US Politics: Biden vs. Trump and Corona, Thunderdome Society at Its Very Best

[Mexal]

34 minutes ago, Pecan said:

Is there anyone on here that has some degree of confidence in Biden as a candidate? If so, what is your argument for that belief? 

He has not endured 30 years of constant poor media attention and therefore, he is not hated. Oh and he's a white man who's not a socialist.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

When you believe in nothing everything is empty words.  

Lol, I actually believe in quite a lot.

But all I see is failure. Still, one must persist, and dream bigger.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

As someone involved with this kind of thing, I can tell you with certainty that Sanders’ support and signal boosting has been helpful on pipeline issues and MMIW issues. Native people and the issues we face have a HUGE visibility problem to overcome before we can overcome any other problem.

Democrats don’t currently care, but if they wanna keep saying they are the party for racial justice, they should. The whole Elizabeth Warren issue really laid bare how little of a fuck Democrats-even in the progressive wing, even in my personal acquaintance- give about indigenous people and racism against us.

I'm sure it's not without well meaning, but is it that great outside of your social circle? Do you think as a white liberal activist roaming around the same city as you that I've heard anything more than the usual about the subject because Bernie said something about it.

The hard answer is no, Kay. Wrongly, most people simply do not care, even the ones who demonstrate that they try. It is what it is, but I do respect and appreciate how you've sacrificed on your own end to do the right thing. 

[Week]

8 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

That is really silly though. I'm already starting to see articles about how Biden is going to beat Trump like a drum in November. Acting like Biden is the strongest candidate solely by virtue of winning the most votes in the primary, while not dealing with his obvious flaws as a candidate, is begging to be set up to fail, because all the old rules are out the window now.

The facile question that I answered was:

34 minutes ago, Pecan said:

Is there anyone on here that has some degree of confidence in Biden as a candidate? If so, what is your argument for that belief? 

My answer is sufficient. You are asking for a different answer, which I am not really interested in arguing. I'm not a Biden-stan. Warren, Castro, Harris, and Booker are all stronger candidates with fewer flaws than Bernie and Biden IMO.

8 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I think that during a primary held in any other year, Biden would not have been able to recover sufficiently after defeat in the first 3 states to capture the nomination, mostly because the other candidates in his lane probably wouldn't have dropped out and endorsed before Super Tuesday when they'd already stretched their campaigns out until 2 days before. Biden then doesn't get as big of a corresponding bounce, and Sanders ends up in a much stronger position after Super Tuesday, prolonging the primary further, and perhaps garnering Warren's endorsement since it looks like he has a viable shot at the nomination.

That's not saying there wouldn't be different concerns with a Sanders nomination, but I'm done with being overconfident on election day.

You are ignoring Sanders failures in the South and with the older base of the democratic party (i.e. the part that turns out to vote). Biden's unusual success was not the reason for Sanders losing. It was the reason that Biden won.

[Kalbear]

14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I agree with all this.  I truly resent that Biden is the presumed anointed without me ever getting a chance to say -- or anyone else either.  As well, as you and others bring up there are other candidates for other offices -- now what?

The chance to say thing is actually VERY rare in most times. Only in 2008 and  2016 was the race held throughout almost the whole thing. Before that every race had basically been decided by Super Tuesday. 

There really isn't a lot of value in your getting a say. 

 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Week said:

You are ignoring Sanders failures in the South and with the older base of the democratic party (i.e. the part that turns out to vote). Biden's unusual success was not the reason for Sanders losing. It was the reason that Biden won.

Again, this is just silly, and ignores the facts on the ground. In any normal year, Biden most likely would have dropped out before South Carolina. 

[Week]

Just now, The Great Unwashed said:

Again, this is just silly, and ignores the facts on the ground. In any normal year, Biden most likely would have dropped out before South Carolina. 

Yes, so he would lose. You are arguing that Bernie would win -- I do not agree. 

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Acting like Biden is the strongest candidate solely by virtue of winning the most votes in the primary, while not dealing with his obvious flaws as a candidate, is begging to be set up to fail, because all the old rules are out the window now.

I think most everyone agrees that Biden is a terribly flawed candidate.  But by the same token - and like you said - acting like Sanders isn't also an obviously and terribly flawed candidate is equally fallacious.  Frankly the primary boiled down to (other than Bloomberg) basically the two weakest general election candidates among the crop of serious challengers in my estimation.  That's what sucks, but it's sucked for about two months now, nothing new.

Moreover, Biden does deserve credit for building a coalition that looks appealingly transferable to the general election.  Will that happen?  We'll see, but he's strong with most of the key constituencies of the Democratic electorate - whereas Sanders plainly has fundamental weaknesses there, whether it's fair or not.  And, yes, he does appeal to the low-information white male demo that makes him a distinct threat to Trump's reelection constituency.  He's durably demonstrated his ability to speak that demo's language throughout his Senate career - much more so than Obama - and the primary results suggest he has an opportunity there that most other candidates (including Sanders) do not.

You can argue hypotheticals and electoral scenarios of "if it was a normal cycle and the Dem party wasn't facing Trump" all you'd like, it doesn't change the fact that we are facing Trump.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Lol, I actually believe in quite a lot.

But all I see is failure. Still, one must persist, and dream bigger.

 

 

I'm sure it's not without well meaning, but is it that great outside of your social circle? Do you think as a white liberal activist roaming around the same city as you that I've heard anything more than the usual about the subject because Bernie said something about it.

The hard answer is no, Kay. Wrongly, most people simply do not care, even the ones who demonstrate that they try. It is what it is, but I do respect and appreciate how you've sacrificed on your own end to do the right thing. 

I'm sorry, but you're just really, really wrong on this one. Sanders was the only candidate seriously giving attention to the Standing Rock reservation in 2016, and it was through his campaign this year that I discovered non-profits to donate to in 2020 designed to assist the Native population during the pandemic.

I'm the target demographic you described (white, urban liberal), and I'd likely never have heard of any of that backing any other candidate.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Again, this is just silly, and ignores the facts on the ground. In any normal year, Biden most likely would have dropped out before South Carolina. 

Very unlikely. People who lead in the polls for most of the campaign do not usually drop out right before their strongest state. There's a reason that Warren stayed in until Mass voted.

And speaking of strongest states, this is...troubling.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-09/california-declares-independence-from-trump-s-coronavirus-plans

[Week]

I realize that Warren's initial foray into Native issues was extremely poor (DNA test). She listened, learned, and has the most comprehensive and thoughtful plan of any candidate in 2020.

https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/aapi

[Pecan]

50 minutes ago, Week said:

That may be a lot of things. Silly is not one of them. 

It's silly because you're equating primary results with the general election. I assume you're a smart person and probably know better. 

[Mexal]

7 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Again, this is just silly, and ignores the facts on the ground. In any normal year, Biden most likely would have dropped out before South Carolina. 

Why? It was always projected that Biden would do poorly in Iowa and NH, two states that aren't highly correlated to the Democratic party racial make up. Not sure there was ever a situation, normal year or not, where Biden would drop out before his best state unless he was heavily competing with someone for that same demographic and wasn't the favorite.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Very unlikely. People who lead in the polls for most of the campaign do not usually drop out right before their strongest state. There's a reason that Warren stayed in until Mass voted.

And speaking of strongest states, this is...troubling.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-09/california-declares-independence-from-trump-s-coronavirus-plans

Warren vastly outpaced Biden in fundraising throughout the campaign. Apples to oranges.

[Mexal]

Just now, The Great Unwashed said:

Warren vastly outpaced Biden in fundraising throughout the campaign. Apples to oranges.

What does fundraising have to do with anything? That wasn't at all what Kal was saying.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Mexal said:

Why? It was always projected that Biden would do poorly in Iowa and NH, two states that aren't highly correlated to the Democratic party racial make up. Not sure there was ever a situation, normal year or not, where Biden would drop out before his best state unless he was heavily competing with someone for that same demographic and wasn't the favorite.

It was never predicted that Biden wouldn't do well in Iowa, as he was leading in the polls there for most of the run-up to the caucus. He finished a distant 4th. 

This is the type of revisionist thinking that we have to guard against.

[Pecan]

27 minutes ago, Mexal said:

He has not endured 30 years of constant poor media attention and therefore, he is not hated. Oh and he's a white man who's not a socialist.

You're referring to Hillary as the one with 30 years of poor media attention that is hated?

[OldGimletEye]

2 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm sorry, but you're just really, really wrong on this one. Sanders was the only candidate seriously giving attention to the Standing Rock reservation in 2016, and it was through his campaign this year that I discovered non-profits to donate to in 2020 designed to assist the Native population during the pandemic.

I think there a few problems with Sanders. But, that said, Sanders gets into hot water with some on the left because he prefers to talk about universal policies rather than the "race specific" policies that some on the left prefer, having been influenced by things like Critical Race Theory and its progeny, which rejects the idea of universalism or thinks that it is woefully inadequate. Though, while I have some problems with Sanders, many of his universal policies would help out minorities by quite a bit. Except for the case of African American men, it would appear that the biggest determinate of one's income is their parent's income. Also his stance on criminal justice reform, while sold as being universal and not race specific, would be helpful as well. Relatedly, from what I know, he was against mass incarceration and the "get tough on crime approach"  that took hold in the Democratic Party with the so called "New Democrats" in the 1990s and which I think now most of us would say was a disaster, particularly for African American men.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Mexal said:

What does fundraising have to do with anything? That wasn't at all what Kal was saying.

Oh come on.

"What does fundraising have to do with winning an election in the U.S.?"

I know for a fact you're not that obtuse.

[Fragile Bird]

Please do ignore the troll. I think there is a reason why they chose a nut as their board name.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think there a few problems with Sanders. But, that said, Sanders gets into hot water with some on the left because he prefers to talk about universal policies rather than the "race specific" policies that some on the left prefer, having been influenced by things like Critical Race Theory and its progeny, which rejects the idea of universalism or thinks that it is woefully inadequate. Though, while I have some problems with Sanders, many of his universal policies would help out minorities by quite a bit. Except for the case of African American men, it would appear that the biggest determinate of one's income is their parent's income. Also his stance on criminal justice reform, while sold as being universal and not race specific, would be helpful as well. Relatedly, from what I know, he was against mass incarceration and the "get tough on crime approach"  that took hold in the Democratic Party with the so called "New Democrats" in the 1990s and which I think now most of us would say was a disaster, particularly for African American men.

To be fair, Sanders voted for the 1995 crime bill, after getting some pretty significant amendments passed, iirc.