All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Malvolio]

Feel the Bern:
https://twitter.com/NicholsUprising/...23796214800384

Why is John Delaney still running? He's polling at 0%, he can't be getting that many campaign donations, so it's not about the money. So why is he still wasting his time running for President?

[Tami]

Yeah the issue isnt that Bernie wont stick by his guns (whatever they may be) but that he wont be able to get abything through. It'll just be an Obama repeat of Mitch and Co saying "No No No No"

Bernie is an Independent/Socialist. It won't just be the Republicans in Congress giving him trouble, it will be the Democrats as well, especially the moderate Democrats.

If you thought that Obama had it hard, Bernie is likely to have it much harder.

[Tami]

Lindsey Graham screeches at reporters over impeachment: Trump ‘did nothing wrong in his mind’

According to Graham, if Trump “thought he was doing something wrong, he would probably shut up about it.”

“The president believes that the Ukraine interfered in out election,” Graham continued. “I can tell you without any doubt it was the Russians who hacked into the DNC. It was not the Ukrainians. I cannot say that there was nobody in the Ukraine that had worked with [Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort] that did a number on him. I don’t know.”

“All I can tell you is from the president’s point of view, he did nothing wrong in his mind,” the South Carolina Republican insisted.

Does Graham not realize what he is saying? He's saying that Trump is either delusional or has no understanding of right and wrong. There is no insanity defense for Trump.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Lindsey Graham screeches at reporters over impeachment: Trump ‘did nothing wrong in his mind’







Does Graham not realize what he is saying? He's saying that Trump is either delusional or has no understanding of right and wrong. There is no insanity defense for Trump.

Maybe not, but that won't stop Republicans hellbent on protecting Trump from dreaming up one. Of that, there is no doubt.

As for Graham, he has his head so far up Trump's ass, his face is permanently stained orange. I don't think there's anyone in the GOP slurping Dolt45 harder than Lapdog Lindsey.

[Michael Watkins]

Bernie is an Independent/Socialist. It won't just be the Republicans in Congress giving him trouble, it will be the Democrats as well, especially the moderate Democrats.

If you thought that Obama had it hard, Bernie is likely to have it much harder.

then so much for party unity

[aja_christopher]

then so much for party unity

Party unity does not mean forcing people to pay more taxes if they don't want to.

If the goal is to improve health care services, regulate business, or protect civil, women's or LGBT rights via legislation (as Obama and Biden did) then that's something the party can -- or at least should -- unite around, regardless of personal differences, and there are ways to achieve those goals without attacking those who understand progress doesn't happen overnight and/or those don't want to make a sudden radical shift towards an untested governmental ideal.

However, when the "left" doesn't even show up to protect those changes -- or Supreme Court seats -- then it comes off as all talk and no real action.

[shooshoomanjoe]

then so much for party unity

Yep, Bernie throws that disunity in there when he joins a party whose political views don't agree with his.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Yep, Bernie throws that disunity in there when he joins a party whose political views don't agree with his.

Then encourage him to run as an independent. He’s doing Dems a favor

[JCAll]

Party unity does not mean forcing people to pay more taxes if they don't want to.

If the goal is to improve health care services, regulate business, or protect civil, women's or LGBT rights via legislation (as Obama and Biden did) then that's something the party can -- or at least should -- unite around, regardless of personal differences, and there are ways to achieve those goals without attacking those who understand progress doesn't happen overnight and/or those don't want to make a sudden radical shift towards an untested governmental ideal.

However, when the "left" doesn't even show up to protect those changes -- or Supreme Court seats -- then it comes off as all talk and no real action.

Nobody really WANTS to pay taxes

[kidfresh512]

Nobody really WANTS to pay taxes

The point is these plans have to be sold to the public at large. It is going to take a lot of political capital to sell even one of these major program changes. And the entire time you will have the usual suspects bashing it. This is assuming we win Congress as well. If Mitch is still there forget it.

And if we do have the White House and Congress there is going to have to be some "wins" to make sure we keep the Congress in midterms. We can't pull a GOP and run on Repeal and Replace. Then get the wheel and show we had no idea how to make any of it happen.

There is some merit in Healthcare reform but the left is not unified behind Medicare for all. It will have to be sold to people so they understand they may be making a tradeoff of "more taxes" but in the long run it will be cheaper with not having to have so many families go broke with one medical emergency in the family.

It wont be easy to sell that to average Americans of differing educational backgrounds. While Fox News and every conservative show is jumping up and down about they want to raise your taxes!!


And that is just the "new plans". People will still want movement on climate change initiatives, Dreamers and immigration, theres going to have to be another new tax bill fight to pay for the new initiatives. There will be people wanting all these rollbacks trump has done for corporations looked at again. That is ALOT to do

[jetengine]

Nobody really WANTS to pay taxes

Thats the problem you Americans have frankly. Your terrified of paying tax then wonder why infrastructure is falling to bits. Now I realise that alot of you are jaded because too often it ends up being misappropriated by a corrupt politician but that is a seperate matter frankly. Your cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[SquirrelMan]

There are going to be a lot of unknowns right now.

I could easily imagine Sanders winning big by encouraging people who don't usually vote in primaries to go for him (as some did in 2016.)

Quiet Democrats underrepresented on the internet could easily go big for Biden, giving him a bigger than expected win.

Then there's the question of what'll happen in Iowa precincts where supporters of candidates who don't get 15% move on to a second choice. Maybe Warren benefits as a compromise choice, or Biden and Sanders benefit due to name recognition.

Interesting that polls consistently show 60% of Democrats backing a white guy over the age of 75, be it Sanders, Biden or Bloomberg.

As somebody pointed out on twitter today, there are now over 200 national Democratic party primary polls since Prence entered the race.

Sanders led in exactly one of those. One out of more than 200. There are actually far more polls showing him in 3rd or 4th place than showing him leading.

Calling him a front runner is setting up a narrative where his supporters will once again scream bloody murder if he does not win. He is not the front runner. Biden is.

[zinderel]

Couple things:

1 - Considering how fond we on the left are of statements like ‘All Cops Are Bastards’, or ‘Men are pigs’ or ‘White people are the worst...’, we should be better able to accept that ‘Bernie Bros make it hard to support Bernie’ doesn’t refer to all supporters of Bernie. My 64 year old mother, for instance, is a Bernie supporter, but not a Bernie Bro. Bernie Bros are attack dogs. They are pit bulls who launch attacks not just at the right wing candidates representing abject greed and corruption while wrapped in the American Flag and carrying a cross, but also against other, ‘not Left enough’ candidates, and voters, and policies. If you aren’t an attack dog, then...you aren’t a Bernie Bro, and have nothing to get offended about.

2 - Bernie chose to run as a candidate for one of the two main (read: ONLY OPTIONS) in the election because he knew running third party or independent would split the left and that a split left would ensure that the right won. (Which...is what happened...) So, he chose to run with the party that he believes aligns most closely to his ideals ...or that is easiest to get to align that way, with effort. He chose the Democrats - not because they are ideologically perfect, not because he wants his followers to throw aside their belief in a better world in support of corporatism - because - of the two options - Democrats MOST align with his vision. The Blue team isn’t perfect BY ANY MEANS. No one, least of all Bernie, believes that. But neither is the Democratic Party the equal of the Republican Party in terms of abject corruption, as some of Bernies more fervent followers insist. If it WAS so bad as all that, why would Saint Bernie run as their candidate...? Bernie isn’t ‘doing the Dems a favor’ by running with them. He is doing HIMSELF a favor, and doing us all one too, by running Blue and using the DNC resources to get a message out that is forcing the Democrats to lean more blue overall. If he ran independent, he would lose FAR more resoundingly than he did in 2016. AND SO WOULD THE REST OF US.

3 - Bernie supporters are not the problem. A small, vocal, belligerent segment of them are certainly A problem (in much the same way that Christians aren’t a problem for most of us, but a small, vocal, fervent segment of them make life miserable for everyone...), but not THE problem. WE ALL know what the real problem is: the unchecked greed, lust for power, hypocrisy and corruption of the Republican Party leadership and the willingness of the rank and file Republican to bow their heads and fall in line. Now, some might say that the ‘evil’ Democrats are trying to ruin Bernie like ‘we’ did in 2016, but that’s nonsense. Just like saying that the critics of Bernie just want Bernie fans to fall into unquestioning lockstep behind the non-Bernie Democratic candidate who is going to be ‘just as corrupt as the Republicans!!!!!’ (Laughable, and easily disproven). All we ‘anti-Bernie centrists’ (as anyone who doesn’t fall in line behind Bernie seems to get labeled...) want is for the most fanatical of Bernie supporters to recognize that even if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination, whoever does is going to need your support to win, too. And that attacking them like rabid pit bulls before the primaries are even sussed out only weakens support and confidence, among the rank and file voter, in the only party with a chance of getting Trump and the Republican power elite OUT.

4 - If we CAN unite behind that candidate, WHOEVER THEY ARE, then once the election is over, we can hold their feet to the flames of progress and move things leftwards. Is it as fast as we like? Obviously not. But as much as incrementalism is mocked, and as much as minority groups DESERVE to have their issues addressed NOW, not gradually, sometimes we have to accept small progress, baby steps. Even if Bernie DOES win, he isn’t going to have the power to make ALL the sweeping changes promised by the Faithful. Not right away. Likely not even in his first term. AND THE MORE ‘radical’ his policy, the more pushback he’ll get. It SUCKS, but...it’s how things work.

5 - Idealism is WONDERFUL. In 2016, when I worked for the Bernie campaign, pre-Primary, I saw so much optimism and hope and drive for progress, and it was amazing. It felt like maybe the world didn’t HAVE to be on fire all the time. And when he lost the primary due to both his own failings as a candidate and the shenanigans of the DNC in support of Hillary, I was mad. But I didn’t turn around and decide that because my guy didn’t win, the Democrats were ‘just as corrupt’ as the Republicans. I didn’t dedicate my life to forcing everyone around me to relitigate 2016 over and over every single day of the last several years. I don’t keep giving Hillary Clinton the ability to ruin my day because I hold a grudge (Psssst!!! She isn’t running this year. Stop giving her power and talking about her as if she matters to the election this year...). I understood that they had NO OBLIGATION to hand Bernie a win, and that they had already given him a LOT that they didn’t have to, in terms of infrastructure and platform support, and financial support, and public recognition. Whether you like or agree with how MUCH support he got, if you pretend that the DNC didn’t go out of their way to make room for an independent to run using their resources, then you are blinded by your fanaticism and are a ‘Bernie Bro’. If you refuse to support whoever gets on the ticket against Trump, even if it isn’t Bernie, then you are a ‘Bernie Bro’, willing to let the world burn while you pout about losing. If you spend more time in your day attacking everyone to the ‘right’ of Bernie for not being ‘left enough’, than you do reaching out and trying to build bridges and strengthen the left, then you are a Bernie Bro.

If you don’t act like that, then you have nothing to worry about. We aren’t talking about you.

[aja_christopher]

Thats the problem you Americans have frankly. Your terrified of paying tax then wonder why infrastructure is falling to bits. Now I realise that alot of you are jaded because too often it ends up being misappropriated by a corrupt politician but that is a seperate matter frankly. Your cutting off your nose to spite your face.

To be fair, there are probably many on the left who have accepted higher taxes as a means of improving the lives of all Americans.

The problem is that it remains to be seen if there are enough of them to support passing any meaningful legislation, much less win the primaries, much less win a general election.

We already had many new programs established under Obama without raising taxes, and people didn't even show up to protect the progress that had already been made.

[Tazirai]

Objectively speaking, two of the five points seem to be indisuputably true. He is a man in his late 70s who recently had a heart attack.

Okay, I'll take that. :P

You shouldn't have to qualify why Glenn should be protected, he just should. We went crazy over what Saudi did to Jamal, we need to stand up for Glenn too.