Democrats 2020

[PyramidHead]

Elizabeth Warren is a moderate centrist liberal, a former Republican who is committed to capitalism and supportive of basically anything Israel wants. She gets lumped in with Bernie as somehow being a leftist, but she isn't.

That's because Bernie is not a "leftist" either.

Agreed, for the most part. He comes from a leftist tradition but has mostly straddled the center as it is internationally defined. Compared to everyone else that is thinking of running though, he's furthest to the left.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Elizabeth Warren is a moderate centrist liberal, a former Republican who is committed to capitalism and supportive of basically anything Israel wants. She gets lumped in with Bernie as somehow being a leftist, but she isn't.

That's because Bernie is not a "leftist" either.

Agreed, for the most part. He comes from a leftist tradition but has mostly straddled the center as it is internationally defined. Compared to everyone else that is thinking of running though, he's furthest to the left.

His rhetoric may be, but even that is questionable, since he always admits (out of the other side of his mouth) that the shit he talks about can't be implemented.

His policies, however, are purely Democrat (neither left nor right). Universal healthcare has always been a Dem goal. "Free" public college already exists, so he gets no points for that. What we actually need is debt forgiveness, which seems to have taken a backseat.

Likewise on raising the minimum wage. That's always on the Dem agenda. Amounts are irrelevant posturing. It is the principle--the policy--that matters and it's always a Dem struggle.

In fact, I'm hard pressed to come up with a single Sanders policy that is in any way "left" of where the Democrats have pretty much always been ideologically (i.e., in regard to the past forty or so years, politically). The only thing I've been able to find--ironically--is how Sanders has moved right, not left and the common notion of Sanders moving the DNC "back" to the left is utter nonsense.

By "common notion" I mean propaganda planted by the Sanders machine that is still operating in candidate mode (never stopped really). He's just the new and slightly improved version of Nader, only instead of following Nader off the third party cliff, Sanders has continued his sucker-fishing to the DNC. Which just makes him far worse than Nader imo. And not just because he arguably gave us Trump; because we are still within the throes of a new influential media ("social media") that pushes the extremes that normally would be rightly forgotten into the new mainstream, so the same civil war damage Sanders caused and rides upon (and got weaponized by the Russians and the GOP) is still out there causing the same completely unnecessary division based on ego, not intelligent policy.

There's a good piece in the New Republic that shows an even darker side to Sanders (and that's not even referencing his disastrous push to get abortion off the platform and his alienating minorities in his calls for centering on white working class males that weren't actually the problem): Bernie Sanders Is Not the Left.

 

[PyramidHead]

Agreed, for the most part. He comes from a leftist tradition but has mostly straddled the center as it is internationally defined. Compared to everyone else that is thinking of running though, he's furthest to the left.

His rhetoric may be, but even that is questionable, since he always admits (out of the other side of his mouth) that the shit he talks about can't be implemented.

His policies, however, are purely Democrat (neither left nor right). Universal healthcare has always been a Dem goal. "Free" public college already exists, so he gets no points for that. What we actually need is debt forgiveness, which seems to have taken a backseat.

Likewise on raising the minimum wage. That's always on the Dem agenda. Amounts are irrelevant posturing. It is the principle--the policy--that matters and it's always a Dem struggle.

In fact, I'm hard pressed to come up with a single Sanders policy that is in any way "left" of where the Democrats have pretty much always been ideologically (i.e., in regard to the past forty or so years, politically). The only thing I've been able to find--ironically--is how Sanders has moved right, not left and the common notion of Sanders moving the DNC "back" to the left is utter nonsense.

By "common notion" I mean propaganda planted by the Sanders machine that is still operating in candidate mode (never stopped really). He's just the new and slightly improved version of Nader, only instead of following Nader off the third party cliff, Sanders has continued his sucker-fishing to the DNC. Which just makes him far worse than Nader imo. And not just because he arguably gave us Trump; because we are still within the throes of a new influential media ("social media") that pushes the extremes that normally would be rightly forgotten into the new mainstream, so the same civil war damage Sanders caused and rides upon (and got weaponized by the Russians and the GOP) is still out there causing the same completely unnecessary division based on ego, not intelligent policy.

There's a good piece in the New Republic that shows an even darker side to Sanders (and that's not even referencing his disastrous push to get abortion off the platform and his alienating minorities in his calls for centering on white working class males that weren't actually the problem): Bernie Sanders Is Not the Left.

As your linked article states, Sanders has functioned as a popularizer of traditionally left-leaning ideas within the Democratic party platform. This at least raises the bar on discourse and puts pressure on Democrats to do more than pay lip service to the ideas.

The main goal of the left in historical terms has been empowering the lower orders of society, even as we occasionally floundered in how to achieve it. Bernie Sanders has that goal at heart, I believe, but he takes a more traditional reformist approach than a structural one. Democrats are not as interested in empowering us, but they sometimes put forward policies that have that effect, usually in response to public outcry and never unanimously. They take a Fordist approach to workers, at least on paper; happy and well-fed workers make better consumers. Bernie doesn't come at it from that angle, and is the maybe only person with a shot at the presidency who can say that. I'm not sure about Liz Warren yet.

 

[Elixir]

Lotsa noise here...
FAR TOO EARLY for anyone to settle on a pick. But not too early to start putting name after name forward, so Trump can attack them each in turn. There are at least 20-something names in the Dem hat, and once Droning Don has vilified each of them in turn, at least one or two of his followers might start tuning him out, realizing that insults and nicknames are the extent of his stock in trade..
Best case scenario is to have a sleeper emerge from the Dem convention. That will make it harder for the Russian propaganda mills (the most/only effective part of the Trump machine) to get traction.

 

[Copernicus]

I don't think that Warren is a "fringe leftist looney". But her time was in 2016. I just don't think that she has any new fresh ideas that can motivate people. She is obsessed with going after the big meanie bankers who caused the 2008 recession. Okay. Great. But about fixing the problems that confront people today?

Google is your friend.

Exactly, right. But it is also true that we are facing a huge financial crisis that has been fueled by the greed and overreach of the wealthy, not to mention Trump's idiotic trade wars with our erstwhile allies. Warren is very articulate on that subject, because she is more of an expert on the subject than other politicians with similar concerns. All the signs now are that we are on the verge of a global recession, so Warren's signature issue actually is directly relevant to a serious problem that confronts us today, not just in 2008.

However, this is not the only issue that defines her. Warren has well-defined policies across he entire political spectrum. More importantly for a presidential candidate, she is very good at making speeches. My only real problem with her is her tendency to go over the top with Donald Trump. She isn't going to win a Twitter war with Trump, and she let Trump's taunts about her ancestry get to her. The DNA stunt played right into his hands, because it is an issue that no one really cares about. A distraction.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

As your linked article states, Sanders has functioned as a popularizer of traditionally left-leaning ideas within the Democratic party platform.

What the article misses, however, in its analysis is that those "left-leaning ideas" were always part of the Democratic party platform. He brought nothing new to the table. No, not even his "medicare for all" plan.

The piece also misses the fact that it was pure political strategy by the Sanders camp (and the GOP and, yes, the Russians) that made it seem as if the DNC had moved right, when in fact it never has. It is simply a false narrative, no matter who spouts it (started by the GOP, no less, but picked up by the fringe left); a meme that just keeps repeating itself, yet has no basis in fact and certainly no examples that anyone can point to without it ending up being an argument from incredulity.

It's all part of the false equivalency tactic that both sides (Sanders and Trump) used as a cudgel against Hillary, just from opposing sides.

As I pointed out in one of these threads (again, they tend to bleed together), the usual suspect is Bill Clinton with the misnomer that he--and by extension, Obama and his wife--"embraced" Big Corporate/Wall Street. As if they weren't already a significant factor in our body politic.

Being anti-Corporate for the sake of just being anti-Corporate is just sophistry no matter who claims it. Government regulates. That's it. And "Corporations"--like "Wall Street"--are not monolithic entities that all think and behave alike. That's just two-dimensional, binary thinking at best.

When facing a global awakening where America is either going to be the upper management OR nothing but consumers, you have little choice but to go with being upper-management. That's not an ideological move; that's a survival move as has been made abundantly clear now that Trump has pulled the plug on us being upper-management. We are now nothing to the world other than consumers. Russia and China have assumed the upper-management positions we used to hold not two years ago.

That's how fast it happens and why Bill Clinton in particular was one of our most prescient and forward-thinking Presidents ever. Obama took that ball and ran with it as would have Hillary. And the proof that all three were right is literally playing out before us right now in real time as we see exactly what would have happened had Bill instead went isolationist and attempted to pretend that the internet had not radically changed the entire global economy.

This at least raises the bar on discourse and puts pressure on Democrats to do more than pay lip service to the ideas.

Unfortunately, no it does not. It actually does the precise opposite of that, as was readily apparent in the bitterly divisive civil war that was our 2016 primaries and continues to be nothing but divisive precisely because he has presented no actually radical leftist policy proposals. Again, universal healthcare is NOT a Sanders generated proposal. Nor is raising min wage or even the idea of wealth disparity and how to address it.

The ONLY thing that happened was a bully got a pulpit and refused to leave it when it was clear he was dead. And that same bully keeps insisting that only he has the answers. That's not discourse; that's not raising the tide so all boats lift up. That is just more of the same it has to be done my way or I'll sick my rabid base on you again.

Before social media, that wouldn't matter at all and Sanders would have rightfully faded back into obscurity along with Nader. But because everyone is skittish about the squeaky wheels--now that they cost us the Presidency--and because Democrats are essentially the bullied and thus respond expectantly whenever they get bullied, we are still having to deal with the Sanders zombie in spite of all of the blatantly non-Democratic/non-Progressive bullshit that keeps spewing forth. Like taking abortion off the platform and the ridiculously insulting notion of focusing on white working class males, who, again, were never the problem to begin with.

The main goal of the left in historical terms has been empowering the lower orders of society, even as we occasionally floundered in how to achieve it. Bernie Sanders has that goal at heart, I believe

I see zero evidence of that assertion, but even if it were true, so what? So does every single Democrat to have ever existed (well, in the more modern sense of the party). Why is any of this nonsense being ascribed only to Sanders? Answer that question and you win the $64.

but he takes a more traditional reformist approach than a structural one.

If by that you mean he promises magical ponies out of one side of his mouth while categorically conceding he can't deliver them out of the other side of his mouth and then pretends it was all just to "start a conversation" that has already been going on for decades, then yes, I agree.

He has successfully--in the minds of a very small minority, around 5-6%--co-opted Democratic ideals as his own and fooled that same minority into thinking that he and he alone came up with them.

Democrats are not as interested in empowering us

Nonsense. You are confusing hucksterism with empowerment. Of course I'm going to be seen as a visionary if all I do is take my opponents policies--their "bid" of $100--and add a $1. They bid $100, but I bid $101! Therefore, I'm the more progressive!

Not empowerment.

They take a Fordist approach to workers, at least on paper; happy and well-fed workers make better consumers.

That is a very good example of the false narrative I'm talking about from the Sanders camp/OWS model; painting any Democrat that isn't Bernie as a corporate sell out, which is not only insultingly stupid it's not even remotely true while at the same time knowingly hypocritical. This is what Sanders said in 2015 in regard to Republicans, revealing his understanding of exactly what it would take for him to get any of his proposals implemented:

If Bernie Sanders were president, he wouldn’t be as naive about compromise as President Barack Obama.

At least that’s what the Vermont senator told David Axelrod on the former Obama adviser’s first episode of his podcast “The Axe Files with David Axelrod.”

Sanders said that after a “brilliant campaign,” Obama made a mistake by expecting that he could easily negotiate with the other party.

“He thought he could walk into Capitol Hill and the Oval Office and sit down with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the Republicans and say, ‘I can’t get it all. You can’t get it all. Let’s work out something that’s reasonable,’ because he’s a reasonable guy. He’s a pretty rational guy,” Sanders said. “These guys never had any intention of doing [serious] negotiating and compromising. … I think it took the president too long to fully appreciate that.”

But Sanders didn't have a firm answer for how he would more successfully broker deals, saying the only way things will actually get done with a divided Congress is if the general population stays engaged in the political process and demands it.

“I don’t have any illusion that I’m going to walk in, and I certainly hope it is not the case but if there is a Republican House and a Republican Senate, that I’m going to walk in there and say, ‘Hey guys, listen. I’d like you to work with me on raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour,’” he said. “It ain’t gonna happen, I have no illusion about that. The only way that I believe that change takes place … is that tens of millions of people are going to have to stand up and be involved in the political process the day after the election.”
...
“What I said is that, if you are good at politics, and you have 70 [percent]-80 percent of the people behind you in issues like raising the minimum wage or rebuilding our infrastructure or family and medical leave. ... You should win those fights and it’s not good enough to sit down with Boehner and say, ‘No, I can’t support’ — ‘Oh OK, guess we’re not going to do it.’”

Read that again. I'll redact and emphasize to make it more direct:

The only way that change takes place is that tens of millions of people are going to have to stand up and be involved in the political process the day after the election. If you are good at politics, and you have 70-80 percent of the people behind you, you should win those fights.

He's not just talking about partisan support. He's talking about needing 70-80% of ALL voters (Republicans included) behind him after the election is over in order to "win those fights." That's a statistical impossibility and he knows it.

So, iow, he openly admitted, in effect, nothing I promise can possibly be implemented unless I have 8/10s of the entire population fully endorsing my policies after I am elected President.

Do you think he would have stood any kind of a chance if that were his slogan?

Bernie doesn't come at it from that angle

That much is true. The angle he takes, however, is to promise things he knows he can't deliver under the pretense of "starting a conversation" that likewise has been going on already that he didn't start. That way he gets all the credit and yet does not have to do anything other than promise magical ponies. It's insulting and relies on shear ignorance, but worse, it's the wrong tack as has been conclusively proved already in the 2016 primaries.

And please don't get me started about the lies of the "rigged system" and the scapegoating of DNC leadership that Sanders conceded were unfounded yet did nothing to stop.

Let me put it this way, IF Sanders were the person--the politician, the leader, the "visionary"--that you and others seem to think he is, then unquestionably he should have got out of the primaries in March when it was crystal clear that he couldn't possibly win. He should have got out gracefully and thrown the full weight of his support--and his operation--behind Hillary and focused exclusively on the actual enemy, which was Trump.

Instead, he knowingly Zombied forward month after month after month after month after month after month, forcing everyone involved to waste hundreds of millions of dollars that could have instead been focused exclusively on revealing Trump for what he was LONG before the general and causing more and more division while alos lending his campaign--whether knowingly (as indicated by the evidence) or unknowingly (as strains credulity)--to the cause of the Russians and the GOP and there simply is no legitimate excuse for it.

Trying to "force the DNC left" is a bumper sticker and a lie, so that can't be the actual reason why he wouldn't get out of the race and do what was needed for the good of the party/good of the country. So that act alone disproves any possible argument in his favor as a Democratic leader. And if he truly were only interested in the policies, not in his own ego gratification, then, again, he would have bowed out gracefully in March and joined the rest of us against Trump.

So, no. There is no excuse for his bad actions. Well, I should qualify that. No legitimate excuse in regard to any notion of him being a self-less champion for progressive causes.

ETA: For good measure, this is what he said about his "medicare-for-all" proposal in 2017. Note how it is almost word-for-word identical to what he conceded back in 2015:

"Look, I have no illusions that under a Republican Senate and a very right-wing House and an extremely right-wing president of the United States, that suddenly we're going to see a Medicare-for-all, single-payer passed," he said recently, sitting in his Senate office. "You're not going to see it. That's obvious."

The point of the bill, Sanders says, is to force a conversation

Again, that "conversation" has already been going on for decades and was in fact started by Hillary Clinton, NOT Bernie Sanders. The man is openly stating he can't do anything and that's not the point, the point is to get all the credit without having to do any of the actual hard work to get something passed.

Pure hucksterism.

 

[PyramidHead]

Yowch, looks like I struck a nerve? I'm not a huge fan of Bernie Sanders, but you won't have much luck convincing me that Democrats are looking out for my interests. I'm a libertarian communist if it makes any difference (probably not). I don't identify with Democrats or Republicans, so it's not interesting to me that Bernie had a negative effect on the Democrats or whatever. That may have helped Trump win, but a lot of things helped him win more than that, if you want to go down the list. There are no better options for president at the moment, not because of anything magical about Bernie, but because nobody else is to his left and that's all that matters to me in the presidential election. If Nader were running I'd vote for him unless it made the Republican candidate more likely to win (I live in a very blue state so that's never been a consideration, but I realize not everybody has the luxury of voting for who they like instead of against who they dislike). Thus the discussion is about a broader issue than any particular candidate, and if you want to argue that it's simply irresponsible to support left-wing politics then we can do that in another thread. Just tone down the exasperation. This is just the internet, and just the beginning at any rate.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Yowch, looks like I struck a nerve?

Just a bit .

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Elizabeth Warren is a moderate centrist liberal, a former Republican who is committed to capitalism and supportive of basically anything Israel wants. She gets lumped in with Bernie as somehow being a leftist, but she isn't.

That's because Bernie is not a "leftist" either.

What does it take to actually qualify as a leftist then?

 

[Elixir]

Elizabeth Warren is a moderate centrist liberal, a former Republican who is committed to capitalism and supportive of basically anything Israel wants. She gets lumped in with Bernie as somehow being a leftist, but she isn't.

That's because Bernie is not a "leftist" either.

What does it take to actually qualify as a leftist then?

These days? Stand next to a Freedom Caucus member and act like Ike.

 

[Copernicus]

What does it take to actually qualify as a leftist then?

These days? Stand next to a Freedom Caucus member and act like Ike.

Would that make Adlai Stevenson qualify as a Communist then? Joe McCarthy was right!

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

What does it take to actually qualify as a leftist then?

These days? Stand next to a Freedom Caucus member and act like Ike.

How about for the average person on this forum to say "yeah, that guy is a leftist"? Sometimes I get the feeling the statement "Karl Marx was center-left" would get approval around here.

 

[untermensche]

The left is anti-capitalism. Like Marx.

That explains where the left is in US politics which is completely controlled by capitalists.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The left is anti-capitalism. Like Marx.

That explains where the left is in US politics which is completely controlled by capitalists.

Does that surprise you? Americans like to own things. They like their SUV and big screen TV's. They don't like others dictating to them what they can own.

 

[PyramidHead]

Elizabeth Warren is a moderate centrist liberal, a former Republican who is committed to capitalism and supportive of basically anything Israel wants. She gets lumped in with Bernie as somehow being a leftist, but she isn't.

That's because Bernie is not a "leftist" either.

What does it take to actually qualify as a leftist then?

Commitment to ending capitalism.

- - - Updated - - -

The left is anti-capitalism. Like Marx.

That explains where the left is in US politics which is completely controlled by capitalists.

Does that surprise you? Americans like to own things. They like their SUV and big screen TV's. They don't like others dictating to them what they can own.

Personal property =/= private property

 

[lpetrich]

Warren regains footing in Iowa blitz - POLITICO

The Massachusetts senator was the only major 2020 contender to rebuff the crucial state during the midterms. She’s now making up ground.

DES MOINES, IOWA — Just two months ago, Sen. Elizabeth Warren risked political backlash here by opting to avoid a trip to Iowa during the critical midterm elections — the only major potential 2020 candidate to do so.

But less than a week into the new year, Warren already flipped that on its head, becoming the first major candidate to land on the ground in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus state, lapping up media attention, locking down key staff and organizers, and capitalizing on pent-up 2020 Democratic excitement.

“I’m here tonight because I believe. I believe in what we can do,” a hoarse-sounding Warren told an at-capacity Des Moines crowd Saturday night, just one of five stops during her Iowa blitz. “I believe that this, right now, is our moment. Our moment to dream big, to fight hard and to take back this country.”

'The fight of my life': Elizabeth Warren kicks off 2020 bid in Iowa | US news | The Guardian

“What’s happening to working families in America?” she asked an enthusiastic crowd of about 500 in Council Bluffs, a city of 62,000 straddling the Iowa-Nebraska border.

“Why has America’s middle class been hollowed out? What’s happening to opportunity in this country? Why is the path so rocky for so many people, and so much rockier for people of color? Why has this happened in America?”

Iowa. None of the Founders anticipated that a then-nonexistent state would become a kingmaker state.

 

[Jayjay]

So the Democrat learning from 2016 was that Hillary Clinton wasn't old and woman enough?

 

[untermensche]

The left is anti-capitalism. Like Marx.

That explains where the left is in US politics which is completely controlled by capitalists.

Does that surprise you? Americans like to own things. They like their SUV and big screen TV's. They don't like others dictating to them what they can own.

The Anarchists owned things.

They had an economy that was more efficient than the capitalist economies.

They believed in personal property.

But they did not believe in dictatorial power systems.

Their slogan was "No bosses".

And they showed the world a better way.

But greed is winning right now and may always be winning.

 

[Terrell]

This early I don't know who the best choice for the Dems is. One thing I do know is that the campaign is just too long; anti-Pelosi ads are already airing here on CNN. Heard one this morning. My guess is one of the line of Republican attacks is to caricature Pelosi then use that to attack whomever runs for the Dems.

 

[poster]

The left is anti-capitalism. Like Marx.

That explains where the left is in US politics which is completely controlled by capitalists.

Does that surprise you? Americans like to own things. They like their SUV and big screen TV's. They don't like others dictating to them what they can own.

They only "like" it being dictated to them to own things. Americans are a long way from being free. We aren't permitted choices, only selections. Another example of obscene twisting of our language. Marketing is what it's called.