All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Gray Lensman]

I don’t think getting Latinos to support Biden will be an issue. He’s the alternative to Trump and that’s what’s important. The youth vote could be a problem. It’s the demographic with traditionally the worst voter turnout and “no malarkey grandpa Joe” definitely doesn’t have youth voter appeal. Maybe an interesting and progressive VP pick could help galvanize the youth. But it ended up being that not even Bernie could get them to the polls. So who knows.

Bernie needed too many of them to turn out, Biden probably only needs to figure out how to get more of them to turn out than normal. Which is something that he can probably do merely by making an honest case to progressives (provides that honesty is also better than telling them off or something).

[numberthirty]

Bernie needed too many of them to turn out, Biden probably only needs to figure out how to get more of them to turn out than normal. Which is something that he can probably do merely by making an honest case to progressives (provides that honesty is also better than telling them off or something).

Accounting for how they turned out for their chosen candidate thus far?

I wouldn't count on it being as simple as that.

[babyblob]

Sure, I said that to illustrate that what a group winds up doing doesn't need to make sense to you or me for them to do it. It also makes Trump being able to pull off a win more likely.

Which could wind up happening in the fall. If a group doesn't feel like you are representing them, that's potentially the only thing that they need to sit things out.

Okay I misunderstood. Sorry.

[numberthirty]

Okay I misunderstood. Sorry.

No biggie.

[numberthirty]

Pretty decent article on the topic...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...o-vote/604882/

Democrats Should Be Worried About the Latino Vote

The first warning sign of the new year came three days into 2020. Speaking at a rally of conservative evangelicals in South Florida, President Donald Trump riffed on the targeted killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani before the thousands assembled in the King Jesus International Ministry megachurch, outside of Miami.

That night, the president captured headlines for declaring that “God is on our side” and accusing Democrats of disloyalty for not supporting his air strike. But for Domingo Garcia, the national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, what the headlines—and Democrats—missed was the significance of the rally’s location: the home of the country’s largest Hispanic evangelical congregation.

“That should be a serious red flag to Democrats,” Garcia told me. Trump’s outreach to conservative Latinos in the South serves as a warning sign for deeper concerns that several Latino leaders and political activists shared with me: that they are dissatisfied with the level of engagement they are seeing from the Democratic primary contenders and are noticing the same kind of poor strategizing by candidates that yielded disappointing turnout among Hispanic voters in 2016.

But some of the Latino political organizers I spoke with described the primary season so far as a master class in “political malpractice”—as one person phrased it—with candidates struggling to engage Latino voters, address issues beyond immigration reform, and treat Latinos as the influential voting bloc they are. Others reported a lack of candidate interest in working with their organizations, including missed meetings and radio silence on questionnaires. (On top of all that, the only Latino candidate in the race, Julián Castro, dropped out earlier this month, leaving an all-white stage for tonight’s debate.) There’s a real risk that if Democrats don’t sort out these issues soon, they could struggle to attract and mobilize what could be the largest minority voting bloc in 2020.

“It feels like every four years there’s this clutching of the pearls and head-scratching about why the hell Latinos don’t vote,” Marisa Franco, a co-founder of the Latino activist network Mijente, told me. “I don’t think it’s an absence of interest. It’s a hunger for options.”

The only candidate still in the race to receive virtually universal praise from the organizers was Senator Bernie Sanders. Organizers from California to Texas highlighted the Sanders campaign’s grassroots engagement, something that seems to be reflected in Latinos’ consistently strong support for the senator: In poll after poll, Latinos, especially young Latinos, rank Sanders as their top pick among the primary contenders. Chuck Rocha, a top Sanders adviser, told me that the polls reflect the senator’s priority of expanding the electorate, including young Latinos who have not voted before. Of the record 32 million Latinos eligible to cast a ballot in 2020, 4 million of them turned 18 after the 2016 election, María Teresa Kumar, the CEO of the political-advocacy group Voto Latino, told me.

Rocha and Sanders’s national political director, Analilia Mejia, said the campaign has aired Spanish-language ads for the past eight months and hired more than 150 Latino staffers around the country. In vote-rich California specifically, the campaign opened most of its 14 field offices in heavily Latino communities, including East Los Angeles, Oxnard, San Jose, and the Central Valley region. “On our campaign, we’re very clear about the rising Latino iceberg of voters, how for years to come there will be a need to deeply motivate and mobilize Latino voters,” Mejia said. “When you have people who belong to that community [and] you empower those folks, of course you’re going to do better within that community—if you have folks who know how to navigate it, folks who come from it, folks who respect it.”

Representative Norma Torres of California told me that some candidates seem to overlook how issues such as education, affordable housing, raising the minimum wage, and college affordability dominate the minds of many working-class and young Latinos in particular. Torres, who immigrated to the United States from Guatemala as a child, said three candidates had met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s political arm, of which she is a member. In those meetings, the candidates “regurgitate old policy,” she said, and “forget that the majority of Latinos live in communities like mine, which are very, very poor, working-class.”

“Latino conservatives in Florida and in Texas, by the way, are amenable to the Republican message and are willing to forgive Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-Latino rhetoric to a certain extent,” said Garcia, the League of United Latin American Citizens leader. “That’s a small minority. But, you know, the difference between 20 and 30 percent could mean the difference of winning Texas or Florida or losing them.”

In other words: Republicans don’t need to win all, or even a majority of, the Latino votes to win in competitive states. Trump seems on track to capture 25 to 30 percent of Latino voters in 2020, a steady showing from his 29 percent support in 2016 and the roughly 32 percent of Latinos who voted for Republicans in 2018.

“That’s a concern that never leaves my mind,” says Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who argues that his brother’s now-defunct campaign demonstrated how candidates should weave Latinos’ economic and social concerns into broader discussions of criminal-justice reform, affordable housing, and education. (He said Julían Castro plans to increase the presence of Senator Elizabeth Warren, whom they have both endorsed, in Latino communities.)

[shooshoomanjoe]

Looks like trump is taking the coronavirus seriously. Why give a health crisis job to an experienced black doctor like Ben Carson when an inexperienced white guy like Kushner is around?
Trump fears emergency declaration would contradict coronavirus message

"There’s no deadline for a decision, but one of the people familiar with the talks said Trump's aides will not give the president a final verdict until Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, talks to relevant parties and presents his findings to the president."

[ed2962]

Those comments are eating him alive for supporting Biden over Bernie. Pretty cool to see, honestly.

Yeah, I mean these discussions in the black community are actually broader than the mainstream media often presents. There's a lot of criticism of the Democratic party and a fair amount questioning of why do we habitually support the most establishment candidates.

[ed2962]

This is why Sanders should be wrapping this up themselves, had it been anyone else they'd have quit by now.

Oh yeah? Tulsi Gabbard is still running.

That's certainly true and Sanders is going to do the absolute minimum to help with this.

I don't know about that.

[ed2962]

With Everything Trump has done to Latinos how much convincing do they need to support the team. They and others need to realize that if they dont get on board with whoever the nominee is for the Dems they had better get on board quick or it will be four more years of Trump. I think the same is true for Biden supporters if Sanders end up pulling it off. The whole I am not going to vote for my party because I am butt hurt my choice didnt win is crazy. T There is never going to be a canidate that is 100 percent perfect. I wanted Pete but he didnt make it so I will vote for whoever the Dems put forth. Even if it is Sanders who I really dont like. I just dont want four more years of Trump.

Thing is, people associate Biden with Obama, but a number folks were calling Obama "the deportor in chief". If a voter's prime issue is immigration, where's the assurance that Biden is going to do anything different?

[PwrdOn]

Yeah, I mean these discussions in the black community are actually broader than the mainstream media often presents. There's a lot of criticism of the Democratic party and a fair amount questioning of why do we habitually support the most establishment candidates.

I think the most direct answer is probably that many black people are actually conservative in their hearts, and basically vote Democrat only because the racism of the Republican party supersedes whatever personal values and morality they might hold would dictate. Black people got as much as of that Cold War red scare propaganda as anyone else, and a lot of the older voters who remember all of that will definitely not be very open to a self-proclaimed socialist going around praising Fidel Castro. Still though, having a personal conservative bent doesn't mean you can't vote strategically to try and best serve your own interests.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Looks like trump is taking the coronavirus seriously. Why give a health crisis job to an experienced black doctor like Ben Carson when an inexperienced white guy like Kushner is around?
Trump fears emergency declaration would contradict coronavirus message

"There’s no deadline for a decision, but one of the people familiar with the talks said Trump's aides will not give the president a final verdict until Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, talks to relevant parties and presents his findings to the president."

Just another example of Caramel Caligula putting his own self-interests ahead of the safety of the public. Anyone with half a brain knows He Went To Jared will simply tell Trump some mealy mouthed bullshit that will placate him but probably make things worse for the country. Trump continues being worried about how coronavirus will affect HIM, not the people, given how he started out calling it a hoax, hell, the shitstains on Faux News are probably still calling the pandemic a Democratic plot to overthrow their dear leader.

[babyblob]

I wonder if Sanders when it becomes clear he will not be the nominee will drop out in a timely manner unlike his run against Clinton. I remember being baffled that Sanders always spoke about government wasteful spending kept his secret service detail at a cost of 40,000 dollars a day of tax payer money long after it was clear he would not be the nominee. I know he is not getting secret service detail this time around. But the longer he stays the longer it will take the party to unite behind Biden.

[worstblogever]

Dow Futures have already been closed for the day after a 1231 point drop, or another 5.22% of the market's overall worth.

That puts the Dow Jones at 22344, a number as low as its been since September of 2017.

If this trend continues for even a few more days of trading, we're going to see the stock market at a number less than it's been since the Obama administration ended,

[Steel Inquisitor]

Oh yeah? Tulsi Gabbard is still running.

LOL

I don't know about that.

Sanders has a lot to prove that he won't do that, post-'16.

[kidfresh512]

NY times has taken down the paywall for Coronavirus related articles fyi

https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/c...gtype=Homepage