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US Politics: Money, Money, Money Makes the World Go Round


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21 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

indicate that Biden or Warren or some other candidate would have done better. Enough of the Bernie fear mongering. Why should he have backed a candidate that most Democratic voters are not choosing to back? That is idiotic.

Actually, yes, it may well suggest that Biden or Warren or any other candidate could have won while Bernie didn't because of the unique and identifiable weaknesses Bernie has that literally every other candidate does not.  As for Bernie stepping aside for Warren, no, I don't think it would have been "idiotic."  If you're good friends with another candidate, your policies essentially align, she has quite a bit of buzz, and you're a 78-year-old retread that has the socialist label sewed on as a scarlet letter, I'd say it'd be the pretty classy and prudent thing to do to put the support of this movement you've built behind a candidate like Warren.  Obviously it's been too late to do so for months now, so it's moot, but that definitely wouldn't have been idiotic.

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1 minute ago, Darzin said:

No I don't think I could find most candidates praising authoritarian regimes or hanging the flag of a hated enemy in their office. I realize every candidate has oppo research, but just the Castro stuff takes Florida out of play not to mention being pretty morally problematic.

What makes you think Biden who is very similar to Hillary (who lost Florida), can do it? 
 

Or Buttigieg and Klobuchar who have no minority support will win a Latino heavy state? 
 

Or Warren who is just as liberal and doesn’t perform well there in most polls? 

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

Actually, yes, it may well suggest that Biden or Warren or any other candidate could have won while Bernie didn't because of the unique and identifiable weaknesses Bernie has that literally every other candidate does not.  As for Bernie stepping aside for Warren, no, I don't think it would have been "idiotic."  If you're good friends with another candidate, your policies essentially align, she has quite a bit of buzz, and you're a 78-year-old retread that has the socialist label sewed on as a scarlet letter, I'd say it'd be the pretty classy and prudent thing to do to put the support of this movement you've built behind a candidate like Warren.  Obviously it's been too late to do so for months now, so it's moot, but that definitely wouldn't have been idiotic.

1. He asked her to run a long time ago. She didn’t 

2. She blew a surge already and has shown no ability to build a coalition or that she would succeed at all here. 

3. She’s also in her 70’s.

4. Your kidding yourself if you think her policies won’t get her labeled a socialist. They called Obama a socialist 

 

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Just now, lancerman said:

1. He asked her to run a long time ago. She didn’t 

2. She blew a surge already and has shown no ability to build a coalition or that she would succeed at all here. 

3. She’s also in her 70’s.

4. Your kidding yourself if you think her policies won’t get her labeled a socialist. They called Obama a socialist 

1.  He says he asked her to run in 2016.  Against Hillary who everyone assumed would win.  As opposed to now with a much more wide open field.

2.  This has nothing to do with the points I raised.  And, not for nothing, there were significant attacks on her health care plan by Bernie surrogates/supporters that likely contributed to her "blowing" her surge.

3.  She's still 8 years younger, which is the (hopefully still) maximum length of a presidency.  More importantly, she has not been on the national scene nearly to the degree of Sanders, thus opinions of her are much more malleable/less entrenched.

4.  Sigh, this isn't the point at all and I'm running out of patience for this response.  Elizabeth Warren is not a self-identified democratic socialist.  That is an objective, clear electoral difference - and advantage - for her compared to Sanders.

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7 minutes ago, lancerman said:

What makes you think Biden who is very similar to Hillary (who lost Florida), can do it? 
 

Or Buttigieg and Klobuchar who have no minority support will win a Latino heavy state? 
 

Or Warren who is just as liberal and doesn’t perform well there in most polls? 

So I won't defend going after Florida (It's dead red to me) but I don't think fixating on it is to your credit. The concern is clearly about the man's...

I just can't get past this. Can someone give me a reference to this Soviet flag business? Because that is... fucking awful. Not even in an "I won't vote for him" way, because I'll take a Soviet over a Nazi any day. But that's truly disappointing. I've thought a lot of things about Senator Sanders over the years, however I don't recall thinking he was a fucking moron before today.

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15 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

Am I wrong?

Also, you can't accuse someone of tone policing without tone policing yourself.

Maybe you are not wrong, who cares, like  really, how is sanders waving a finger to some journalist, such a big deal, dont you think, that maybe you are building a mountain out of a grain of sand? Maybe cuz your supposed "skeletons" on bernie's closet, arent real, so you have to give sooo much time on something so little. 

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5 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Wait, did he really hang a Soviet flag in his office? Because that's... gross.

Yes he did.

2 minutes ago, lancerman said:

What makes you think Biden who is very similar to Hillary (who lost Florida), can do it? 
 

Well I think that if it were a straight popular vote I would be a lot less worried he polls decently against Trump, but once you get into state polls he does worse. Running up the score in California won't help, Hillary herself got more votes.  I don't think he can win middle America and  it also worries me his base are the young and nonvoters, two of the the most unreliable voting blocks. That combined with the torrent of anti socialist anti communist propaganda the Republicans will unleash combined with Bernie's favorable statements of the same will sink him with old but reliable voters who are primed to hate these things. 

 

Notice I didn't say his polices are too far left, it;s everything else about him and even there he won't make some simple changes. He could turn medicare for all from an unpopular one to a popular one by taking out the line banning private insurance. It wouldn't cost the government any more money or anything but he won't and people who equate health insurance with healthcare, will hear the true statement, Bernie wants to make your health insurance illegal, and think that means they won't get healthcare. 

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Bernie losing the election wouldn't be a huge blow to leftists.  Bernie winning the presidency would be.  In the current polarized environment the chance of Bernie being able to actually enact any major new laws is very low.  Especially, because Bernie being elected president will probably temporarily cost the Democrats a seat in the senate which is is already a long shot for them to recapture.  4 years of Bernie probably won't be too different than 4 years of any other Democrat.  Leftist enthusiasm will diminish like Obama's did.

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8 minutes ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

Bernie losing the election wouldn't be a huge blow to leftists.  Bernie winning the presidency would be.  In the current polarized environment the chance of Bernie being able to actually enact any major new laws is very low.  Especially, because Bernie being elected president will probably temporarily cost the Democrats a seat in the senate which is is already a long shot for them to recapture.  4 years of Bernie probably won't be too different than 4 years of any other Democrat.  Leftist enthusiasm will diminish like Obama's did.

I also see a Sanders victory as another form of defeat. He'll try to enact some of these promises, I don't doubt he's a true believer, but with a likely Republican senate he'll have to turn to EOs that will get struck down by the courts and the economy has been on the edge of collapse for years now. Won't it be great to have Paul Ryan promise to make the economy better in 2024 and win by a landslide?

He was ALWAYS against Trump, dontcha know?

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Just now, Bael's Bastard said:

This is just all kinds of delusional.

1. Nothing about the behaviour or actions of Bernie or his supporters approaches Trump and his. If all Trump had going against him were a small group of anonymous internet trolls that may or may not actually be part of his camp we'd be a hell of a lot better off than we actually are. The idea that these anonymous trolls are at all directed by Bernie or representative of his base is total bullshit. I don't love that guy, and some of his supporters annoy me, but there's no comparison.  

2. The idea that Warren would have the same results as Bernie are without basis. She isn't even competitive against Bernie in the primary, the idea that she would somehow be more effective than Bernie this time is without basis.

I said it's not an equivalency. Add in Sanders being authoritarian-curious and his past and other traits with Trump, it creates something very unsettling. The moment someone expresses any sympathies with authoritarians, I'm on high alert.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/21/bernie-sanders-venezuela-maduro-1179636

On Warren, issue-wise, she's not far off from Bernie except she' a capitalist. And she does the work and comes up with specific plans. For all of that time in the Senate, Bernie's record is not impressive. I highly doubt his effectiveness unless he surrounds himself with right people to compensate for that. Yes, she's not competitive in the primary. That's what I find inexplicable.

 

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32 minutes ago, lancerman said:

One of your sources is the implication that because he didn’t speak out directly saying Maduro should be ousted he is authoritatian friendly. 
 

That’s literally the first source you posted. 
 

 

It's not just Maduro. Read it.

Look again on the sources posted in this thread.

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15 minutes ago, DMC said:

1.  He says he asked her to run in 2016.  Against Hillary who everyone assumed would win.  As opposed to now with a much more wide open field.

2.  This has nothing to do with the points I raised.  And, not for nothing, there were significant attacks on her health care plan by Bernie surrogates/supporters that likely contributed to her "blowing" her surge.

3.  She's still 8 years younger, which is the (hopefully still) maximum length of a presidency.  More importantly, she has not been on the national scene nearly to the degree of Sanders, thus opinions of her are much more malleable/less entrenched.

4.  Sigh, this isn't the point at all and I'm running out of patience for this response.  Elizabeth Warren is not a self-identified democratic socialist.  That is an objective, clear electoral difference - and advantage - for her compared to Sanders.

1. The first point is he was willing to back her once. She declined. He went in and showed that he could be viable. 
 

2. The second point is that she has never proven she was viable. Bernie never attacked Warren and gave her plenty of in roads and she still couldn’t gain traction once moderates attacked her. So there’s no factual reason for him to believe that the better bet for him to back her under some guise of her being more palpable. It’s dubious at best. It’s just as likely she has his backing, has the same pitfalls and has the same polling as now and progressives are stuck with a moderate. A lot of people make the mistake that politics is binary. It’s not. Sanders stepping out doesn’t actually guarantee she mass consolidation around Warren or make her more electable. If he thinks he can win, then it’s stupid to pass on that and your ideas because of such a vague unprovable notion. 
 

3. Your 70’s are your 70’s. You are old to most of the public. She isn’t going to fulfill some fresh faces Obama or JFK niche. This election will always be one 70 year old vs another 70 year old. So quite frankly age isn’t factoring in this cycle. 
 

4. Then lose your patience. She argues for  Medicare For All, her wealth tax is actually more extreme than a Sanders, she wants free tuition. She’s already been labeled a socialist. She is going in fighting that label. It’s silly to think Republicans aren’t going to throw up a video of Sanders and Warren saying all the same things and not calling her a socialist. It’s already a perception she is dealing with. Btw Sanders isn’t a socialist. There’s a difference 

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18 minutes ago, Darzin said:

Yes he did.

Well I think that if it were a straight popular vote I would be a lot less worried he polls decently against Trump, but once you get into state polls he does worse. Running up the score in California won't help, Hillary herself got more votes.  I don't think he can win middle America and  it also worries me his base are the young and nonvoters, two of the the most unreliable voting blocks. That combined with the torrent of anti socialist anti communist propaganda the Republicans will unleash combined with Bernie's favorable statements of the same will sink him with old but reliable voters who are primed to hate these things. 

 

Notice I didn't say his polices are too far left, it;s everything else about him and even there he won't make some simple changes. He could turn medicare for all from an unpopular one to a popular one by taking out the line banning private insurance. It wouldn't cost the government any more money or anything but he won't and people who equate health insurance with healthcare, will hear the true statement, Bernie wants to make your health insurance illegal, and think that means they won't get healthcare. 

You do realize he polls better in the Midwest than Hillary did right? Like that was his strength in 2016

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41 minutes ago, Darzin said:

All this stuff. Most of which is unknown to the general public. Praising Fidel Castro, Saying it was ok for the Sandinistas to lock up journalists, putting a Soviet flag in his office. Sanders has a history of excusing leftwing authoritarianism and it has not been brought up at all. I realize some of the links are smears, but some have videos and smears work even when addressed see how easy the narrative of Pete Buttiigieg being in the pocket of billionairesgot traction despite being based on half truths. and none of that stuff has been talked about to the American public and it will turn middle America off like no other.   

There's so much wrong with the stuff you linked. If I wasn't smack dab in the middle of working on my PhD, I'd honestly love to make a project of going through each of those links and countering their hysteria. For now, looking at Sanders views on Castro, the Sandinistas, the Soviet flag as if it occurred in a vacuum about forty years ago is just more evidence how much people are having to reach to make these things into scandals. I was a toddler when he made most of these comments, so I can't speak as someone who witnessed this moment in history, but I have watched the linked videos (and when they all cut off after 30 seconds, sometimes mid-sentence, I'll go find the full interview), and everything Sanders was doing was in outright opposition to the Reagan administration. His compliments toward Castro, for example, were a rhetorical point that while our commander and chief derided Castro as a monster, he was still able to provide better education and healthcare to Cuba than the U.S. could. In fact, if anything, this shows how consistent Sanders has been in his message: better healthcare, an economy not rigged by the elites, etc. Sanders said then and he says now he does not support authoritarianism of any sort--his point was to illustrate that Americans lived under an illusion of freedom while receiving worse benefits than countries with overt fascist leaders.

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33 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

This seems an awful lot like "you are intolerant of my intolerance." Your arguments are nonsensical and rely on a strawman standing on a slippery slope.

There is a slippery slope element. That's inherent when one is using present behavior to speculate a trajectory for future behavior. The same goes on when we speculate about Trump going further off the rails.

Combine a history of authoritarian-friendliness with the power consolidation of socialism - I'm deeply unsettled and it's more about Bernie personally. He's a terrible candidate. I don't agree that this should be overlooked in people we like but condemned in people we don't but that's what it looks like.

 

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1 minute ago, Simon Steele said:

There's so much wrong with the stuff you linked. If I wasn't smack dab in the middle of working on my PhD, I'd honestly love to make a project of going through each of those links and countering their hysteria. For now, looking at Sanders views on Castro, the Sandinistas, the Soviet flag as if it occurred in a vacuum about forty years ago is just more evidence how much people are having to reach to make these things into scandals. I was a toddler when he made most of these comments, so I can't speak as someone who witnessed this moment in history, but I have watched the linked videos (and when they all cut off after 30 seconds, sometimes mid-sentence, I'll go find the full interview), and everything Sanders was doing was in outright opposition to the Reagan administration. His compliments toward Castro, for example, were a rhetorical point that while our commander and chief derided Castro as a monster, he was still able to provide better education and healthcare to Cuba than the U.S. could. In fact, if anything, this shows how consistent Sanders has been in his message: better healthcare, an economy not rigged by the elites, etc. Sanders said then and he says now he does not support authoritarianism of any sort--his point was to illustrate that Americans lived under an illusion of freedom while receiving worse benefits than countries with overt fascist leaders.

The Soviets starved 10 million people to death about eighty years ago in Ukraine, and I'll cut off the travesty list there because it only gets worse. Hanging their flag is despicable and a sign of poor intelligence. Children in high school go on and on about how communism is 'the perfect form of government' because they don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

I can handle that kind of idiocy in children. A thirty year old man? No.

Again, though, I'll vote for him. But that's some real dumb shit.

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40 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

@Ser Scot A Ellison

Yeah Scot, and you know who else wears ties and has crazy hair? Only one DONALD J. TRUMP! This insidious, tie-wearing, crazy hair-having, finger-pointing monster MUST BE STOPPED!! Or else this is the inevitable outcome:

Mass hysteria!

Why aren't you researching the candidate you're supporting? Links provided in this thread. Please be more responsible and know who you're voting for.

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1 hour ago, lancerman said:

 By that metric, who has been properly vetted? He’s been in politics longer than candidate not named Biden (who btw if he gets the nom has a lot of skeletons that prevented him from nominations before). 

But who? Warren? She’s a Senator in arguably the most liberal state in country and has only been on the scene less than a decade.

The small time mayor from an average show city that nobody heard of a year ago who under his first intense look has a massive police corruption problem? 
 

The billionaire with a dozen sexual misconduct NDA’s? Who has only been in the race a few weeks? Yeah I’m sure that will work out and nothing is going to come from that. 
 

Klobuchar? Nobody has taken her seriously until NH and as soon as that happened she got hit with problematic prosecution. 
 

Im not sure I understand the validity of this metric 

 

I agree with this. All of the candidates should be vetted extensively. It's not happening sufficiently. But anyone suggesting flipping the tables should get special attention and it's not an excuse to not do the research ourselves before we vote for them.

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7 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

Why aren't you researching the candidate you're supporting? Links provided in this thread. Please be more responsible and know who you're voting for.

Seriously? Fuck off. All this shit is a re-tread of the 2016 primary, except the power brokers in the Democratic party are freaking out even more now that it appears he has a viable path to the nomination, and they're equating Sanders with being a fucking Nazi, which is WAY fucking worse than Sanders hanging a fucking flag in his office.

Nothing you're linking now wasn't already linked during the 2016 primaries, so it's just the media re-hashing all the same talking points they dragged out 4 years ago.

I'm going to make a Sanders-as-boogeyman bingo card, and the next thing I'll put on it is Sanders' crazy rape fantasy essays, that monster!

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