The Democratic Primary is Upon Us! - Biden is the Presumptive Nominee

[Secondhand Revenant]

If you address assault, you will end up addressing racist-flavor assault in the process, because that's a subgroup of it, whereas addressing racist assault addresses no other type of assault. Even were you to have a situation where minorities are over represented in these crimes, you do still benefit more people overall by just generally addressing assault, hence it's the more moral approach. The only prism it isn't moral through is one aiming for equity, often to the expense of the greater good.

Can't sinplify this any more.

This is as asinine as suggesting we handle 'death' and not subgroups like death from cancer or death through violence.

You address specifics because you can address their causes more directly.

Further if there is a violent anti-homosexual sentiment then it bears addressing on it's own because merely making certain outlets more difficult can lead to redirection to other outlets

Your argument is so bad faith it's hard to believe you bothered to peddle it

 

[Silvanus]

There is an either/or, since we have finite amounts of resources and time. Surely by addressing assault in a way that reduces it, that'll reduce racist and homophobic flavors of it, by definition. I don't see what the issue is.

Surely addressing assault doesn't preclude people of addressing homophobic assault too, unless you are trying to say that it's less violent by default and if it wasn't homophobic it wouldn't even meet the criteria of assault. (which is the only scenario my approach would NOT cover, any other one is covered)

Ok, I think we need to talk about how budgetary policy actually works. Because, no, there isn't just a finite and definite amount of money that can be allocated to certain things with equal efficacy.

Firstly, to imagine an either/or between two specific expenditures is unworkable. A government will have several hundred expenditures; a pound that could go to one, could go to any one of the others. So, it's just as realistic to imagine an "either/or" between targeting homophobic assault and the road-gritting fund. With me so far?

And every western government will have dozens of expenditures which are pure pipe dreams, or research, or even entirely unnecessary. Here in the UK, 50 million was spent on development of the Garden Bridge, which just wasn't built in the end. So, we're not taking that pound away from tackling assault-- it's just as true to say we're taking it from the Garden Bridge. The truth is, the government is perfectly able to fund police work, and will not be undermined at all by funding other safety initiatives which are more specific.

Then we come to efficacy. Think of the actual measures to tackle assault in it's most general form: police investment? Community engagement? Education?

Sure. But at a certain point you reach diminishing returns. You increase funding to a police station, and crime will go down (as will homophobic/ racist crime), that much is true. But when there are enough staff, and the station's initiatives are funded... you continue to just increase general funding, the decrease will slow.

There will still be crime, but it's not addressed by just putting more and more police on the street. What's left: less visible crime; very specific forms of crime which, for whatever reasons, fly under the radar.

So, you fund initiatives to directly address that. Targeted approaches have much greater impact (demonstrably) on the areas they address. It's the most effective use of resources.

===

To illustrate, imagine applying the same logic to another very specific kind of crime. Take a city with a pronounced drug trade, like Baltimore.

You can fund the police and community outreach, and that will decrease most forms of violent street crime.

But when funding is at a decent level, you've got funds to apportion. At this point, adding 2 million dollars to general police work will have less impact than 500,000 spent on a specific, targeted drug unit and corresponding training.

The idea that targeted approaches alongside general ones are advantageous is so widely accepted in pretty much all avenues of policy.

I think in the past the issue was that if assault was racist or homophobic it wasn't treated as assault, it was tolerated, so I think my suggestion fixes the issue.

How do you think that situation changed? Attitudes were actually addressed rather than ignored.

Your approach basically over-focuses on one thing when proportionally it doesn't deserve nearly as much focus. I think there's an element of glory-seeking here, an element of righting wrongs and correcting injustices, a cynical approach that aims at exalting the virtues of the supporters more so than just generally helping people the most possible which is where I come from when discussing such subjects.

I want policy to protect the most vulnerable in society. That's not "glory seeking"; it's the most basic form of compassion.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Evening primary news round-up...

I took the day off from primary news. So, I guess I'll just do what cable news pundits do.

The day began light, when Joe Biden's leg hair achieved sentience and forcefully depilated itself. Calling itself Chewie Biden, the Presidential hopefully appointed it Biden's new campaign advisor. Chewie Biden immediately went to work, launching several new voter outreach initiatives across the country, which the campaign hopes will buoy his declining polling numbers in South Carolina.

Freaking hell dude, this was way funnier than it should have been, you made my coworkers look at me funny when I laughed at this.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Well, I watch the no-holds barred cage match that was the Democratic debate tonight, and the thread comes to life.

Freaking hell dude, this was way funnier than it should have been, you made my coworkers look at me funny when I laughed at this.

Thanks, glad someone appreciated the "what I didn't realize at the time were early stages of feverish ramblings, at Mountain Fuck that awaited me for the next twenty-four hours". Now that I am once again in control of my mental faculties and bodily functions...

The bad news was, no one cut the shit and threw a folding chair on the stage. Instead, spoiler alert...

I haven't seen an ass get destroyed like that since my kink.com subscription ran out. Seriously, it was brutal, it was like the debate version of the nature documentary where the chimpanzees from one family group isolate a member of a rival family group, beat it, drag it half to death, beat it some more, rip its limbs off and cannibalize the corpse.

There are few times in politics when a candidate or elected official says something so profoundly stupid that, all one can do is be stricken speechless, wondering to themselves, "why...the fuck...would anyone say that?". Trump being the lone exception, as it is understood he has no filter and that anything he say can and will be either profoundly stupid, or profoundly trollish, but more likely both. No, I'm talking Todd Akin or Richard Mourdock territory.

Thus it was this evening, when challenged about releasing the dozens of women who have accused him of sexual misconduct from their NDA's, Michael Bloomberg said he would not, because "the NDA's are consensual". Unlike the acts which got him accused of sexual misconduct in the first place, one would assume.

At some point Pete, Amy, and the Telemundo host who wasn't on camera remotely enough for my taste got in a three-way slap fight over Klobuchar's inability to name Andres Obrador. I really can't say shit, not only did I not know who the Mexican President was, but for some reason I still thought PRI was in control. But I'm not running for President, either.

There was also a slapfight between Amy and Pete, wherein once again Pete tried to mansplain (I hate myself for using the term, but if the shoe fits...) Klobuchar's own Congressional record to her. Needless to say, I think Pete came out looking worse in that exchange, basically blowing his entire load to knock down a candidate no one was taking seriously in the first place.

Well, except for whomever birthed this unholy abomination into the world. Which is an actual thing someone actually made, and it is proof we all died in 2016 and now exist in Hell.

Spoiler

In retrospect, if I were Amy or Pete, I'd have stuck to sniping at the other too and stayed far, far away from the Warren-Sanders-Biden feeding frenzy. Pete took a shot or two at Bernie in the middle of it on Bernie's health and M4A, and it for a moment it looked like Bernie might have Hulked out, picked up his podium, and hurled it at Buttigieg for daring to be a speed bump on his way to Bloomberg.

Biden also said some stuff but didn't really stand out enough to slow down his campaign's free fall. Sanders didn't deliver a blowout performance, but on the other hand he brought the fire against Pete and did his part boring out Bloomberg's ass. Mostly, Sanders held his ground and delivered a solid performance, which was all he needed.

The real treat of the night was when Chuck Todd put the question to the candidates, should whomever wins the plurality of pledged delegates be the winner if the convention is contested, or should the convention be brokered? Naturally, every candidate but Bernie said the convention should be brokered. Extra funny, is this comes with the tacit admission none of them except Bernie seems to believe they'll come out of the primary race with a plurality of delegates. So we can put a pin in the "will the DNC be ratfucking?" question for now.

The biggest takeaway of the debate is the candidates all seemed to remember at the end of this, one of them -- or hell at this point, Hillary Clinton in a mecha suit, fuck it why not -- will be facing a racist, sexist Republican billionaire in the general election. All it took for them to realize this, was facing a racist, sexist Republican billionaire on the Democratic debate stage.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Wow, someone went back in time and replace post-Obama/Hillary staffers Warren with herself from a year ago, was refreshing to not feel disappointed by her again. Her and Bernie are most effective working together. (also Bernie was on faiyah tonight, FAIYAH! loving it completely)

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Wow everyone jumped on Bloomberg with aluminum baseball bats in hand. I've never seen a presidential debate get that vicious.

 

[Saint of M]

Wow everyone jumped on Bloomberg with aluminum baseball bats in hand. I've never seen a presidential debate get that vicious.

Everyone seem to be attacking Warren in the last one, and Trump managed a few barbs in his.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Bernie Sanders appears to be running away with the Nevada Caucuses.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Looks like Bernie may get literally over 50% this time around. Glorious haha.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

[tweet t="https://twitter.com/justicedems/status/1231359390890045440"]

And the handwringing is pretty great

 

[Seanchaidh]

Bernie's victory speech, for anyone interested: https://youtu.be/_j6AZkikZFk?t=1716

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

At 27.1% reporting, most news outlets have already called the night for Sanders, with Biden a distant second. Sanders is now the undisputed front-runner going into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

I'll update in the morning once national delegate equivalents are calculated. (I've been dealing with the flu, so haven't really been at my desk much to update things).

 

[Kwak]

[tweet t="https://twitter.com/justicedems/status/1231359390890045440"]

And the handwringing is pretty great

Was he more or less upset when Trump won?

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

So I've looked at the results of Nevada and I don't see Bloomberg on it. Unless I'm missing something I assume either not a single person voted for Bloomberg in Nevada or he died. Either way, it was probably the debate doing. (But seriously I haven't found any election results mentioning him)

Spoiler: Nevada 2020 Presidential Democratic Caucus

Bernie Sanders 21,879/ 39.93%
Pete Buttigieg 10,046/ 18.33%
Joe Biden 9,921/ 18.11%
Warren 6,641/ 12.12%
Amy Klobuchar 4,202/ 7.67%
Tom Steyer 1,883/ 3.44%
Uncommitted 179/ 0.33%
Andrew Yang 23/ 0.04%
John K Delaney 14/ 0.03%
Michael Bennet 7/ 0.01%
Other 0/ 0.00%
Tulsi Gabbard 0/ 0.00%

 

[Agema]

So I've looked at the results of Nevada and I don't see Bloomberg on it.

He skipped it: he's going straight for the big states later, as Iowa, NH and Nevada are all small fry.

That has been risky in the past for some candidates, because they fail to build momentum and their campaign collapses. Bloomberg's got too much money for that, although his recent debate performances and unearthed controversies might finish him instead.

 

[Agema]

My analysis of the long-term trends:

Bloomberg and Biden appear to be fighting over the same voters, as Bloomberg's rise is clearly responsible for Biden's vote collapse. Likewise Buttigieg and Warren seem to have opposite fluctuations, suggesting they're battling over the another chunk, although Warren also seems to be losing ground to Sanders as well. Kamala Harris's departure seems to have mostly benefitted Sanders; Cory Booker's probably went to Sanders and/or Bloomberg. Andrew Yang's voters don't have any clear recipient: Klobuchar, Sanders, Bloomberg and Buttigieg all went on the rise when he departed but they may have been siphoning support from elsewhere.

Undecided voters have remained basically static at ~15% since March 2019; it's recently dipped closer to 10% but too soon to see if that's a trend.

If we assume Sanders and Warren mostly reflect the left and the others the centre, then the Democratic Party is ~60:40 centre:left. Sanders looks on course to win the primaries unless Biden or Bloomberg go, in which it remains to be seen whether the Democratic superdelegates will then squash him. I suspect that would be a dangerous thing to do and would seriously offend a lot of people. On the other hand, I expect that's the sort of thing they'd do.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

So I've looked at the results of Nevada and I don't see Bloomberg on it.

He skipped it: he's going straight for the big states later, as Iowa, NH and Nevada are all small fry.

Wow, that is quite an asshole move, especially from a politician. "You see I don't care your vote doesn't matter." That is basically what he's saying by skipping Nevada.

 

[tstorm823]

Wow, that is quite an asshole move, especially from a politician. "You see I don't care your vote doesn't matter." That is basically what he's saying by skipping Nevada.

It's not quite like that. Bloomberg announced his candidacy so late, the other candidates had spent the better part of a year in the first 4 states to vote ahead of him, so he conceded them as a lost cause. It wasn't "your votes don't matter", it was "there's not enough time for me to campaign here."

 

[Marik2]

I really hope Bernie gets the nomination.

 

[Trunkage]

I'm just going to remind everyone that Trump didn't do well in the debates in 2016 and still won. I would say that Trump was far more confident than Trump. But it wont surprise me if another stupid move is made and Bloomberg is selected. Because the Dems just want to copy the GOP and don't have a voice for themselves.