All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[PaulBullion]

Ah but that's exactly the rub, right? Moderate liberals want to appeal to swing voters because they know they need them to win the election, but they don't like the ones that are racist, sexist, homophobic, religiously intolerant, anti-immigration, indifferent to environmental issues, or otherwise in disagreement with what they consider to be core values. And where on Earth, pray tell, can you find these people?

If the goal was to ignore the white working class and try to spur turnout in the Democratic base, one would think the operative strategy would be to run more to the left...

Repeating the claim is not providing evidence.

[Billy Batson]

Ah but that's exactly the rub, right? Moderate liberals want to appeal to swing voters because they know they need them to win the election, but they don't like the ones that are racist, sexist, homophobic, religiously intolerant, anti-immigration, indifferent to environmental issues, or otherwise in disagreement with what they consider to be core values. And where on Earth, pray tell, can you find these people?

If the goal was to ignore the white working class and try to spur turnout in the Democratic base, one would think the operative strategy would be to run more to the left...

Moderates like to lose elections.

[PwrdOn]

Repeating the claim is not providing evidence.

Well if you're going to alienate progressives by rejecting all of our policy ideas, and alienate swing voters by rejecting any racists or homophobes from the coalition, how exactly do you plan to win the election? Is there really a significant base in America of people who are passionately devoted to the appearance of change, but just as ardently opposed to doing anything that will actually help people?

[SquirrelMan]

Moderates like to lose elections.

Huge if true.

[SquirrelMan]

Republicans are, like, 60% sure that Trump didn't just tweet a death thread against Congressman Schiff.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1...644683776?s=20

[aja_christopher]

Moderates like to lose elections.

Posting in bold italic words doesn't make what you say true -- moderates win the majority of elections.

Feel free to show data that backs up your assertion -- one can only ask that so many times before they have to think that you can't provide any.

------
"Many progressives have what they believe to be a knock-down answer to nervous Nellies who fret that talking about desegregation busing, decriminalizing illegal entry into the United States, banning assault weapons, and replacing private health insurance will kill them at the polls in 2020: Donald Trump is president.

If Trump is president, the thinking goes, it’s the ultimate proof of “lol nothing matters” politics. And if anything does matter, it’s riling up your base to go to war, not trimming and tucking to persuade precious swing voters. The old rules no longer apply, or perhaps they were never true at all. Activists are pressing candidates to take aggressively progressive stands on broad issues like Medicare-for-all but also narrower ones like including undocumented immigrants in health care plans and providing relief from graduate school debt.

This is, however, precisely the wrong lesson to learn from the Trump era.

It’s true that Trump is president, but it’s not true that Trump ran and won as an ideological extremist. He paired extremely offensive rhetoric on racial issues with positioning on key economic policy topics that led him to be perceived by the electorate as a whole as the most moderate GOP nominee in generations. His campaign was almost paint-by-numbers pragmatic moderation. He ditched a couple of unpopular GOP positions that were much cherished by party elites, like cutting Medicare benefits, delivered victory, and is beloved by the rank and file for it.

The research case that moderation matters for electoral wins, meanwhile, remains pretty solid. Lots of other things matter too, and it would be foolish to label any particular position or candidate as categorically “unelectable.” But overall, moderate candidates are more likely to win; more precisely, candidates who take popular positions on the issues are more likely to win than candidates who take unpopular ones. Of course, politics matters because policy matters, so taking a calculated risk on an unpopular position for the sake of getting something important does make sense.

But adopting an unpopular position that you won’t be able to deliver on even if you win the election is not just costly, it’s reckless — jeopardizing the interests of the people you’re supposed to be helping.

Andrew Hall in 2015 looked at very close congressional primaries and found that moderate candidates who narrowly win the nomination do better in the general election than extreme candidates who narrowly win the nomination. A follow-up paper he wrote with Daniel Thompson suggests this is because certain folk theories about base mobilization are mistaken, and extreme nominees “fire up” the other side’s base and increase opposition turnout.

A new paper by Devin Caughey and Christopher Warshaw extends this literature by looking at races for state legislature and governor as well as Congress and finds, again, that ideology matters. Quantitatively measuring ideology is, of course, complicated. Consequently, Caughey and Warshaw look at a number of popular methodologies and find that you get the same result no matter which one you use.

They also find that the extent to which moderation helps varies according to which office you’re talking about. It’s only very slightly helpful in state legislative elections, perhaps because normal people don’t pay any attention to state legislative elections (as David Schleicher has argued, this is a significant problem for federalism) and have no idea what’s really going on in them. But it’s very helpful in gubernatorial elections, which helps explain why there are popular Republicans running Vermont and Massachusetts while Democratic governors hold down the fort in Louisiana and Montana."

https://www.vox.com/2019/7/2/2067765...remism-penalty

[There are links to the studies -- and relevant data -- in the article.]

[aja_christopher]

Well if you're going to alienate progressives by rejecting all of our policy ideas, and alienate swing voters by rejecting any racists or homophobes from the coalition, how exactly do you plan to win the election?

By agreeing that none of us should accept racists and homophobes into the party and certainly shouldn't let them guide policy (like Stephen Miller).

You can win elections without sacrificing your core values: Obama never would have embraced someone like Rogan -- at the very least he would have strongly and openly criticized his comments and behavior, just as he did with Wright. You can even make the argument that maybe he shouldn't have renounced Wright's comments but that's just the nature of running for political office when dealing with scandal -- even Trump finally renounced the KKK once he was pressed enough on the matter.

I was even going to criticize him on his relationship with Jay Z and Common, until I saw that even they openly rejected their older, more problematic views.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/c...yrical-regrets
https://www.politico.com/states/new-...arriage-000000

Of course there are going to be racists and homophobes in both parties, but their ideologies should not be promoted.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

A lot of them think they're bringing people into the fold without compromising their core values, that its a 'get' and bringing in new voters. Here's Olivia Hill, a profoundly left wing person I follow on twitter, as an example of this thinking. Olivia is, I should note, a transwoman.















That's a reference to Hillary's (very bad) comments on transwomen a while back.

Obviously, I don't agree with Olivia and think she's got this one wrong, but I find her perspective instructive as to how she can justify boosting a guy like Joe Rogan -- because she thinks he'll fight for her human rights because he'll side with Bernie. She's hardly alone here, but I don't think she grasps how quickly the space she thinks is safe will become unsafe in practice. She doesn't see the compromise she's already making. In fact, she sees Bernie AS the compromise position in the first place.

https://twitter.com/machineiv/ for her TL. She's good people, no matter where I part with her on her politics.

I think a lot of Bernie supporters are more in line with that thinking. If Bernie went on Rogan's podcast and was acting completely different and was catering to a racist transphobic viewpoint, then he'd probably lose alot of support. But he really didn't. He went there and talked about mostly the same things that he always talks about. So most of them just consider it a win that Bernie went into the lions den and was able to sway someone who likely will sway a lot of people won't vote Democrat. And quite frankly, no offense when you have certain candidates right now who are trying to court the right by saying things like the Republicans will simmer down and have an epiphany to work with Democrats and be less divisive when Trump is gone, it kinda of rings hollow. Like if Rogan was saying something insane and Bernie used kid gloves or tactitly agreed that would be one thing.

But really it's a strange situation where you have Bernie who didn't compromise and somehow got people who normally wouldn't be on his side to his side, and the only real counter (outside of Warren) are people who have spent career catering to Republicans to get that mythical moderate Republican vote.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

By agreeing that none of us should accept racists and homophobes into the party and certainly shouldn't let them guide policy (like Stephen Miller).

You can win elections without sacrificing your core values: Obama never would have embraced someone like Rogan -- at the very least he would have strongly and openly criticized his comments and behavior, just as he did with Wright.

I was even going to criticize him on his relationship with Jay Z and Common, until I saw that even they openly rejected their older, more problematic views.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/c...yrical-regrets
https://www.politico.com/states/new-...arriage-000000

Of course there are going to be racists and homophobes in both parties, but their ideologies should not be promoted.

Let's be very clear, when Obama was trying to win the Presidency in 08 he absolutely could not bring himself to support same sex marriage on the campaign trail. A lot of his most diehard supporters justified that as saying he was being strategic and campaigning to win. But the fact is if we hold that to be true, then compromised on the rights of others to gain voters. And if we don't accept that, then he never believed in those rights at the time. There's no good answer there. Especially if it's going to be offered up as a comparison of the correct way to do things.

Sander's on the otherhand did not go an agree with Rogan's crazy views that we dislike to get his support.

So there is a clear difference there. One compromised, one didn't. The example doesn't even hold up to the exact same situation (man in primary trying to win an election).

Also I'm glad you brought up Wright, because as of now it's been like 2 or 3 days since the Rogan. Because you aren't portraying that situation accurately either. Obama didn't formally denounce Wright until months later after that controversy got sparked up again when he made more inflammatory remarks. Originally he just did something similar to Bernie where he said he disagreed with his more controversial views but didn't go full tilt in denouncing him. And like people today are saying with Sanders, back then alot of people were critical of how Obama was a lot more passive in his first addressing of that matter.

And in that case it wasn't some guy Obama had an interview with once. It was a man who was a leader in his Church who he had a relationship for years. So idk, maybe give Sanders a few more months for Rogan to say something insane again so he can denounce him forcefully as we did in that situation.

[aja_christopher]

Also I'm glad you brought up Wright, because as of now it's been like 2 or 3 days since the Rogan. Because you aren't portraying that situation accurately either. Obama didn't formally denounce Wright until months later after that controversy got sparked up again when he made more inflammatory remarks.

Wright's comments were neither homophobic nor racist, they just addressed the nature of injustice in America.

Regardless, Obama stepped up and made a public statement regarding the situation, and released a series of videos that directly renounced those views.

Sanders still has time to do the same, so let's see what happens.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Wright's comments were neither homophobic nor racist, they just addressed the nature of injustice in America.

Regardless, Obama stepped up and took accountability for by making a public statement regarding the situation with a video that explained why he disagreed with those comments.

Sanders still has time to do the same, so let's see what happens.

That's a fair response. I'm just pointing out that Obama was equally pressured to come out against Wright and alot of critics said his first attempts at distance were inadequate and it took several months and another controversy for Obama to take a hardline stance against him.

[Mister Mets]

How are Warren and Sanders going to pay for their health care plans? Two words: wealth tax.

And to every poster on this board, from WBE to #30 to Mets to WPP to everyone else: Vote for whoever you want in the primary (if you are, in fact, a registered Democrat). Vote for Bernie, vote for Warren, hell vote for John Delaney if that turns you on! But when the nominee has been chosen, if it's not who you voted for, please, please, please don't be a sore loser. Swallow your pride and vote for that nominee in November, because if you insist on voting for some odd third party candidate, or staying home and not voting at all, out of spite, then we're all doomed.

I'm a Republican, so I'm really unlikely to vote for anyone from the left wing (Warren, Sanders) of the Democratic party. I would vote for someone from the moderate wing (Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Bloomberg) over Trump.

The good news for you guys is that my views (fiscally conservative, socially moderate) aren't really important in the electoral college. It's overrepresented in blue states like New York (where I live), Massachusetts, and California, where it may make a bit of a difference in how great the Democrats' margin of victory is, but won't have any other effect.

[PaulBullion]

Sanders' lead in Iowa shrinks to one point, according to new CBS poll:



(actually taken around the same time as the NYT poll that showed a 7 point lead for Sanders, so both before Rogangate.

[Tami]

I'm a Republican, so I'm really unlikely to vote for anyone from the left wing (Warren, Sanders) of the Democratic party. I would vote for someone from the moderate wing (Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Bloomberg) over Trump.

The good news for you guys is that my views (fiscally conservative, socially moderate) aren't really important in the electoral college. It's overrepresented in blue states like New York (where I live), Massachusetts, and California, where it may make a bit of a difference in how great the Democrats' margin of victory is, but won't have any other effect.

Assuming your state has a Republican Primary, would you consider voting for one of the other Republicans running against Trump? Even if they stand no chance of winning?

[PaulBullion]

The "second choice" question in good news for Biden.



Remember that a caucus goes through several rounds of voting. Under 15% gets eliminated.