those individuals went out of their way to harass other people. People who, being millionaires and public figures, had quite a platform for their views. But their so-called "cancellation", which mostly consisted of people typing responses to their messages, is the only thing you consider harassment. Double standard, much?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I do NOT fail to recognize that she had an incredibly difficult path being trans. Even more than the difficulty of attaining her station and rank, period. But the fact is that it would have been nearly impossible for her to have achieved rank without the penis and testicles.

One of the main takeaways by the UCI in their study on transgenders in sports was indeed that while generally having a male chassis appeared to provide an advantage, one of the underappreciated advantages trans athletes had was that boys are bred for sports. Boys are bred to be successful. This is an early advantage, this is a big advantage.

The people who are adamantly against Lia Thomas in swimming are generally the same people mocking the USWNT soccer team, boycotting the Women's World Cup because the women wanted better training facilities and payouts for their performances. These same people were applauding Butker for his 1950s view on women. They aren't fighting for fairness in women's sports, they just want transgender people to go away, mostly because transgender people confuse them.