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US Politics: To Open or Not To Open, That's the Question


Tywin Manderly

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34 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

I think that the closest thing we have to a consensus candidate is Warren. Sanders supporters would only even remotely accept this if the candidate was Warren or Sanders. And moderates would never accept Sanders being nominated after having lost the vote.

I don't think so. Warren is a woman, and thus hated by a good chunk of the voting bloc or at least feared by it enough to not want her. Hell, one of the people Sanders voters appear to hate the most is Warren. 

Right now I'd say Cuomo would be a reasonable bet. Beyond that, maybe Buttigieg, but doubtful Sanders voters would get behind him. 

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4 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

You know I’m in Ilhan Omar’s district, right? And for all the good things about AOC, she’s not there on Indigenous issues. So far we mostly have Sanders for that (we have two indigenous female house members elected last cycle and that’s awesome, but they haven’t gotten a lot of great opportunities like the squad because we are not the glitzy minorities). And most of my friends and family also do the same thing, the thing is is that they also are not stellar on the issues most pertinent to indigenous women because I am surrounded by white centrists who are no better than Republicans on this issue and my mother who literally told me I should choose to be white.

Well, if your gauge of not horrible candidate is 'strong on indigenous people's issues' I think you're going to be viewing every candidate as horrible for a very very long time. 

The next step after local stuff is statewide stuff. Make ranked choice voting a high priority for your reps and for your state. Make statewide vote by mail a priority. Encourage non Democrats to run in local and county elections, especially on councilships. If you can, try and get MMPR on the ballot in some way. 

But progressivism isn't going to happen in the US unless one of two things happen: either enough state and local governments force it to be effectively the law of the land, or a massive crisis that cripples the US and harms millions somehow also convinces enough people to let someone have the reins, and that person happens to think that socialism isn't a bad word. (the possibility that something horrible happens to the US and a conservative gains power is also something that could easily happen). 

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think so. Warren is a woman, and thus hated by a good chunk of the voting bloc or at least feared by it enough to not want her. Hell, one of the people Sanders voters appear to hate the most is Warren. 

Right now I'd say Cuomo would be a reasonable bet. Beyond that, maybe Buttigieg, but doubtful Sanders voters would get behind him. 

The only VP pick that would have me really excited is Castro, but I don’t think Biden would pick someone who would outshine him that hard. I’ve heard lots of Abrams mentions, I think she’s a good choice

As for Warren or Buttigeig or Klobuchar, I don’t think they bring much electorally to the table. I think one of the Castro boys might put Texas in play and they are good speakers and I think the DNC would do well to feature Latinx candidates more. They have more progressive appeal and youth appeal, Julían was an Obama cabinet member so he’s very qualified. Joaquin is a little less dynamic so he would be less likely to overshadow the candidate and might be more likely to consider VP good enough rather than pass and wait on another shot of his own like Julían could be ambitious enough to do.

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7 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

People are acting like any criticism of Biden is heresy. Anytime anyone brings up any criticism of Biden people the same people come at us acting like we're somehow supporting Trump. And yeah, we can talk about what biden has on his website, but I'm not going to take him at his word, he has done absolutely nothing for me to give him the benefit of the doubt, I'm going to look at his record, and it is not a god record. You can talk about how he has pass so many bills, then we need to ask how many bill are Bankruptcy Bills, or the Crime Bill, because those are bills that never should have been passed in the first place, and he was one of the leaders on those.

Raise your hand if Biden was your first choice.

*zero hands raised here IIRC based on last few months of discussion*

Now please take a seat with that nonsense.

Biden is a compromise for pretty much every single person that now supports him.

We are not the Joe Biden fan club, and sure as hell not on any Joe Biden can do no wrong bandwagon.

What a person has done in the past is important, but so too is a person demonstrating their ability to learn and improve.

A Biden presidency is for now our best chance at a presidency under which Congress and a hopefully Dem majority Senate can pass more progressive laws than currently exist.

I know a lot of people don't have faith he will. But if we can get Congress and the Senate to support more progressive policies, I think Biden will put his stamp on them.

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Just now, Fury Resurrected said:

The only VP pick that would have me really excited is Castro, but I don’t think Biden would pick someone who would outshine him that hard. I’ve heard lots of Abrams mentions, I think she’s a good choice

As for Warren or Buttigeig or Klobuchar, I don’t think they bring much electorally to the table. I think one of the Castro boys might put Texas in play and they are good speakers and I think the DNC would do well to feature Latinx candidates more. They have more progressive appeal and youth appeal, Julían was an Obama cabinet member so he’s very qualified. Joaquin is a little less dynamic so he would be less likely to overshadow the candidate and might be more likely to consider VP good enough rather than pass and wait on another shot of his own like Julían could be ambitious enough to do.

My statement wasn't about his VP pick, it was about who would replace Biden and be the unity candidate - someone that both sides could somewhat agree on. Castro wouldn't come close to anything there. Though really, I don't see any candidate appealing to Sanders supporters other than Sanders, so perhaps that's just something to ignore and it'd be better to see who would appeal most to Biden supporters. 

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6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Well, if your gauge of not horrible candidate is 'strong on indigenous people's issues' I think you're going to be viewing every candidate as horrible for a very very long time.

I agree and I do view it that way. But I do find it interesting that seems like much more of an unreasonable or unsustainable position of the litmus test were strong on black issues.  I’ve seen plenty of white liberals cite that as important in a candidate, and I’m just gonna keep on pointing out the hypocrisy that some minorities are important to non POC democrats but we natives oughtta pick from the slate of bogeymen we are given or scratch and claw our way from the bottom before those touting their beliefs in equality should be expected to extend them to us as well.

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3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

My statement wasn't about his VP pick, it was about who would replace Biden and be the unity candidate - someone that both sides could somewhat agree on. Castro wouldn't come close to anything there. Though really, I don't see any candidate appealing to Sanders supporters other than Sanders, so perhaps that's just something to ignore and it'd be better to see who would appeal most to Biden supporters. 

My mistake- I don’t think there’s much point to imagining it. He will not drop out. He’d have to be jailed, which is not possible. And if he were removed, the only thing to do would be to go with the next most delegates. Whether you regard Sanders as unifying or not- he got the next most votes by a very wide margin. Anything other by going with the votes would have thunderous consequences. Which is another reason we are stuck with Joe

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Just now, Fury Resurrected said:

My mistake- I don’t think there’s much point to imagining it. He will not drop out. He’d have to be jailed, which is not possible. And if he were removed, the only thing to do would be to go with the next most delegates. Whether you regard Sanders as unifying or not- he got the next most votes by a very wide margin. Anything other by going with the votes would have thunderous consequences. Which is another reason we are stuck with Joe

I think that's very hard to reconcile. By 'going with the most votes' you could easily, say, ask who Biden endorses and go with that choice instead of Sanders, because Biden still would have gotten the most votes and the most delegates by a large margin. 

But again, this points out an interesting viewpoint - which is that Sanders is unlikely to compromise. In a perfect world in this situation both Biden and Sanders would agree ahead of time to support some specific candidate (let's say Cuomo) and do so together. They would both throw their support behind that person, and that person would (after the first ballot) get the nomination. There would be no concern about it going to the next person, because the two highest delegate candidates would have agreed. There would be no acrimony of the top one's voters being pissed about that not remotely being their first or second or third choice (as would be the case with going with Sanders). 

But I suspect that Sanders would not play that kind of ball. He would argue that as the person with the second most delegates he's next in line, and to those Biden supporters, well, they should get on board and shut up. 

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21 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think so. Warren is a woman, and thus hated by a good chunk of the voting bloc or at least feared by it enough to not want her. Hell, one of the people Sanders voters appear to hate the most is Warren. 

Right now I'd say Cuomo would be a reasonable bet. Beyond that, maybe Buttigieg, but doubtful Sanders voters would get behind him. 

OK, but that just brings us back to the people saying we have to stick with Biden or lose this election being right. We can agree that Sanders can't be the nominee, right? 

Any other suggestions?The left hates Cuomo. Hell, I don't consider myself an all out leftist, but I hate Cuomo. The whole pandemic thing has not made me forget who he is.

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Just now, Martell Spy said:

I think 90% percent would accept that. And she won't accept it.

I think she wouldn't have accepted it no matter what before. I don't think she wanted to run or be POTUS. But if Biden is forced out or decides to bow out, I think Barack could make a good argument to her to do this for 4 years just to get out Trump and pledge not to run for a second term. 

I doubt that most Sanders supporters would mind that. I'm almost entirely certain most Biden supporters would be happy with it, at least for now. It might be a better unifying candidate than any other. 

But yeah, the real rub would be if she would ever accept it. 

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2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Democrats should begin operating on the assumption that more allegations will come out and figure out the tipping point in the number of allegations to where it would no longer be a moral imperative for us to vote for him.

Otherwise, I reject the premise that there are only two possible solutions.

The proposal in that article was voting Trump vs. Biden.  Since I had already posted that IMO the Dems should start sounding out Biden to step down, I would have thought it was clear I was working on that particular moral quandary on the assumption there were no more allegations and he stayed on the ballot card through to November.  

2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Assuming the tables were reversed, and Sanders was the presumptive nominee with this allegation against him, can anyone tell me with a straight face that moderates would accept an "It's your moral imperative to vote for him!" argument?

Also, I wonder if Warren still wants to be Biden's VP now? What a clusterfuck.

Definitely, yes.  Sanders is actually way closer to my policy preferences, my issue with him has always been his electability, not his policies. And (ignoring the fact I can't vote) if he was at the ballot box come November vs. Trump, there of course is a moral imperative to vote for him.  I think far more on this board would want Sanders over Biden if they thought he could win.  A number are Warren supporters.  Hell, the main reasons many were against voting for Bernie was due to electability, which is about winning, which is about getting rid of Trump (and getting Dem SC judges in ASAP).  Which is kind of the point of the moral quandary.  

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

...... That's the key part to me. If the bill is on his desk, I'm fairly sure that's all been worked out, and there must be overwhelming support for it. That shows to me that providing healthcare to all Americans is not a priority for him.

Ah, his plan involves a public option, with a significant expansion of both options and government support.  He was part of the Obama administration that achieved the largest expansion of health cover since Medicaid was brought in.  Why would you say that healthcare isn't a priority for him? 

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Come on man. A pretty good-sized number of people on this very board post regularly about how much they hate Sanders.

The entire Democratic establishment nearly lost its collective shit when they thought he might win for a week. I'm not projecting anything; I'm observing behavior.

I lurk in most of the US politics threads, and I'd say this sounds ridiculous.  I'd have thought I'm one of few who dislikes Sanders, as I think he helped Trump win.  But for most the concern is they think he's unelectable.  

1 hour ago, Martell Spy said:

I think that the closest thing we have to a consensus candidate is Warren. Sanders supporters would only even remotely accept this if the candidate was Warren or Sanders. And moderates would never accept Sanders being nominated after having lost the vote.

And that still leaves the inconvenient fact of making the votes of African-Americans that helped Biden win have their votes not matter. It looks to me there is no moral choice here, unless future events change the equation.

And yes, Sanders drives crazy certain liberals. I've seen it many times. I think it's mainly his style more than any policy thing. That is exactly why he can't be the nominee.

The switch out idea only works at all if Sanders and Biden are both willing to support it.  Unless Biden supports it there is no way to argue you aren't disenfranchising every voter who voted for him.  If Sanders doesn't support it you're going to annoy everyone who voted for him, and he's probably got a legal argument as he was #2.  The only scenario where this works without a bloodbath is where Biden and Sanders support the new candidate.  And it probably has to be a candidate AA voters would also support.  

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8 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

still not getting it. You ditch Biden at this point and Trump wins.  Period.  Enough of the ridiculous purity tests - nobody ever measures up.  Instead, focus on Biden's choice of Veep. 

I disagree, if Biden supports the change.  

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12 minutes ago, ants said:

The proposal in that article was voting Trump vs. Biden.  Since I had already posted that IMO the Dems should start sounding out Biden to step down, I would have thought it was clear I was working on that particular moral quandary on the assumption there were no more allegations and he stayed on the ballot card through to November.

Fair enough. I just feel it's a little early to start talking about moral imperatives; maybe I'll feel differently on November 2nd 

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Definitely, yes.  Sanders is actually way closer to my policy preferences, my issue with him has always been his electability, not his policies. And (ignoring the fact I can't vote) if he was at the ballot box come November vs. Trump, there of course is a moral imperative to vote for him.  I think far more on this board would want Sanders over Biden if they thought he could win.  A number are Warren supporters.  Hell, the main reasons many were against voting for Bernie was due to electability, which is about winning, which is about getting rid of Trump (and getting Dem SC judges in ASAP).  Which is kind of the point of the moral quandary.

The clearest example of a counterpoint to your argument is the fact that practically no one, even his own supporters, is arguing that Sanders should be the nominee, even if more allegations were to come to light against Biden. The fact that Sanders is still considered unelectable when compared to someone credibly accused of sexual assault makes it impossible for me to believe otherwise.

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Ah, his plan involves a public option, with a significant expansion of both options and government support.  He was part of the Obama administration that achieved the largest expansion of health cover since Medicaid was brought in.  Why would you say that healthcare isn't a priority for him?

I didn't say healthcare wasn't a priority for him; I said that passing healthcare for every American isn't a priority for him. If it was, presumably he'd have no problem signing a M4A bill that wound up on his desk, because his administration would have been involved in drafting and advocating for it (e.g. all the payfors had been put in place, and enough people were happy with it for it to be on his desk to become law). He could have answered something like "I hope to sign a M4A bill during my time in office, but unfortunately that's not realistic at this point in time." That way I could believe we have the same goal, just disagree on how to get there. But I don't even believe that we have that shared goal.

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I lurk in most of the US politics threads, and I'd say this sounds ridiculous.  I'd have thought I'm one of few who dislikes Sanders, as I think he helped Trump win.  But for most the concern is they think he's unelectable.

The U.S. Politics thread is about one of only 3 or 4 on the board that I always read every post. Trust me, your dislike of Sanders is tame, and you don't transfer that dislike onto his proponents here, which is more than can be said for some.

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10 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The clearest example of a counterpoint to your argument is the fact that practically no one, even his own supporters, is arguing that Sanders should be the nominee, even if more allegations were to come to light against Biden. The fact that Sanders is still considered unelectable when compared to someone credibly accused of sexual assault makes it impossible for me to believe otherwise.

My main argument against Sanders at this point is that he did not get as many votes as Biden, and choosing him disenfranchises a lot of people who clearly did not want him and his policy and politics as their first choice. 

10 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The U.S. Politics thread is about one of only 3 or 4 on the board that I always read every post. Trust me, your dislike of Sanders is tame, and you don't transfer that dislike onto his proponents here, which is more than can be said for some.

For me at least it's the converse. I genuinely like Sanders, but I despise certain Sanders supporters. I voted for him in spite of the people who support him. 

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

But I suspect that Sanders would not play that kind of ball. He would argue that as the person with the second most delegates he's next in line, and to those Biden supporters, well, they should get on board and shut up. 

How is this any different than what Sanders supporters are being told?

Several iterations of this thread back, there was speculation on what happened if Biden was the frontrunner and died, and I argued that Sanders shouldn't withdraw from the race because of such an eventuality, since the Democratic party wouldn't allow him to be the nominee as the runner-up even if Biden died. I was roundly mocked at the time because "he's the obvious choice as clear 2nd place, etc., etc."

Well, the circumstances are a little different, but we may have a non-viable candidate going forward, and the only thing almost everyone agrees on is that Sanders won't be the nominee.

We still have a primary going on. Why not let the rest of the voters decide if they want to stick with Biden or not?

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1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

How is this any different than what Sanders supporters are being told? 

Right now, they're being told that Biden is working with Sanders on several policy proposal arcs and getting a more progressive platform. 

Do you think, for one second, that Sanders would make his platform less progressive if asked? If he asked Biden to drop out and Biden said 'sure, but you can't promote M4A any more and have to take my plan' would he do that? 

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Several iterations of this thread back, there was speculation on what happened if Biden was the frontrunner and died, and I argued that Sanders shouldn't withdraw from the race because of such an eventuality, since the Democratic party wouldn't allow him to be the nominee as the runner-up even if Biden died. I was roundly mocked at the time because "he's the obvious choice as clear 2nd place, etc., etc." 

I disagreed then. *shrug*

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Well, the circumstances are a little different, but we may have a non-viable candidate going forward, and the only thing almost everyone agrees on is that Sanders won't be the nominee.

People agree that Sanders shouldn't be the de facto nominee if the front runner just up and quits. There's a difference. 

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

We still have a primary going on. Why not let the rest of the voters decide if they want to stick with Biden or not.

Right now I suspect they still would, because it hasn't really hit the news and likely won't for a long time due to the pandemic. By then, however, it's probably too late. The other issue is that Sanders has suspended his campaign, which means for a lot of people the choice is simply voting for Biden or not voting at all. The notion of voting for Sanders is something a lot of people just aren't really caring about. 

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