drunkenmonkeystyle posted:

https://twitter.com/Davis_Hammet/status/1247982327835299841?s=20 Welp never mind guys, go out and touch everyone.

Yuzenn posted:

I thought you were railing on postin in good faith here, my man.....

What exactly are we to do with this situation? Please be detailed with anything that can ACTUALLY happen right now.

quote:

There is at least a chance that CANDIDATE will do things advantageous to the causes.

quote:

There is at least a chance that Trump will do things advantageous to the causes.

quote:

There is at least a chance that David Duke will do things advantageous to the causes.

quote:

There is at least a chance that Ted Bundy will do things advantageous to the causes.

Paracaidas posted:

You had asked for positive reasons to vote for Biden that weren't "Trump Bad". I quickly threw together a list of Biden platform elements that were improvements on the status quo and that could be accomplished even with a GOP Congress.

If the ask is "what are positive reasons to be excited to vote Biden over a generic Dem?" , it feels like the goalposts have shifted a bit. The best I can come up with is "Biden has experience in the White House and will be better at getting priorities implemented despite an unhelpful Congress". I'd certainly put better odds on him reversing Trump's rescission of Obama's edicts at Justice and Education than I would for Pete or Amy. Neither of those are thrilling, but then, I'm not a Biden fan.

Paracaidas posted:

Paracaidas posted:

an NLRB and DoL that aggressively takes action against wage theft and IC misclassification (potentially even bringing back the Perez exemption-classification changes, which were briefly the biggest win for wage employees in decades) , withhold federal contracts from any company that won't commit to not run anti-union campaigns and who doesn't have $15/hr min wage.

Paracaidas posted:

Additionally, refunding and prioritizing OCR at Justice, continuing the creation and enforcement of consent decrees against local police departments. Creating a review process(outside of Justice!) on federal prosecutorial discretion.

Paracaidas posted:

Weed decrim and expunging of past convictions.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomang...g/#2c619e5f9aa2

Paracaidas posted:

Reversing Trump's rescission of the order ending federal use of private prisons. Changing grant rules to require states to end the incarceration of minors for "crimes" that would be legal but for their age ("status offenses"). Using executive orders to remove/reduce restrictions on access to resources, support, and employment based on past criminal histories.

Paracaidas posted:

This list is not exhaustive (literally, only two platform planks). Pointedly, it's mostly things that Biden will be able to do through executive powers alone, even if the GOP retains the Senate or regains the House.

This is miles from the outcome that I wanted from the primary and I'm livid over it. Biden, Pete, and Bloomberg were the three that were worst case scenarios for me as the Dem nominee. But there's a difference between "nowhere near good enough" and "not good at all in any way", and it's helpful to remember that.

Trabisnikof posted:

People use the DNC when they often mean "the democratic establishment" like for example, Obama calling all the candidates who dropped out right before they dropped out. That wasn't the DNC technically but we know that Obama and Perez are on the same side of internal party politics as well.

Lemming posted:

Yeah, and the fact that Bernie didn't get a similar boost despite crushing Nevada is part of the exact point I'm making, because the media had an interest in boosting any non-Bernie candidate, they didn't give him similar air time and positive coverage. Thank you for concisely making my argument for me!

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

say what you like about the guy, he does a good job of holding onto his personal power. pity about the consequences for the rest of us.

man, remember that time he launched an islamophobic campaign against Keith Ellison? feels like a million years ago

Lemming posted:

Yeah, and the fact that Bernie didn't get a similar boost despite crushing Nevada is part of the exact point I'm making, because the media had an interest in boosting any non-Bernie candidate, they didn't give him similar air time and positive coverage. Thank you for concisely making my argument for me!

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

That happened in 1988, 1992, and 2004. It's not totally unprecedented.

mcmagic posted:

It's completely unprecedented for the person who won Iowa and another strong candidate in NH to drop off right before Super Tuesday to consolidate behind a candidate who's campaign was DOA. The fact that rube voters fell for it doesn't mean the fix wasn't in. It was.

WOWEE ZOWEE posted:

Has anyone done a proper Marxist analysis of Duck Tales?

Spite posted:

Let's be real: Bernie would have gotten destroyed in the general election. The trump apparatus _wanted_ him to be the dem candidate.

In the real world where only 5 states matter Bernie was not a good candidate. You think he was going to win Arizona or North Carolina? Like it or not the best way to ensure Trump isn't re-elected is to pull white women from the suburbs. And they weren't voting for Bernie.

Young people don't vote consistently enough to elect a democratic socialist. Maybe this will change as the boomers keep dying out and the millenials get older.

cheetah7071 posted:

he did get a huge boost in national polls. South Carolina was just his worst early state by a huge margin. In an alternate reality where South Carolina is part of super Tuesday, we'd be talking about how Biden just suspended his race to presumptive nominee Sanders

The primary system we have is hosed up and results in candidates being selected in ways that don't represent their popularity in the party at large, almost at random. You could probably construct an order of states where any of the major candidates get a massive boost going into super tuesday and run away with it the way Biden did

My point isn't that the establishment Dems didn't want Biden--clearly, they did--it's that you can't call Biden's post-SC polls fake without also accepting that Bernie was never really as popular as he looked after Nevada, either. The national polls before voting started and frontrunners started getting boosted at best had him at a modest plurality.

Pick posted:

This has been a done deal for what, a month? Easy? Where was everyone

Spite posted:

You think he was going to win Arizona or North Carolina?

Lemming posted:

Why did his rivals drop out at that specific time, and endorse Biden specifically? Those are the kind of things that are obviously massively influenced by the establishment (lol Obama literally personally met with mayor rat and made him endorse Biden https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/485503-obama-spoke-with-buttigieg-after-he-dropped-out-of-2020-race-report).

I don't disagree that it wasn't the only factor, but we have guys like the morons three posts above yours that have equated saying the DNC and the media have pull over the race with MKULTRA so there are a lot of brain poisoned people who refuse to accept this very clear reality

TyrantWD posted:

Nevada was a caucus and Iowa pretty much ruined the reputation of caucuses.

Lemming posted:

He didn't get a similar boost, no. You saw a similar thing after NH - the media was talking about how second place or third place was actually winning. They couldn't pretend he didn't win, but they deemphasized it and didn't focus on it as much as they could.

I'm not calling anything fake, I'm saying that the indications we have suggest there was a large shift that coincided with the DNC and the media's singular push to boost Biden as much as they could over the course of less than a week. My point is that this is a factor that would never, ever have done anything but work against Bernie, and there's nothing Bernie could have done to make them not do that, and it's a big factor in why he lost. I'm just arguing against the braindead "argument" that well, I guess the voters just all made their most informed decision and all decided at once to go from having no idea who to vote for to voting for Biden two days before Super Tuesday without any outside influence at all

Inferior Third Season posted:

Scrooge McDuck is basically the ur-capitalist, and his money bin the physical manifestation of the capitalists' extraction of surplus value.

Flintheart Glomgold and Magica De Spell are other capitalists - in friendly competition with each other, but united in their class interest of not allowing capital to be distributed to the other classes.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the petit bourgeois. They do not purchase any labor power, but they have a decent amount of capital at their disposal due to their capitalist benefactor. They are sympathetic to the capitalist class, and even help them to accumulate more capital.

Duckworth the butler, Mrs. Beakley, Gyro Gearloose, and most other characters are the proletariat, selling their labor power to generate surplus value for Scrooge and the other capitalists to extract.

The Beagle Boys are the lumpenproletariat.

Spite posted:

Let's be real: Bernie would have gotten destroyed in the general election. The trump apparatus _wanted_ him to be the dem candidate.

In the real world where only 5 states matter Bernie was not a good candidate. You think he was going to win Arizona or North Carolina? Like it or not the best way to ensure Trump isn't re-elected is to pull white women from the suburbs. And they weren't voting for Bernie.

Young people don't vote consistently enough to elect a democratic socialist. Maybe this will change as the boomers keep dying out and the millenials get older.

Okan170 posted:

The question we need to be asking seems to be more “what can we do to get more America comfortable with basic leftist policy?”.

MLK posted:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

Spite posted:

Let's be real: Bernie would have gotten destroyed in the general election. The trump apparatus _wanted_ him to be the dem candidate.

Acebuckeye13 posted:

I, personally, do not believe Tom Perez or other DNC staffers were involved in pushing Klob and Pete to endorse Biden. Were other establishment figures like Obama involved? Eh, probably. But that's also just... regular politics, and also a result of Sanders not doing enough to court their interests or assuage their fears he'd ignore their ~sage political wisdom~ and lose in November (Not that he or his supporters would have wanted him to play those kinds of personal politics, which was both the campaign's biggest strength and greatest weakness imo).

Okan170 posted:

The question we need to be asking seems to be more “what can we do to get more America comfortable with basic leftist policy?”.

Sanguinia posted:

Biden wasn't really DOA after New Hampshire anyway. He unexpectedly came in second in Nevada, which did a lot of damage to Pete. At the time we were roundly mocking the BIDEN'S COMEBACK BEGAN HERE punditry, but in retrospect I think that 2nd Place was almost as important as the South Carolina blowout because it showed that Pete's successes in the first two primaries were nothing but shadow-puppetry. He not only could be beaten by Biden among centrist voters, his youth and LGBTQ status did absolutely nothing to blunt Bernie's coalition. Those two facts meant Pete had no way of building momentum going into Carolina and possibly eating into Biden's support there, which meant he had no chance of Forming The Head of Centrist Voltron like he clearly wanted.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

It's either redo the entire electoral system or get a leftist candidate that is broadly popular among African-American voters and self-identified "very liberal" voters.

That was how Obama ended up beating a coalition that was almost exactly the same as Biden's coalition. You just attract the African-American voters from the coalition of the older and moderate voters.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

It's either redo the entire electoral system or get a leftist candidate that is broadly popular among African-American voters and self-identified "very liberal" voters.

That was how Obama ended up beating a coalition that was almost exactly the same as Biden's coalition. You just attract the African-American voters from the coalition of the older and moderate voters.

mcmagic posted:

I don't think it has anything to do with moderate policy. It had to do with Biden standing next to Obama so voters liked him. They didn't care what his policy positions were and in the polling they agreed with Bernie's policies more across the board.

Majorian posted:

More than agreeing with Bernie's policies, a lot of Biden voters mistakenly thought that Biden supported things that he doesn't but Bernie sure does, including M4A, student loan forgiveness, marijuana legalization, etc.

Majorian posted:

More than agreeing with Bernie's policies, a lot of Biden voters mistakenly thought that Biden supported things that he doesn't but Bernie sure does, including M4A, student loan forgiveness, marijuana legalization, etc.

bird cooch posted:

Did the threads get combined? I've been avoiding the primary thread for months now.

mcmagic posted:

White Women from the suburbs were supposed to vote Hillary in too, how'd that go? They were always going to vote for Trump. I'm not sure that Bernie would have won but he had an argument to make in the Midwest against Trump. Biden doesn't.

Saagonsa posted:

As we all know, elevating the "extreme" populist candidate to be your opposition is a sound political strategy that never ever backfires

mcmagic posted:

I don't think it has anything to do with moderate policy. It had to do with Biden standing next to Obama so voters liked him. They didn't care what his policy positions were and in the polling they agreed with Bernie's policies more across the board.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

It doesn't have to do with policy specifically. But, you need a leftist candidate who is going to be attractive to African-American voters and maintain the "very liberal," less religious, and college educated demographic that makes up a disproportionate amount of voters in Iowa, NH, and the upper Midwest.

There's multiple ways to get those two demographics on your side and it doesn't matter specifically which way you do it, but it has to happen.

Unless you have a major reform of the electoral system or major demographic changes, then you can't be getting blown out in the African-American vote and win a Democratic primary.

Majorian posted:

More than agreeing with Bernie's policies, a lot of Biden voters mistakenly thought that Biden supported things that he doesn't but Bernie sure does, including M4A, student loan forgiveness, marijuana legalization, etc.

The Sean posted:

America does want more leftist policies. The demand is already there. Neither party is selling it, though.

We want it. We can quantify that we want it. The powers that be don't want it. That's who you have to convince. Oh, also those people who are all "incremental change."