U.S. Politics: Only Death Can Pay For Growth

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't dispute any of it - but I don't understand the argument you're making any more. The Democratic party definitely didn't want Sanders winning the nomination, and they were terrified of not only Sanders winning but him winning with a contested convention where the choices were give in to his plurality or have a massive contest. Both would have been horrible. 

But from a voting perspective, Sanders never really did any better than 30%. It's certainly possible that Sanders could have won had others stayed in and the party that he said was his enemy didn't oppose him heavily, but...they were going to, and again - he never was able to broaden his voting base to get a majority of primary voters consistently. That he did even worse than he did in 2016 should be another telling point. So yes, he could have won if the party didn't get their act together and also never coalesced at any point, but that hasn't been the history of modern politics for like 50 years now. It just doesn't happen, and the reason it doesn't happen is that running a candidate who gets 30% support usually doesn't end well. 

I think the controversy, @The Great Unwashed, is not that this happened. It's that you assume that not doing this would have caused Sanders to win, and the implication that somehow he would have been able to get a majority of votes somehow. It would have been different, and Biden wouldn't have gotten as many delegates - but it's really not clear that Sanders would have gotten particularly more, either. South Carolina really did change the narrative a lot, and we can see from early voting what the numbers were going to be like without dropouts - and they didn't look pretty for Sanders either. I think the thing that we were all surprised about is how actually vaguely competent the DNC ended up being, and how they were able to get Klobuchar and Buttigieg (along with the Clyburn endorsement) to bend the knee so well, but the party actually putting their weight behind a couple of choices shouldn't be particularly weird. 

This was the real key to Obama as well - he worked hard to be the outsider, but he also worked really hard to engineer relationships with party officials and get big endorsements and not be too threatening to the system. Sanders saying outright that he was coming for the Democratic establishment wasn't going to earn him a whole lot of support.

No. I did not say that. What I said, and what I have clarified numerous times since then, is not that Sanders would have fucking won. It's that Biden wouldn't have had as much fucking momentum if things had played out differently, and that the reason why things played out the way they did was because the party made a deliberate decision to block Sanders from winning the nomination by coalescing around Biden. You literally make the same fucking argument in your subsequent post to this one, so it's fucking bizarre that you're arguing with me, and the only way you're able to argue with me is by saying that I've said things I most definitely have not fucking said.

[DMC]

21 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I didn't fucking say that he would have won, I said it wouldn't have fucking played out the same fucking way it did, that it would have decreased Biden's chances, and raised the chances for someone other than Biden or Sanders to win, but that the moderate wing of the party made a deliberate decision that it was better to ensure that Sanders wouldn't win than it was for anyone other than Biden to win the fucking nomination. That is not fucking controversial. The only fucking thing I said was that Sanders would have had a better fucking shot, not that he would have fucking won. 

And I'm saying I think you're wrong.  No matter how many time you say fuck.  Acting like all "moderates" dropped out because they wanted to beat Sanders more so than them wanting to maximize their influence is an absurd proposition on its face.  You're abandoning rational choice to outlandish rationale that belongs on The Intercept or Jacobin.  If you want to traffic in that, take it there.  Otherwise, yes, I will fucking disagree with your fucking ridiculous arguments.

27 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

And how the fuck could you come to any other fucking conclusion than that is was fucking deliberate? The entire fucking party freaked the fuck out after Nevada, and you're telling me they didn't fucking conspire against him? 

Clyburn was always going to endorse Biden.  He waited to do so because it was a smart political tactic.  Elites publicly agreeing on a candidate does not constitute a conspiracy.  In fact quite the opposite.  And publicizing their wishes is exactly the intent- to try to influence voters.  This response suggests you don't understand what conspiracy means.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

And I'm saying I think you're wrong.  No matter how many time you say fuck.  Acting like all "moderates" dropped out because they wanted to beat Sanders more so than them wanting to maximize their influence is an absurd proposition on its face.  You're abandoning rational choice to outlandish rationale that belongs on The Intercept or Jacobin.  If you want to traffic in that, take it there.  Otherwise, yes, I will fucking disagree with your fucking ridiculous arguments.

Clyburn was always going to endorse Biden.  He waited to do so because it was a smart political tactic.  Elites publicly agreeing on a candidate does not constitute a conspiracy.  In fact quite the opposite.  And publicizing their wishes is exactly the intent- to try to influence voters.  This response suggests you don't understand what conspiracy means.

There is literal fucking reporting out there where Democrats essentially saying "yep, that's what we did". I'm not fucking pulling this shit out of my ass.

[DMC]

19 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

I haven't followed the discussion super closely so far but at the time I think it was pretty apparent that Pete and Amy dropped out because they thought doing so might help to avoid the outcome of Sanders heading into the convention with a plurality of delegates due to a divided field, making it difficult to deny him the nomination even though he wouldn't have a majority.

If this were the case, they would have stayed in the race.  What they saw, and what polling at the time showed, was their supporters were moving to Biden.  Do I think that was a good thing?  No.  But candidates don't drop out if they still have a chance - and very few are naive enough to think a brokered convention would ever happen.

[Darth Richard II]

2 minutes ago, alguien said:

I mean, I held off in voting for Washington until after Warren dropped out (she was my 1st choice) and ended up voting for Bernie. But he lost in Washington state (which frankly astounded me). 

I don't think everybody who's critical of or disappointed with Biden is a Bernie-bro. I didn't disagree with what you said about the more progressive wing of the party pushing Biden's campaign leftward--from what I've seen, that seems to be working. I just find Simon's posts pretty negative and think it's obvious why. 

Well, that's because Simon is the biggest Bernie bro we have here. I didn't think that was a debate. Though he has blocked just about everyone at this point so its mostly him screaming at a cloud.

[Darth Richard II]

@The Great UnwashedHonestly, putting fuck and fucking as every other word in your posts is just making you sound crazy. Maybe tone it down a bit.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

No. I did not say that. What I said, and what I have clarified numerous times since then, is not that Sanders would have fucking won. It's that Biden wouldn't have had as much fucking momentum if things had played out differently, and that the reason why things played out the way they did was because the party made a deliberate decision to block Sanders from winning the nomination by coalescing around Biden. You literally make the same fucking argument in your subsequent post to this one, so it's fucking bizarre that you're arguing with me, and the only way you're able to argue with me is by saying that I've said things I most definitely have not fucking said.

It's the implication I took from you, and I apologize if that wasn't meant. 

And I don't think that they were attempting to block Sanders specifically. I think they were terrified of anyone having a 30% share being the lead. Sanders really didn't matter in that way; if he had a higher percentage I think they would have likely been reluctantly fine. But that contested convention was damn scary, and having 60-65% of the voters behind a moderate candidate being frozen out was a very bad idea. 

The other, other thing that I take a bit of umbrage with is something DMC also mentioned - that the notion of people dropping out was somehow some incredibly weird thing that people would never ever do in races, instead of something that is basically what everyone save Clinton and Sanders did.  That's been pretty much par for the course throughout the system for all sorts of reasons - promises of positions in the cabinet, better political power, playing ball, or simply because they're friends or something - but it isn't particularly unusual, nor was it particularly to beat Sanders as much as it was to advance their own agendas or get their own power in. 

Also, I'm really confused about something in general ( @DMC) - what does having more delegates get you at the convention if the convention isn't contested? If you have enough first-ballot choices, when has it ever been the case that you have some actual power to write anything? 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Darth Richard II said:

@The Great UnwashedHonestly, putting fuck and fucking as every other word in your posts is just making you sound crazy. Maybe tone it down a bit.

Right. I'm the fucking crazy one when I got jumped on for fucking trying to fucking agree with them and when they're making the exact same fucking arguments that I am, but then turn around and tell me I'm fucking wrong somehow. Bullshit.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Well fuck.

I personally thought you didn't enjoy a reach around in an orgy. 

But seriously:
 

 

[Darth Richard II]

3 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Right. I'm the fucking crazy one when I got jumped on for fucking trying to fucking agree with them and when they're making the exact same fucking arguments that I am, but then turn around and tell me I'm fucking wrong somehow. Bullshit.

I don't even know what the argument here is about. I'm telling you dropping f bombs every other word makes you sound crazy.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Darth Richard II said:

I don't even know what the argument here is about. I'm telling you dropping f bombs every other word makes you sound crazy.

Duly fucking noted.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

what does having more delegates get you at the convention if the convention isn't contested? If you have enough first-ballot choices, when has it ever been the case that you have some actual power to write anything? 

Absolutely nothing and never.  Ya know what I find most amusing about this continuous consternation?  Even Bernie has moved on and is working with Biden.  But still fucking fuck the goddamned fuck.

[Jace, Extat]

21 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Right. I'm the fucking crazy one when I got jumped on for fucking trying to fucking agree with them and when they're making the exact same fucking arguments that I am, but then turn around and tell me I'm fucking wrong somehow. Bullshit.

I don't have any interest in the whole Jerry Mandarin argument, but it seems pretty clear to me in the candidacy argument that you take exception to otherwise routine political occurrences when deployed against your man.

That's fine. I understand feeling a certain way in the aftermath of disappointment, and Democrats absolutely coalesced against Sanders. But you seem determined against looking at any perspective but Sanders'. Klobuchar and Buttigeg weren't running for president to splinter Biden's support or help Sanders. They were running to increase their own profile. When they floundered it only makes sense to sell off whatever votes you might wield for whatever promises you can get, it's just politics. Been going down like that since the Gracchi.

If Sanders wanted to be president he should have done more to make the other candidates fold their support into his. Coalition building in other words. He not only didn't do that, but he made the Democratic party his avowed enemy. I get that he was treated unfavorably in 2016, but a large majority of people who vote Democrat have a vested interest in the Democratic party. I didn't even mention that he's not an actual Democrat and members of a team have a responsibility to support each other against incursive elements.

 

[GrimTuesday]

20 minutes ago, DMC said:

Absolutely nothing and never.  Ya know what I find most amusing about this continuous consternation?  Even Bernie has moved on and is working with Biden.  But still fucking fuck the goddamned fuck.

I think it is in no small part because any time any of us who supported Bernie bring up an issue with Biden some folk always act like we're being disingenuous because we're mad Bernie lost, there by opening up old wounds which kick everything off again.

Minnesota Prosecutor says that why George Floyd's death was terrible, there evidence that does not support a criminal charge. I wonder if this guy owns a bunch of buildings and is trying to run a scam on fire insurance companies.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I don't have any interest in the whole Jerry Mandarin argument, but it seems pretty clear to me in the candidacy argument that you take exception to otherwise routine political occurrences when deployed against your man.

That's fine. I understand feeling a certain way in the aftermath of disappointment, and Democrats absolutely coalesced against Sanders. But you seem determined against looking at any perspective but Sanders'. Klobuchar and Buttigeg weren't running for president to splinter Biden's support or help Sanders. They were running to increase their own profile. When they floundered it only makes sense to sell off whatever votes yoh might wield for whatever promises you can get, it's just politics. Been going down like that since the Gracchi.

If Sanders wanted to be president he should have done more to make the other candidates fold their support into his. Coalition building in other words. He not only didn't do that, but he made the Democratic party his avowed enemy. I get that he was treated unfavorably in 2016, but a large majority of people who vote Democrat have a vested interest in the Democratic party. I didn't even mention that he's not an actual Democrat and members of a team have a responsibility to support each other against incursive elements.

 

This. Thanks Jace, I was writing something similar.

Amy and Pete dropped out because their campaigns had run their courses. And they did the right thing. Bernie was never going to get more than a plurality of the vote, his entire message was nothing more than signaling, and moderates who otherwise liked Biden, knowing they couldn't win, dropped out and supported the candidate they most aligned with. 

The horror, I know.

Best guess is Pete did so to further his career, and Amy did so because she, as the major power broker in her own state, didn't want to risk losing here while gaining nothing for staying in the race. This wasn't some grand conspiracy against Sanders. It was politics 101, and if Sanders was better at coalition building, again, politics 101, he would have done better, and his own withdrawal lets you know HE KNOWS THAT TOO.

Man you Sanders supporters can be a pain in the ass, and I say that as someone who likes the man. 

[Guest]

Just now, Jace, Basilissa said:

I don't have any interest in the whole Jerry Mandarin argument, but it seems pretty clear to me in the candidacy argument that you take exception to otherwise routine political occurrences when deployed against your man.

That's fine. I understand feeling a certain way in the aftermath of disappointment, and Democrats absolutely coalesced against Sanders. But you seem determined against looking at any perspective but Sanders'. Klobuchar and Buttigeg weren't running for president to splinter Biden's support or help Sanders. They were running to increase their own profile. When they floundered it only makes sense to sell off whatever votes yoh might wield for whatever promises you can get, it's just politics. Been going down like that since the Gracchi.

I appreciate you arguing on the merits, instead of attacking me.

I mean, yes? I think supporters of any candidate wouldn't like having that tactic employed against them, and it's just natural to feel disappointed that the horse you backed didn't win.

But I think the point I tried to emphasize that everyone ignored in their haste to accuse me of attacking other people is that I pointed out that I wasn't even making the argument that Democrats calculated wrongly by coming to that conclusion. I concede the possibility that their decision to deliberately obstruct Sanders from winning the nomination was actually the right choice. I'm not arguing whether they made the right or wrong choice, I'm just pointing out that it happened. No one really seems to disagree with me on that point, so I can't help but feel that their vehement disagreement either stems from them disagreeing when I said that progressives should use their support to increase their power in the party to reform it from within, because Biden can't afford to lose the left anymore than he can afford to lose women or minorities, and that they should utilize that leverage accordingly, just like any other faction would. Reasonable people could disagree whether that should be the direction the democratic party should go, but it seems risible to suggest that attempting to play politics by leveraging their support of Biden is in any way different than the demands of those "moderates" which the party is attempting to cater to by selecting a moderate candidate like Biden.

[DanteGabriel]

I'm going to congratulate myself on finally staying out of one of these Sanders-Biden donnybrooks as soon as I figure out what you guys were actually arguing about. Maybe it's about how many late-shifting Klobuchar supporters can dance on the head of a Biden campaign pin.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, DanteGabriel said:

I'm going to congratulate myself on finally staying out of one of these Sanders-Biden donnybrooks as soon as I figure out what you guys were actually arguing about. Maybe it's about how many late-shifting Klobuchar supporters can dance on the head of a Biden campaign pin.

See the U.K. thread, and all the dirty things you've done with that Filipino tongue of yours! 

If poor, sweet Dante Jr. ever learned what you did to Mrs. Dante, he'd be scared for life.

I mean really? You did that?

 

[DanteGabriel]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

See the U.K. thread, and all the dirty things you've done with that Filipino tongue of yours! 

If poor, sweet Dante Jr. ever learned what you did to Mrs. Dante, he'd be scared for life.

I mean really? You did that?

 

Your jealousy is unbecoming.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Your jealousy is unbecoming.

Just be prepared to explain to him why mommy and daddy were wrestling, Massholes.