US Politics - Turtles crawl, the constipation sensation that's gripping the nation.

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

As with this WaPo article, the media on this subject, Bernie and the Hispanic vote, no one seems to mention that one of the most powerful ORGANIZED Nevada voting blocks, is a UNION, the hospitality workers, who are, indeed, mostly of Spanish heritage in one way and another. Such voters and Sanders seem to be compatible indeed.  He's put in a great team of Latinx surrogate campaigners for himself too, with the assistance, of the Squad and AOC.  She's particularly effective in getting the crowds fired up, as I have seen in a variety of Youtube videos that recorded the events.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/19/sanders-campaign-is-counting-latinos-it-seems-be-working/

Of course, over the decades, the Dem Party Organizers have pretty much dumped the very idea of organized labor and unions, because, you know, these workers generally aren't white, and anyway, people who make beds don't even register on their radar r as existing, much less as performing meaningful labor. Sure didn't on Hillary's.

 

It goes back to the very beginning of Sanders' campaign, where the Latino people he engaged with were given authority, a budget, and actually wrote the policies affecting them that his campaign is producing.  As Chuck Rocha said, "We didn't only have a seat at the table, we ran the meeting!"  Looks like it was very effective.  They stole a march on all the other campaigns a year ago, and none of them ever noticed.

By the way, "Latinx" is just a white people thing.  I believe that community still uses "Latino".

[Fragile Bird]

21 minutes ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

That's a funny way of saying "vote a Democrat majority into the Senate."

Isn’t the important word in your statement ‘vote’? 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

29 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

It goes back to the very beginning of Sanders' campaign, where the Latino people he engaged with were given authority, a budget, and actually wrote the policies affecting them that his campaign is producing.  As Chuck Rocha said, "We didn't only have a seat at the table, we ran the meeting!"  Looks like it was very effective.  They stole a march on all the other campaigns a year ago, and none of them ever noticed.

By the way, "Latinx" is just a white people thing.  I believe that community still uses "Latino".

It's literally not a "white people" thing. It's a gender neutrality "thing."

[SpaceChampion]

5 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

It's literally not a "white people" thing. It's a gender neutrality "thing."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/10/25/latinx-race-progressives-hispanic-latinos-column/4082760002/

[Centrist Simon Steele]

5 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/10/25/latinx-race-progressives-hispanic-latinos-column/4082760002/

Your article doesn't do anything to help your generalizing case. Latinx, the pronoun they, etc., is not a white people thing. It's a move to understand that gender fluidity exists, and you should not presume gender. Latinx is popular on campuses, particularly in cultural studies, which are a diverse group of people who are often not white. It is in fact that non-white academics and students support this term that makes it legitimate, and it is not a misguided "white progressive" move to anglicize another language. It is a move progressive members of another culture ask to be used, especially in formal settings, to help stop people from misgendering those around them. This article does not account for the context of this term's rise, and USA Today is hardly the place I would go to seek out understanding of progressive momentum. 

[Ran]

I know Mexican-Americans who use “latinx”. Personally, I am Latino, and consider the neologism rather ugly but to each their own; it’s no skin off my back. It’s certainly true that it is, specifically, almost entirely an American thing that is basically non-existent outside of the US and the internet anglosphere. Latin Americans outside of the US don’t use it, and most Latin Americans in the US also don’t use it. 

[Zorral]

1 minute ago, Simon Steele said:

It's literally not a "white people" thing.

It depends on the particular Puerto Rican, Mexican, Dominican, Cuban, Honduran, etc. with whom one is speaking.  A lot of the older friends and colleagues in my, often overlapping, circles, think LatinX is silly, unless they are academics -- but, you know, we had to prove to Anthropology professor-amiga/os there are quite a few Native Americans who think calling themselves First People - Persons is just silly too, and proudly call themselves "Indians," by putting them in touch with other anthropologists who happen to tribe members too. Mostly, among my acquaintance, anyway -- thus purely anecdotal, utterly unofficial -- the ones who do use LatinX consistently are LGBTQ students, of whatever their heritage.

Perhaps we may need to be concerned about this too:

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Yes, I think it is very dependent on those we speak with. When I teach, at the beginning of a semester, I have students fill out info cards which include things like gender preferences, nicknames, etc. Overwhelmingly I am finding that Latino/a students ask me to use the term Latinx. For me, as a white male, to deny this because it's a "white people thing" seems really reductive and pretty condescending. 

[DMC]

44 minutes ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

That's a funny way of saying "vote a Democrat majority into the Senate."

I honestly have no idea what this means.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Ran said:

I know Mexican-Americans who use “latinx”. Personally, I am Latino, and consider the neologism rather ugly but to each their own; it’s no skin off my back. It’s certainly true that it is, specifically, almost entirely an American thing that is basically non-existent outside of the US and the internet anglosphere. Latin Americans outside of the US don’t use it, and most Latin Americans in the US also don’t use it. 

This subject gets even more complicated when you look at specific countries. In some places Latinos identify as white even though the average person might think they were a light skinned black individual.

[Fragile Bird]

For those who demanded to know what Bloomberg would do about his company if elected, Bloomberg has announced he’ll sell the company.

OMG, I hope it’s by a public offering. That’s a company I’d own shares of. As opposed to, say, Trump Inc.

[Conflicting Thought]

Im latinx too, and in my country we dont SAY latinX, but on left leaning circles and "the youth", we do use it in writing, but not only when using latinx but in all words that are gendered, for example if we are talking about americans, in spanish we would write  "americanxs". 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

And that's why "it will never work" is, in my opinion, just a poisonous idea. Fixing our political systems means keeping people engaged.

Tough thing is fixing our structural problems is never going to happen. Or at least not in a very long time, and you have to plan your strategies around that.

[Fragile Bird]

26 minutes ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

And that's why "it will never work" is, in my opinion, just a poisonous idea. Fixing our political systems means keeping people engaged.

The point kinda sailed over your head. If the senate isn't Democrat, Sander's aint gonna get things done.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

So the top story on The Guardian right now is that Trump was going to offer Assange a pardon if he was willing to say/prove Russia didn’t help in him obtaining DNC emails.

Like what the actual f***?

[Kalbear]

White people trash, yet again:

https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1230176799679639553?s=20

[Kalbear]

24 minutes ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

Nah seems more like you don't realize we're on the same page. I said to get anything done we need to vote in Democrats in the Senate. You seem to be saying the same thing.

Except you interjected into a conversation about Sanders using unilateral executive power to get his goals passed, without the senate or congress at all. 

[Zorral]

Bloomberg is the SAME PROBLEM, not the solution.

Quote

"....Bloomberg, instead, is offering rule by a minority of one. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that in addition to the sudden and visible flood of direct political spending, Bloomberg also boosted his single-year charitable spending to $3.3 billion in 2019, buying goodwill and the silence of potential critics across the country and around the world. The story opened by describing how Emily’s List kept Bloomberg on its roster of speakers for a fundraiser after he’d disparaged the #MeToo movement. Feminist advocates needed his money, even if it had to come at the expense of a feminist cause. So, too, gun control activists could have his bottomless support—as long as they made his top priority, background checks, their own top priority, and they used the language he wanted them to use...."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/michael-bloomberg-2020-democratic-campaign.html?via=recirc_engaged

Quote

 

Everyone in and around the Democratic field shares the understanding that Donald Trump represents a crisis of democracy. The candidates are all, to a greater or lesser extent, running on the message that they are each the singular person best positioned to resolve the crisis, by defeating Trump and what he stands for: Bernie Sanders because of his mass mobilization of supporters, Elizabeth Warren because of her policy acumen, Pete Buttigieg because of his bright-eyed affection for unity, Joe Biden because of his long-established public profile, Amy Klobuchar because of her feisty moderation.

Bloomberg’s message is that it’s too late for any of that. Michael Bloomberg is the only person who can beat Donald Trump, because he has the power to beat Donald Trump, because he has the money. The voters’ preferences don’t matter. The crisis is too urgent for that. He alone can fix it.

A broad swath of the media and political establishment is lining up behind this message of inevitability, just like it did last time. So far, this would-be consensus is struggling to overcome Bloomberg’s long and well-documented record: He is, after all, an enthusiastic authoritarian and a sexist bully and boor. He ruthlessly wielded the power of the state against black and Latino people and against Muslims. He’s a glib technology enthusiast who sees labor and craft as pointless and obsolete.

It is easy, but not sufficient, to point out that many of these details line up with the reasons we’re supposed to want to get rid of Donald Trump. Bloomberg has much more money than Trump, and he cuts a much more respectable figure, but the two of them come from the same cynical, domineering New York circles of power, and act like it. Not for nothing is Trump a sometime Democrat, and Bloomberg a former Republican. Not for nothing does each present himself as too rich to be bought, even while the Trump Organization chases foreign development projects and Bloomberg News killed its own coverage of high-level corruption in China to protect its access to the Chinese market for its moneymaking Bloomberg terminals.

 

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Two new polls out of SC have Biden and Sanders almost tied (well, one tied and the other with Biden +2); it is possible national polls are a leading indicator of Biden's collapse everywhere and the SC state poll is simply catching up.

I dont understand why Bloomberg skipped SC, if one of his paths to victory was knocking out Biden then splitting the AA vote in SC would basically doom Biden there and hasten his demise. I understand the thinking behind skipping IA and NH, it is a huge time and resource sink that is pretty useless if you dont hit the top three. NV is a bit more nebulous because sometimes it can be a bellweather to how you perform in a diverse state, but again maybe a caucus state isnt the best to jump in.

If I were advising him I would have suggested SC as the best entry point.

[Maithanet]

9 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

If I were advising him I would have suggested SC as the best entry point.

In hindsight, yes.  But I'm not sure even Bloomberg expected Biden to be quite this vulnerable, where anything but a win in SC could be a potential killing stroke. 

I think Bloomberg did what he did on the assumption that every other candidate was focusing on the first four, while he would have the ST states all to himself, and his boatloads of cash would go the furthest.  This assumption seems 100% correct, a huge portion of the Democratic electorate seems to know Bloomberg only from his ads.  In contrast, SC is a lot more saturated, and as a relatively small media market, Bloomberg would face a lot more competition from his primary rivals for ad space.