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

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Most outlets are calling the race with 91.3% of precincts reporting with Sanders as the highest vote winner. The OP has been updated to the current tally with estimated National delegate equivalents.

 

[Trunkage]

Alright, last post on this side-debate now that we have elections going.

[
You seem to be confused that I think it's a good thing just because I'm pointing out it's less bad.

Yes, when you have a leeway to avoid something, which is something people canceled do not have, you have it easier, while simultaneously being in sickening circumstances. Both things are true.

This is you putting forward the option of staying in the closet as a viable and reasonable way to live.

You did not say it was "sickening"; you said that because staying in the closet is an option, gay people do not have a "right" to live without discrimination.

It's worse not by the metric of which is more difficult necessarily (though I could make an argument on that easily, but it has been made by others above) but mainly by the metric of which is more unfair. Individuals get to act out in their discretion and disown or evict people. BANKS are supposed to be neutral and impartial and available to everyone because that system underpins our society.

So you consider something more unfair purely because of where it comes from? Regardless of what caused it, or the severity of the situation?

So, someone suffering a minor inconvenience-- as Jones did-- at the hands of a bank, because of his threatening, defamatory and abusive behaviour, is more unfair than someone suffering disownment at the hands of their parents for their sexuality?

Can you imagine the phone company cutting your phone line because you used your phone to be mean to people or even instruct them to commit crimes? Where does this stop? Does your city exile you off of public property because you used the street corner to sell drugs? Do you need to create a fiefdom in your locale to be able to live now if you do something random mobs of unelected randoms online think you deserve to be wiped out of existence with no trial involved? Such a state of affairs would be utter chaos and that is easily the bigger evil.

But that situation isn't fucking happening. He suffered a minor inconvenience and had to change his bank. Hes still employed. He can go wherever he wants. He still makes millions and is followed by millions of people. You said that's materially worse than systemic discrimination- including threat of death.

Nobody has a right to live without the sort of discrimination that is defined by people disowning you or disagreeing with your life choices and based on that acting in ways that end up making your life unfairly difficult, no. And yeah I didn't say that it was sickening initially, in the subsequent post I was agreeing with you who said it so that it'd be more explicit and less easy to misinterpret.

Finally, yes, who the injustice comes from is a huge barometer in how unjust it is. It's why when a cop breaks the law it's worse than if a random person does it because a cop is supposed to enforce it so the violation is more egregious. Similarly, when a bank, an institution which underpins pretty much everything pertaining to society in this day and age where you can't really live fully without a credit card, starts being influenced by online mobs into closing people's bank accounts which were in good standing, any rational individual should hear alarm bells ringing.

Who this happens to is irrelevant. It's the thing edge of the wedge. You are ok if it happens to Alex Jonens so you'll be somewhat ok if it happened to Sargon and you may or may not be ok if it happens to Rogan and it goes like that until we can't stop it happening to anyone any more. Gotta react to this fast. The phone company situation isn't happening YET, I'd like to keep it that way. China already has a social credit system where if you score low you are not allowed to LEAVE THE COUNTRY, this is not just theoretical debate or dystopic science fiction dude.

Hey Dreiko
What's your thoughts on when YouTube cancelled groups like Al Qaeda beheading people? I'm assuming you think this is bad on Youtube's part as well because you're so against cancelling. What about the current crackdown on Pedophiles?

 

[Agema]

Biden getting 5th and leaving the state before it was even over and only talking to his followers and people who worked on his campaign all this time on a video service for 5 minutes is embarrassing. Everyone who was claiming he was more electable than Bernie on tv should be fired and replaced by dogs who decide on candidates by popping balloons with their names inside of them. Would be at least just as accurate.

Biden's campaign is doing poorly for sure, but these are states where he was already reckoned to be weak, and he's still well in contention in national polls. If he can hold it together and perform in some favourable ones, it might steady the ship.

That said, his responses to Iowa and NH results make him seem very fragile and I won't be sorry to see him go if he melts away. I suspect Bloomberg's imminent arrival - a major candidate occupying the same ground - will break his campaign.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Biden getting 5th and leaving the state before it was even over and only talking to his followers and people who worked on his campaign all this time on a video service for 5 minutes is embarrassing. Everyone who was claiming he was more electable than Bernie on tv should be fired and replaced by dogs who decide on candidates by popping balloons with their names inside of them. Would be at least just as accurate.

Biden's campaign is doing poorly for sure, but these are states where he was already reckoned to be weak, and he's still well in contention in national polls. If he can hold it together and perform in some favourable ones, it might steady the ship.

That said, his responses to Iowa and NH results make him seem very fragile and I won't be sorry to see him go if he melts away. I suspect Bloomberg's imminent arrival - a major candidate occupying the same ground - will break his campaign.

Honestly, Bloomberg is more in the Donald Trump lane than he is in the Biden lane, though I suppose those lanes are close enough together to be more or less the same in terms of the Democratic primary.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Biden getting 5th and leaving the state before it was even over and only talking to his followers and people who worked on his campaign all this time on a video service for 5 minutes is embarrassing. Everyone who was claiming he was more electable than Bernie on tv should be fired and replaced by dogs who decide on candidates by popping balloons with their names inside of them. Would be at least just as accurate.

Biden's campaign is doing poorly for sure, but these are states where he was already reckoned to be weak, and he's still well in contention in national polls. If he can hold it together and perform in some favourable ones, it might steady the ship.

That said, his responses to Iowa and NH results make him seem very fragile and I won't be sorry to see him go if he melts away. I suspect Bloomberg's imminent arrival - a major candidate occupying the same ground - will break his campaign.

Honestly, Bloomberg is more in the Donald Trump lane than he is in the Biden lane, though I suppose those lanes are close enough together to be more or less the same in terms of the Democratic primary.

I don't see Bloomberg as being a populist, he's an oligarch so pretty much the exact opposite and he had a past as a mayor so he doesn't have the outsider thing going for him either. He's more like Romney, both in character and in policy. Also, he's an actual billionaire who spends his own money and is actually spending his own money for publicity while Trump just had to game the media into providing him billions worth of publicity for free. That won't play well for the same audience that liked Trump.

Alright, last post on this side-debate now that we have elections going.

[
You seem to be confused that I think it's a good thing just because I'm pointing out it's less bad.

Yes, when you have a leeway to avoid something, which is something people canceled do not have, you have it easier, while simultaneously being in sickening circumstances. Both things are true.

This is you putting forward the option of staying in the closet as a viable and reasonable way to live.

You did not say it was "sickening"; you said that because staying in the closet is an option, gay people do not have a "right" to live without discrimination.

It's worse not by the metric of which is more difficult necessarily (though I could make an argument on that easily, but it has been made by others above) but mainly by the metric of which is more unfair. Individuals get to act out in their discretion and disown or evict people. BANKS are supposed to be neutral and impartial and available to everyone because that system underpins our society.

So you consider something more unfair purely because of where it comes from? Regardless of what caused it, or the severity of the situation?

So, someone suffering a minor inconvenience-- as Jones did-- at the hands of a bank, because of his threatening, defamatory and abusive behaviour, is more unfair than someone suffering disownment at the hands of their parents for their sexuality?

Can you imagine the phone company cutting your phone line because you used your phone to be mean to people or even instruct them to commit crimes? Where does this stop? Does your city exile you off of public property because you used the street corner to sell drugs? Do you need to create a fiefdom in your locale to be able to live now if you do something random mobs of unelected randoms online think you deserve to be wiped out of existence with no trial involved? Such a state of affairs would be utter chaos and that is easily the bigger evil.

But that situation isn't fucking happening. He suffered a minor inconvenience and had to change his bank. Hes still employed. He can go wherever he wants. He still makes millions and is followed by millions of people. You said that's materially worse than systemic discrimination- including threat of death.

Nobody has a right to live without the sort of discrimination that is defined by people disowning you or disagreeing with your life choices and based on that acting in ways that end up making your life unfairly difficult, no. And yeah I didn't say that it was sickening initially, in the subsequent post I was agreeing with you who said it so that it'd be more explicit and less easy to misinterpret.

Finally, yes, who the injustice comes from is a huge barometer in how unjust it is. It's why when a cop breaks the law it's worse than if a random person does it because a cop is supposed to enforce it so the violation is more egregious. Similarly, when a bank, an institution which underpins pretty much everything pertaining to society in this day and age where you can't really live fully without a credit card, starts being influenced by online mobs into closing people's bank accounts which were in good standing, any rational individual should hear alarm bells ringing.

Who this happens to is irrelevant. It's the thing edge of the wedge. You are ok if it happens to Alex Jonens so you'll be somewhat ok if it happened to Sargon and you may or may not be ok if it happens to Rogan and it goes like that until we can't stop it happening to anyone any more. Gotta react to this fast. The phone company situation isn't happening YET, I'd like to keep it that way. China already has a social credit system where if you score low you are not allowed to LEAVE THE COUNTRY, this is not just theoretical debate or dystopic science fiction dude.

Hey Dreiko
What's your thoughts on when YouTube cancelled groups like Al Qaeda beheading people? I'm assuming you think this is bad on Youtube's part as well because you're so against cancelling. What about the current crackdown on Pedophiles?

Never heard of a crackdown or canceling either of these things, honestly it sounds surprising this is something to ask because criminal behavior can't be promoted on sites like youtube or the site would be liable so it's just enforcing the law and not "cancelling" something.

This is something that the law decides, not unelected uneducated unidentified internet denizens, which is what makes it ok. Cancelling is what happens when a mob feels like the law failed or is ill-equipped to bring justice so they have to take it into their own hands. Situations like with creeps or terrorists are already being dealt with by the law so there's no need for them to be canceled.

 

[Silvanus]

Nobody has a right to live without the sort of discrimination that is defined by people disowning you or disagreeing with your life choices and based on that acting in ways that end up making your life unfairly difficult, no. And yeah I didn't say that it was sickening initially, in the subsequent post I was agreeing with you who said it so that it'd be more explicit and less easy to misinterpret.

To be clear: you're arguing gay children don't have a right to not be disowned (child abandonment, widely illegal).

I think I've learned all I need to about your position on this (particularly from describing homosexuality as a "life choice").

Finally, yes, who the injustice comes from is a huge barometer in how unjust it is. It's why when a cop breaks the law it's worse than if a random person does it because a cop is supposed to enforce it so the violation is more egregious. Similarly, when a bank, an institution which underpins pretty much everything pertaining to society in this day and age where you can't really live fully without a credit card, starts being influenced by online mobs into closing people's bank accounts which were in good standing, any rational individual should hear alarm bells ringing.

Who this happens to is irrelevant. It's the thing edge of the wedge. You are ok if it happens to Alex Jonens so you'll be somewhat ok if it happened to Sargon and you may or may not be ok if it happens to Rogan and it goes like that until we can't stop it happening to anyone any more.

I've already stated that I'm not fine with it happening. Don't make shit up.

The source of the prejudice is relevant, yes. You, however, have entirely ignored the severity. A minor inconvenience to Jones has, for you, trumped the threat of violence and death, solely because of the source. I should remind you that you did not merely say one was more unjust; you specifically said that Alex Jones has it harder.

I'd also like you to confirm whether you consider the choice Jones made which invited the issue (the choice to defame, threaten, lie, break the law) to be equivalent to the "choice" of whether or not to come out of the closet. Because you implied that you consider staying in the closet to be a fine and reasonable expectation.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I'd also like you to confirm whether you consider the choice Jones made which invited the issue (the choice to defame, threaten, lie, break the law) to be equivalent to the "choice" of whether or not to come out of the closet. Because you implied that you consider staying in the closet to be a fine and reasonable expectation.

The answer to that lies in how strong the people in question feel. So if he felt that he had to express it with equivalent conviction as someone feels they need to come out of the closet then sure.

You're acting like your sexuality is this sacred thing that surpasses all other values or beliefs or duties you can have. People can very easily have other things that they value just as much or more as others value their sexuality, I assure you. It's how for example you have monks be celibate; they value their religion and their convictions towards their faith more highly than acting out their sexual inclination. To pretend this is just all not part of reality is baffling. People can have callings in life, things they feel drawn to, sexuality isn't the ultimate in dedication or significance.

You're not just automatically braver just because you have been oppressed, you're not automatically more fervent or passionate in your beliefs than someone who has had it comparatively easier. They still can be more passionate than you are despite that, because people are infinitely variable like that. Alex Jones may feel more strongly about his ravings than a million gay folks about their sexuality and you both can't disprove this nor can you discount it and that feeling is all that truly matters in the end. All we can do is make a personal value judgement, while being cognizant that that's not an actual fact but just our subjective opinion.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Morning primary news round-up...

In a display of humility and modesty stunning the nation, Pete Buttigieg waited until the New Hampshire race had been called to speak. Not declaring victory this time, he ejected platitude word salad and promises to continue the fight in Nevada and South Carolina, where he'll continue not getting the minority vote. Buttigieg currently leads the national pledged delegate count, 22 to Bernie's 21, despite not having won a single contest yet.

Warren decides to concede South Carolina so she can concentrate her efforts on being the #NeverBernie flavor of the week in Nevada, and Biden decides to concede Nevada so he can concentrate on his efforts on being the #NeverBernie flavor of the week in South Carolina. How this race can go is still very much up in the air, but one thing's for certain: talking heads seem awfully interested in how many people aren't voting for Bernie in a field with three times the number of candidates as 2016. Just never mind that more people aren't voting for anyone else in the race.

The real story of the evening was Amy Klobuchar, who cruised to an easy third place victory bringing her delegate total to 7, behind Warren who has eight delegates. This result comes after a weekend of Herculean effort by the media, painting her ability to make any sort of vague, non-committal statement during Friday's debate as a decisive victory, making the definitive case she's the one to not defeat Trump in the general election debates. Will she continue surging into double-digit support in Nevada and South Carolina? Time will tell!

Bernie also got the most votes in New Hampshire, will getting the most votes be a liability for his campaign in the long term?

Bloomberg continues looming over the race like a horrendously-drunk frat boy about to vomit over a balcony. Having spent nearly $400 million on campaigning so far but not yet participating in a single debate or primary even after buying his way into the debates, he can at least claim the Joy Reid endorsement who last evening made the rock-solid case Bloomberg should get the Democratic nomination because he's a Republican. It looks like the Democratic primary race may not be the only one heating up; there's some hot contention for the "MSNBC/Sean Hannity Excellence in Journalism" award this year!

 

[Seanchaidh]

Biden getting 5th and leaving the state before it was even over and only talking to his followers and people who worked on his campaign all this time on a video service for 5 minutes is embarrassing. Everyone who was claiming he was more electable than Bernie on tv should be fired and replaced by dogs who decide on candidates by popping balloons with their names inside of them. Would be at least just as accurate.

Biden's campaign is doing poorly for sure, but these are states where he was already reckoned to be weak, and he's still well in contention in national polls. If he can hold it together and perform in some favourable ones, it might steady the ship.

That said, his responses to Iowa and NH results make him seem very fragile and I won't be sorry to see him go if he melts away. I suspect Bloomberg's imminent arrival - a major candidate occupying the same ground - will break his campaign.

Honestly, Bloomberg is more in the Donald Trump lane than he is in the Biden lane, though I suppose those lanes are close enough together to be more or less the same in terms of the Democratic primary.

I don't see Bloomberg as being a populist, he's an oligarch so pretty much the exact opposite and he had a past as a mayor so he doesn't have the outsider thing going for him either. He's more like Romney, both in character and in policy. Also, he's an actual billionaire who spends his own money and is actually spending his own money for publicity while Trump just had to game the media into providing him billions worth of publicity for free. That won't play well for the same audience that liked Trump.

Donald Trump and Mike Bloomberg think very much alike about things like Stop and Frisk, spying on Muslims, tax policy, and so on. Mike Bloomberg is the professional, orderly fascist to Donald Trump's clown fascist.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Morning primary news round-up...

In a display of humility and modesty stunning the nation, Pete Buttigieg waited until the New Hampshire race had been called to speak. Not declaring victory this time, he ejected platitude word salad and promises to continue the fight in Nevada and South Carolina, where he'll continue not getting the minority vote. Buttigieg currently leads the national pledged delegate count, 22 to Bernie's 21, despite not having won a single contest yet.

This is a deliberate misreading of how the primary operates. As of now, they're within .1% in Iowa and Buttigieg won by districts, which is how it is counted in Iowa. Sanders won by less than 2% in New Hampshire, which, because there's only 25 national delegates means they're in a tie. Remember when I said "top three" tends to be what counts as a win? This is why. The early states are mostly to set narratives, which in this case is "Sanders holds strong, Biden falters, Buttigieg over-preforms." Hell, Bill Clinton lost by wider margins in both contests in 1992 (he didn't place first in a single contest until March 3 (Super Tuesday) and really didn't win any major contests until March 7 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Statewide_contest_by_winner]). Buttigieg is doing relatively well in comparison and is clearly angling to sit in the liberal-moderate lane that is currently being occupied by Biden and Klobachar

The fact of the matter is that, at least for now, Sanders and Buttigieg are neck in neck for the lead in the delegate count after two relatively small states. Hell, given Sander's performance in 2016, I'd actually be worried about the margin in New Hampshire, because they're probably going to need to get that higher in later contests if they want to avoid a substantially contested convention if he gets a plurality (and that presumes the moderates don't start dropping like flies, allowing them to coalesce around a single candidate).

Warren decides to concede South Carolina so she can concentrate her efforts on being the #NeverBernie flavor of the week in Nevada, and Biden decides to concede Nevada so he can concentrate on his efforts on being the #NeverBernie flavor of the week in South Carolina. How this race can go is still very much up in the air, but one thing's for certain: talking heads seem awfully interested in how many people aren't voting for Bernie in a field with three times the number of candidates as 2016. Just never mind that more people aren't voting for anyone else in the race.

Campaigns have limited resources and they're going to allocate those resources to maximize their necessary gain (especially since Bloomberg is flooding as much media as he can with his own personal fortune). This is not rocket science.

The real story of the evening was Amy Klobuchar, who cruised to an easy third place victory bringing her delegate total to 7, behind Warren who has eight delegates. This result comes after a weekend of Herculean effort by the media, painting her ability to make any sort of vague, non-committal statement during Friday's debate as a decisive victory, making the definitive case she's the one to not defeat Trump in the general election debates. Will she continue surging into double-digit support in Nevada and South Carolina? Time will tell!

Her exceeding expectations has been helping her campaign generally, especially since the field overall seems fractured and large portions of voters remain undecided going into contests. While it is unlikely she could win the nomination (those not that unlikely as I mentioned with Clinton), she could theoretically leverage her small number of delegates to tip one over the other to get a majority of delegates if no one can get an outright majority, making her a king maker at a brokered convention.

Bernie also got the most votes in New Hampshire, will getting the most votes be a liability for his campaign in the long term?

I'm not going to say it's bad to be the front runner in votes (in 2016, I noted that if it was a de facto tie as some thought it might, the winner of the most votes would probably get the super delegates after the first round of voting), but I'm also not going to say it's the best place to be if the margin is slim.

Ever played a competitive table-top game with more than two players? Being in the lead has it's advantages, but it also paints a target on you as the person to beat. If you don't have a strong enough defense, then that lead could be short lived, especially if the other players are willing to coordinate in order to bring you down. For example, up until December, it was notable that Sanders and Warren didn't engage in much attacks against each other, instead focusing on Biden.[footnote]Given Sanders has long had antipathy towards Biden as someone who would engage with Republicans when he thought they shouldn't and Warren has a deep seated grudge again Biden going back to her first days as an activist against the Bankruptcy reform bill in the Bush years, was not that hard of a truce for them to make.[/footnote] Hell, it looked like they were going to keep that until what appear to be campaign operatives forced a break up with Sander's team disparaging Warren in ground-level talking points [https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/11/bernie-quietly-goes-negative-on-warren-097594] and the leak of a conversation with Sanders claiming a woman couldn't win the presidency [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-warren-feud-takes-a-turn-onto-the-dangerous-turf-of-gender/2020/01/13/a6bf6bee-3627-11ea-bf30-ad313e4ec754_story.html].[footnote]I am of the opinion that neither candidate and likely even their top staff were aware of these shots at each others campaign before they became public. Neither side demonstrated a good defense or spin when confronted with the information, which suggests they were as surprised about the revelations as the other.[/footnote] With Biden down in the polls and putting pretty much all his chits in a strong showing in South Carolina, he seems much less a threat for now, even if a strong win in South Carolina could push him quickly to first with almost as many pleaded delegates as Iowa and New Hampshire combined.

So now Sanders is the presumptive front runner (along with Buttigieg) and the biggest contests are within a month from now, which means, with Biden's weakened campaign, that every other campaign now has a damn good reason to start taking much more direct shots at Sanders, likely focusing on electability because, and there's really no getting around this, beating Trump is more important than specific policies the candidate is pushing [https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/444295-poll-democratic-voters-prioritize-defeating-trump-over-their].

Bloomberg continues looming over the race like a horrendously-drunk frat boy about to vomit over a balcony. Having spent nearly $400 million on campaigning so far but not yet participating in a single debate or primary even after buying his way into the debates, he can at least claim the Joy Reid endorsement who last evening made the rock-solid case Bloomberg should get the Democratic nomination because he's a Republican. It looks like the Democratic primary race may not be the only one heating up; there's some hot contention for the "MSNBC/Sean Hannity Excellence in Journalism" award this year!

I honestly don't see Blooomberg getting the nomination, largely because he got in too late to build the substantial followings necessary to lead in Super Tuesday states. What I do see is similar to the likely position Klobuchar is when I mentioned her above: get enough delegates to be at the table in a brokered convention and be able to swing the nomination one way or the other (possibly in coordination with other also-rans).

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

This is a deliberate misreading of how the primary operates...

Well, yeah. I'm making fun of the process, the narrative-craft involved, and the balls-to-the-wall brazenness of it this year.

Most notably in this case, how the same people who just spent three years screeching about the electoral college are now celebrating Buttigieg's "win" based on .1% of state delegate equivalents (which is the most bonkers, pointless metric to use) despite losing the popular vote. And actually how he lost that too...you know, if math wasn't personal opinion, and legally correcting mathematical errors on documentation wasn't electoral fraud.

If you want my serious analysis of this, here's what's happening: establishment Democrats are playing musical chairs to see who's the most viable Bernie alternative. Biden's working SC for the black vote, and Warren's working Nevada to split the progressive vote. Both of their campaigns are in free-fall and they know it, and they're trying to increase the value of their endorsements. I haven't got a feel for what Biden's angling yet, but if I guess it's a sunset cabinet position, but Warren's clearly angling to split the progressive vote, concede, and endorse an establishment candidate for a VP nod.

GOP did this same shit in 2016 when it was Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich trying to make the case for being the Trump alternative, while Trump was basically unopposed gobbling up delegates and benefiting from the bandwagon effect. Whether it'll actually work for Democrats has yet to be seen, but on the other hand the track record of this kind of fuckery doesn't exactly look good.

Either way the endgame seems to be forcing a brokered convention, more likely than not establishment candidates rallying around either Buttigieg or Klobuchar once delegates are released and supers come into play. That's gonna be another '68, which reinforces my firm belief establishment Democrats would rather burn the party to the ground and guarantee another four years of Trump, than allow Sanders the nomination or concede any real territory to progressives.

I think Bloomberg's in it for one reason, and one reason alone: push the Democratic party as far right in this narrow window of opportunity as possible.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Deval Patrick has suspended his campaign. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/deval-patrick-last-black-candidate-in-2020-race-drops-out/2020/02/12/6d07e2fe-4dbb-11ea-967b-e074d302c7d4_story.html]

 

[tstorm823]

If you want my serious analysis of this...

For what it's worth, I have been getting a lot of joy from your comedy recaps. Actually laughed out loud yesterday.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

This is a deliberate misreading of how the primary operates...

Well, yeah. I'm making fun of the process, the narrative-craft involved, and the balls-to-the-wall brazenness of it this year.

Most notably in this case, how the same people who just spent three years screeching about the electoral college are now celebrating Buttigieg's "win" based on .1% of state delegate equivalents (which is the most bonkers, pointless metric to use) despite losing the popular vote. And actually how he lost that too...you know, if math wasn't personal opinion, and legally correcting mathematical errors on documentation wasn't electoral fraud.

Yeah... I think that's more a narrative in your head than reality. I hate caucuses for a variety of reasons and I hate the electoral college. But Sanders didn't exactly push to end the Caucuses when they were doing the reforms following 2016 (which, given he won 2/3rds of caucuses and lost all but 11 primaries in 2016 [https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/03/2020-elections-caucuses-democrats-primaries-bernie-sanders-1078031], is not surprising), and once the rules are written and finalized, changing them before the contest would be even more undemocratic because you're changing the rules on how results are tabulated after the campaigns start. Sanders could have potentially ended the Caucses then and there, with his victory in the majority of them bolstering his cause, but he didn't, so he got to play the caucus game and tied even closer than he did four years before.

I'm not celebrating a Buttigieg victory (I support Warren), but Sanders and his supporters seems to constantly be shocked that someone who is not a member of the party, seems to treat the party he is running to be the nominee of with disdain, and clings to a label that most Americans have stated they would not vote for [https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/398580-poll-majority-of-americans-say-the-would-not-vote-for-a] might not exactly be exactly steamrolling the Democratic primary. People can disagree without it being a conspiracy.

If you want my serious analysis of this, here's what's happening: establishment Democrats are playing musical chairs to see who's the most viable Bernie alternative. Biden's working SC for the black vote, and Warren's working Nevada to split the progressive vote. Both of their campaigns are in free-fall and they know it, and they're trying to increase the value of their endorsements. I haven't got a feel for what Biden's angling yet, but if I guess it's a sunset cabinet position, but Warren's clearly angling to split the progressive vote, concede, and endorse an establishment candidate for a VP nod.

I don't see Biden in politics after this campaign, assuming he loses. Warren I see as a VP pick, particularly if a moderate manages to cobble together the delegates for the nomination. Warren certainly has an uphill battle at this point, but its conceivable that, after four contests (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina) that each contest will have a different winner.

GOP did this same shit in 2016 when it was Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich trying to make the case for being the Trump alternative, while Trump was basically unopposed gobbling up delegates and benefiting from the bandwagon effect. Whether it'll actually work for Democrats has yet to be seen, but on the other hand the track record of this kind of fuckery doesn't exactly look good.

Either way the endgame seems to be forcing a brokered convention, more likely than not establishment candidates rallying around either Buttigieg or Klobuchar once delegates are released and supers come into play. That's gonna be another '68, which reinforces my firm belief establishment Democrats would rather burn the party to the ground and guarantee another four years of Trump, than allow Sanders the nomination or concede any real territory to progressives.

So the person who can't cobble together majority support should win? That's ultimately what you're proposing. And that's more undemocratic than the majority voting to not have Sanders as the nominee.

At the end of the day, if it goes to a second ballot and its brokered, that's when delegate counts matter the most, as no one can get a majority on their own. Now, they may default to Sanders because he won a plurality if we're talking in the 42-49% of pledged delegates range, but if he can only gather a third of the delegates during the primary itself (which I think is unlikely given that most other non-viable candidates will likely drop off after Super Tuesday), then he's either going to have to go asking for super delegate votes for the second round or make a deal with some of the other campaigns to get them to back him. And, unfortunately, most of the super delegates and other campaigns aren't exactly willing to toss their support to someone who they don't think is electable or whose supporters were particularly ugly to the other campaigns. He'll almost certainly need to have a moderate as a VP even if he does get the nomination and especially if its brokered as the VP is usually designed to be the ticket balancer so that wings of the party don't feel left out.

I think Bloomberg's in it for one reason, and one reason alone: push the Democratic party as far right in this narrow window of opportunity as possible.

The mayor who was the spokes person for gun control until last year and governed one of the most liberal cities in the country (that if it was a state would rank the 10th most populous) is a far right candidate. This is why I think everybody needs to calm the fuck down.

No, I think Bloomberg thinks there's a bankshot possibility of him versus Trump and he's got the resources to play the odds without risking a spoiler effect for the general. He's definitely more moderate than Sanders or Warren, but he's more a moderate than a conservative and liberal on specific issues, and self-identified moderates and conservatives still make up a slim majority of the Democratic Party [https://news.gallup.com/poll/246806/understanding-shifts-democratic-party-ideology.aspx].

Can we dispose of this notion that "not progressive = far right?" It just shows a fundamental disinterest in engaging in what a persons positions are and why they might have support.

 

[Trunkage]

Hey Dreiko
What's your thoughts on when YouTube cancelled groups like Al Qaeda beheading people? I'm assuming you think this is bad on Youtube's part as well because you're so against cancelling. What about the current crackdown on Pedophiles?

Never heard of a crackdown or canceling either of these things, honestly it sounds surprising this is something to ask because criminal behavior can't be promoted on sites like youtube or the site would be liable so it's just enforcing the law and not "cancelling" something.

This is something that the law decides, not unelected uneducated unidentified internet denizens, which is what makes it ok. Cancelling is what happens when a mob feels like the law failed or is ill-equipped to bring justice so they have to take it into their own hands. Situations like with creeps or terrorists are already being dealt with by the law so there's no need for them to be canceled.

That's great
Hey Dreiko. What do you think of a guy that fabricates evidence and lies about certain individuals and tells his peeps to take them out via social media?

 

[Agema]

If you want my serious analysis of this, here's what's happening: establishment Democrats are playing musical chairs to see who's the most viable Bernie alternative.

Or there are just a load of arseholes who'd rather burn anything else down for their own personal ambition.

I think it looks horribly like Bloomberg is going to crash in and push Biden, Buttigieg and the centreist minors off the map. Warren and Sanders may survive with the support of the left - and as you say, I think with Warren then a weak third, her best bet is to play the perfect tick box veep for Bloomberg to try to help carry the left to him.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Yeah... I think that's more a narrative in your head than reality.

Well, let's have ourselves a reality check then.

I hate caucuses for a variety of reasons and I hate the electoral college. But Sanders didn't exactly push to end the Caucuses when they were doing the reforms following 2016...

Probably because Sanders didn't necessarily want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but rather wanted them to no longer be delegate calvinball [https://youtu.be/tVa4G32M7Bc]?

...once the rules are written and finalized...

The ones recommended by the URC, to which the IDP agreed and implemented [https://www.vox.com/2020/2/4/21122483/iowa-caucus-results-count-rules-change-app]...

...changing them before the contest would be even more undemocratic...

Which, hilariously enough the IDP did, changing delegate math to weight rural areas which Clinton won in 2016 over urban areas which Bernie won, when delegate assignment was already disproportionately weighted towards them [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-iowas-three-different-votes-could-affect-who-wins/].

...because you're changing the rules on how results are tabulated after the campaigns start.

Which is exactly what the IDP is actually doing by refusing to correct delegate math worksheets [https://www.chicagotribune.com/election-2020/ct-nw-nyt-iowa-caucus-errors-20200209-vun7qmw54rdx5hitwm4zrg3m2m-story.html]. Because we're not talking about changing rules after the fact, we're talking about correcting mathematical and clerical errors on delegate math worksheets themselves [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/us/politics/iowa-caucuses-democrats.html]. Photographic evidence of clear errors on the worksheets and spreadsheets used by the IDP included [https://heavy.com/news/2020/02/iowa-caucus-results-inconsistencies-math-errors/].

That's why I keep joking about "we have to commit electoral fraud to avoid allegations of electoral fraud". Because that's literally what happened.

Sanders could have potentially ended the Caucses then and there, with his victory in the majority of them bolstering his cause, but he didn't, so he got to play the caucus game and tied even closer than he did four years before.

Could have, sure. I'm sure he and his campaign, and representatives, expected the DNC and IDP to shut up, eat their vegetables, and deliver transparent results. Not create a brazen ratfuck nightmare right out the starting gate in a list of errors so great and obvious they'd be comical were they not, taken as a whole, much more explicable by plain and simple ratfucking.

...constantly be shocked that someone who is not a member of the party, seems to treat the party he is running to be the nominee of with disdain, and clings to a label that most Americans have stated they would not vote for [https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/398580-poll-majority-of-americans-say-the-would-not-vote-for-a] might not exactly be exactly steamrolling the Democratic primary.

Not shocked, pissed. Especially considering that Bernie's platform isn't actually much different from a New Deal Democrat's, yet the Democratic establishment seems to be gleefully retreating to talking points, attacks, and in some cases wholeass dog whistles, that have been deployed against the Democratic party for decades in defense of the status quo that cost the election four years ago.

So the person who can't cobble together majority support should win?

If he walks into the convention with a plurality of delegates, yes? You seem to agree.

...they may default to Sanders...but if he can only gather a third of the delegates...

A plurality's a plurality. And yeah, if he walks into the convention with a plurality and a different nominee is ultimately chosen, it will be 1968 all over again.

The mayor who was the spokes person for gun control until last year and governed one of the most liberal cities in the country (that if it was a state would rank the 10th most populous) is a far right candidate. This is why I think everybody needs to calm the fuck down.

Who ran as a Republican until it became politically expedient for him to switch parties, and even past that point continued supporting Republican politicians. Wedge issues aren't the only places in which the left-right divide manifests itself, and Bloomberg isn't even on the left side of all wedge issues. Need we really get into stop and frisk, marijuana and the war on drugs, mandatory minimums and sentencing disparities?

Can we dispose of this notion that "not progressive = far right?" It just shows a fundamental disinterest in engaging in what a persons positions are and why they might have support.

No, this is a conversation which absolutely, positively must be had after Trump. It should have been had a decade ago, it wasn't, and we're here now because of it.

Democrats as a whole have slipped center-right in the past four decades, even as Republicans have yee-haw'ed off into overt crypto-fascism. The new moderate is where right-wing nutjobs sat 40 years ago. Obamacare was a Republican health care proposal; warrantless surveillance, police militarization even in the face of BLM, extrajudicial detainment, and extrajudicial killing of foreign (and US) nationals have been normalized to the point they're no longer even platform planks. We're at a point Tulsi's rather boring and boilerplate pre-Obama Democratic positions are "ohmygod Putin nazifascist terrorist appeasement!" territory, for God's sake.

That's how far the Overton window has slipped, and most of that has been since Obama took office alone. How far more does it have to slip before Democrats take a good, hard look in the mirror?

 

[Seanchaidh]

But Sanders didn't exactly push to end the Caucuses when they were doing the reforms following 2016

According to members of the URC, that was not within the power of the URC.

 

[Agema]

Democrats as a whole have slipped center-right in the past four decades, even as Republicans have yee-haw'ed off into overt crypto-fascism. The new moderate is where right-wing nutjobs sat 40 years ago. Obamacare was a Republican health care proposal; warrantless surveillance, police militarization even in the face of BLM, extrajudicial detainment, and extrajudicial killing of foreign (and US) nationals have been normalized to the point they're no longer even platform planks. We're at a point Tulsi's rather boring and boilerplate pre-Obama Democratic positions are "ohmygod Putin nazifascist terrorist appeasement!" territory, for God's sake.

I don't think this is entirely fair. The Democrats and Republicans have never been *that* different on things like foreign policy and law and order. And The ACA is more Democratic than it may seem, because although the Republicans came up with the base model they were never, ever going to put it into action at a Federal level. The Republicans only ever talked healthcare when they needed to distract and disrupt the Democrats doing something about it.

I would argue that the modern interest in social democracy (perhaps particularly amongst the younger?) represents a form of leftist thinking that has been quiescent in the USA in decades. The moderate Democrats are mostly just around where the Democrats have traditionally sat.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

The Democrats and Republicans have never been *that* different on things like foreign policy and law and order.

Okay, this is a fair point, neither party has historically been the friend of black, brown, or poor people, especially when they talk funny and live on oil deposits. But this is more of a "they're both right wing" thing, not so much a "they just migrated there" thing.

...because although the Republicans came up with the base model they were never, ever going to put it into action at a Federal level.

Forcing uninsured Americans to buy health insurance? That's a pretty mid-'90s Republican thing to do, considering the '70s Republican thing to do was HMO's which were literally sold to Nixon by explaining they'd maximize profits by minimizing access to health care.

...social democracy (perhaps particularly amongst the younger?) represents a form of leftist thinking that has been quiescent in the USA in decades.

This is true, the Wobblies started here after all. We even had Socialist politicians in decently-high office, and candidates for the Presidency before. The most famous being Eugene V. Debs who, y'know, ran from prison. After being arrested and convicted of sedition. Between then and now has seen a rather spotty affair, what with all the witch hunting, blacklisting, imprisonment, ostracization, beatings, the usual.

But anyhow, evening primary news...

Survivor: Caucus in the Corn saw a sudden plot twist, as Troy Price was voted off. Apparently, fellow committee members and county chairs noticed his extensive list of professional and personal contacts with both the former Hillary campaign, current Buttigieg campaign, PACRONYM, and Shadow, and realized something might have gone awry in the caucus. According to this NYT article [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/us/politics/troy-price-resigns-iowa.html], Judy Downs, the Polk County Democratic executive director, was quoted as saying "some of the decisions just made it really hard to defend against accusations of cronyism, or conspiracy, frankly".

But more importantly, the other race to watch this year has a big twist. Chuck Todd can't understand how Bernie is considered the Democratic front-runner [https://www.thedailybeast.com/msnbcs-chuck-todd-says-i-dont-understand-how-bernies-considered-a-frontrunner], despite Bernie having won both Iowa and New Hampshire won the most votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. This is a weak follow-up to Joy Reid's on-air rectal expulsion this morning, but if nothing it goes to show the race to be the biggest asshole on cable news is still running strong!

In addition, a bit of a late follow-up. Has anyone else noticed how much Bloomberg looks like the "ass to ass" guy from Requiem for a Dream? Is that just me?