Democrats 2020

[PyramidHead]

Always remember that the people saying Biden is the one with the best chance to beat Trump are the same ones who thought that Clinton was gonna clinch the presidency in a landslide. These people are always wrong, never learn from their mistakes, will always find a way to blame externalities first and foremost, and are generally stuck in the electoral strategy of the 1970's. Part of the effort that goes into maintaining their delusional worldview is to pretend that 2016 was an aberration, a historical fluke with no precedent and nothing to teach us, and all we need to do is restore the nation to the way it was immediately before 2016 and everything will be okay again. The fatal mistake that this country will probably make in 2020 is electing a person like Biden, who will restore some of the veneer of superficial respectability to the office of President without addressing any of the structural problems that led to Trump. Then, in one or two terms depending on how bad things get, we'll get another person like Trump, only smarter and more politically-minded.

ETA: and it looks like Trump is counting on the Dems doing just that:



You hate to see it... but he's right about why he's here

 

[Worldtraveller]

It would be spot on. The danger to America is the Dems in their present guise of a sharp turn left ala Cuba, Venezuela type socialism.

You know, I love how angelo really typifies the right wing authoritarian stereotype. It's actually somewhat entertaining. You could make a bingo card from the Authoritarians and list all of the common traits. It would be kinda boring to actually play though, because the whole card would just fill up to quickly....

 

[Politesse]

Apparently Trump is a Bernie bro, at least judging by this morning's tweetstorm. Go figure!

 

[Terrell]

Exactly, because both major parties are and have been to a large degree somewhat center. The present rabble of Dems presidential nominations of " lefties " like Sanders and his ilk would steer America towards Cuban style socialisms which I doubt rational Americans would vote for.

You are wrong.

View attachment 21196

The only ones that don't support Medicare-for-all, Bernie's prime policy, is the shrinking population of Republicans. And everyone knows they're just morons.

It's more complicated than that. The 2020 election isn't a single issue referendum, on this specific issue. Supporting UHC doesn't necessarily mean voters will vote for politicians that support UHC. Said voters may have other issues where they disagree with the Democrats & consider said issues to be of higher priority than UHC.

 

[Elixir]

Said voters may have other issues where they disagree with the Democrats & consider said issues to be of higher priority than UHC.

Yeah, like expanding the terribly narrow wealth gap, torturing displaced families at the border and instituting Xtianity as the State Religion? Maybe conferring more power upon the Presidency to stifle the coup attempts of Congress?

 

[Politesse]

Sort of met one of the candidates yesterday? Saw his entourage anyway, though I didn't realize it until afterward as the visit wasn't announced. Mr. O'Rourke was on campus to tour our experimental irrigation system program. The reporters were there though, so I caught the video. He announced a rather (imo) fanciful climate change plan to the tune of 5 trillion dollars. The man would fit in if he ever tries to migrate to California politics. Not exactly a compliment. He seems nice and well-intentioned, and character-wise it speaks well of him that he bothered to tour the SJ Valley at all. The locals are enthusiastically grateful for the uncommon attention. But he didn't give the impression of.... well, knowing anything.

 

[Terrell]

Said voters may have other issues where they disagree with the Democrats & consider said issues to be of higher priority than UHC.

Yeah, like expanding the terribly narrow wealth gap, torturing displaced families at the border and instituting Xtianity as the State Religion? Maybe conferring more power upon the Presidency to stifle the coup attempts of Congress?

Some of them do seem to want Christianity to be the state religion. If they hold theocracy as a more important issue to them than UHC, I doubt they're voting Democratic. I think that the same applies to guns, abortion, and a myriad of other issues. One issue, unless it's a top priority issue with enough support to flip a few key states, it really says little to the outcome of the 2020 election.

 

[EvoUK]

Touring US Conservative boards their main concerns in no particular order:

Abortion
SCOTUS
Conservative judges (called traditionalist judges because I assume it sounds better)
Anti gay rights
Anti trans rights
Immigration
The perceived attack against christianity

They claim though they don't necessarily like trump, or his tweets, the main thing is Hillary isn't POTUS as she's some kind of boogeyman to these people.

They claim mostly to be independants but in reality they would only vote for a democrat if they went on the above policies, so their claim to be independants is nonsensical.

They claim not to defend trump, but at the same time is a thread or post is made about his next idiocy they'll never join in the attack, and usually defend him under the guise of stopping Liberal snowflakery.

The fact that its largely non Christian or worse Liberal Christian posters who bring it up doesn't help as naysaying them is a reflex.

They also claim Mueller report is done, nothing to see here, nothing illegal or he would have indicted, move on.

There's a few trump fans, but the fact that most of them claim to disagree with how he goes about things, yet never say anything against him and also claim to be independants does seem rather confusing.

I'd post a link to an example, but I doubt it's nothing you haven't seen before and trawling through pages of another board isn't really that interesting.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Always remember that the people saying Biden is the one with the best chance to beat Trump are the same ones who thought that Clinton was gonna clinch the presidency in a landslide. These people are always wrong, never learn from their mistakes, will always find a way to blame externalities first and foremost, and are generally stuck in the electoral strategy of the 1970's. Part of the effort that goes into maintaining their delusional worldview is to pretend that 2016 was an aberration, a historical fluke with no precedent and nothing to teach us, and all we need to do is restore the nation to the way it was immediately before 2016 and everything will be okay again. The fatal mistake that this country will probably make in 2020 is electing a person like Biden, who will restore some of the veneer of superficial respectability to the office of President without addressing any of the structural problems that led to Trump. Then, in one or two terms depending on how bad things get, we'll get another person like Trump, only smarter and more politically-minded.

ETA: and it looks like Trump is counting on the Dems doing just that:

View attachment 21199

You hate to see it... but he's right about why he's here

Yea. Doggone we on the left are lucky to have Trump looking out for out interests. It's swell that Trump is giving us such great advice. Yea, Obama didn't win many elections. I guess that after 10,000 lies that Trump has turned the corner and he's looking out for us now?

 

[angelo]

Trump will still leave office - voluntarily, or in shackles - in eight year's time.

I hope you meant "within five and a half years time."

The fact is that only about a third of the electorate think he is okay or better, and almost half of the electorate would vote for a pet rock over another tRump term.
The two ways he could get another term are if the Dems nominate another Hillary (Joe?), and/or if Putin, MBS et al are a lot better at election meddling than they were in 2016.
If I were to assume, as you seem to, that Trump will be around until 2024, I would also assume that there will be no elections that year, as Trump will have had time by then to entirely dismantle the electoral system.

It's not Trump who wants to dismantle the electoral system!

https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/2...oral-college-just-latest-attack-constitution/

 

[ZiprHead]

Trump will still leave office - voluntarily, or in shackles - in eight year's time.

I hope you meant "within five and a half years time."

The fact is that only about a third of the electorate think he is okay or better, and almost half of the electorate would vote for a pet rock over another tRump term.
The two ways he could get another term are if the Dems nominate another Hillary (Joe?), and/or if Putin, MBS et al are a lot better at election meddling than they were in 2016.
If I were to assume, as you seem to, that Trump will be around until 2024, I would also assume that there will be no elections that year, as Trump will have had time by then to entirely dismantle the electoral system.

It's not Trump who wants to dismantle the electoral system!

https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/2...oral-college-just-latest-attack-constitution/

Angelo, we all know your opinions are shit. We all know if your side lost several elections to the side that got less votes, you too would be against that system. Your partisan beliefs just won't let you admit it.

 

[PyramidHead]

You hate to see it... but he's right about why he's here

Yea. Doggone we on the left are lucky to have Trump looking out for out interests. It's swell that Trump is giving us such great advice. Yea, Obama didn't win many elections. I guess that after 10,000 lies that Trump has turned the corner and he's looking out for us now?

You're reading way too much into what I wrote, which is that he's right about why he's here: he ran on a platform that said "Obama/Biden bad, me good", and voters believed him. This time, he's running on a platform that says "Me still good" and the Dem strategy appears to currently be "run a substantially worse candidate than the one who lost to Trump last time"

 

[PyramidHead]

REQUIRED READING:

Democrats have created an "electability" monster

“Electability” is a crock of shit. It is defined, like political “moderation,” only in terms of opposition to things people want, but are told they can’t have, ranging from antiwar politics to left-wing economic populism to even the “cultural liberalism” that is seemingly the cornerstone of the modern Democratic Party. (Back in 2004, supporting civil unions, not even marriage, for same-sex couples was a threat to a Democrat’s perceived “electability.”) While the impulse to vote according to how you think a candidate would appeal to people who don’t share your priorities might make sense in theory, practice has revealed time and time again that no one involved in electoral politics—from the pundits down to the caucus-goers—has a clue who or what Americans will actually vote for. That was supposed to be, as the political scientist Masket says, the main lesson of Trump’s election.

But Democratic voters did not teach themselves to prioritize electability over their own actual concerns. They were trained to, over many years, by party figures who over-interpreted the loss of George McGovern, or who wanted to use the fear of McGovern to maintain their power over the Democratic candidate pipeline and nomination process. “Electability” is a way to get voters to carry out a contrary agenda—not their own—while convincing them they’re being “responsible.”

And now Democratic candidates and their most loyal voters are stuck in an absurd feedback loop. The politicians campaign and govern as if they themselves don’t believe a majority of voters prefer their agenda, signaling to their most loyal voters that they must vote not for what they want, but for what they imagine their more-conservative neighbors might want.

And once again, so those in the back can hear it...

Expecting voters to behave like pundits—asking people to vote for what expensive consultants and Sunday show guests imagine people like them might want instead of what they actually want—would be perverse even if it worked. But unless and until the Democratic electorate can be given license to support what it supports, each failure of the “electability” paradigm will only be taken as proof of the need to retreat further into learned helplessness.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Electabilty isn't a crazy concept. Right now, it seems to be overpowering some people's minds though. "Can they beat Trump?" seems to be the only question some people are asking themselves.

But from a general concept, electability isn't bad, because you need to know if someone is actually electable from a national perspective. This is why candidates usually swing towards the middle after primaries.

Granted, Donald Trump was in no way electable... but he won anyway.

 

[PyramidHead]

Electabilty isn't a crazy concept. Right now, it seems to be overpowering some people's minds though. "Can they beat Trump?" seems to be the only question some people are asking themselves.

But from a general concept, electability isn't bad, because you need to know if someone is actually electable from a national perspective. This is why candidates usually swing towards the middle after primaries.

Granted, Donald Trump was in no way electable... but he won anyway.

Exactly. None of the predictions people make about electability are ever better than reading entrails.

We are basically in a situation today that's roughly a repeat of 2004: bufoonish incumbent Republican president who will be challenged by a wide field of Dems ranging from centrist liberals to progressives. That year, the party put its faith in the eminently 'electable', statesmanlike war veteran John Kerry, whose candidacy failed to prevent a second Bush term. We are poised to do the same thing again next year with a Biden or an O'Rourke nomination: don't be so naive to think your president should have values you respect, motivations you can relate to, or respectable positions on issues you care about, just make sure the candidate is articulate or intersectional in the right ways. Punt the ball down the road to the next election to actually get the things you want (which is what you did in 2016, 2012, and 2008, but this time we promise they'll listen), and focus only on winning against Trump--the candidate whose win was so unpredictable that almost nobody can agree on the source of his appeal.

 

[angelo]

It's not Trump who wants to dismantle the electoral system!

https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/2...oral-college-just-latest-attack-constitution/

View attachment 21230

Angelo, we all know your opinions are shit. We all know if your side lost several elections to the side that got less votes, you too would be against that system. Your partisan beliefs just won't let you admit it.

Iv'e read up on the reason why the American founding fathers chose the electoral college voting system, and I agree with their reasoning of preventing states such as the now much more bigger states such as California and NY dominating, or and preventing a dictatorship that could easily occur otherwise. In most cases the party that wins the popular vote also wins the White House. But it happens sometimes that the smaller states with much less concentration of people elect a President as happened in 2016.

 

[angelo]

Electabilty isn't a crazy concept. Right now, it seems to be overpowering some people's minds though. "Can they beat Trump?" seems to be the only question some people are asking themselves.

But from a general concept, electability isn't bad, because you need to know if someone is actually electable from a national perspective. This is why candidates usually swing towards the middle after primaries.

Granted, Donald Trump was in no way electable... but he won anyway.

Exactly. None of the predictions people make about electability are ever better than reading entrails.

We are basically in a situation today that's roughly a repeat of 2004: bufoonish incumbent Republican president who will be challenged by a wide field of Dems ranging from centrist liberals to progressives. That year, the party put its faith in the eminently 'electable', statesmanlike war veteran John Kerry, whose candidacy failed to prevent a second Bush term. We are poised to do the same thing again next year with a Biden or an O'Rourke nomination: don't be so naive to think your president should have values you respect, motivations you can relate to, or respectable positions on issues you care about, just make sure the candidate is articulate or intersectional in the right ways. Punt the ball down the road to the next election to actually get the things you want (which is what you did in 2016, 2012, and 2008, but this time we promise they'll listen), and focus only on winning against Trump--the candidate whose win was so unpredictable that almost nobody can agree on the source of his appeal.

What Appeal! Wasn't the main reason the Trumpet was elected was because more Americans in the states that mattered couldn't stomach a Clinton presidency which many thought was just a continuation of an Obama regime?

 

[Harry Bosch]

It's not Trump who wants to dismantle the electoral system!

https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/2...oral-college-just-latest-attack-constitution/

View attachment 21230

Angelo, we all know your opinions are shit. We all know if your side lost several elections to the side that got less votes, you too would be against that system. Your partisan beliefs just won't let you admit it.

Iv'e read up on the reason why the American founding fathers chose the electoral college voting system, and I agree with their reasoning of preventing states such as the now much more bigger states such as California and NY dominating, or and preventing a dictatorship that could easily occur otherwise. In most cases the party that wins the popular vote also wins the White House. But it happens sometimes that the smaller states with much less concentration of people elect a President as happened in 2016.

I've always thought that this is the silliest argument. Due to work, last year I spent 35 days in San Francisco, 15 days in Wyoming, and 60 days in Alabama. When home, I'm crossing into the mean streets of Oregon and Idaho on a regular basis. Here's an unknown secret: there's really not a great difference in the communities. Clearly the SW is more religious and conservative. Secondly, I've always thought it odd that some people will only vote for a President if he/she visits his state. Why?

 

[ZiprHead]

It's not Trump who wants to dismantle the electoral system!

https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/2...oral-college-just-latest-attack-constitution/

View attachment 21230

Angelo, we all know your opinions are shit. We all know if your side lost several elections to the side that got less votes, you too would be against that system. Your partisan beliefs just won't let you admit it.

Iv'e read up on the reason why the American founding fathers chose the electoral college voting system, and I agree with their reasoning of preventing states such as the now much more bigger states such as California and NY dominating, or and preventing a dictatorship that could easily occur otherwise. In most cases the party that wins the popular vote also wins the White House. But it happens sometimes that the smaller states with much less concentration of people elect a President as happened in 2016.

States don't vote. People vote. So the premise from the start is flawed. The electoral college was a way they came up with to get the slave states to sign on. Just because it's from the "founding fathers" doesn't mean it's right or fair.

 

[angelo]

Aside from 1964, California was a reliably Republican state in every presidential election until 1992, when it was carried by Bill Clinton. The state has voted Democrat in every presidential election since 1992, usually by lopsided margins. [source wiki]

I'm certain you'd be happy if the Dems were in power continuously since 1992? This is exactly why the smaller states should also have a say wouldn't you think!