U.S. Politics: By Gawd King, That's Joe Biden's Music!!!!

[Kalbear]

Just now, Simon Steele said:

Lol, I love when I click on your evidence and read it. You're characterizing this (either on purpose or through unclear antecedents) that this proves Sanders has a bigger base of toxicity. 

Yes, it was antecedents you didn't bother to read. I'm not going to repost every  thing I said because you don't bother to read before posting. 

Just now, Simon Steele said:

From the article: "But the media’s obsessive focus on Bernie Bros — a term coined in 2016 to describe privileged white male Sanders supporters that doesn’t accurately describe his 2020 base — has obscured the real nature of the problem: a particular subculture among some Sanders fans that flourishes primarily on Twitter."

And...yes? This is exactly right. The problem is certainly not all Sanders supporters. The problem is that there is a specific subset that is really, really bad. It is a problem that you will see 4 negative tweets from a Sanders set of supporters compared to every 1 from anyone else. It is a problem that it is twice as likely to have a really really negative tweet from a Sanders supporter as anyone else. It is a problem that Sanders and Sirota and others go on the Chapo show and endorse them. It is a problem that their behavior is continued. Someone else said something like "they've gone from righteous anger to performative cruelty" and I think that's pretty spot on. 

The other issue is that it doesn't take many more negative impressions for you to have a negative association with anyone associated with a group. If 1 person is harassing you and 19 people aren't, but those 19 are hanging out with that one person and you know you'll be harassed constantly if you join that group, you're just not going to want to join that group. Psychologists have a name for this - negative bias - and it means that even if everyone else is nice, you'll be focused on that one negative jerk. And the more of those that you encounter, the more you'll avoid it. 

The good news is that Sanders likely could solve this very quickly by actively shaming Chapo and the like, and encouraging his followers to do the same and police themselves. Maybe he will do that. But in 2020 he did not appear to have any real interest in doing this, and you're seeing the result. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Other people appear to feel differently as far as them being abused or scorned. 

Biden has listened to a whole host of people his entire career, and it certainly hasn't been his donors. This framing - that anyone who isn't Sanders is beholden exclusively to their donors and not the party, their constituents, etc - this is the problem. You cannot both treat the democratic party establishment as the enemy AND ask for their support. You have to either assume that Biden and Obama and a whole lot of others actually does want to make things better, or you need to assume that you will never ever gain their support no matter what. 

And ultimately what policies people run on doesn't matter that much. Biden is running on the policy of returning the soul of the US. Is it detailed? Nope! Is it broken down by how it'll be paid for? Nope! And none of that really matters that much in the end. It took me a long while to realize that detailed policy proposals aren't particularly useful for running, they're not particularly realistic, and it's more important to articulate your ideals. Sanders wants to dismantle the entire private insurance industry and replace it with government insurance. I think that's a great idea. But I don't think it'll happen, and I won't be upset if he couldn't get that done. I think Sanders would be better on foreign policy than Biden, who will likely continue the Obama doctrines with a mixed bag here and there. I think Biden will have significantly more competent staff than Sanders, but probably not as crazy a deal. 

Heck - my entire family, myself included, all voted for Sanders. 

But I can recognize his failings, and I don't have to whatabout someone else in order to excuse them. 

Listening is one thing, action is another.  

Hell, Biden according to stuff leaked today to Axios, Biden is considering Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon for cabinet positions!  

1 minute ago, DMC said:

If you think Sanders will be any better than Biden in terms of managing (and rebuilding) the administrative state, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.  In fact, Sanders' approach to careerist bureaucrats will not be far removed from the mirror image of Trump's.  He has consistently demonstrated over a 30 year congressional career that he has zero respect for the expertise of careerist civil servants and how integrating their expertise can leads to favorable policy outcomes.  Compared to almost every other Democratic candidate that ran this cycle, Sanders would clearly be a disaster in this regard.

Lol tell me that when Bidens cabinet looks more like Trumps than anything else. 

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Hell, Biden according to stuff leaked today to Axios, Biden is considering Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon for cabinet positions!  

General opinion on campaign watchers is that the Axios source is not in the Biden inner circle and was just repeating rumors. The idea that Biden would be considering Warren on the one hand and Dimon on the other is the sort of rumor mill you'd expect but it's not credible, and his campaign directly denied this all.

[Kalbear]

Just now, larrytheimp said:

Listening is one thing, action is another.  

Hell, Biden according to stuff leaked today to Axios, Biden is considering Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon for cabinet positions! 

See Ran's point.

And he's also taken action throughout his career too. Again, you not liking it does not mean it is all corporatist garbage. I'm curious - how do you explain his efforts on the Violence against women act? Why was he opposed to Bork? Why did he spearhead the assault weapons ban? Again, if you only demonize the other people in the party you're trying to lead, chances are good that you're going to not have them support you.

 

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Lol tell me that when Bidens cabinet looks more like Trumps than anything else. 

I you think the administrative state is run by the cabinet, you don't understand the administrative state.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

40 minutes ago, Ran said:

But US businesses, on the other hand...

And yeah, FATCA is a pain in the ass. My bank here in Sweden nearly washed its hands of me at one point several years ago because they were uncertain how much of a hassle they wanted, but they fortunately relented.

Actually, really depends on the US business in question.  Tax reform has extended the reach of the US tax net for corporate taxpayers tremendously through the amazingly-named GILTI.  For a lot of corporate taxpayers GILTI is payable at 10.5% (once credits are factored in) so it's a good deal, but that was the price of our (limited) participation exemption.  The even more amazingly-named BEAT is inteded to grab "base erosion" (meaning deductible) payments from the US into related entities in low-tax jurisdictions, though it only bits companies that are really quite large.  Wholly separate thread, but I actually support the part of the 2017 law related to multinational taxation - thought it was actually pretty thoughtful overall.  It also dovetails nicely with BEPS and some other things going on that are trying to eliminate "stateless" income.  (The individual provisions, however, are offensive.).  There will remain a huge global food fight among taxing jurisdictions about "digital" income.  There is a big question regarding who gets to tax it, and on what basis.  That's the next frontier here.