U.S. Politics: Gar Nicht Trump's Traumschiff!

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

The day I'm that scared of some dopey little fuck like Mark Zuckerberg is the day I hang up the cleats.  (I haven't actually owned cleats in like...20 years.  Damn I'm old.)  I don't like what he's doing, but stop acting like he controls the weather.

I think this is a little too dismissive given the reach and market power of his platform and the fact that national and state elections are coming down to fractions of a percentage point in this country.

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I think this is a little too dismissive given the reach and market power of his platform and the fact that national and state elections are coming down to fractions of a percentage point in this country.

Context.  Everything's too dismissive if you stare at margins all day.  Point is I think HarvPerv001's impact on Buttigieg's support - and generally - was being grossly exaggerated.

[Paladin of Ice]

16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Hes also a very good candidate. Money helps, but it only helps those who can use it well. Steyer has spent far more and achieved far less. 

To me he's always seemed like the blandest of the bland and emptiest of empty suits. A good candidate, upon learning that he has zero support from one of his party's most loyal voting blocs, works hard to convince them and win them over. A good candidate doesn't try to paper over it by claiming that he has the backing of leaders from within that bloc when he doesn't, as good ole Mayor Pete supposedly did.

Quote

The link goes to an article in the HBCU Times—HBCU stands for historically black colleges and universities—which is credited to the three prominent black South Carolina figures above “and more than 400 Douglass Plan endorsers.” The article praises the Douglass Plan’s proposed spending programs and legal reforms, arguing that “there is one presidential candidate who has proven to have intentional policies designed to make a difference in the Black experience, and that’s Pete Buttigieg.”

The political usefulness of such a document is obvious for Buttigieg, who is polling very poorly with black voters both nationally and in South Carolina, which holds the fourth Democratic primary/caucus and has a majority-black Democratic electorate.

A problem: When the Intercept dug into the endorsement, it found that two of the three top-line black politicians listed say they never endorsed the Douglass Plan, and that at least 40 percent of the other 400 individuals whose names are listed are white.

Here’s what state Rep. Ivory Thigpen said:

Even though I had had conversations with the [Buttigieg] campaign, it was clear to me, or at least I thought I made it clear to them, that I was a strong Bernie Sanders supporter—actually co-chair of the state, and I was not seeking to endorse their candidate or the plan. But what I had talked about was potentially giving them a quote of support in continuing the conversation, because I do think it’s a very important conversation.

And Johnnie Cordero:

“I never endorsed that plan. I don’t know how my name got on there. No, that’s not true: I know how my name got on there,” Cordero began, before explaining that Buttigieg had emailed him the plan and asked for feedback, which began a conversation with Buttigieg’s staff. 

“I had some difficulties with it,” Cordero said. … “The long and the short of it was they never sufficiently answered my questions, so I never actually endorsed the plan.”

Buttigieg’s campaign, according to the Intercept’s Ryan Grim, said that rather than asking individuals directly to sign their names to the article, it merely gave those whom it considered to have endorsed the Douglass Plan the chance have their names removed

I mean, this was originally reported by The Intercept so you gotta double check and verify it instead of taking it on faith, but so far it seems to be holding up to scrutiny and Buttigieg's campaign even made an official statement about it which seems to confirm some of the story.

Quote

Our campaign is working to build a multi-racial coalition, and we sought and received input from numerous Black policy experts and advisers to create a comprehensive plan to dismantle systemic racism: the Douglass Plan. We asked a number of Black South Carolinians, as well as South Carolinians from many backgrounds, to support the Douglass Plan, and we are proud and grateful that hundreds agreed to do so. 

In the HBCU Times op-ed and in communications with the press, we’ve been clear that not every supporter of the plan is Black, and have never claimed otherwise in any public communication. We never gave the impression publicly that these people were endorsing Pete, only that they supported the plan. After they indicated their support, we reached out to people multiple times giving them the opportunity to review the language of the op-ed and the option to opt-out. We did hear from people who weren’t comfortable being listed and we removed them. 

Pete will continue to talk about the Douglass Plan wherever he goes, regardless of the audience, as there are many communities of Americans committed to eradicating racial inequity.

Things like this have made Buttigieg go from a "Meh" for me to a hard pass unless he's the last candidate standing. To me he seems like little more than empty souled neoliberalism with a fresh coat of paint.

13 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

That would be so wonderful if the lying egotistical fool took the bait and did testify under oath. Theyd have him for perjury, obstruction and heavens knows what before he stopped digging his hole. He's incapable of telling the truth.

Democrats should definitely mount a campaign where every one of them in a prominent position basically says that if Trump had any guts or was innocent he'd testify. At least it would be another force of psychological stress on his unbalanced mind and might make him make more unforced errors and say deranged things to the press and on Twitter, continuing the trend of him turning off all but his most hardcore supporters. At best, it might actually provoke him to try to get more involved with the hearings. This is a guy who didn't have the self-restraint to resist the urge to talk about his dick during a presidential primary debate, after all.

15 hours ago, mcbigski said:

I would guess the first election was standard Tuesday 2 thru 8 November.  LA runs off top two vote getters if no one got to 50.00001.  If thats right, sooner is probably better than later.

Look at that, a conservative who shot off at the mouth rather than putting in the two seconds worth of research it would have taken to see that he was wrong. What are the odds?

https://i.imgur.com/Ffno981.png

[Free Northman Reborn]

Surely the combined power of the billionaires in America can raise a war chest to defeat the “wealth tax” candidates. These lunatics are an existential threat and I would take Obama in a heart beat over these radical leftists Warren or Sanders.

A billion dollars from each billionaire should set up a campaign fund of sufficient size to wipe out both these socialist campaigns in favour of a more moderate candidate.

Rather cough up a billion dollars each than lose tens of billions and have to sell the very companies they founded in the process. 

 

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

These lunatics are an existential threat and I would take Obama in a heart beat over these radical leftists Warren or Sanders.

 A billion dollars from each billionaire should set up a campaign fund of sufficient size to wipe out both these socialist campaigns in favour of a more moderate candidate.

Whether he runs or not, Bloomberg just launched a $100 million campaign to defeat Trump, not Sanders or Warren.  Guess he disagrees on who exactly is the existential threat.

[Larry of the Lawn]

17 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Surely the combined power of the billionaires in America can raise a war chest to defeat the “wealth tax” candidates. These lunatics are an existential threat and I would take Obama in a heart beat over these radical leftists Warren or Sanders.

A billion dollars from each billionaire should set up a campaign fund of sufficient size to wipe out both these socialist campaigns in favour of a more moderate candidate.

Rather cough up a billion dollars each than lose tens of billions and have to sell the very companies they founded in the process. 

 

Save the billionaires!  Lol thanks I needed a laugh this morning and nothing does it like some one shilling for the b-people.

[mormont]

Trump says he'll 'strongly consider' testifying.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/18/trump-says-he-will-strongly-consider-testifying-in-impeachment-probe.html

I don't think I need to translate that for anyone here: he'll refuse to testify while insisting that he really wants to. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Well, those two billion dollars would be distributed among TV ads, paid volunteers, businesses to print posters until it finally reaches the hands of more than 2 people, so I am ok with this redistribution of wealth. I am also ok with them being taxed more, but either way, lets have more redistribution, yeah?

[Liffguard]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Surely the combined power of the billionaires in America can raise a war chest to defeat the “wealth tax” candidates. These lunatics are an existential threat and I would take Obama in a heart beat over these radical leftists Warren or Sanders.

A billion dollars from each billionaire should set up a campaign fund of sufficient size to wipe out both these socialist campaigns in favour of a more moderate candidate.

Rather cough up a billion dollars each than lose tens of billions and have to sell the very companies they founded in the process. 

 

If the billionaires collectivise and pool their resources for the common good, they can defeat socialism!

 

Edit: Seriously though, if you truly believe that a few hundred extremely wealthy people could buy an election in their favour, and that this would be desirable, then you must also believe that the USA is not a democracy? And you must also concede that extreme wealth inequality is fundamentally incompatible with democracy?

Edit 2: It's also deeply concerning that you describe people as "lunatics" and "radical," and you're not referring to the proposed cabal of billionaires buying their way to electoral victory. And that the preferred candidate of the billionaires would be "moderate." Might I suggest that any candidate who's victory was bought by a conspiracy of billionaires cannot, by definition, be a moderate?

[sologdin]

These lunatics are an existential threat

not sure why there is a need to dismiss opponents as mentally disordered.  and of course the notion that they are an existential threat, aside from the exaggeration, is an ad consequentiam fallacy.

[Maithanet]

Since the 1990s at least, the trend has been Republicans doing better and better in rural areas, Democrats increasing their margins in the cities, and the suburbs being more evenly split, depending on the level of urbanization and regional variations (suburbs of Maryland are more democratic leaning than those in Texas). 

In 2016, one of the only things that Trump did well, and certainly an essential part of his victory, was juicing turnout and margin in rural areas.  Rural counties that Romney won by 30 points, Trump won by 45.  And while there might only be 5 or 10k voters in those counties, that is still a big deal in states like Florida and Michigan that have a lot of rural counties. 

In the elections since then, the big story has been that Trump has motivated his opponents even more than his supporters, which means that turnout is up and the Republicans are losing more than they're winning.  This is particularly true in the suburbs, where big population red/purple counties like Macomb County MI (outside Detroit), which swung from Trump +12 to Whitmer +4.  Or Bucks County outside Philly, which was essentially tied in 2016, but Wolf won by 18 points. 

The Clinton campaign was focusing hard on big population counties, and it showed.  Post-election interviews in all the swing states showed that the campaign felt they were reaching their benchmarks in the big cities, and were really surprised when those margins didn't add up to wins in places like FL, PA and MI.  Democrats will hopefully not make the same mistake again.

And yet at the same time, last Saturday's LA governor's race showed Edwards winning nearly 90% of the vote in Orleans parrish.  A margin of +80 in the second largest county in a competitive election is virtually unheard of.  I understand that the idea that "demographics is destiny" is foolish thinking for Democrats.  You need to actually change people's minds and convince them to come out and vote.  But virtually all population growth in America is happening in the cities and suburbs.  If Democrats increase their 2016 margins (both % and total votes) in those big counties where lots of people live, is it realistic that Trump could increase his margins in rural areas by enough to counterbalance that?  Obviously I don't know, but it is kind of hard for me to believe.

[Zorral]

It leaps out so boldly: the mainstream media, the Donor Establishment of the Dem party, the billionaires themselves, plus their own media as with the Big Z$uck and his FB, etc. handwrining over Warren particularly and somewhat behind that, Sanders (coz he's a guy and so not so threatening to them personally?) that Buttigieg gets massive Big Donor contributions -- and up he goes in the polls -- while supposedly Warren is "stalled," and nobody's paying attention to anybody else.  Those polls that he's leaped up in are polling the WHITE PEOPLE VOTERS of two WHITE PEOPLE STATES.

An observer cannot not notice! 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Liffguard said:

If the billionaires collectivise and pool their resources for the common good, they can defeat socialism!

 

Edit: Seriously though, if you truly believe that a few hundred extremely wealthy people could buy an election in their favour, and that this would be desirable, then you must also believe that the USA is not a democracy? And you must also concede that extreme wealth inequality is fundamentally incompatible with democracy?

Edit 2: It's also deeply concerning that you describe people as "lunatics" and "radical," and you're not referring to the proposed cabal of billionaires buying their way to electoral victory. And that the preferred candidate of the billionaires would be "moderate." Might I suggest that any candidate who's victory was bought by a conspiracy of billionaires cannot, by definition, be a moderate?

The only thing consistent about Republicans is that they’re completely inconsistent. But hey, let’s not dig too deeply into the party of Jesus and billionaires. Wait, that can’t be right, can it? Those two things don’t go together……

[Paladin of Ice]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Surely the combined power of the billionaires in America can raise a war chest to defeat the “wealth tax” candidates. These lunatics are an existential threat and I would take Obama in a heart beat over these radical leftists Warren or Sanders.

A billion dollars from each billionaire should set up a campaign fund of sufficient size to wipe out both these socialist campaigns in favour of a more moderate candidate.

Rather cough up a billion dollars each than lose tens of billions and have to sell the very companies they founded in the process. 

 

Fucking LOL!

Lets take a moment to do some basic math and civics here kids. Warren's proposed wealth tax, if she can a) get chosen as the Democratic candidate, b) get elected president, c) win the Senate along the way, d) get a 50+ Democratic Senators on board with her tax, e) nuke the filibuster, (because, at least under current conditions, there’s no way that Democrats are getting a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and no way Republicans will let any tax increase go into effect without filibustering it to death) and f) do all this without the proposal being seriously watered down, the amount that Warren has proposed for the wealth tax is 2% for fortunes over $50 million.

To keep the math nice and easy, we’ll use round numbers. So if for each billion dollars that qualifies that works out to... $20 million in taxes. 1/50th the amount that FNR wants for them to give away with no guaranteed ROI.

 I guess it just makes sense though that a hypothetical billionaire worth about 5 billion would prefer to give away 20% of his wealth to this defeat Warren and Sanders fund instead of being taxed for 2%; after all, he wants to hold onto his money, right?! Surely their collective action will defeat the evils of socialism! 

(By the way, if anyone is wondering how many billionaires would be taxed as much in 1 year as FNR says that they should give away in one year to this fund, the answer, at least according to a Wikipedia list that has the wealth of US billionaires is: 12.)

Now surely FNR has slippery slope arguments inspired by the great profit* Ayn Rand about how the dirty takers and looters of the world with their grasping, pawing hands will inevitably use this as a means to strangle these great Galtian men and women of the world and doom all mankind. After all, 2% today could climb to (shudder) 3% in another 50 years!

Thanks for the laughs FNR, and for being such a perfect representation of the level of thought I’ve come to expect from so-called fiscal conservatives and libertarians.

* not a typo.

[Zorral]

3 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

And yet at the same time, last Saturday's LA governor's race showed Edwards winning nearly 90% of the vote in Orleans parrish.  A margin of +80 in the second largest county in a competitive election is virtually unheard of

New Orleans has always been the Dem tent pole of Louisiana, due primarily to the population being majority African American.  Without New Orleans there would be effectively no Dems in Louisiana was the political fact in LA for decades.

Katrina gave the rethugs and white supremacists their opportunity to change this, and they've worked non-stop ever since.  They've made it more and more difficult for African Americans to return from the Katrina-caused diaspora.  They do this by keeping them from rebuilding via the FEMA grants and so on -- making it very very difficult.  They did with their very first act which was to bulldoze perfectly fine public housing -- so much better planned and constructed and nicer than in most parts of the country -- because it was originially intended for African Americans, but white people.  Housing costs have sky-rocketed.  NO became chic so obscenely wealthy sorts from elsewhere bought up a lot of the existing housing stock, tore it down and rebuilt housing they inhabit during Mardi Gras only, if at all.  O so many ways to reduce the African American population of New Orleans.

Ironically, everything that makes NO a desirable place to live comes directly from African American culture, the distinctive, local flavors it has developed from generations in this unique place in the world.  And in the end, of course, sooner rather than later, it's going to go underwater for good.

 

[Maithanet]

25 minutes ago, Zorral said:

New Orleans has always been the Dem tent pole of Louisiana, due primarily to the population being majority African American.  Without New Orleans there would be effectively no Dems in Louisiana was the political fact in LA for decades.

I've also heard that part of the reason that Texas is trending purple so quickly is the tens of thousands of refugees from Katrina that moved to Houston and have never come back. 

[Kalbear]

It is remarkable to see the fetishization of billionaires as if they are superheroes who are literally the only thing that can save the human race. This is an excellent embrace of fascism in it's most base form - the superhero authority who is the only one who both knows what is right and has the power to do something. I'm surprised @sologdin didnt jump on this analysis - it seems right in his wheelhouse. 

It presupposes so many things - that the human race is under existential threat, that everyone else is powerless to do anything, and only private capital and vision can save us. Its remarkably myopic and pessimistic and hopeless. 

[Which Tyler]

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Surely the combined power of the billionaires in America can raise a war chest to defeat the “wealth tax” candidates. These lunatics are an existential threat and I would take Obama in a heart beat over these radical leftists Warren or Sanders.

A billion dollars from each billionaire should set up a campaign fund of sufficient size to wipe out both these socialist campaigns in favour of a more moderate candidate.

Rather cough up a billion dollars each than lose tens of billions and have to sell the very companies they founded in the process. 

 

 

[sologdin]

kal--

i like your assessment. am suspicious of the vilification of the most wealthy to the same extent as of the glorification of same.  even the most wealthy human persons are as yet simply individuated persons, who have acted in accordance with the rule of the actual 'existential threat' inherent in capitalism (which arises less from taxation itself than from the aggregate of all expenditures), each individually irrelevant in comparison to the processes involved, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. a mere tax on the assets of those owning more than a specific arbitrary threshold, if enforceable, leaves in place the mechanisms of domination concomitant with surplus extraction that is the principal objection lodged by my politics. 

[argonak]

4 hours ago, mormont said:

Trump says he'll 'strongly consider' testifying.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/18/trump-says-he-will-strongly-consider-testifying-in-impeachment-probe.html

I don't think I need to translate that for anyone here: he'll refuse to testify while insisting that he really wants to. 

Same play he's been pulling with his tax returns for years.   Why change a winning horse?