How? That's only the case if Bernie gets robbed of the nomination.
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Democratic Presidential Primary |February OT| It Can't be Worse than Iowa, Right? (Discussion Guidelines in OP)
- Thread starter Poodlestrike
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I was observing Steyer rising in SC 2 weeks ago but I didn't think he would grow this much.
Impressive. His team isn't as ineffective as I initially thought.
The first vote hasn't been cast please chill the fuck out. Let this shit play out and we'll probably end up analyzing how fucked up the primary process is regardless of who wins what state. Don't forget we have two billionaires (One a fucking republican) buying their way into debates now.
This comes off as pretty cringe. Sanders and the progressive wing of the party represent a minority within the democratic party. They didn't win in Georgia, they didn't win in Florida, they didn't win in Texas and, despite all the media coverage "The Squad" gets, they're not responsible for taking back the House of Representatives in 2018. There is no "revolution" waiting in the wings here and if the progressives want to make this "take over from within" a reality they need to start winning in places that weren't hard blue to begin with.
I'm really not looking forward to the narrative that's going to be pushed here if there's a split result in Iowa.
Yeah. Must be nice to not be able to have anything happen to you by literally giving Trump four more years. Oh, all those people who just disappeared? Not my problem!
Uurgh.
Dude is 5' 8", i think thats average no?
Cant believe this is even something i looked up. Smh. 2020 is gonna be a strange campaign year.
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So, there's two sides to this: math and public relations.
(And because it's math, and I'm a huge nerd, I find it calming, so pardon my digression for a moment...)
First, the math. There are 3 groups of voters in 2020: Trump voters, Nonvoters, and Dem voters. Call them R N and D. In each state, R + N + D = T, T being the full number of votes possible in that state after you subtract people who can't vote for whatever reason (and there are good and understandable reasons, voter disenfranchisement is a huge problem). The winner is determined by taking R-D and seeing if the value is positive or negative. Negative, we win, positive, they win. So in effect the relevant stat is the margin between R and D. Any effect that moves somebody from R to D subtracts 2 from that margin (remember, negative is good), any effect that adds D to R adds 2. This is where N comes in. Any effect that moves somebody from N to R adds one. Any effect that moves somebody from D to N also adds one. Ipso facto, in terms of effect on the election, a D voter choosing to stay home is exactly the same as an nonvoter being activated for Trump. In some states, that doesn't matter. Like, if you live in MD or MA, he's going to lose those states anyway. In other states, it matters a very great deal. The last election hinged on 70k votes across 3 states. That's a tiny percentage of the population.
So, why does this matter? Like you said, the premise is "the election has been stolen from Bernie, then we do this" not explicitly "if Bernie loses, then we do this." Which is fair! There's a lot of people out there who can and would take a Bernie loss gracefully. To these people I say, go with god, this doesn't involve you. However. As we've seen, there's already some portion of Bernie supporters (I'm not going to try and name a %, because I don't have one, and frankly I'm not sure there's actually a threshold at which they become irrelevant given how loud they are) that believes Bernie has this 100% in the bag. And you've already seen people starting to lay the groundwork on the "DNC is rigging it again" stuff. That article from Politico that got a few threads, for instance, but honestly even absent that the people who are totally sure he's going to win are basically already primed to generate a "he was robbed" narrative if he loses - after all, if victory was guaranteed, what else could've happened?
So, combine these two things: Dem voters choosing to stay home mathematically empowers the Trump campaign, and the lack of care around what sort of things are worth staying home for, and you get what I said.
Chilling out would be easier if there weren't people being like "vote for Bernie or America gets it" running around, lol. Hard to have a debate on the issues in that kind of environment.
I see what you're saying, but you're assuming bad faith in Bernie fans. We haven't even had the first primary yet, you know? I think it's perfectly appropriate to warn the DNC that if they do something like bring back first round super delegates, or have somebody like Biden win in a contested convention that Bernie went into winning, it would be completely unacceptable.
If Bernie gets blown out in the South to the point where all of his early wins are negated that's a different story. I don't think it's fair to assume that people will be doing the same thing in that situation. Like that article from Politico is a perfectly valid thing to be upset about. The reason it's unlikely to actually happen is because of the pushback from people saying they will not vote for the nominee if such a thing happened, which is good.
Because there's no debate to be had. Because in their eyes they did this song and dance in 2016 and Trump won. And when they see Joe Biden they see someone who is electorally worse. There's no excitement. People aren't going out of their way to phone back for him. I know I personally am not going to be trying to get people to vote for joe because I myself can hardly muster any enthusiasm for him. I will clock out after the primary is settled and I'll vote in November. The Chapos, and others, may have the benefit of being in an electorally safe state like NY or CA and I'd recommend hearing their skullduggery interview about it.
Wow look at that Klobuchar surge!
... Can she go away yet? Field needs to get down to the real contenders, especially not the forced ones the media have tried to push on us.
Hmm, her voters would go to Biden so I'm not sure if that would be a good thing.
Did you read it fully? This is all dependent if the DNC ratfucks bernie, like it is stated at the start.
And the case can be made, by a lot of people, that in the long run, there is no difference in any other administration but Bernie's. No one else is arching the curve of armageddon enough but him.
yes I totally trust a crazed bernie-or-buster to make an accurate assessment on whether bernie's loss was due to ratfucking by the DNC or by the simple fact that fewer voters wanted him to be the nominee.
Lumping Bernie and Trump together under the banner of "populism" is what's dangerous. They have essentially nothing in common and people are making up this false equivalence as a smear against anyone whose agenda isn't blessed by the fucking landed gentry of the party establishment. Citations Needed did a really good episode on this.
And I'll call those people privileged fucking morons. If it was about policy, they would vote for the Dem candidate regardless. It's not like that with them, it's about a person.
What? Are you saying all of the Dem candidates have the same policy?
Do words mean nothing anymore? It is ALL about policy. Every other Dem has lame, appeasing defeatist policies that are already compromised. Look at their stances on medicare. On student debt.
Bernie is an old man, and he started a movement. If he loses, we continue, and he ceases to be relevant. But he is the only leftie in america running for president.
No. Every Dem candidate is more closely together on policy than someone like Trump. Voting Trump/not voting is a completely ridiculous option to take if you align left of center.
I don't know what you're talking about, Joe Biden promises college debt forgiveness (coupon to the foodcourt at the student union), medicare for all (guaranteed candy bowls in doctors' offices), and marijuana legalization. (Making it even more illegal because of reefer madness) Vote blue no matter who!
So then they care more about policy than they do about Trump/not Trump.
Climate is ultimately the only policy that matters right now and only Warren and Bernie's plans have met the bare minimum scientists and the UN have set for us (and I think Steyer but lol). If youre not bother trying to save the world then none of your other policy really matters, does it?
See above.
Give Trump 4 more years to stack the Supreme Court for the next 30 years! That'll get it done. Stay home!
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See, I think that the bolded is a misread of the situation. It would be acceptable. Because the stakes are way, way too high, it has to be acceptable. It sucks, it really truly sucks, but threatening to walk away from the table isn't a valid play here. It's powerful, but the thing about it is - for it to work, you actually have to be willing to do it. And for the reasons I went over, that's not okay, IMO.
If you wanna go in and tell me that it's insane and unconscionable that it's gotten to the point that coalitional politics are mandatory instead of optional I definitely wouldn't disagree. The state of this country's politics is a trainwreck, no doubt about it. And something's got to change. But right now? Options are limited. Nonparticipation I don't think should be one of them. I get that that feels like it means it can be an opportunity, but now cannot be that moment. If he wins, great. It'd be good to move the party leftward in a big way. If he doesn't, I really sincerely desperately do not want to be seeing "well, it was because it was stolen, so fuck it" and then Trump wins Wisconsin by 300 votes and the Supreme Court hands him a second term.
I listened to Chapo for a little while after 2016 on a friend's recommendation. It was fun at first, but when I realized that they were even more invested in going after Dems than Republicans I dropped off. I really don't have the mental energy for the "liberals are the real enemies" takes, honestly.
As for excitement, that's not really backed up by the polls, Biden's got lots of enthusiasm with people who identify as "not on Twitter." They also vote more, which is good. But the thing is, that's an argument to be made in favor of voting for Bernie. If you have to resort to "do it or the country gets it," that's no longer having an argument, that's making a threat. And when I see people - not necessarily this specific take, mind, but you do see people making this argument - that if it's not Bernie it's not anything... yeah, that's a threat, and it's really shitty.
I addressed the first bit in my reply to Brock, but as to the second, those people are wrong. Short term suffering matters a lot, and any Dem administration is going to bend the arc on climate change a hell of a lot more than Trump will. Every 10th of a degree counts.
Also, that bit about the election being stolen was in the very first line of your excerpt. Exactly how bad at this "reading" thing do you think I am?
What makes you think Biden wouldn't give the Republicans a more conservative judge in exchange for like... a more aggressive weed forfeiture bill? Assuming he could even win the general.
No, I truly think it's that unacceptable. The stakes are that high, so the DNC better not fuck it up. They don't have to ratfuck the country because they're afraid of losing another 2% of their income.
I can't believe Andrew Yang is not in the poll. I believe he will surprise a lot of people coming in 3rd or at the minimum 4th place in Iowa.
User Banned (1 week): metacommentary, ignoring the modpost
lol at the brain geniuses that can't even properly parse 2 paragraphs calling people idiots.
if Bernie wins the vote and then gets overturned at the convention to nominate a Bloomberg, there won't be enough shame in the world to get people to vote D
if Bernie wins the vote and then gets overturned at the convention to nominate a Bloomberg, there won't be enough shame in the world to get people to vote D
In a stunning display of pragmatism and compromise, senile Uncle Joe allows RBG to be replaced by upstart conservative judge Chudd Racescience. Truly a great day for America and centrism.
every democratic candidate has a policy that is unimaginably better than donald trump's, which is the alternative in the event sanders doesn't win the nomination.
yes i love preemptively inventing fanfiction versions of joe biden to lay the groundwork for not voting for him in the general election.
joe biden is not going to nominate, for example, an anti-roe judge to the supreme court. the democratic caucus would revolt. republicans will not vote for any justice short of neil gorsuch.
Thank you. And its specifically because the stakes are so high that we shouldnt be compromising on this. Like it will be a cold day in hell when I suck it up and just say "well no one is willing to save the planet so we better just accept it and hope for the best short term". If thats the only option our political system gives us we should be marching in the streets. Crazy were seriously considering just accepting the planet is going to die so we should the best we can do is some short term compromises.
User Banned (1 week): sniping, ignoring the modpost
Wouldn't that be childish of them? Showing a lack of confidence in President Biden could help elect the next Trump.
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Lemme put it this way: if the DNC ratfucks Bernie, I'll still tell people that they have to vote D. But if they don't, the fault will ultimately be on the DNC, because you can't control people's reactions like that. But, that doesn't make telling people that it's a good thing to do good, IMO.
(And, again, part of the tail risk here is that there's a lot of people who would take a Bernie loss as proof of cheating. They didn't overturn the results at the convention last time and people point to 2016 as proof they'll do it this time.)
I think it would be fair if you still told people to vote D, but I still think telling people not to would be equally fair. We can only do what we can, and if the party is dead set on fucking up there's not much left you can do.
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Marching in the streets and voting against Trump are not mutually exclusive activities. That's where I'm at. Nobody is saying anybody has to like it. Nobody is saying anybody has to take it down. All I'm saying is: the moment at the ballot box matters a lot.
I just don't see how that last bit is related to that first bit, lol. If the party fucks up, the party fucks up! Telling people to amplify the fuckup doesn't help anything.
If the DNC was so committed to ignoring their own base that they rat fucked Bernie, I think it would be better that they lost so badly that they had no choice but to change.
(Which tbh should have been 2016, so hopefully they learned their lesson.)
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I think they have, so this all could just be moot, and a lot of hurt feelings over basically nothing, again barring the people who could see any Bernie loss as proof of rigging and go DEFCON 1 over it.
But.
They're not going to be the people learning their lesson. The staff of the DNC is relatively privileged, and unless we get into actual political purge territory*, they'll be mostly okay under President Trump 2 Electric Boogaloo. The people doing the real suffering are going to be all the people leftists and liberals alike say they want to help. That's what I can't move off of. That's what I have so much trouble with in this conversation. I can't imagine any intra-party political victory being worth the incredible human cost we're talking about here.
*Not impossible
Zero percent chance of any lessons learned, ever. The DNC will say they had no choice but to enthusiastically side with fascism.
I don't think it's effective to make a threat and then undermine your own threat in the same sentence if that threat is the only leverage you have, if that makes sense.
Agreed though, hopefully it's not an issue.
That Will Menakar post sure reads like someone saying its ride or die Bernie whether he gets "screwed" or not.
And current poling has Biden winning in a landslide. Biden is having more votes stolen by the bottom tier of candidates than Sanders is losing to Warren as well.
Tomorrow will be telling. Voting for a candidate who reaches viability locks caucus goers in, so we'll get to see how all the non-viable candidates' supporters move.
1. Every summary I've seen of that podcast makes me assume its ran by fucking morons. In this case they're apparently trying to act like populism isn't a term referring to how one appeals to people, but some form of policy. Its real easy for a progressive liberal, a fascist, and a monarch to all use populist rheotric for completely opposite ends.
2. Sanders and Trump shared the same core populist message in 2016: Foreign trade was stealing American jobs, NATO was a rip off for American workers, and TPP would be even worse. None of that was true, yet Sanders ran through the rust belt campaigning on it.
Sanders has paper thin, unsubstantiated, and generally non-viable policy. Elizabeth Warren has actual policy chops that far eclipse anything Sanders has ever proposed. She's also far further to the left than any Dem candidate not named Sanders, and is someone Sanders has specifically floated as wanting in his cabinet.
If Donald Trump would follow Democratic policy 100% in lock step I don't think most Dems would care if he won another term, what with the concentration camps being closed, fairer taxation being passed, universal healthcare implemented, etc.. The GOP might not be real happy though...
Except more non-viable centrist candidates already exist. Bloomberg, Steyer, etc. voters strongly favor Biden. Unless Buttigieg has a huge surge following what's looking like a top 4 but not top 2 finish in Iowa his supporters will also likely start moving to Biden.
Klobuchar voters are typically a split between Biden and Warren with a slight Warren lean if I recall. So the only real narrowing of the gap is Warren staying viable to keep those Klobuchar voters from adding up with everyone else behind Biden.
Regardless of how someone feels about the DNC we live in a binary political system. Everyone who chooses to vote for non-viable candidates or simply not vote is responsible for their choice when when of the two viable choices is a bigoted fascist.
And yes, when any outcome that isn't what a specific side wants is interpreted as cheating by the opposition it makes it real hard to feel sympathy for the "I'll just not vote" crowd.
Why don't you actually listen to the whole episode, which directly addresses the incorrect assumptions you're still making in this post
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So, this is what I was talking about with the... I'm not sure if I used the words "madman theory" earlier but basically that. The thing about threatening to walk away from the table is that it's an effective threat only if you can actually do it. If it's a bluff, fine, whatever, it's a gross bluff for the reasons I outlined but ce la vie. If people are actually committed to it, it gets a lot grosser for the reasons I've been talking about.
I really honestly don't think it'll be a huge issue. Mostly, I'm more worried about the people who see the "if the DNC ratfucks Bernie don't vote" pieces and read "if Bernie loses it means the DNC ratfucked him so don't vote." That's what's keeping me up, and I know for a fact that I've seen people arguing it so please don't try to tell me they don't exist, lol.
And speaking of not existing, I just... I gotta say. I read a lot of pieces about how Bernie or Busters weren't real, and how it was deeply unfair to accuse the Bernie Sanders supporter base of being any less committed to the cause of defeating Trump, and... I have a bit of trouble squaring that with the new strain of argumentation, lol. I guess it's mostly just different people, but I know I've seen some arguing it both ways, and it's pretty disconcerting.
All I can say is that since Bernie or Busters didn't meaningfully impact the 2016 election in any way, I wouldn't lose sleep over them now. Just like I wouldn't worry about the KHive's effect on the 2020 stage lol
Because every episode of that podcast I have listened to devolves into disingenuous "data" presented by unreliable narrators.
A few days ago someone posted about their life being shit on here and the response from someone was a clip of Citations Needed with a recent PhD in anthropology talking about how the world is not incrementally improving and people like Steven Pinker are wrong.
Thats bullshit on its face and the narrative of third world exploitation they trot out is super fucking rich when its being used to attack people like Bill Gates, who has sunk millions into actual quality of life improvements for people in third world nations.
In short, I don't have time to listen to a bunch of dopes who contribute nothing to making the world a better place talk about how great they are for understanding that the world isn't getting any better.
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