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US Elections 2020 thread

Started by Twed, January 26, 2019, 08:52:03 PM

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marquis_de_sad

Quote from: mojo filters on August 10, 2019, 05:45:00 PM
That's not a trend, it's a peculiar quirk of this strange political moment.

That's precisely what Cuellar was saying.

mojo filters

[Addendum]

In addition, Bernie's hardcore supporters need to envision the bigger political picture,  if they actually want to beat Trump in 2020.

They need to stop attempting to win pointless arguments on Twitter, and get with the programme that there's a bigger political picture in play!

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: mojo filters on August 10, 2019, 05:52:20 PM
[Addendum]

In addition, Bernie's hardcore supporters need to envision the bigger political picture,  if they actually want to beat Trump in 2020.

They need to stop attempting to win pointless arguments on Twitter, and get with the programme that there's a bigger political picture in play!

Stop me if you've heard this one before:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dear-bernie-fans-a-vote-for-him-is-a-vote-for-donald-trump

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I think a lot of the above is perceptive. 2020 is bad timing for the Democrats, especially given the ireconcilable split between those who have seen they need to go left and those who think the answer is again trying to be the 'centre'. Eventually the left will need to make a call whether the Democratic party is even viable as a vehicle for change, either ground up or via the Presidency.

A lot of the most favourable candidates are running up against what Corbyn is up against in the UK in Labour, lots of dull beige mainstream naysayers who have achieved very little, and are not very popular, who are either 1) soft-let cowards, terrified of real change and whether the Democrats will suffer for the attempt to enact real change or 2) right wing and actively working against change while pretending to be progressives.

The entire pro-Democratic media will swing around these guys - you can already see this with the liberal usage of the term 'moderate', a term I previously thought was reserved for Presidential candidates in theocracies, which says a lot.

re: age - Sanders and Biden are actually too old. Sanders 78 next year, Biden 76 next year, add 8 years on and that becomes absurd.



mojo filters

Quote from: marquis_de_sad on August 10, 2019, 05:50:24 PM
That's precisely what Cuellar was saying.

Fair enough. I'm just trying to explain why this is not a conventional political moment.

Both sides of the spectrum are supercharged and encumbered with less than ideal candidates. Add into that mix the influential republican never-Trumpers, and you can see how the complexity of the situation means regular political norms get overlooked.

American politics has withstood unusual moments in the past, but to paraphrase Jon Meacham - the institutions held regardless.

For example no one anticipated Andrew Johnson ascending to the presidency, post Lincoln. He was thoroughly unqualified in the most Trumpian of ways - but the Republic did not dissolve.

We found constitutional solutions to mitigate unanticipated problems. Then regular order resumed. Teddy Roosevelt broke the monopolies, whilst FDR, Truman and Eisenhower coalesced around the New Deal.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteTry this: Imagine yourself as someone who sometimes votes Republican, sometimes Democrat. You're white, middle-class, basically fiscally conservative, moderate on social issues, and concerned about terrorism. You've got a family, and you live in the suburbs of North Carolina or Ohio. Are you really going to vote for a 74-year-old cantankerous socialist calling for revolution and a trillion dollars of big government?

I know that article is from 2016 but it's stuff like this that they just don't understand.

If you harness modern technology to sophisticatedly communicate on a micro level to individuals then you can win. This is exactly how Trump won, this is exactly why Sanders has even come close to being the Democratic candidate despite, as the article goes on and on to say, having nearly everything going against him.

Even in America there is nothing at all stopping a left wing equivalent of Trump standing on a platform of bluster and rhetoric in the mainstream and sophisticated demographic targeting on social meda. As long as they have the brass neck and rhetorical devices to absorb the mainstream bullshit IT DOES NOT MATTER.

You repackage your supposed unpalatable policies in accordance with people's stated needs and fears. Are they anti-immigrant? You explain why being pro-environment and anti-war reduces migration, and so on. And you do that in the precise style that they are susceptible to, because you have the data on them - you know what makes them tick.

This old style data gathering that the 'moderates' rely on has already been busted open across the world by operations willing to harness and exploit technological development (albeit mainly by candidates on the right, but also some minor wins for the progressive left).


mojo filters

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on August 10, 2019, 06:06:18 PM
I think a lot of the above is perceptive. 2020 is bad timing for the Democrats, especially given the ireconcilable split between those who have seen they need to go left and those who think the answer is again trying to be the 'centre'. Eventually the left will need to make a call whether the Democratic party is even viable as a vehicle for change, either ground up or via the Presidency.

A lot of the most favourable candidates are running up against what Corbyn is up against in the UK in Labour, lots of dull beige mainstream naysayers who have achieved very little, and are not very popular, who are either 1) soft-let cowards, terrified of real change and whether the Democrats will suffer for the attempt to enact real change or 2) right wing and actively working against change while pretending to be progressives.

The entire pro-Democratic media will swing around these guys - you can already see this with the liberal usage of the term 'moderate', a term I previously thought was reserved for Presidential candidates in theocracies, which says a lot.

re: age - Sanders and Biden are actually too old. Sanders 78 next year, Biden 76 next year, add 8 years on and that becomes absurd.

This notion of an "irreconcilable split" in the democratic party is the product of Trump's toxic contributions to the state of play. In normal times, it would simply be viewed as intra-party politics playing out naturally.

However Trump being Trump, he couldn't help but step on his own short-term success and bring those perceived divisions back together!

The democratic party has always been a big tent. In LBJ's time he had to deal with southern segregationists, northern conservatives, plus the outright racist nascent Dixiecrats.

Right now the apparent divides are much closer. Pelosi gets criticised because she can't bring her strong personal liberal values into the difficult business of managing a fractious caucus.

Four newly-elected democrats have chosen to embrace the focus the media has provided. No one is denying the much-needed energy they provide to their wing of the party, but they still only have 4 votes in the House.

Such energy does not necessarily reflect where the democratic party needs to be to keep its strong majority in 2020. If that majority were lost, who would care about these youngsters reinvigorating the left flank?

As long as Trump is in office and the democrats hold their House majority - they remain the only viable vehicle for political change.

The privilege of describing delegates and candidates in swing districts as "soft-left cowards" is the preserve of the politically removed commentariat, with no other interest than poking a susceptible beast for clicks, shits and giggles.

The democratic party leadership have serious business to attend to, with the consequences currently more important than ever. This tendency to provoke these proverbial "circular firing squads" don't benefit the serious business of both governing and seeking to advance political power.

Whilst the democrats have a decent chance of winning the 2020 presidential election, they must in tandem focus on holding the house and attempting to win a realistically slim Senate majority. Even if they achieve the latter, the filibuster remains a significant hurdle.

The early primary campaigns are a good time to work out political differences. Let's not see such fractious behaviour spill over into the general, as we are in significant danger of letting 2016 happen all over again!

I agree that Sanders, Biden and Trump are all too old to be seeking the presidency. In a normal cycle that would be a legitimate complaint. I addressed this in my previous post.

This 2020 election cycle will be far from normal. Get used to it now, or go back to wetting the fucking bed when things don't go yer way.

Quote from: mojo filters on August 10, 2019, 05:45:00 PM
Bernie is looking less and less relevant as we see polling trends evolve. However he should not be counted out.

Firstly he's a stubborn old git who is likely to drag out any primary fight to the bitter end yet again, regardless of how much potential his primary hopes realistically have.

Secondly he's now legitimately strengthened by his considerable influence carried over from 2016, in pulling the mainstream democratic candidates to the left.

Bernie needs to take the due acclaim for his remarkable, outsized recent political influence. Then he needs to become a team player and know when to bow out gracefully, for the greater good - taking with him the plaudits accompanying his deserved stature as a revered elder statesman of the democratic party.

You fucking what?

It's interesting what emerges on the rare occasion when the media and the professional politico class are actually forced to report hard data, rather than opinion polling which is an outright scam used to manipulate people into supporting establishment candidates and has ZERO actual value.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/02/us/politics/2020-democratic-fundraising.html


mojo filters

QuoteImagine yourself as someone who sometimes votes Republican, sometimes Democrat. You're white, middle-class, basically fiscally conservative, moderate on social issues, and concerned about terrorism.

Too much imagination!

Trump won in 2016 because he captured the actual preferences of the majority of the electorate in middle America.

Whether generally republican, independent or democrat - most voters are actually conservative when it comes to social values. They are scared of losing the white majority, they could care less about gay marriage, and they are terrified of new propositions such as access to bathrooms for the transgender community.

By contrast the American electorate is inured to generous, established and respectable welfare programmes. Like most others, Trump voters want their social security, medicare and so forth.

These folks are not fiscally conservative. They don't care about the national debt or budget deficit. They will be dead before those consequences kick in.

Why do folks think Paul Ryan quit before the 2018 midterms? He was a debt and deficit hawk who could not stand Trump's irresponsible approach (read Tim Alberta's authoritative book "American Carnage" for context.)

Ryan left behind a republican leadership team headed by Kevin Mccarthy, ineffective by virtue of the battering and bruising suffered since John Boehner ascended to House Speaker.

TL;DR - Americans who vote are generally socially conservative but fiscally liberal. This trend has been tracked consistently since FDR. It also kinda makes sense...

Quote from: mojo filters on August 10, 2019, 07:19:17 PM
Too much imagination!

Trump won in 2016 because he captured the actual preferences of the majority of the electorate in middle America.

Whether generally republican, independent or democrat - most voters are actually conservative when it comes to social values. They are scared of losing the white majority, they could care less about gay marriage, and they are terrified of new propositions such as access to bathrooms for the transgender community.

By contrast the American electorate is inured to generous, established and respectable welfare programmes. Like most others, Trump voters want their social security, medicare and so forth.

These folks are not fiscally conservative. They don't care about the national debt or budget deficit. They will be dead before those consequences kick in.

Why do folks think Paul Ryan quit before the 2018 midterms? He was a debt and deficit hawk who could not stand Trump's irresponsible approach (read Tim Alberta's authoritative book "American Carnage" for context.)

Ryan left behind a republican leadership team headed by Kevin Mccarthy, ineffective by virtue of the battering and bruising suffered since John Boehner ascended to House Speaker.

TL;DR - Americans who vote are generally socially conservative but fiscally liberal. This trend has been tracked consistently since FDR. It also kinda makes sense...

Non-incumbent Republicans running on socially conservative platforms have lost every national election in the last 30 years.

Twed

Quote from: mojo filters on August 10, 2019, 07:19:17 PM
TL;DR - Americans who vote are generally socially conservative but fiscally liberal.
What an absolute batshit wrong thing to say

object-lesson

Just watched this Tulsi Gabbard person that all the social media far-right-when-it-suits-them liberals are terrified of to McCarthy proportions doing a live Town Hall, and it was mostly class class class all the way through. "Right now we're taxing labour more than we're taxing capital". Does anyone else use terminology like that so explicitly?

Urinal Cake

Quote from: Twed on August 10, 2019, 11:36:59 PM
What an absolute batshit wrong thing to say
I would say that's a generalisation but there is a subset of swinging voters that fall into this category according to polls and pundits (Sam Seder?).

Re: Tulsi.  Mike Gravel definitely. Sanders it's a bit more coded but it's still there. Warren more so.

object-lesson

Quote from: Urinal Cake on August 11, 2019, 04:08:54 AM
Re: Tulsi.  Mike Gravel definitely. Sanders it's a bit more coded but it's still there. Warren more so.

Right, and I see Gravel has dropped out and endorsed both Gabbard and Sanders. The relative lack of coding interests me and it looks to me as if maybe Gabbard has been doing some studying. Researching her it seems she's held some dodgy positions in the recent past but could have changed somewhat philosophically. Having been a military police officer and trainer for the Kuwait National Guard [wikipedia information] it isn't exactly likely you'd come out unscathed.

ZoyzaSorris

This mojo filters person does seem to have a pretty special interpretation

It's the exact opinions of the liberal pundit class, conveyed in the same tenor, and is an extremely common outlook if you've had your head in a certain kind of shit. It's like reading an auto-generated MSNBC script bot

object-lesson

mojo filters sure talks funny, but I remembered this study from a little while ago which suggests some truth to what he's saying in that last post. If you frame economically progressive policies in socially conservative language you get significant support from conservatives and 'moderates' as well.

This may partly explain conservative support for Gabbard as she does seem to talk about patriotism and social cohesion a fair bit and is harder to stereotype as a knee-jerk social liberal.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3385818


Twed

Quote from: object-lesson on August 11, 2019, 07:23:29 PM
mojo filters sure talks funny, but I remembered this study from a little while ago which suggests some truth to what he's saying in that last post. If you frame economically progressive policies in socially conservative language you get significant support from conservatives and 'moderates' as well.
It's the exact opposite! Economically conservative policies are being framed in a socially progressive language. This is why absolutely everything is reduced to "let's elect a woman", and why Hollywood feminists & gay rights people are so fucking right wing.

object-lesson

Quote from: Twed on August 11, 2019, 10:13:38 PM
It's the exact opposite! Economically conservative policies are being framed in a socially progressive language. This is why absolutely everything is reduced to "let's elect a woman", and why Hollywood feminists & gay rights people are so fucking right wing.

No no no I'm talking ought not is. If someone like Gabbard constantly advocates genuinely reformist policies but presents them as patriotic, part of a continuity of tradition and encouraging family cohesion she may get people to vote in their own interests rather than reacting against them on the basis of a partly emotional, partly rational dislike of liberalism. There's a large section of people who think of themselves as conservative and recognise at least to some extent that neoliberalism is not conservative.

She seems to know this, avoiding labels, not talking of being a 'socialist', emphasising common causes over group ones in her rhetoric. Environmental conservation is conservative, universal heathcare is conservative, tackling the disruptive effects of the opoid crisis is conservative, same with standing against the military-industrial complex undermining global stability etc.

Might be a good idea if Sanders stopped pretending to be a socialist too, but that's a slightly different point.

Twed

Right-wingers called Hillary and Obama a socialist. They'll use the word as an attack as per usual. It's only poison to the Dems.

mojo filters

Quote from: Twed on August 11, 2019, 10:13:38 PM
It's the exact opposite! Economically conservative policies are being framed in a socially progressive language. This is why absolutely everything is reduced to "let's elect a woman", and why Hollywood feminists & gay rights people are so fucking right wing.

Which economically conservative policies are being framed in socially progressive language?

In respect of your opinion around women candidates, "Hollywood feminists," and the nebulous (and potentially offensive) notion of "gay rights people" being "right wing" - Tucker Carlson's enforced "extended holiday" leaves Fox News with some dead air to fill.

I hear Lachlan Murdoch is a pushover compared with Roger Ailes. Go try you reactionary luck there, the audience potential is huge!

marquis_de_sad

I imagine twed meant the "Hollywood" part to apply to both groups.

Twed

Hollywood supports Clinton, Obama and now Biden & Harris. Their policies are either outright fiscally conservative, or fake progressive in a way that makes sure the progressive ideals they shadow are halted in their tracks.

Jesus Christ man, the fact that people supported Hillary Clinton under the umbrella of feminism and progress is all the evidence you need.

mojo filters

Quote from: Twed on August 12, 2019, 01:31:53 AM
Hollywood supports Clinton, Obama and now Biden & Harris. Their policies are either outright fiscally conservative, or fake progressive in a way that makes sure the progressive ideals they shadow are halted in their tracks.

Jesus Christ man, the fact that people supported Hillary Clinton under the umbrella of feminism and progress is all the evidence you need.

People supported Hillary Clinton because she was the only realistic opposition to Trump (unless you fancied the chances of Jill Stein or Gary Johnson.) Maybe feminism and progress featured somewhere in her bulging collection of prospective policies, but if so they ended up lost in the mix - like the rest of her confusing attempts at message.

Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate running a bad campaign, made worse by her paranoia around her failed 2008 cycle experience. This is exceptionally well documented in Jon Allen and Amie Parnes' weighty and well-resourced account "Shattered."

The DNC, under the misguided stewardship of Debbie "what's her name?" Schultz, stepped and weighed on an alternative message of far more believable dedication to feminism and progress. Yet however promising Sanders' campaign was, the primary map was never truly in his favour - though a brokered convention could have potentially done some justice.

Once the latter intra-party preference was exposed, the proverbial cat was outta the bag. Donna Brazile had no opportunity to correct the course of the democratic ship. To be fair she had little hint of what was to come - the modelling and polling (though the latter was limited by Robby Mook's arrogance and cost-cutting) was relatively clear.

"Hollywood" is not one homogeneous body. Those folks send money to a variety of candidates. I see no obvious preference for Biden and/or Harris, but please post links to evidence showing such if you have it - I'm genuinely interested, and can use it to good effect.

To suggest Hollywood supports/supported Obama seems rather limiting. The vast majority of registered democrats still have a high opinion of President Obama. He may not have delivered on all the "hope + change" promised, but that's no reason to denigrate a legacy so many hold dear.

Unless you regard Trumpian levels of debt and deficit irresponsibility acceptable, I'm not sure where this critical notion of moderate democratic fiscal conservatism / faux progressive monetary policy comes from.

Previous two-term popular democratic president Bill Clinton was elected with significant help from James Carville's "economy" messaging.

Since the last three republican presidents managed to raise the budget deficit and the debt ceiling, in pursuit of populist gains over macro economic responsibility - would it not behoove the next democratic presidential candidate to put some policy prescriptions in place to deal with this genuine threat to long-term economic stability?

Twed

I'm well aware that everybody in Hollywood doesn't have a single opinion mojo, but it's very difficult to communicate with people who doesn't understand  generalisations.

Sorry what was the rest of what you said? Something about Bill Clinton being economically progressive? Life's too short for that one.

You'd be better off thinking about Nate Silver and getting frothy than talking to me to be honest.

just popping in here to make sure that no one is denigrating Obama's legacy. think about what you're doing when you do that. i mean that's Obama you're talking about

Urinal Cake

Most Democrats advocate for a gentler, kinder and nicer capitalism compared to Republicans. The problem is that usually swinging and GOP voters don't want money  or the ability to 'strike it rich' taken away from them. But I think for a lot of people in late stage capatalism survival is a lot more important than opportunity. And further people recognise the House is rigged against them.
Trump's winning message was that it was acceptable to acknowledge yourself as loser because it was foreigners that were stealing your opportunity with the help of trade deals and multinationals. But he was also speaking to big business by saying I can sell big tax cuts by saying you're going to hire more people.

If you're a Sanders, Gabbard or even Yang you've got a purity of message that's hard to mess with. The problem is for the rest of the Democrats they've got to balance donors, the 'middle class' whose only problems are probably the cost of education and the lack of a proper safety net(healthcare and welfare) as well as the working-class and poor.

I don't know why we're discussing Hollywood since they're going to vote Democrat anyway.


Twed

Well, who they would vote for was never the question. I mentioned it as an example of a group of people that tends towards economic conservatism and socially liberal policies, as an example of why the claim above that it's the other way round is nonsense.

a peepee tipi

Quote from: Urinal Cake on August 03, 2019, 11:42:36 PM
Even when she talks about smoking weed it's the context of a middle-class, educated individual in the safe confines of college with a nod to Clinton's 'I didn't inhale'. Not a poor working black person's experience of getting caught on the street.
Laughed