All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[aja_christopher]

I'll use this post to add that none of the information provided by Tarzai explains how Sanders will pass his legislation -- including higher taxes -- through Congress, nor does it address the failure of progressive candidates to win general elections.

[The Overlord]

Sanders being president isn't going to destroy conservatism or the Republican party any more than Biden will. Electing Bernie's not going to defeat Trumpism, it'll survive when Trump leaves office. It's not written in stone that Sanders can do what Hillary failed, he hasn't been put into that kind of test as a politician in his life.



Nobody in this thread isn't saying they won't vote Bernie had he become the nominee, but there are many people who might in the general. Look at the last candidate who chose to ignore moderate voters, Sanders better be careful or he'll face the same fate.

Attachment 92430



This is what every candidate must do, and Sanders is horrible at it.



You don't have to convince us of that, we're all agreeing with you. The electorate and congress, however, are where this runs into a wall of conservativism - where progressive policies go to die. This isn't Canada where Universal Healthcare is the norm, this is America - where political ads about Death Panels prove to be effective deterrents in congress.

https://www.npr.org/2017/01/10/50916...d-of-fake-news



Progressives who don't believe conservatives are a serious threat in America end up losing, they're not facing a lame nobody like Stephen Harper here.



Why are you making light of harassment campaigns against high profile women? We're able to do more then one thing simultaneously. Politics is more than discussing policies, this isn't about candidates and people, sexism and racism, this came up earlier with Rogen and Sanders history. You're not electing a piece of paper you're electing a man, with all the flaws included. Harassment is a real issue, and that was an example of the Bros being nice. Why should women voters rally for Sanders when he refuses to take their concerns about harassment and sexism seriously? Women, being people who belong to the poorer classes, it's not like they don't get harassment online. You're not showing much respect for Warren here.

Okay, you want to play this game. Name me a perfect candidate?

Warren engages in cultural appriation:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...c98_story.html

Buttiege has some troubling spots as mayor of South Bend:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...h-bend-indiana

Or what about Biden's numerous gaffes:

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/13/...ebate-slavery/

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/...LbJYlWOgZrOBYV

So is any that better or worse than this Bernie Bros stuff, where is the line?

Unless Jesus Christ rises from the grave to challenge Trump, you will have to accept that everyone will have baggage and at that point, you should the person with the best policies, rather than trying to decide who has the best of the baggage. This is why this stuff is a sideshow, you can easily do the same thing Warren, Biden, Buttiege, etc. Why is this Bernie Bros stuff a bigger point than anything about the other candidates?

[The Overlord]

The point I was making is that you need to stop trashing other candidates just because you don't agree with them as it only helps Republicans.

Sanders' supporters can't seem to do that though -- apparently that's the only way you know how to support you candidate.



Offense is pointing out the problem with Republicans and removing them from office.

Just because you choose to attack Democrats instead doesn't make your ideology superior to others.

Because I think the centrist Democrats are misguided, their attempts to reach across the aisle will fail and will just give the GOP more power when they are supposed to be opposition, I think if I think strategy is failing at what it's supposed to do, I think that strategy can be criticized, to pretend everything is fine with this strategy is madness at this point, you cannot do the same thing, over and over again, expecting different results. If you want to remove the GOP from power, you need an actual fighter to do so, rather then someone who will give up ground right away and just let them recapture the state houses again.

I think the 90s Third Way ideology has failed, if it still worked, Trump would not be President, it's not the 90s anymore, you cannot recycle the same old playbook, either you have to adapt to the times or ultimately become irrelevant.

[numberthirty]

Because I think the centrist Democrats are misguided, their attempts to reach across the aisle will fail and will just give the GOP more power when they are supposed to be opposition, I think if I think strategy is failing at what it's supposed to do, I think that strategy can be criticized, to pretend everything is fine with this strategy is madness at this point, you cannot do the same thing, over and over again, expecting different results. If you want to remove the GOP from power, you need an actual fighter to do so, rather then someone who will give up ground right away and just let them recapture the state houses again.

I think the 90s Third Way ideology has failed, if it still worked, Trump would not be President, it's not the 90s anymore, you cannot recycle the same old playbook, either you have to adapt to the times or ultimately become irrelevant.

At the very least...

All of the gains that regular Jane/Joe Public hasn't made since the nineties?

You should be able to seriously ask yourself if that reality hurts you with them or not.

[aja_christopher]

Because I think the centrist Democrats are misguided, their attempts to reach across the aisle will fail and will just give the GOP more power when they are supposed to be opposition, I think if I think strategy is failing at what it's supposed to do, I think that strategy can be criticized, to pretend everything is fine with this strategy is madness at this point, you cannot do the same thing, over and over again, expecting different results. If you want to remove the GOP from power, you need an actual fighter to do so, rather then someone who will give up ground right away and just let them recapture the state houses again.

A "fighter" who couldn't even beat Hillary in the primaries, and whose main opponent seems to be the Democratic party rather than Republicans just because he lost the Democratic nomination by millions of votes the last time he ran for president.

I see all this talk about how much Sanders is going to do, yet nothing about what he's actually done with regards to winning or actual legislation.

Talk is cheap -- the only way I'll believe Sanders can do all the things he claims is if he actually does them.

In the meantime, stop trashing the candidates who actually win and get things done -- no one wins every election, including Sanders.

[The Overlord]

A "fighter" who couldn't even beat Hillary in the primaries, and whose main opponent seems to be the Democratic party rather than Republicans just because he lost by millions of votes.

Politics is cyclical and talk is cheap -- the only way I'll believe Sanders can do all the things he claims is if he actually does them."

Oh, what's Biden going to do fight the GOP when in power? Is he going to reach across the aisle and let the GOP keep the ICE camps open in exchange for deregulating Wall Street?

Biden has no stomach for a real fight, if your goal is to keep the GOP out of power, you will need someone stronger than he is. Your tactics do not align your stated goal.

I do not care if criticizing other democratic nominees makes people unhappy here, if someone is done the wrong path, you should point it out. If something no longer works, you should point it out, rather than assume it will work again eventually. If I think a strategy is misguided, I think it deserves to be criticized. Biden is stuck in a bygone era that no longer exists, he will fail in most of his efforts as President to do anything if he does not realize that:

This is the world we live in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAbab8aP4_A

You want to want to talk about naive, Biden's talk of the GOP being willing to work with him if he wins, is dangerously naive.

[numberthirty]

More stuff that sounds a lot like "Double Standard..."

Meanwhile, folks saying that Sanders needs to be able to explain how he will win if he cannot account for X/Y/Z while saying that Biden having to account for this sort of thing is "Thrashing..." a candidate -

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/b...or-unions.html

Biden Push for Labor Support Is Burdened by Obama-Era Baggage

Supporters of the former vice president say he can win back union members who rejected Hillary Clinton. But he must overcome some hard feelings first.

On the campaign trail, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has highlighted the first two years of the Obama administration as a time when he helped enact sweeping legislation to widen access to health care and revive the economy, accomplishments most Democrats revere.

But to many union officials, those years were a disappointment — a time when the administration failed to pass a labor rights bill that was their top priority and imposed a tax that would affect many union members’ health plans. And they partly blame Mr. Biden.

“They were in the driver’s seat for the first two years, and what did they get done from a labor perspective?” said Chris Laursen, the president of a United Automobile Workers local in Ottumwa, Iowa, with nearly 600 members. “Joe Biden is complete status quo.”

And the skepticism toward Mr. Biden among union voters may be even more pronounced in the less white, less male parts of the labor force.

Nicole McCormick, a West Virginia music teacher who helped organize a statewide walkout that made national headlines in 2018, said she worried that Mr. Biden wasn’t “willing to push for the things that we as Americans look at as radical, but the rest of the world looks at and is like, ‘We did that 50 years ago.’” She cited expanded access to unions, universal health care and paid parental leave as examples.

Keon Liberato, the president of a Philadelphia-based local of more than 200 workers who maintain and construct railroad tracks, said many of his members preferred Mr. Sanders. Mr. Liberato said his members, both African-American and white, knew Mr. Biden as a friend to railroad workers, but tended to believe that taking health care off the bargaining table under Mr. Sanders’s Medicare for All plan “would be huge for the American people.”

[worstblogever]

If true, I can't help but laugh about this, in a grim way. It almost seems as if Rogan did this purposefully so the enemy camp (from his POV) would weaken itself via infighting, hmmm.

To me, it says a lot that someone's campaign were dumb enough to tout the endorsement of a racist, sexist, transphobic piece of garbage whose support that was an obvious Trojan Horse. And that someone's supporters would accept no responsibility for starting an unnecessary fight because people were upset that they were wheeling said Trojan Horse inside the walls, while people were pointing out, "Uh, that f***ing thing should not be in here, whether or not their are Trojans in it, it's clearly bad news."

And that said campaign/supporters... after the past ten days...

NEED. TO. KEEP. THEIR. EYES. ON. THE. REAL. THREAT.

I don't know what brand of ADHD medication folks might need to take to focus right now, but it's needed.

[SquirrelMan]

No, but it's on you explain why "Not Trump" in of itself will win this time, if it failed last time .

Not Trump is a weaker conviction than a strong policy program is.

Again, stop lying about Clinton running a "not Trump" campaign. She had the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic party, and it was full of policy details she constantly talked about.

[numberthirty]

Again, stop lying about Clinton running a "not Trump" campaign. She had the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic party, and it was full of policy details she constantly talked about.

About that...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...clinton-tv-ads

Study: Hillary Clinton’s TV ads were almost entirely policy-free

Hillary Clinton’s campaign ran TV ads that had less to do with policy than any other presidential candidate in the past four presidential races, according to a new study published on Monday by the Wesleyan Media Project.

Clinton’s team spent a whopping $1 billion on the election in all — about twice what Donald Trump’s campaign spent. Clinton spent $72 million on television ads in the final weeks alone.

But only 25 percent of advertising supporting her campaign went after Trump on policy grounds, the researchers found. By comparison, every other presidential candidate going back to at least 2000 devoted more than 40 percent of his or her advertising to policy-based attacks. None spent nearly as much time going after an opponent’s personality as Clinton’s ads did.

[shooshoomanjoe]

Bernie Bros are bragging that Bernie pulled in 3000 people at his rally tonight, far more compared to the other candidates. Never mind that his rally was a free concert with Bon Iver and Vampire Weekend. If Biden wins the primaries, I can see Bernie Bros claiming it was rigged against Bernie.

[numberthirty]

In addition to the above...

http://theconversation.com/2016-pres...-attacks-68642

2016 presidential advertising focused on character attacks

https://fortune.com/2016/09/23/hilla...nald-trump-ad/

Hillary Clinton’s Biting New Ad Attacks Donald Trump for His Treatment of Women

[SquirrelMan]

What does it tell you that people who hate Bernie like Barnie Frank got posted to the DNC Election Committee?
By Hillary and Obama people.

There is so much Whataboutism coming from the Bernie side.

And lying about what Snopes articles say to pad his Civil Rights resume.

[SquirrelMan]

In non-whataboutism news:

To nobody's surprise, Jared made everything worse.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas announced a cut of all ties with Israel and the US, including security cooperation, as the Arab League rejected US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan, which had enraged Palestinians

[SquirrelMan]

About that...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...clinton-tv-ads

They went for the low hanging fruit a lot. But considering the sheer volume of ads the article points out, those were still a LOT of policy based ads, so people saw them.
And her campaign rallies were about policy, the debates had her beating Trump on policy questions each time. The interviews she gave, her web site. The convention. TV ads are really an odd thing to look at in the 21st century.