Ytlaya posted:

Yeah - I consider my dad to be kind of a proxy for boomer liberals in general, and he likes Biden and got angry at me for suggesting that perhaps Biden was not good (it was apparently rude to suggest he's bad politically because his son died). He disliked Hillary in 2016 and supported Sanders in that primary, though I think that's due to sexism (not so much in the sense of viewing Hillary negatively because she's a woman, but in the sense of being willing to overlook bad things about Biden because he's an older man).

I'm not sure if he is going to support him in this primary, though. Soon I'm going to have A Talk with both my parents about why they should vote for Bernie. I'm confident in my mom at least voting for either Bernie or Warren, but dad is very much a Maher sort of breed of liberal, who is only really opposed to Republicans for cultural reasons and doesn't really have any sort of left wing ideology (I find that liberals like him sort of selectively adopt left-wing positions only when they serve the purpose of letting them attack Republicans).

The angle I'm planning on using is focusing on how Biden has been friendly with Republicans, since for all his other faults my dad is at least pretty consistent with his hatred of Republicans.

theblackw0lf posted:

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1119276543895900160?s=21

redneck nazgul posted:

Kirsten Gillibrand. She has the experience, the vision, and that something that will cause a diverse electorate to vote for her. She will lag behind for a while, and then move up the ranks as the higher profile primary candidates drop away. She is in a quiet phase now, securing money and behind-the-scenes support. She will surge later. Or not, but I’ll still support her until she drops out. Maybe one of only a dozen Gillibrand supporters around this joint, but whatev.

FlamingLiberal posted:

I’m absolutely floored that Biden has no campaign or money and is also getting in super late. What the hell.

FlamingLiberal posted:

I’ll be curious how the big money donors act with him. Apparently a lot of them seem to support Harris.

Helsing posted:

Why? Biden is the former Vice President of the most popular living Democrat. That's more than enough to make him the nostalgia candidate.

VideoGameVet posted:

Is Mondale still alive? Because I think he holds that title.

mcmagic posted:

I continue to think that very online leftists very much underestimate Biden's appeal to a lot of D voters who just want Obama back and for things to be normal.

Judakel posted:

The same D voters who are angry a woman is not leading? The same ones who want a young person? The same ones who want a minority? They're split.

VitalSigns posted:

lol no. The German Empire was not in any sense a "democratically elected government" and there was no democratically-chosen form of government after the Kaiser abdicated, the Imperial Reichstag just took power into its own hands. Ebert specifically did not want to allow the Germans to choose their new form of government because Germany would have gone commie. That's why he struck a deal with military instead of holding elections, and of course the Spartacists didn't try to overthrow Ebert's unelected government until his troops started murdering them, so ya know it's a little weird to hand-wring about people you're shooting shooting back.

VitalSigns posted:

Sure, and that was really my point, that the USSR had reasons for doing what it did, and while you can point to any number of grievous errors by Stalin, they had good reasons not to trust the SPD even if ultimately it would have been in the best interests of both sides to work together.

VitalSigns posted:

One other nitpick, Hindenberg wasn't technically a Nazi only in the same way Trump isn't technically a Nazi (too low-brow for a high-society type like him). He wasn't a card-carrying Party member, but he was still a far right psycho who spent the entire interwar period spreading the stab-in-the-back myth, blaming Jews, democrats, socialists, etc for losing the war.

Majorian posted:

There's an argument to be made that a lot of those voters are only half-sincere when they insist on a female, POC, and/or young candidate. I think it's a mistake to assume that's the case with most or all of them, though. (not that mcmagic or anyone else here is making that argument, to be clear)

Majorian posted:

Plus, ya know, not setting up infrastructure or getting donors in line already does not exactly help investor confidence...

Yeah, I hope Biden steps in and self-destructs spectacularly. I'd probably sleep easier if he didn't step in at all, but still.

Majorian posted:

There's an argument to be made that a lot of those voters are only half-sincere when they insist on a female, POC, and/or young candidate. I think it's a mistake to assume that's the case with most or all of them, though. (not that mcmagic or anyone else here is making that argument, to be clear)

Pembroke Fuse posted:

FlamingLiberal posted:

I’m absolutely floored that Biden has no campaign or money and is also getting in super late. What the hell.

Z. Autobahn posted:

IDK, I feel like almost all the people I see making this argument are pretty consistently backing Harris/Warren/Pete/Beto, who hit at least some of those milestones. The Biden backers are a whole different group.

Majorian posted:

I think that's probably largely true, although I have seen a couple formerly "NO MORE WHITE MEN!!!" types on Twitter switch to "Oh wait actually Pete/Beto are good."

Z. Autobahn posted:

Yeah, I'd say that the most common framing I've seen is "no more old, white*, men", with any one of those three qualities being replaced considered permissible

*yes Bernie is jewish, I know this, we're talking about other people's framing

Gnumonic posted:

It still strikes me as really weird that being a member of the ethnic group which has been more brutally oppressed in the past 100 years than any other ethnic group just sorta doesn't count for anything anymore, cuz hey, on the surface Jews look kinda white*. And it's not like people have stopped shooting up loving synagogues...

*Except for all the middle eastern Jews who, you know, don't at all.

VideoGameVet posted:

Is Mondale still alive? Because I think he holds that title.

Typo posted:

she won the primaries iirc, if we are talking about the ge you might have a point. But we are talking about Biden's 2020's appeal among D primary voters

Armack posted:

Biden probably has not reached his ceiling. He can expect a bounce from his announcement. Also, Morning Consult polling suggests that if Harris, Beto, Buttigieg, or Sanders implodes, Biden would be the main beneficiary. Also, let's not discount the possibility of the non-Bernie wing of the party consolidating around Biden if Biden wins some early states.

But let's say for the sake of argument that Biden were at his ceiling. Even then his moderate, Boomer base could net him a plurality of the pledged delegates—let's say roughly 30%—on the first DNC ballot, and Biden would then go on to win the second ballot, including with superdelegates. Let's keep in mind that Biden's older voters are the demographic most likely to vote in a primary.

Or if Biden's main opposition, Bernie, goes to the convention with a small plurality and Biden is right behind him then Biden still wins. In that scenario Harris, Beto, Buttigieg, and Booker delegates plus superdelegates could and would put Biden over the top on some ballot after the first. Now would that tear the party apart and advantage Trump in the general? Of course. But the cohort in charge of the Democratic Party would get to keep its control over that party rather than ceding it to Berners, and if anyone doesn't think their maintained control is paramount to them then we have drastically different reads on politics and institutional psychology.

My point is that assuming Bernie remains Biden's main opposition, then Biden would actually have to implode in order to lose the nomination, not just narrowly lose the delegate horse race. Some posts here have addressed the possibility of a Biden implosion with a comparison to Jeb/Guiliani, but that comparison doesn't hold imo. Guiliani couldn't win IA or NH so he pretended momentum didn't matter and focused on Florida instead. Then early state results cut into Guiliani's national numbers. In contrast, Biden is polling well in IA and NH. As for Jeb, he was a conventional politician at a time when Republican voters and the far-right media backbone wanted a rude overtly bigoted celebrity with no experience to wreck Washington. Biden on the other hand will benefit from a corporate media who is afraid of Sanders and from a plurality of the party that just wants to beat Trump and get back to normal. Biden's past conservativism will be seen by those same groups as a mature and moderating influence, his gaffes small compared to Trump, and his chastising of millenials meat for the Boomer base. The debates hardly seem to have the potential to change this, because all Biden has to do is play to his existing base. He's got this thing locked up, I wish I was wrong.

Armack posted:

The debates hardly seem to have the potential to change this, because all Biden has to do is play to his existing base. He's got this thing locked up, I wish I was wrong.

Z. Autobahn posted:

I mean, speaking as a Jew, ethnic identity *is* complicated, insofar as it's an arbitrary classification system and Judaism doesn't mesh well with the framework, especially when we talk about privilege. For example, a black Jew is, undeniably, both black and a Jew, so the argument could be made that a white Jew is both white and a Jew. I've definitely benefited from white privilege my whole life; I've also had to deal with anti-semitism. It's complicated and messy and exposes the underpinnings of why "race" is ultimately an arbitrary construct.

HootTheOwl posted:

Against: A former republican, the mayor from The Wire, and a guy who was a Democrat just long enough to run a protest campaign that ended up winning 20 states.
That last guy thinks he has a chance this time around, and uh, is currently the clear front runner.*

*Offer not valid in primaries containing Biden.

Armack posted:

Yes, he has endorsed Klobuchar.

Typo posted:

in polling during D primaries 2016: the most effective Hillary tactic vs Bernie in appealing to primary voters was by "hugging" Obama

Obama has sky high approvals among Democrats and when polled on what kind of Democrat they are (including labels like moderate, liberal, conservative etc) the most common response was "obama democrat"

basically I think way too much of this thread projects their own disillusion with Obama onto the primary electorate as a whole, most primary voters don't care about liberalism vs socialist or w/e that DnD posters care about. Hugging Obama is extremely effective tactic even if you think it's dumb or counter-revolutionary or w/e.

Z. Autobahn posted:

I mean, speaking as a Jew, ethnic identity *is* complicated, insofar as it's an arbitrary classification system and Judaism doesn't mesh well with the framework, especially when we talk about privilege. For example, a black Jew is, undeniably, both black and a Jew, so the argument could be made that a white Jew is both white and a Jew. I've definitely benefited from white privilege my whole life; I've also had to deal with anti-semitism. It's complicated and messy and exposes the underpinnings of why "race" is ultimately an arbitrary construct.

Gnumonic posted:

It still strikes me as really weird that being a member of the ethnic group which has been more brutally oppressed in the past 100 years than any other ethnic group just sorta doesn't count for anything anymore, cuz hey, on the surface Jews look kinda white*. And it's not like people have stopped shooting up loving synagogues...

*Except for all the middle eastern Jews who, you know, don't at all.

Typo posted:

in polling during D primaries 2016: the most effective Hillary tactic vs Bernie in appealing to primary voters was by "hugging" Obama

quote:

Obama has sky high approvals among Democrats and when polled on what kind of Democrat they are (including labels like moderate, liberal, conservative etc) the most common response was "obama democrat"

basically I think way too much of this thread projects their own disillusion with Obama onto the primary electorate as a whole, most primary voters don't care about liberalism vs socialist or w/e that DnD posters care about. Hugging Obama is extremely effective tactic even if you think it's dumb or counter-revolutionary or w/e.

WampaLord posted:

Do you think Obama is going to endorse any one candidate in particular before the primary is over? He didn't endorse Hillary until it was clear she had it in the bag. Hard to hug Obama when he won't campaign with you.

Joe is gonna have to campaign for himself, and you think him saying "Obama" a million times will just cast a magic spell over the Dem primary voting base, and I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen. Joe Biden is bad at campaigning and the field is crowded as gently caress.


The way I see it as another Jew is that the Nazis don't care about how much you've benefited from white privilege.

quote:

Hard to hug Obama when he won't campaign with you.

quote:

and you think him saying "Obama" a million times will just cast a magic spell over the Dem primary voting base

HootTheOwl posted:

Because in the last 100 years they haven't. At least not in America. In America Jews are basically white unless you need anything involving a calendar. White is, and always has been, the fluid amalgamation of whatever races are required to make 50%+1 of the voting population White in order to perpetuate it's own existence.

Typo posted:

Worked for Hillary

WampaLord posted:

Hillary pre-cleared the field, you keep ignoring various factors about why this is different from 2016 whenever they suit your argument. This isn't 2016. Biden does not have a pre-cleared field.

HootTheOwl posted:

I'm sure you have some evidence to back this up?

quote:

You're misunderstanding me. I firmly believe Biden will win if he enters the race for roughly what you described. But I also don't think Hillary would have survived an earnest primary challenge.