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  1. #9601
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    Quote Originally Posted by 4saken1 View Post
    The number of Democrats who consider themselves Progressives has been steadily rising the past few years.

    I do agree, however - in order for many of Sanders' ideas to bear fruit, it would take a few Election cycles of liberals coming out in force before we could push some of them through. Americans idiots tend to be very impatient, however, and would dismiss him at the drop of a dime once they see him as ineffectual, when in reality it is the system which will be failing them.
    The difficult part of building up a progressive base is that, at our core, American voters are all a bunch of bandwagon jumpers who will tend to check out if we think our side is losing, and left wing policies require a certain degree of long term commitment and "trusting the process" that our society is quite poor at. This is why it's imperative though that we hit the ground running and try to push for these radical reforms when we have a bit of momentum, rather than waiting for incremental change.
    Last edited by PwrdOn; 02-23-2020 at 01:38 PM.

  2. #9602
    Extraordinary Member PaulBullion's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    The difficult part of building up a progressive base is that, at our core, American voters are all a bunch of bandwagon jumpers who will tend to check out if we think our side is losing, and left wing policies require a certain degree of long term commitment and "trusting the process" that our society is quite poor at. This is why it's imperative though that we hit the ground running and try to push for these radical reforms when we have a bit of momentum, rather than waiting for incremental change.
    I actually think that, at their core, American voters are rather conservative, have a racist, misogynist and homophobic streak. I'm still trying to figure out how Obama won twice.
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  3. #9603
    The Superior One Celgress's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PaulBullion View Post
    I actually think that, at their core, American voters are rather conservative, have a racist, misogynist and homophobic streak. I'm still trying to figure out how Obama won twice.
    Obama won twice because he promised drastic change. Nearly everyone wanted things to change after Bush's BS war with Iraq and failed economy but entrenched interests kept most of that change from coming. People voted for Trump because they saw how the system hamstrung Obama and wanted someone who promised to destroy the system. They'll vote for Sanders for the same reason (if he gets elected), to destroy the system.

    Edit - I can tell you most of my students do not believe in American Democracy (my classes haven't in nearly a decade). They see our system as fundamentally flawed and corrupt. They don't care about the separation of powers. They want a president who will make things "just" even if that president must assume the powers of a dictator to do so. Kids today are very much the ends justify the means, or so I find.
    Last edited by Celgress; 02-23-2020 at 01:49 PM.
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  4. #9604
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Overlord View Post
    Okay, let's talk policy.

    Why is Biden or Buttiege the best choices based on policies? Why are their policies better than Bernie's?

    You want Buttiege to win? He should have ditched his policy platform and copied Bernie's that is what people want. Buttiege being in his late 30s and speaking several different languages is fine, but it doesn't make him less of an empty suit.


    Also you can't talk emotions out of this equation, politics is not hard science and people are robots, if people feel like Warren blinked and Bernie didn't, that cost her. Successfully making emotional appeals is a strength, not a weakness . Trump does nothing but emotional appeals, you need to counter them.
    This post is...bizarre. I've never expressed any interest in Buttigieg. Also, I'm pretty sure I've said twice today that people vote on emotions far more than policy. So two thirds of this is way off base. I'll try to do my best with it though.

    Earlier, a poster engaged in some hypocrisy about demands for other candidates. You can't blast people's policies and demand they give more and be a Bernie supporter. Bernie has given virtually no policy details. I believe that's by design and probably a smart move. Yes, emotional appeals work, but it's not the same thing as actually making those appeals happen. If Bernie's Medicare for All ends up like the last emotional appeal (Mexico paying for a GoT style wall on our southern border)....are any of us actually any better off? At some point, your ideals need to become actionable and that has never been his strength.

    Therein lies the argument you can make for someone like Biden. He won't move the chains as far as you'd like but there is less chance we go backwards and a higher chance of incremental moves forward. Now, I'm not necessarily endorsing that, merely stating the case. Given the popularity of ACA, any attempt to improve it is going to be met with far more support than a plan to blow the system apart. Bernie's challenge will be getting forward momentum while dealing with a Congress not entirely sympathetic to his plans. Perhaps that changes as he runs his campaign and M4A grows in popularity enough to ease Congressional concerns. I don't know.

    But who has better plans? Well, Elizabeth Warren does. She's got better ideas and more workable ideas. She openly embraces capitalism rather than the opposite. Her plans are nuanced, detailed, and would do a lot of good for a lot of Americans. She, in a fraction of the time in the Senate, has done more for everyday Americans than Bernie. She knows how to get things done and create plans to do so. Unfortunately for her, those very same plans and the effort she put into them are likely her downfall.

    I'm all for progressive policies. I also want them to actually happen. So, for me, Warren is the clear choice. But I'll vote for anyone Not Trump.

  5. #9605
    Extraordinary Member PaulBullion's Avatar
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    The Bernie Bros headquarters has been declared a fire hazard due to the humongous amount of straw men found there.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celgress View Post
    Obama won twice because he promised drastic change. Nearly everyone wanted things to change after Bush's BS war with Iraq and failed economy but entrenched interests kept most of that change from coming. People voted for Trump because they saw how the system hamstrung Obama and wanted someone who promised to destroy the system. They'll vote for Sanders for the same reason (if he gets elected), to destroy the system.

    Edit - I can tell you most of my students do not believe in American Democracy (my classes haven't in nearly a decade). They see our system as fundamentally flawed and corrupt. They don't care about the separation of powers. They want a president who will make things "just" even if that president must assume the powers of a dictator to do so. Kids today are very much the ends justify the means, or so I find.
    I think it's more that they are complacent and err on the side of comfort and caution unless they think their goal is accomplishable.

  7. #9607
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celgress View Post
    Obama won twice because he promised drastic change. Nearly everyone wanted things to change after Bush's BS war with Iraq and failed economy but entrenched interests kept most of that change from coming. People voted for Trump because they saw how the system hamstrung Obama and wanted someone who promised to destroy the system. They'll vote for Sanders for the same reason (if he gets elected), to destroy the system.

    Edit - I can tell you most of my students do not believe in American Democracy (my classes haven't in nearly a decade). They see our system as fundamentally flawed and corrupt. They don't care about the separation of powers. They want a president who will make things "just" even if that president must assume the powers of a dictator to do so. Kids today are very much the ends justify the means, or so I find.
    Obama did a lot of good though. Vets can now see a regular physician/ER instead of going to the VA. The saw the US out of the worst recession in its history. He was lowering the deficit. Mortality rates for not having insurance went down.

  8. #9608
    The Superior One Celgress's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shooshoomanjoe View Post
    Obama did a lot of good though. Vets can now see a regular physician/ER instead of going to the VA. The saw the US out of the worst recession in its history. He was lowering the deficit. Mortality rates for not having insurance went down.
    Oh, I agree. People lost faith in the system, not Obama, because of how much it protected itself from the sweeping changes Obama tried to bring in. People turned to Trump who said he would destroy the system out of desperation as I predict they are turning to Sanders now (after Trump failed, although I argue he never wanted the type of change most voters wanted anyhow).

    Edit - I think the Bush years and their aftermath have hopelessly crippled the body politic which is why extremism both Right and Left is flourishing. IMHO, Bush Jr. never should have been president. He was unqualified for the position and was controlled by his father's inner circle. 9/11 only amplified his faults tenfold causing disastrous consequences. 9/11 also destroyed faith in the Media. Not wanting to be perceived as unpatriotic they abdicated their responsibility to properly vet the intelligence concerning Iraqi WMDs.
    Last edited by Celgress; 02-23-2020 at 02:26 PM.
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  9. #9609
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    Quote Originally Posted by shooshoomanjoe View Post
    Obama did a lot of good though. Vets can now see a regular physician/ER instead of going to the VA. The saw the US out of the worst recession in its history. He was lowering the deficit. Mortality rates for not having insurance went down.
    People didn't notice all the good he did even having to compromise and being hamstrung by GOP after midterms until they see all the trump rollbacks now. Had he had the support and backing of congress and didn't need to compromise and could have gotten more permanent things done that wouldn't be so easy to rollback.

    Trump has flipped the 9th Circuit — and some new judges are causing a 'shock wave'

    When President Trump ticks off his accomplishments since taking office, he frequently mentions his aggressive makeover of a key sector of the federal judiciary — the circuit courts of appeal, where he has appointed 51 judges to lifetime jobs in three years.

    In few places has the effect been felt more powerfully than in the sprawling 9th Circuit, which covers California and eight other states. Because of Trump's success in filling vacancies, the San Francisco-based circuit, long dominated by Democratic appointees, has suddenly shifted to the right, with an even more pronounced tilt expected in the years ahead.

    Trump has now named 10 judges to the 9th Circuit — more than one-third of its active judges — compared with seven appointed by President Obama over eight years.
    Was just reading this in the LA Times. I mean I don't think its said often enough what another 4 years of Trump will do to the judicial system around the country. And that's the GOP's goal they don't care what little experience the appointees have they want them in their for life even as they lose grip on "popular vote".

  10. #9610
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kidfresh512 View Post
    People didn't notice all the good he did even having to compromise and being hamstrung by GOP after midterms until they see all the trump rollbacks now. Had he had the support and backing of congress and didn't need to compromise and could have gotten more permanent things done that wouldn't be so easy to rollback.

    Trump has flipped the 9th Circuit — and some new judges are causing a 'shock wave'



    Was just reading this in the LA Times. I mean I don't think its said often enough what another 4 years of Trump will do to the judicial system around the country. And that's the GOP's goal they don't care what little experience the appointees have they want them in their for life even as they lose grip on "popular vote".
    I posted about this a few months ago, but Trump's judges do actually tend to have impressive resumes, despite the attention paid to outsized exceptions.

    This was noted in Vox.

    Before he became president, Trump promised to delegate the judicial selection process to the Federalist Society, a powerful group of conservative lawyers that counts at least four Supreme Court justices among its members. “We’re going to have great judges, conservative, all picked by the Federalist Society,” Trump told a radio show hosted by the right-wing site Breitbart while he was still a candidate.

    The Federalist Society spent decades preparing for this moment, and they’ve helped Trump identify many of the most talented conservative stalwarts in the entire legal profession to place on the bench.

    There’s no completely objective way to measure legal ability, but a common metric used by legal employers to identify the most gifted lawyers is whether those lawyers secured a federal clerkship, including the most prestigious clerkships at the Supreme Court. Approximately 40 percent of Trump’s appellate nominees clerked for a Supreme Court justice, and about 80 percent clerked on a federal court of appeals. That compares to less than a quarter of Obama’s nominees who clerked on the Supreme Court, and less than half with a federal appellate clerkship.

    In other words, based solely on objective legal credentials, the average Trump appointee has a far more impressive résumé than any past president’s nominees.

    And they’re young, too. “The average age of circuit judges appointed by President Trump is less than 50 years old,” the Trump White House bragged in early November, “a full 10 years younger than the average age of President Obama’s circuit nominees.”

    Trump’s nominees will serve for years or even decades after being appointed. Even if Democrats crush the 2020 elections and win majorities in both houses of Congress, these judges will have broad authority to sabotage the new president’s agenda.
    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...federal-judges

    There was another post addressing a metric that doesn't apply to most of the judicial nominees.
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  11. #9611
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    Quote Originally Posted by KNIGHT OF THE LAKE View Post
    Here’s just the reality. You are either getting Sanders in his 70’s, Biden in his 70’s, Bloomberg in his 70’s or Warren in his 70’s and they will face Trump in his 70’s. Let’s be real, his health was brought up by then because they want him gone. There isn’t some altruistic motive.
    Which is not something I like, and none of them have had heart attacks. Bernie supporters, however, don't care about his health. Sure there is, stop demonising people for simply not liking Sanders.

    Oh and I’m having a blast. It’s really funny watching the people who I always knew were going to act this way, in fact lose their veil of civility at the smallest amount resistance. It’s no secret the anti Sanders propaganda on this thread amplified once he started leading.
    You don't sound happy in your posts, I guess whoever said Bernie supporters who wanted to see their enemies destroyed was right. Bernie supporters in this thread have been operating at peak to anger the opposition, going off at the slightest sense of weakness. We're not the ones grasping in desperation. It's not anti Sanders propaganda, and he's the front runner. Is this your first election? Don't you know this is normal for front runners?

    If this happened when Hillary was running, people would have ran them off the board
    If this happened we'd be more worried about her health than you're feeling about Sanders.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Overlord View Post
    With Bernie in the lead at the moment, perhaps the Anti Bernie people will have to make a choice:

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nyt...trump.amp.html

    What is more important to you? Not Trump or Not Bernie?
    That's a question for the general, the primaries aren't over. I'd vote for Bernie in the general, no questions asked.

    Except none of them are dropping out yet. The problem is there is a lane with 2 people in it and lane with everyone else. That is how Trump won his primary, everyone else stayed in too long and he came up the middle.
    Do you get the irony of this being said by a Sanders supporter? LOL

    Edit: It's disgusting how Warren is getting erased by the Bernie supporters by defining the "enemy" with candidates like Mayor Pete, Biden and Bloomberg. It's easier to have narrative against the establishment echoing Hillary vs Bernie with those candidates.
    Last edited by Steel Inquisitor; 02-23-2020 at 04:32 PM.

  12. #9612
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    Warren is erasing herself by not contesting these early primaries strongly enough. Her debate performance was nice, but a couple of easy dunks on a low hanging target like Bloomberg aren't likely to translate to sustained success. The problem is that Bernie basically has progressive voters sewn up so she's unlikely to gain much traction with them, and while moderates always like to hold her up as a viable alternative when they want to bash Bernie, they don't seem to want to, you know, actually vote for her. I would honestly love it if Biden, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, and the rest all just dropped out so the race would be a Sanders vs. Warren, but of course that would mean that the Democratic party has no choice but to adopt a progressive platform since the centrists will have all been eliminated. For the time being, I'd prefer that Liz stayed in the race so that she can continue to go after Bloomberg in the debates, even if she has no chance to win the nomination she'd be doing good work just humiliating that cretin in public, and would be the favorite to secure that VP slot.

    And while I can't speak for everyone, personally I'm not so much angry when Bernie gets attacked as I am concerned that every ill-conceived criticism means another voter is thinking about staying home, voting third party, or just flat out supporting Trump instead of backing Bernie in the general. Especially when centrists get all pearl clutchy about Bernie Bros and trying to equate him to Trump, it definitely reeks of them already starting the process of rationalizing some shortsighted choice that will only help Trump stay in office because at their core they actually fear Bernie more.
    Last edited by PwrdOn; 02-23-2020 at 05:03 PM.

  13. #9613
    Invincible Member numberthirty's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    Warren is erasing herself by not contesting these early primaries strongly enough. Her debate performance was nice, but a couple of easy dunks on a low hanging target like Bloomberg aren't likely to translate to sustained success. The problem is that Bernie basically has progressive voters sewn up so she's unlikely to gain much traction with them, and while moderates always like to hold her up as a viable alternative when they want to bash Bernie, they don't seem to want to, you know, actually vote for her. I would honestly love it if Biden, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, and the rest all just dropped out so the race would be a Sanders vs. Warren, but of course that would mean that the Democratic party has no choice but to adopt a progressive platform since the centrists will have all been eliminated. For the time being, I'd prefer that Liz stayed in the race so that she can continue to go after Bloomberg in the debates, even if she has no chance to win the nomination she'd be doing good work just humiliating that cretin in public, and would be the favorite to secure that VP slot.
    Warren is essentially a part of the Klobuchar/Gabbard/Steyer pack, at the moment. That's just the reality up until now. If that will change? Who knows. Doesn't really change that there's not much to discuss when it comes to her at the moment.

    Trying to make it about the press are saying about her should be called for what it is. The press were running with the line that unions would oppose Sanders last night. We all know what the reality was versus what the press was running with. I'll just go with the reality versus what outfits who are getting it wrong are telling me is going on in the race.

    Mayor Pete may very well wind up in that pack in short order. He's only a part of the discussion because he picked up Delegates in the first two contests.

    Biden is still discussion worth because he has the chance to pick up a win coming up.

    Bloomberg is obviously discussion worthy because he could probably stay in for as long as he wants.
    Last edited by numberthirty; 02-23-2020 at 05:04 PM.

  14. #9614
    Ultimate Member Malvolio's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    The way you phrased that sounds a tad supervillain-ish though, eh? If he wins the nomination, then the establishment will have to work with HIM because he'd be the face of the party and the one driving turnout for down ticket races, if they choose to sabotage him out of spite the only outcome is that Trump will cruise to victory.
    It works both ways. If Bernie wants the Democratic establishment to make some concessions for him as the nominee, then he has to make some concessions for them as well. As I said a few pages back, those who demand all or nothing, usually get nothing.
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    Ultimate Member Malvolio's Avatar
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    And let's get something straight. Criticism of a candidate, even harsh criticism does not automatically mean that the critic will refuse to vote for said candidate. Until he dropped out of the race, I was strongly supporting Cory Booker, but I did have a few serious criticisms about him. It reminds me of something Al Franken once said, "Republicans and conservatives love their country the way a four year old loves his mother, in other words, Mommy can do no wrong and anyone who says differently is the enemy. Democrats and liberals love their country the way an adult loves his mother, recognizing flaws, but willing to work on those flaws." I think that the same applies to the way each party loves their candidates.
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