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US Politics: Time to Stock Up


Tywin Manderly

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1 minute ago, larrytheimp said:

It's moving the goal posts because I demonstrated Biden saying the literal thing you told me I needed to cite, and then you just waive off.  They don't need to claim it's a lie.  The words he's saying are literally opposite of what he's said before.

The problem is my "goalposts" never were whether or not Biden was a liar.  As I said, literally in that post, I referred to Biden as a pathological liar.  YOU are moving the goalposts by acting like you proving Biden lied rhetorically, which pretty much every politician in the history of the world does, proves your point.  It doesn't.  Your point was Biden "knew the WMDs weren't really there, and lied about it all saying Bush tricked him."  You have not refuted that at all by the citations provided.  All you demonstrated is Biden backed off the WMD claim because he was campaigning for John Kerry in October 2004, which is what all Democrats did at the time.  Seriously dude.  I may be drunk, but I wasn't drunk yesterday.

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Just now, DMC said:

The problem is my "goalposts" never were whether or not Biden was a liar.  As I said, literally in that post, I referred to Biden as a pathological liar.  YOU are moving the goalposts by acting like you proving Biden lied rhetorically, which pretty much every politician in the history of the world does, proves your point.  It doesn't.  Your point was Biden "knew the WMDs weren't really there, and lied about it all saying Bush tricked him."  You have not refuted that at all by the citations provided.  All you demonstrated is Biden backed off the WMD claim because he was campaigning for John Kerry in October 2004, which is what all Democrats did at the time.  Seriously dude.  I may be drunk, but I wasn't drunk yesterday.

Read the article.  It addresses all of that.  Maybe you missed it 

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Just now, larrytheimp said:

Read the article.  It addresses all of that.  Maybe you missed it 

Now you can't even synthesize an argument from your preferred article?  No thanks.

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3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't disagree at all. There are a whole lot of policies that are right, that should be done, and will also 100% get you completely not elected every single time. That sucks about the US, it really does. But that's where we are, and you can't go to election with the voters you wish you had. And Sanders just doesn't seem to be able to compromise one iota. That's something his supporters love about him, but it makes it very hard for him to win.

I think Sanders has done a great deal to push the party leftwards, and I think that will pay dividends. I just think Sanders himself has enough problems that make him too hard to elect, and we're starting to see exactly how much support he had in 2016 was simply anti-Clinton. 

It think that you are right, and I have always known that Bernie winning would be hard, but at the same time, when the party is so full of people who bow to their corporate overlords and seem to only care about maintaining personal power with out using it in an actual productive way (Looking at you Nancy and Chuck), people like Bernie are vitally important. He is the conscientious, he has stood for the right things his entire career and I think that no matter how you feel about him now, he will go down as an import figure in the Democratic party.

 

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You too! I'm in Washington State, so it's not great here. Fortunately I have a great wife, a job that lets me telecommute and a company that has been so far the best company in the US (Microsoft) as far as their policies go about this. They recently just gave people two extra weeks of sick leave to simply deal with kids staying home from school if they need to. These are things that should be just, well, the norm, but they didn't have to do it and it is awesome. 

Glad to hear it. As a state worker things I have a pretty sweet gig, my agency (which is obscure but is a pretty big deal) is currently getting things lined up for if we have to work from home and Inslee has expanded leave and paid status for those impacted by the outbreak.

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41 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

In post #43 of this thread, you asked me for evidence that Biden had lied by saying he never believed that Iraq had WMDs.  Then, in post #60, I quoted Biden saying exactly that.  

My response to post 43 was post 49, but anyway, that wasn't the only thing I was asking you.  And even then I said:  "While I suspected it was bullshit before the war even started, no one "knew" anything for quite a while." 

Which is still the case.  Biden pivoted, as politicians are wont to do. 

I said in the same post:  "Like, seriously, do you remember the climate at that time?  Biden made ONE vote authorizing force.  I suppose that makes him responsible for the Iraq War.  But shared with all the 89 81 Democratic representatives and 28 Democratic Senators that voted exactly the same way." 

You have yet to react or acknowledge the political realities, and instead are obsessed on proving me wrong on this one point.  It's kind of disappointing, because I respect you and know you are a very smart person.  Getting out of this back and forth, Biden's "agreement" with Iraq is not going to have much legs as an attack.  Nobody cares anymore.  Anyone who does?  Incredibly unlikely that's going to change their vote choice.  So, let's stop arguing and go back to drinking or smoking or both, eh?

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From the above:

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Sanders lost.  Again.  His presidential ambitions are officially over.  If his supporters want to lash out by childishly attack Biden, sure, correct the record there.

This outcome being relatively predictable is precisely why I didn't want him to run in the first place. The sentiment I thought it would keep alive can be seen in this post of Tywin's as well

By having Bernie in the race again, and especially having it boil down to him vs a very high profile establishment Dem meant the primary was in part just litigating 2016 again for the billionth time, and the exact same dynamic emerged in some of his supporters with the cynicism towards the DNC.

He should have stayed out of it and actively passed the torch to someone else to carry the progressive cause into the future, and I didn't really think Warren was the right pick for that either. It needed to be someone who will build the movement for the future while accepting that stepping back from the current brink was going to override everything else for many Dem voters right now, Elevate some of the young, progressive women that are exhibiting some great talent. Having the progressive movement fronted by a member of a minority, probably a woman of colour due to how much better they have to be to get this success, will really help with the concerns that dogged Bernie of being too focused on class at the expense of other issues.

Hopefully after losing this second time, he'll recognise the necessity of this.

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4 minutes ago, karaddin said:

He should have stayed out of it and actively passed the torch to someone else to carry the progressive cause into the future, and I didn't really think Warren was the right pick for that either.

I disagree.  Warren was exactly the right pick, if Sanders had some semblance of class and stepped aside at 78.  It would have been great if Warren and Harris could have competed for the nomination.  Instead we get this.  Ugh.  

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6 minutes ago, DMC said:

I disagree.  Warren was exactly the right pick, if Sanders had some semblance of class and stepped aside at 78.  It would have been great if Warren and Harris could have competed for the nomination.  Instead we get this.  Ugh.  

I was talking my view from the start of 2019, my worry at that point was that Warren was also too old and the base was going to be wanting someone younger. My view on Sanders didn't change, but my view on Warren did - in part because that desire for youth clearly wasn't a thing with all the younger, and in some cases seemingly excellent, candidates getting knocked out early.

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1 minute ago, karaddin said:

my view on Warren did - in part because that desire for youth clearly wasn't a thing with all the younger, and in some cases seemingly excellent, candidates getting knocked out early.

To clarify, I was mostly agreeing with you there and just being a smartass.  For me, Warren gets grandfathered (grandmothered?) in to the younger candidate aspect.  She may be 70 but she's still a pretty new face to most American voters.  Whereas Biden and Sanders decidedly are not.  But yes, the Democratic electorate made their positions clear, and that position is "I want an old white guy to beat this other old white guy."  Not very inspiring.  We'll see.

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

To clarify, I was mostly agreeing with you there and just being a smartass.  For me, Warren gets grandfathered (grandmothered?) in to the younger candidate aspect.  She may be 70 but she's still a pretty new face to most American voters.  Whereas Biden and Sanders decidedly are not.  But yes, the Democratic electorate made their positions clear, and that position is "I want an old white guy to beat this other old white guy."  Not very inspiring.  We'll see.

Which is precisely why it seems this wasn't the election to view as "all or nothing for the progressive movement". Take the incremental wins, understand that if current "youth" (meaning sub 45) voters retain their political values then time is on their side. Extract as many allowances from the establishment candidate and spend the next 4 years focusing on harm reduction wherever and whenever possible. It sucks, and I wish things could improve more, but at least you carry the gains into the future rather than risking losing it all.

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3 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Holy shit Warren is 70? I thought she was late 50s at most. 

She'll turn 71 in June.  Surprised me too when I first checked her age.  On a personal level, good for her!

2 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Which is precisely why it seems this wasn't the election to view as "all or nothing for the progressive movement". Take the incremental wins, understand that if current "youth" (meaning sub 45) voters retain their political values then time is on their side. Extract as many allowances from the establishment candidate and spend the next 4 years focusing on harm reduction wherever and whenever possible. It sucks, and I wish things could improve more, but at least you carry the gains into the future rather than risking losing it all.

Hey!  Stop stealing my schtick!  Couldn't have said it better myself.

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Just now, DMC said:

Hey!  Stop stealing my schtick!  Couldn't have said it better myself.

I think we're on different pages in terms of the policies we view as most important and who our "ideal" candidates would have been, but we find ourselves at the same point now. My main point here is really just needing to recognise when you've lost and need to refocus on preserving any gains you've made rather than continuing to fight till the bitter end and throwing it away.

Of course for all I say we'd have different ideal candidates, I think we both settled on the same preferred one out of the list we were given in the end.

On the subject of needing to accept the race is over and move on to the next stage, I'm still ~15 pages of this thread behind the current discussion, if the infighting shit/Bernie Bro conversation is still ongoing then that needs to stop too. If the race is over then the left isn't the rival of the centrist anymore, they're the prospective recruits and need to be treated like you treat people you expect to vote for you, not the enemy.

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Just now, Triskele said:

kind of wishing there was button that said "generally down with anything karaddin has said."

Its the external perspective that gives me such clarity *sagely nods*. I'm deeply scared of where things can go, but I can't vote, I can't get out and do things in the community around me to have an impact even if I was healthy enough to do so, all I can do is try and convince the disparate coalition of people I cross paths with online to try and find the right path. And because the stakes are so high, even though I'm as pessimistic as some other posters, I don't give up and I do that little I can.

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2 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I think we're on different pages in terms of the policies we view as most important and who our "ideal" candidates would have been,

Oh, I don't know about that.  I'm a pragmatist, but my beliefs are likely significantly different than what you may perceive based on my posts here.

3 minutes ago, karaddin said:

if the infighting shit/Bernie Bro conversation is still ongoing then that needs to stop too.

Agreed.  Actually, since I whined about it there hasn't been much of that silliness.  That's pretty cool - and no, I don't think anyone actually listened to me.  It's just a coincidence.  But go coincidences!

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

Oh, I don't know about that.  I'm a pragmatist, but my beliefs are likely significantly different than what you may perceive based on my posts here.

Agreed.  Actually, since I whined about it there hasn't been much of that silliness.  That's pretty cool - and no, I don't think anyone actually listened to me.  It's just a coincidence.  But go coincidences!

At the first - fair, my view of you is what comes out after the pragmatic filter is laid over it, not what you'd most want.

At the second - covid-19 probably gets the credit for changing the subject.

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Just now, karaddin said:

At the second - covid-19 probably gets the credit for changing the subject.

That fucker gets credit for everything these days, and he just came out of nowhere.

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19 minutes ago, Triskele said:

What kind of monster doesn't ready my posts?

Heh, you know someone with that avatar showed up on another site abd I thought it might be you for about 20 seconds and well, let’s just say they started screaming about MAGA and white genocide.

and I was probably in one of my avoid gen chat modes. 

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