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  #26  
Old 01-30-2019, 09:55 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

So if the "gotcha question" was "How can you be aligned with progressive criminal justice reform and defend California's death penalty?", Harris ignored it. Clearly.

She didn't shred it.
She didn't nail it.


These are not hyperbole. They are flat lies. Fuck all social media.
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Old 01-30-2019, 06:23 PM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition


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  #28  
Old 02-01-2019, 12:00 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

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  #29  
Old 02-02-2019, 09:49 PM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

The dirtbag left weighed in a while ago
It's Still Bernie

I think part of the issue is the Dems got used to bringing in Leftist window dressing to pull in the Left votes, then usher the Kucinich, etc. out before the primary, with them endorsing the "centrist" candidate. Sanders was supposed to play this role in the 2016 primary, but everyone was surprised by the amount of support his campaign gained and sustained- the message had traction beyond what they had seen in previous cycles. Leftists actually got their idealistic hopes up.
Democratic Party faithful like to play up how Sanders supporters didn't turn out for Clinton- when they actually did quite a bit, and more than Clinton supporters turned out to vote for Obama over McCain; and they like to blame Leftists, instead of noting their failure to bring a resonating message that could appeal to the working class and their traditional base to overcome district gerrymandering and the white racist voting bloc.

That's also why a bunch of Democrats aiming for the 2020 presidency are trying on parts of Bernie's progressive platform- they want the voters that are attracted to that message.

Only it's clear almost none of them supported progressive platforms before this, and their voting records won't match their rhetoric.

I'm still of the opinion that the Youth and Left vote are with Bernie if he runs, as opposed to other candidates that mostly have party faithful and nothing else.
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  #30  
Old 02-02-2019, 11:39 PM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

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  #31  
Old 02-02-2019, 11:47 PM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

I was originally an enthusiastic Sanders supporter in 2016, and I initially felt his entry into the race was a net good for the country. To some extent, I still feel that way, but I’m getting increasingly sick of his claim that the Democrats have abandoned working people. That was absolutely true in the 1990s. It is not true now. Clinton ran on the most progressive platform any Democrat had run on since… probably LBJ, if not earlier. Her platform, for instance, featured a comprehensive proposal for mental healthcare reform – it would essentially have been an Affordable Care Act for mental health.

Now, is the ACA perfect? No. But one large portion of its flaws rests at the feet of non-Democrat Joe Lieberman, who voted against a public option after explicitly promising not to do that in his 2006 Senate campaign, and another large portion of its flaws rests at the feet of Republican Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who gutted the Medicaid expansion purely for political reasons, as revealed recently in Joan Bikuspic’s superb reporting on the matter. But for those two factors, we would in all likelihood already have universal healthcare, and the insurance companies would be in a severely weakened economic position compared to their present status, as more people realised how much better public health insurance was.

Sanders is sincere and completely on point when discussing economics, but when he wanders off the topic, he loses me. He’s made a number of tone-deaf pronouncements on women’s issues, on queer rights issues, on minority issues, and so on that have tempered my enthusiasm for him. And his accusations that the Democratic primary process was rigged ultimately played directly into Individual-1’s hands in the general election. I’m not saying that he intentionally threw the election to Individual-1, but I’m getting increasingly tired of voices ostensibly on the left that focus on the Democratic Party’s flaws. The time to focus on those flaws is not while we are out of power. The time to focus on those flaws is when we have power and can actually enact changes to policy.

I’m going to give the example of healthcare. I don’t dislike the idea of Medicare for all in principle. I don’t see how you get to that point in America, however, without severely alienating a large portion of the country. We’ve already tried this experiment once with the ACA, and the wide-ranging protests to comparatively small changes in healthcare policy seem instructive. The American people are extraordinarily change-averse; they are particularly averse to changes imposed upon them by others. We’re fine if we choose to change something, but if we feel we’re being forced into a change without our involvement, a large portion of us revolt.

I’ve always felt the public option is the way forward. It gives people the option to sign onto public health insurance that, in all likelihood, will be better than the coverage they currently have. And it expands coverage to everyone. But it doesn’t force anyone into a change they don’t want.

I realise that “The Option of Medicare to All” is nowhere near as catchy a slogan. But it’s much shrewder policy. And it’s the sort of thing that leads me to question Sanders’ political acumen.

My first choice in 2016 was always Warren, but she didn’t run that year. Warren talks about the same issues as Sanders with the same level of conviction and clarity, but I feel she has a stronger grasp of policy minutiae, and she manages to express anger in a constructive fashion that I seldom see pulled off in politics. This year she’s still in my top tier of candidates.

I’m already growing fairly convinced that it’s likely to be Harris, though, no matter what issues some people are raising with her record as a prosecutor. And some of those are valid issues, and I don’t mean to diminish their importance, but I have to be honest in that I don’t find myself searching particularly intently for the candidate I agree with the most. I’m searching, above all, for an acceptable candidate who is going to win.

The problem, of course, is handicapping that in advance. No one, in 2014, thought Individual-1 had a remote chance of winning (for a certain definition of “winning”) the presidency. It was a perfect storm of events – including Russian ratfucking, treasonous behaviour on the part of McTurtle and other Republican leaders, disgraceful media coverage that amounted to giving Individual-1 billions of dollars in free advertising, and Comey’s unprecedented and completely unjustifiable decision to make biasing statements against one candidate eleven days before Election Day – that led to what a more charitable observer would describe as Individual-1’s “election”. A large portion of this is unpredictable.

However, Harris seems to be drawing the same sort of enthusiasm that Obama was gaining in 2007-2008. I’m not seeing that level of enthusiasm around any other candidate as of yet. She seems to possess a sort of unquantifiable “it” factor that thus far seems to be unique to her campaign. It’s early days still, though, and someone else could catch on.

I think Sanders is going to find a lot more difficulty finding a mass constituency in the next election, because there’s going to be a wealth of other candidates with similar messages on the economy, and a large portion of what drove young voters’ enthusiasm for him was his proposals like free college and universal healthcare. But he’s not the only one with those platforms now – in fact, they’re virtually mainstream.

I think Sanders is, in all likelihood, too old now, and while he was unquestionably ahead of the current on economic issues, he already feels a bit behind the current on social issues. There are other candidates who already had or have adopted similar stances on economics who have better stances on social issues.

And he has other liabilities, such as his inept handling of harassment in his campaign and his taxes, which he still hasn’t revealed much of. In the age of Trump, those are going to be major black marks for anyone running for the Democratic nomination.

And I don’t really care what a person believed ten years ago, and I honestly don’t even care as much what they believe now as much as I care what they’ll do in office. If a politician doesn’t actually personally agree with abortion, but doesn’t think it’s the government’s business to restrict it, I’m not going to weigh that heavily against them. If an elected official is responsive to constituent pressure, I regard that as a plus – that’s actually exactly what elected officials are supposed to do.

As a queer person, I’m not remotely bothered that Obama was not initially publicly supportive of marriage equality. His actions in office nonetheless directly led to Obergefell, and that’s far more important to me than what his private beliefs may have been at any given point. There are two plausible hypotheses here: one is that he always privately supported marriage equality but didn’t find it politically acceptable to come out in public support of it until public opinion shifted; the other is that he shifted in response to constituent pressure. I don’t know which was the case, and I can’t find fault with him on the issue in either case.

We ostensibly live in a representative democracy. That isn’t my ideal system (my ideal system is something akin to anarchist socialism), but until we live in something closer to that ideal system, I’m not going to fault our representatives for actually taking seriously the idea that they should represent their constituents’ views. That is, in fact, exactly their job.

If policy issues were my only concern, my top choice would be Warren. As it stands, I’m torn between her, Gillibrand (whose pragmatism and willingness to swear in public impress me), and Harris (reasons listed above, plus the appropriateness of having our first woman president also be a woman of colour). I can’t say any of them have stances that are entirely to my liking, but anyone who had such stances would be unelectable to the presidency in 2020.

Really, though, I already find myself wanting AOC as president. Unfortunately, she can’t run until 2024, I believe. (Maybe 2028? Depends if she’ll turn 35 before January 20, 2025. I will also admit to having developed something of a crush.) She’s got incredible natural political talent and charisma, neither of which can really be taught, and basically all the right stances. I can’t see any other self-described socialist in American politics today who is likelier to be elected to the presidency someday.

ETA: some of those criticisms in that image^ are rather nonsensical – for instance, lawyers have to represent a lot of clients they may not care for. Saying Gillibrand represented Big Tobacco is as incoherent as saying Hillary represented murderers. Doesn’t mean either of them ever agreed with those causes.

Also, if there are responses to this and I take awhile to respond to them, I’m not trying to be rude; I’ve just got a lot of commitments. (And if someone else gets there first with a lot of what I’d have said, I might not get around to responding at all.) I probably shouldn’t even have written a post this long, but when I get into a writing mode, I find it hard to stop.
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  #32  
Old 02-03-2019, 12:07 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

The only candidates who jazz me at this point are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and the latter has not even announced, though I recently read that his announcement is imminent. Of course, if he does enter the race, he will split the progressive vote with Warren, likely leading to the nomination of yet another centrist, corporate-funded, Clintonesque New Democrat nominee in the lineage of the two Clintons and Obama and in contradiction to the New Deal legacy that Democrats ought to be upholding and seeking to expand. Sigh.

The other candidates, so far anyway, leave me cold. I am baffled by the plaudits for Kamala Harris’s so-called rollout. In addition to her problematic prosecutorial history, I have watched her recent speeches and an online video she put up. The video consisted of bright, shiny things with blinking words lacking substance, and her speeches are all airy platitudes (“for the people,” “lift our voices,” yawn.)

Beto O’Rourke strikes me as another bright, shiny thing.

Corey Booker is another Wall Street water carrier, so far as I can tell. Gillibrand, as of now, doesn’t impress. Tulsi Gabbard? Don’t make me :lol: Julian Castro? We’ll see.

Of course I’d vote for a pile of dog shit over Trump, but it would be so nice, for the first time in my life, to vote for someone I actually wanted to see as president. Not likely to happen, unless Warren or Bernie is nominated. But neither will be if they split the progressive vote. Sherrod Brown is a possibility, but I would like to see a woman elected on general principles.

Then there is Joe Biden. I hate to say it, but as of right now, anyway, ol’ Joe, warts and all (mostly warts), may be the Dems’ best bet. I can’t imagine him (or any Dem, for that matter) losing a single state the Hillary won in 2016. But I think Biden would be almost guaranteed to carry the Rust Belt states that Trump won in 2016, whereas the other Democrats, not so much. That alone would put him in the White House.

While it is (almost) certainly ridiculous to put much stock in polling at this point, the latest presidential polls at FiveThirtyEight show a close race. Take note! The first listed polls (as I currently post, they change daily), which show Trump leading everyone but Biden, is in Iowa only, which I did not realize until I took a second desperate look after contemplating suicide. (Nate, could you please, on this page, make the distinctions between individual state polls and national polls clearer, lest you prompt deaths by suicides, heart attacks, etc.?) Scroll down a little and in the national polls Trump is mostly losing, but in most cases not by much, reminiscent of how he was trailing Hillary and … won.

Gonna be a long national nightmare — well, it is already.
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  #33  
Old 02-03-2019, 01:44 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

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Originally Posted by davidm View Post
The only candidates who jazz me at this point are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and the latter has not even announced, though I recently read that his announcement is imminent. Of course, if he does enter the race, he will split the progressive vote with Warren, likely leading to the nomination of yet another centrist, corporate-funded, Clintonesque New Democrat nominee in the lineage of the two Clintons and Obama and in contradiction to the New Deal legacy that Democrats ought to be upholding and seeking to expand. Sigh.

:thumbsup: That's pretty much the plan! Put up a few more puppets with Hope and Change, only a bit more social shit this time, then try to ram through Harris or whomever, lose against Trump again, then blame Russian emails or something.
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  #34  
Old 02-03-2019, 06:02 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

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Originally Posted by davidm View Post
The only candidates who jazz me at this point are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and the latter has not even announced, though I recently read that his announcement is imminent. Of course, if he does enter the race, he will split the progressive vote with Warren
I don't think those two are the only ones who appeal to progressives, but either way... in a 10+ candidate field, if having two candidates splits your faction too much, you didn't have a large enough faction to win in the first place.

How will Warren and Sanders split the vote too much, but all the "Clintonesque" candidates like Gillibrand, Booker, Harris, Castro, Brown, Biden and Bloomberg splitting the "centrist" vote will come out on top?

Also... the Democratic nomination doesn't work by plurality voting in the first place. It's not winner-take-all. Delegates are assigned approximately* proportionately. If Warren and Sanders go to the convention, they will both have delegates and will be able to combine them on the second ballot, so if they have a majority combined and are able to agree, one of them will probably be able to get the nomination.

*A notable deviation from this is that candidates that get less than 15% in a delegate-assigning district** won't qualify for any delegates. I don't know what happens if no candidate breaks 15%, and too much splitting the vote could result in only one candidate breaking 15% and thus getting all of them, maybe? But if Warren and Sanders are the only ones splitting the progressive vote, and I assume you think that's at least close to 50%, they shouldn't have to worry about that.

**In most states, there are two statewide delegate categories, and then each congressional district has delegates. Each grouping is proportional to how Democratic the constituency is, so that overwhelmingly Democratic DC, for example, gets significantly more delegates than GOP stronghold Wyoming.
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Then there is Joe Biden. I hate to say it, but as of right now, anyway, ol’ Joe, warts and all (mostly warts), may be the Dems’ best bet.
I'm hoping that's just about name recognition and the others will improve when people learn more about them. I really don't want Biden, and one thing that cartoon is definitely right about is that he has creepy boundary-violating behavior that you can just imagine causing a huge headache if he's the nominee.

Unfortunately, I think that Biden and Sanders's numbers are probably more inflated than the other candidates' are deflated. They haven't had to sustain a really negative campaign against them, and there's no way they're getting out of the huge field of candidates without their negatives coming up (and of course, the GOP and the "liberal" media will dig more into them if they get the nomination).

But Trump's approval numbers are quite bad, and he has not handled the transition to Speaker Pelosi well. I am cautiously optimistic.
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  #35  
Old 02-03-2019, 06:22 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

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I was originally an enthusiastic Sanders supporter in 2016, and I initially felt his entry into the race was a net good for the country. To some extent, I still feel that way, but I’m getting increasingly sick of his claim that the Democrats have abandoned working people. That was absolutely true in the 1990s. It is not true now. Clinton ran on the most progressive platform any Democrat had run on since… probably LBJ, if not earlier. Her platform, for instance, featured a comprehensive proposal for mental healthcare reform – it would essentially have been an Affordable Care Act for mental health.
Agree to disagree; her top ten campaign promises were either sops to the left or Reagan-level immigration promises; definitely not more progressive than Kucinich, or Edwards. Hillary Clinton's foreign policy neoliberal war hawk record, her voting for AUMF authorization, vote for the war in Iraq, and support for arms sales to Saudi Arabia and military support of the Saudis in their war in Yemen as Secretary of State; her support of dictators like Mubarak in Egypt; her message that universal health care will, "never, ever happen"- I don't see it.
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The time to focus on those flaws is not while we are out of power. The time to focus on those flaws is when we have power and can actually enact changes to policy.
You mean like all the reform that happened within the Democratic Party while Obama was in power and the Dems had control of the House and Senate, 2008-2009? How about when he killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a US Citizen in 2011 with drone strikes, and then killed his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (also a US citizen) in another drone strike two weeks later, along with nine other bystanders, in an open-air cafe? There's never a good time for feedback and criticism, never, never.
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We’ve already tried this experiment once with the ACA, and the wide-ranging protests to comparatively small changes in healthcare policy seem instructive.
You mean the Koch-astroturfed protests?

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Originally Posted by The Man View Post
I’m already growing fairly convinced that it’s likely to be Harris
ACAB, and see your next quote.

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Originally Posted by The Man View Post
The problem, of course, is handicapping that in advance.
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Originally Posted by The Man View Post
I don’t really care what a person believed ten years ago, and I honestly don’t even care as much what they believe now as much as I care what they’ll do in office.
How would you determine the most likely course they would take, once in office? Would you weigh the words they said at their umpteenth campaign rally, or their actual voting record (or record as a prosecutor, in Kamala Harris' case, when she wasn't busy snapping photos with border patrol)?

It really is seriously early for prognostications.
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  #36  
Old 02-03-2019, 07:20 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

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Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Man View Post
Clinton ran on the most progressive platform any Democrat had run on since… probably LBJ, if not earlier. Her platform, for instance, featured a comprehensive proposal for mental healthcare reform – it would essentially have been an Affordable Care Act for mental health.
Agree to disagree; her top ten campaign promises were either sops to the left or Reagan-level immigration promises; definitely not more progressive than Kucinich, or Edwards.
I'm 99% sure The Man was talking about general election candidates' platforms.

Also Kucinich goes on TV to defend Trump, you know.

It's also weird how Kucinich's long and strongly anti-abortion record isn't considered part of his platform, nor is his late-career evolution on the issue considered a mere "sop" to the left in preparation for his 2004 presidential run that doesn't really count towards his platform's progressiveness.
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Hillary Clinton's foreign policy neoliberal war hawk record
Records and platforms are not the same thing, but it was also her platform on, you know, other issues that were notably more progressive. Her foreign policy was not great, but the comparison was to other Democratic presidential nominees anyway, who did not have great foreign policy either...
If you're going to link to the story, shouldn't you check that the quote is what you say it is?

Quote:
Originally Posted by CBSNews
"I want you to understand why I am fighting so hard for the Affordable Care Act," she said at Grand View University after hearing from a woman who spoke about her daughter receiving cancer treatment thanks to the health care law. "I don't want it repealed, I don't want us to be thrown back into a terrible, terrible national debate. I don't want us to end up in gridlock. People can't wait!"

She added, "People who have health emergencies can't wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass."
It is not clear what specific idea she's saying "will never, ever come to pass" there. It would be most natural to assume she just means Bernie Sanders's plan will never pass. Whereas I'd say her point appears to be about focusing on improving and expanding ObamaCare rather than starting over with a completely new system. But if she was attacking a particular policy, it seems most people took her to mean "single payer", but even that is a bit of an extrapolation.

Even so, single payer and universal healthcare are not synonyms, something I believe I've pointed out before. Yet you continue to use them as if they are. Saying she said "universal healthcare will never happen" is a misrepresentation.

And Clinton had a long record of wanting to expand healthcare, to achieve universal healthcare, even, which apparently doesn't count because one time she said Sanders's plan wouldn't pass therefore she opposes the very idea of universal healthcare.
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The time to focus on those flaws is not while we are out of power. The time to focus on those flaws is when we have power and can actually enact changes to policy.
You mean like all the reform that happened within the Democratic Party while Obama was in power
Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, 350.org, Fight For Fifteen... organizations and campaigns that started or took hold under Obama.

The views of Democratic voters on whether racism is still a problem, whether more needs to be done to address it, and whether immigration is good for the country moved significantly leftward under Obama (driving shifts in overall public opinion on those issues).

Maybe you didn't see all the reforms you wanted to see, but the idea that nothing moved left under Obama and activism wilted doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Quote:
Obama [...] drone strikes
I'm going to be honest. I've almost heard more about Obama and drone strikes in the past two years than I have about Trump, even though they've gone up and the rate of civilian casualties has increased significantly.

In fact, I could only find two posts in which you mentioned drones since Trump took office. One of them wasn't really specific, but seemed to make references to events that occurred under Obama but possibly also Trump. The other was you explicitly only referring to drone strikes under Obama. That fits with the general pattern I've noticed pretty well.

If you want to reduce civilian casualties and bombing campaigns in other countries, perhaps focusing on Trump's actions would work better? You will probably have more success turning Democratic voters against these types of things by associating them with Trump than by pointing out that a guy with >95% approval among Democrats supported the idea.
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Quote:
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I don’t really care what a person believed ten years ago, and I honestly don’t even care as much what they believe now as much as I care what they’ll do in office.
How would you determine the most likely course they would take, once in office? Would you weigh the words they said at their umpteenth campaign rally, or their actual voting record (or record as a prosecutor, in Kamala Harris' case, when she wasn't busy snapping photos with border patrol)?
Well, it probably would be helpful for your method of determining what a politician will do not to predict that LBJ would've been conservative on domestic policy for example.

But there's more to consider than just what you think they "sincerely believe" (which is not something that is always easily determined - Ralph Northam did not say much or have a political record that indicated he used to wear KKK robes or blackface for fun). How have they done with their political promises in the past? If you don't think Harris is sincere on criminal justice, is there reason to think she'll keep her promises nonetheless? How have they reacted to political pressure or changing conditions? Have they pushed left relative to their constituency and office, or have they always run for the center?
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  #37  
Old 02-03-2019, 10:10 PM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

Democrats will almost certainly not have a 60 vote majority in 2021, because getting to 60 seats would require going deep into GOP territory, winning multiple races among states like Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Alaska, Mississippi, South Carolina or the like, which would require an LBJ 1964 level blowout.

So a big issue for the coming election is what the candidates think should be done about the filibuster. Almost none of the stuff people are talking about as their litmus tests will go anywhere legislatively if the GOP retains the ability to use the filibuster to block bills indefinitely. Basically the only things that could pass would be tax rate and budget spending changes, using reconciliation. Medicare for All, criminal justice reform, environmental regulations, labor reforms like mandatory family leave or union rights bills can't pass that way. So it doesn't matter if you want $15 minimum wage or $12, single payer or a public option, an end to cash bail or marijuana legalization, etc. if Mitch McConnell has a veto. What exact reform is pushed could be finessed to pretend they're not really getting rid of it (for example, returning to the requirement that you actually be giving a speech during your filibuster), but the implicit 60 vote requirement to pass legislation needs to go.

Obviously, the president can't eliminate unilaterally, but they could have real influence. This will be an important issue to push senators on as well, of course.

‘Everything stays on the table’: 2020 Dems weigh killing the filibuster - POLITICO

So in this regard, Warren is out in front of all the other contenders. Gillibrand and Sanders expressed some ambiguity on the issue and are perhaps open to the idea, while Cory Booker explicitly said he's opposed. Booker wasn't my top choice in the first place, but I'm generally going to rank any candidate explicitly open to eliminating the filibuster above any candidate explicitly opposed to it.

To the point that if Bloomberg and Biden came out for eliminating it and Sanders and Warren said they would fight to keep the filibuster, it would scramble my evaluations of the candidates. I don't think that's going to happen, but that's how important it is as a question, IMO.

The next most important after abolishing the filibuster is a voting rights and election reform bill like HR 1, DC statehood and a binding PR statehood referendum (which adds even more wiggle room for big legislation). Democrats need to stop accepting rules and distributions of representation that rig the game for Republicans.
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Old 02-04-2019, 09:50 PM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition




There was another poll that was more favorable for the 70% top marginal tax rate, at 59% support, with two differences in the polls. The Morning Consult poll in the tweet seems to describe it as AOC's plan, which could activate partisanship (lowering support among Republicans, raising it among Democrats), and the HarrisX poll more explicitly describes how a marginal tax rate works.

But they also describe the wealth tax as Senator Warren's plan, and she probably has higher name recognition than AOC, so it's even more notable that so many Republicans approve of the idea.

The high level of support would seem to support the thesis of this piece:

Democrats Should Be Pragmatic in 2020 and Wage a Class War

Quote:
Policy visions vary. Democrats disagree about how their party should go about solving America’s problems. But when it comes to describing those problems, there is only one question that bitterly divides them: Does their story of middle-class decline need a ruling-class villain?

Warren and Bernie Sanders say yes. In their account, the true name of our affliction isn’t inequality but oligarchy. It isn’t an impersonal, abstract force that’s immiserating working people — it’s an extractive economic elite. “How did we get here?” Warren asked rhetorically, in her campaign launch video. “Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie. And they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice … Our government is supposed to work for all of us, but instead it has become a tool for the wealthy and well-connected. The whole scam is propped up by an echo chamber of fear and hate, designed to distract and divide us.”
This is a big part of why Warren is my top choice at the moment. Maybe someone else will get the memo.

Booker may be modeling his optimistic "can't we all get along" campaign tone on Obama, or it may just be how he is, but the idea that that's what won it for Obama rather than the economic collapse, Bush's failures with the Iraq War and Katrina, etc. leading to horrible approval ratings and the fact that the GOP was going for a third term... I don't see it. Obama was going to be favored either way (although it had some synergy with the history-making aspect of his candidacy - Booker wouldn't have that historic aspect though). It also seems less appropriate for the moment than it was in 2008.

(One thing that looks better in retrospect about Clinton's 2008 campaign is her mockery of the idea that Obama would bring the country together and revive bipartisanship. Although perhaps it wasn't a good campaign message to say so, it was totally accurate.)
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Old 02-05-2019, 05:37 PM
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Tulsi Gabbard is a joke and, again, needs to fuck off for all time. Gillibrand probably can't. Michael Bloomberg, fuck off also.
She has former Klan Grand Wizard David Duke endorsing her, so you know, she has that going for her :lol:

Former KKK Leader David Duke Endorses Tulsi Gabbard 2020 Presidential Campaign, Says She'll Put American Interests Over Israel
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Old 02-06-2019, 03:24 PM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

The WaPo just put out a story about Warren listing her race on her Texas attorney ID as American Indian. They have a picture and everything. My feeling, this is a significant headwind, and one thing we don't need is a candidate with a headwind.
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Old 02-06-2019, 10:27 PM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

I'm still on board with her, and this story is stupid.

But anyway, I guess this proves the point that the reason Hillary lost is just that she was a shitty awful neoliberal candidate, and it wasn't the medias fault for reporting on her emails because it was a big story (and it was a big story because they were reporting on it, see) and the media totally would never do the same thing to a progressive that cares about people and has no clouds of corruption* hanging over them.

This is why we must push back on any criticism of the media's coverage of 2016, because that would undermine the point that Hillary was uniquely awful. When the media totally starts pulling the same shit with other minor scandals of little relevance to governing on candidates that True Progressives™ do like, davidm will probably just conclude that it's the DNC trying to sink them.

*Like that time Clinton Foundation people asked her for diplomatic passports, and then didn't get them.
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Old 02-06-2019, 10:55 PM
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I'm still on board with her, and this story is stupid.

But anyway, I guess this proves the point that the reason Hillary lost is just that she was a shitty awful neoliberal candidate, and it wasn't the medias fault for reporting on her emails because it was a big story (and it was a big story because they were reporting on it, see) and the media totally would never do the same thing to a progressive that cares about people and has no clouds of corruption* hanging over them.

This is why we must push back on any criticism of the media's coverage of 2016, because that would undermine the point that Hillary was uniquely awful. When the media totally starts pulling the same shit with other minor scandals of little relevance to governing on candidates that True Progressives™ do like, davidm will probably just conclude that it's the DNC trying to sink them.

*Like that time Clinton Foundation people asked her for diplomatic passports, and then didn't get them.
:fixed:

It’s amazing that you can’t grasp the role of the news media in a free society. If the FBI is investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails, then the news media is obviously going to report that. Failure to do so would be a derliction of professional responsibility.

If the FBI investigation of Clinton was bogus, blame the FBI instead of shooting the messenger. How hard is that to get?

You are no different than people like Richard Nixon and Donald Trump. You believe the news media should, like Fox News, be a propaganda arm of candidates and policies that you like, and should hide or censor any negative news about those candidates or their policies.

As for Elizabeth Warren, if she was truly that dishonest and stupid as to call herself a Native American when clearly she is not even close to that, then that is her fault, not the fault of the Washington Post, which had not just the right but the duty to report her transparent lie. If it sinks her candidacy, too bad for her. She will have only herself to blame.
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Old 02-07-2019, 12:54 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

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Originally Posted by davidm View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir View Post
I'm still on board with her, and this story is stupid.

But anyway, I guess this proves the point that the reason Hillary lost is just that she was a shitty awful neoliberal candidate, and it wasn't the medias fault for reporting on her emails because it was a big story (and it was a big story because they were reporting on it, see) and the media totally would never do the same thing to a progressive that cares about people and has no clouds of corruption* hanging over them.

This is why we must push back on any criticism of the media's coverage of 2016, because that would undermine the point that Hillary was uniquely awful. When the media totally starts pulling the same shit with other minor scandals of little relevance to governing on candidates that True Progressives™ do like, davidm will probably just conclude that it's the DNC trying to sink them.

*Like that time Clinton Foundation people asked her for diplomatic passports, and then didn't get them.
:fixed:

It’s amazing that you can’t grasp the role of the news media in a free society.
The media is a vital part of a free society, but they have no responsibility in their reporting on politics and elections to calibrate their coverage of a scandal relative to its importance to governance or its effects on the country.

Quote:
If the FBI is investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails, then the news media is obviously going to report that. Failure to do so would be a derliction of professional responsibility.
There's a hell of a lot of space between "report on Clinton's emails multiple times more than you report on all her policies combined" and "don't report on them at all". Nobody has ever said not to report on them at all.

A point which has been made to you multiple times but which you refuse to acknowledge, because you are a dishonest person. You can't argue against it, so you always, always revert to your straw man argument. You are exactly the sort of person who should not be working for a newspaper.
Quote:
If the FBI investigation of Clinton was bogus, blame the FBI instead of shooting the messenger. How hard is that to get?
So you're saying the media should abdicate its responsibility in this case and accept that if there's an FBI investigation, it really is important, it has a real chance of finding a crime*, it is relevant to governance and it has no bias.

I assume you will be applying this standard to all investigations of Trump and Russia, eh? When the media sees the FBI investigating Trump, asking them to apply any skepticism or proportionality means you are like Nixon and Trump and want them to be propagandists!

When MSNBC or other outlets have Brennan and Hayden and other military/intelligence "Deep State" officials on and uncritically broadcasts their pronouncements, these decisions cannot be questioned! Blame the Deep State instead of shooting the messenger!

Does anyone expect davidm to exhibit this consistency? Anyone? :lol: To even ask it is to laugh. Everyone knows you're full of shit. The media shouldn't trust the FBI or CIA, except when it comes to someone you dislike. That is the only principle here.

*This is most important when it comes to the Abedin/Weiner laptop. It was entirely predictable that Abedin's laptop, checking the same email account, would have entirely or almost entirely the same emails on it (if you check your email on computer A, those emails will generally still appear when you check them on computer B), and the chance that any emails not found on her other computers would not have been found on other State Dept email accounts and would contain proof of criminal activity was extremely low.
Quote:
As for Elizabeth Warren, if she was truly that dishonest and stupid as to call herself a Native American when clearly she is not even close to that, then that is her fault, not the fault of the Washington Post, which had not just the right but the duty to report her transparent lie. If it sinks her candidacy, too bad for her. She will have only herself to blame.
And with the future of the country at stake, asking the media to prioritize reporting on things that actually matter for the future of the country is just too much to ask.

And I understand her family story is influenced by dominant white narratives as well as the history of mixed African-Americans passing as Native American to avoid anti-black discrimination, etc. There are lots of white Americans who claim Native ancestry who can't really substantiate it and have no connection in their lives to Native American communities, and it is problematic. But most of these people are unaware of these issues and since it's usually just a family story it rarely acquires any public importance. (I have friends who claim distant Native heritage but I'm skeptical considering it likely they don't, or that it is more distant than they think and so distant as to be irrelevant.) But the evidence seems to be clear that she did not gain unfair advantages out of this, and it is not really an important story for how she would govern except as it relates to Native American issues, where she rightfully has some work to do but appears to be making an effort.

But what did this WaPo story really tell us that we didn't know? Nothing really. We already knew she claimed Native American heritage in the past. There might be a wrinkle here ("it was in her own handwriting!") but fundamentally this story does almost nothing except pull it back into the spotlight to continue asking questions that have already been answered. Why is it the media's responsibility to look for every little scrap to report on even when it doesn't really change the story? Should they devote half of their reporting on Warren to documenting every single time Warren claimed to be Native American? Is that their "duty"? Why isn't it their duty to apply some fucking discretion and report on things that actually affect Americans?

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Old 02-07-2019, 01:18 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

That story is going to dog her. It's a real problem. Expecting anyone to be fair or the electorate to suddenly turn all sane and logical is to ignore reality. The issue is fair game and her integrity is legitimately in question by the indisputable evidence of her own actions. They're really not open to interpretation.

Unless anyone is predicting a blowout victory running a candidate with this kind of indelible problem is foolish. I like her platform but she's politically compromised.
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Old 02-07-2019, 01:34 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

Bernie's too old, his 2016 campaign had sexual harassment issues, he has bizarre writing in his past (theories about cancer in women being caused by sexual frigidity, and writing about women's rape fantasies... a theme emerges, eh?). If criminal justice becomes an issue, he'd better hope that Harris and Biden attract all the attention and he doesn't get to skate on his 1994 crime bill vote and subsequent bragging about it in reelection campaigns. "I only voted for the good parts" isn't going to fly as easily in 2020 as it did in 2016. The idea that there's nothing for them to work with on Bernie is silly.

Booker is soft on Wall Street and plutocrats, and supports charter schools. Harris has her prosecutor background and issues there. Beto is inexperienced. Gillibrand has to explain her political evolution (she has a decent explanation, but who wants to guess that it can't become a media narrative?) and the Al Franken groping defenders to deal with. Biden wrote the crime bill, has a bad record on financial regulation, is too handsy, and like Bernie is old as shit.

Who's not compromised? Basically only blank slate candidates like Pete Buttigieg with short records. Democrats should just give up on competence in governance and only go with unproven neophytes I guess.

I'd rather go with the candidate that has a winning message than hope that we can pick the perfect one that the media won't be able to fuck over.

On the other hand, you could consider an ability to manipulate the media to be an important quality in a candidate.

But it could also be that the media will be choosing to go easy on a candidate for reasons other than their raw charisma... Perhaps Democrats should be working the refs instead of just accepting that the media will cripple the candidates they* don't like. But davidm would hate that, the media can do no wrong. It's their duty to let Republicans dictate their coverage priorities. The fact that the GOP is constantly working the refs - successfully - should have no bearing on how Democrats behave.

*Coincidentally, the media is dominated by large corporations. I'm sure there's no connection between this and how different politicians are treated or how minor scandals can get constant coverage in some cases while larger scandals (like the hurricane response in Puerto Rico, which continues to have negative effects) are old news and given little coverage.

ETA:

At any rate, sure, I'm willing to discard a candidate as too damaged at some point.

But we have a whole year before any voting starts! We haven't even seen any debates! Deciding that Warren is hopelessly damaged now, rather than trying to fight against media both-sides bullshit and obsession with scandals that are, objectively speaking, not very important, is just surrendering and letting corporate media conglomerates dictate our presidential choices.

And despite being Leftier-Than-Thou True Progressive (whereas I'm just a poor neoliberal shill), davidm wants us to just accept the coverage priority decisions of massive corporations without complaint and with the assumption of good faith on their part.

Because to do otherwise might mean he was wrong about 2016, or even contributed to the outcome we see now in his capacity as a member of the media.

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Old 02-07-2019, 01:57 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

Bernie who? Yeah, I appreciate that he moved the conversation last cycle but this cycle, what you said.

Booker? Yes, he is not the one to excite the base. His support for charter schools alone is enough to turn me off. I've seen him on state political TV programs, like (Something or Other?) with Steve Adubato, and I was basically horrified. I remember having the impression that he was far to the right of me.

It does remain to be seen who's compromised in what ways, but I'm predicting this is a comparative biggie for Warren.

If I learned anything about the media in the last presidential, it's that their primary goal will be to sell the drama, not to help the electorate make informed and rational choices. They want to see a fight and will do what they can to promote one, consequences be damned.
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Old 02-07-2019, 02:44 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

If I'm making the optimistic case for Booker and Castro as candidates, it's that the issues they have in their records are the sort that the media is least likely to pummel them for. And likewise for O'Rourke and Buttigieg, who simply have short records and less to work with there. Unless they have some personal scandal, the media is perhaps less likely to shit on them.

Biden is also someone it seems the media is inclined to treat nicely, but I worry that something will come out about him, and no matter how in the tank they are, they can't totally dictate excitement if the base decides they don't like his record. As of now, he fits in that group as well.

I suppose Amy Klobuchar could be clean in that regard. But supposedly she has a reputation for treating her staff poorly. ETA: and like clockwork, yet another woman candidate can be dismissed as too damaged. Guess it'll have to be an inexperienced male politician.

(Forgot earlier: Sherrod Brown has old domestic abuse allegations.)

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Old 02-07-2019, 02:51 AM
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But davidm would hate that, the media can do no wrong.
Maybe I'll get to your other stuff later, but right now I just want to focus on this.

This is a flat-out lie, and you know it.

I have indeed been critical of the media in general, and The New York Times in particular. Would you like me to dig up those posts for you? On second thought, never mind -- I won't be arsed to do your work for you. But you're now outed as a known liar, and I know that you are no more interested in facts than is the standard-issue member of Trump's idiot horde.

Quote:
It's their duty to let Republicans dictate their coverage priorities.
The fact that WaPo reported that Warren lied is not letting "Republicans dictate their coverage priorities." It's reporting something that a candidate for the president of the United States did, that the public has a fucking right to know.

Quote:
*Coincidentally, the media is dominated by large corporations. I'm sure there's no connection between this and how different politicians are treated or how minor scandals can get constant coverage in some cases while larger scandals (like the hurricane response in Puerto Rico, which continues to have negative effects) are old news and given little coverage.
The NYT gave massive coverage of the disaster in Puerto Rico, and scathing coverage, both in news columns and editorial pieces, about Trump's pathetic and evil response to said disaster -- which you would know if you actually read the Times, which you obviously don't. But don't let that inconvenient little fact stop you from lying about what the Times writes, yeah?

And, so sorry, the corporate overseers of the Times offer no input whatsoever into news coverage, and if they tried to do so, there would be an open rebellion among the honorable reporters and editors of the paper.

Quote:
Because to do otherwise might mean he was wrong about 2016, or even contributed to the outcome we see now in his capacity as a member of the media.
The only one wrong about 2016 is you. Clinton lost because she was a shit candidate, and not because of the news media. That you and people like you can't deal with this means you are setting yourselves up for another shitty candidate in 2020 and another loss to Trump. It wasn't the fucking news media that whispered into Hillary's ear to ignore Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, was it? How'd she make out in those Rust Belt states that she took for granted, hm? Maybe she thought that the poor rubes there were just like her patrons on
Wall Street or at Davos so she could just take their votes for granted.
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Old 02-07-2019, 03:05 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

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If I learned anything about the media in the last presidential, it's that their primary goal will be to sell the drama, not to help the electorate make informed and rational choices. They want to see a fight and will do what they can to promote one, consequences be damned.
You should realize that there is no such things as “the media,” or “the news media.” There are news mediums, plural, lots and lots and lots of different news outlets, in print, radio, TV, and on the internet. They have different motives, different abilities, different competencies, and so on. Some are good, some are bad, some are wretched — like Fox News, which is a propaganda arm of the Trump administration.

In print journalism, the New York Times and the Washington Post have done more than any other paper to unmask this criminal administration and hold it to account. Some time back I posted a long list of links to Times news articles and editorials that prove this very point. You can look it up.

The Times in particular does not try to gin up drama. It does the very thing you ask — it strives to help people make an informed and rational choice. Trump, dumb as he is, very well understands this fact, which is why he hates the Times … oh, I forgot! According to Erimir and The Man, it’s the ”Vichy” Times!

:lol:
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Old 02-07-2019, 03:19 AM
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Default Re: Ultimate Cagefight MMXIX, Democratic Edition

I get you but I think there's a center of mass, that you can to some degree generalize an amalgamated entity, the media, out of all the separate and disparate entities.

Yes, undeniably there is a tremendous range in the credibility and quality of reporting between various individual news organizations.

I guess it's fair to say that I'm trying to characterize the schlocky middle, the center of gravity where the temporarily interested who will decide the election will get their news. Cable news, MSN news, Apple news, that kind of thing.
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