Dem Presidential Primary 2020: Bernie dropped out, all hail nominee Biden

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Dem Presidential Primary 2020: Bernie dropped out, all hail nominee Biden

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Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Biden should be glad the left has so little respect for him, or else we'd take the advice he keeps giving us and vote for Trump!

I think a lot of people here would be a lot happier if they stopped fighting against the obvious reality of the situation and stopped trying to bring the left on board with a party that actively loathes us, works harder to undermine us than they do their Cherished Colleagues to their right, and would gladly jettison every single one of us for a single forced birther pro-LGBT death camps op-ed writer, because they've spent the last 50 years getting rich as gently caress losing to and governing as Republicans. Exactly what in the gently caress has Pelosi done to impede or stonewall Trump? And Schumer's even worse!

Trump is awful but it's because to be President of the biggest rogue warlord nation in the world means you have to be awful. Once you remove optics from the calculus he's maybe the third worst President of my lifetime. Maybe another 4 years will rocket him up to first place, who knows, but I do know that with Biden as a nominee he's getting the chance

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 17:38

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 19:32

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Nevvy Z posted:

I'm still not voting for either rapist, but I no longer hope Biden wins. The whole party can loving burn

the two biggest blue states are striking Bernie from the ballot specifically to deny him even a tiny amount of leverage at the convention that they obviously plan to box him entirely out of despite his foolish and poorly timed endorsement and subsequent campaigning. I hope more states do it, I think it's important for the party to keep showing people what they're really about and the lengths they're willing to go to prevent even the most modest reforms

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 17:46

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

i got owned posted:

Biden himself said if you don't want to vote for him them go vote for Trump.

Why is anyone telling people who don't want to vote for Joe Biden to vote for him anyway? Biden himself wouldn't even want that.

now now be fair, this is a misrepresentation of his comments

he said that if you're interested in things like a GND, M4A, or prison/immigration reforms, you should vote for Trump

yronic heroism posted:

Sounds like I’m doing more to stop fascists than you.

lol

what has the Epstein wing of the party ever done to oppose Trump or any other chud fash that our cherished elite institutions have vomited up to advance the imperial project? They couldn't have ended up with better enablers if they'd designed them themselves from the ground up.

Biden is literally campaigning on advancing Republican policy, allowing them to be decision-makers in the admin, and putting them in his cabinet or VP. Why is he willing to say this about a generic Republican but not a specific Bernie, for example? If you think the people in power now are evil, and Biden is campaigning on keeping most of them in power even if he wins, exactly what end game to a Biden win do you envision? How does voting for and supporting a fiscal and social conservative wedded to the machine of destruction status quo advance any single anti-fascist goals?

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 17:53

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

yronic heroism posted:

Who are �most of� the Trump appointees who will retain their posts in a Biden admin?

lobbyists, donors, CEOs, all these people will maintain power under Biden just like they did under Trump and Obama, and no reforms or changes will happen as a result. Bloomberg in charge of World Bank, Daimon in charge of treasury, campaign already being advised by scum like Summers, and the list will get worse and worse as time goes on. Maybe Mnuchin changes his party registration and gets invited too probably, it's what Bloomberg did and he's chummy with Harris who despite being first term is considered to have seniority in selection processes

I mean do you think Biden's going to put Faith Spotted Eagle in charge of the Interior or Energy? The Dems who aren't even willing to commit rhetorically to any reforms aren't going to do them secretly lol, which leads me back to my question - what have the center-right moderates like Pelosi and Schumer done in the last almost 4 years to meaningfully obstruct a single thing Trump or the GOP wanted?

Shady Amish Terror posted:

I have to admit, I'm a little tired of having malus ascribed to my every action in politics. I understand that's the norm, and probably always will be, but loving hell. If we're going to pretend that we're all arguing in good faith here, even if it's not always true, is it not maybe the slightest bit possible that I did, in fact, put a great deal of thought into my conclusions, and arrived at a different answer than you, in the way that I suggested?

Biden's history is abominable. He is quite possibly the worst of a crowded field, save maybe only Bloomberg. That the media decided he was their darling, that many primary voters recognize his name and nothing else, that we live in an unbelievably broken system that is going to just keep spitting out the worst of all possible people until the system is shaken from the ground up, all this I have no direct control over. I voted for Hillary even though I found her to be an unpleasant compromise, because the alternative was indeed obviously much worse; it made sense that progressive coalition-building would be more productive and (probably) fewer people would be harmed without the biggest loving piece of poo poo in the country in that office. I was worried by Hillary's place in the 'moderate' 'bomb brown people and pay off banks' apparatus, but it seemed like a more than reasonable gamble to make, since it seemed theoretically easier to avert pointless wars when it wasn't a civil war being stirred up by a sitting fascist president.

Biden has done little over his long career to inspire even that level of lukewarm confidence. He's a piece of poo poo who has consistently worked against civil rights, social security, and the interests of minorities his entire career. In his role helping to build the war on drugs and the war in Iraq and the war on immigration, Biden created the material conditions that lead to Trump and built many of the apparatuses that Trump is abusing. Again, if Biden were appointing progressive voices to his campaign, I could probably be lead to see him as the harm reduction option. I might loving drink myself to death after the election because it's loving inexcusable to give any rapist power over other people, but I could see the mental calculus existing to pull the lever before punching myself into a bloody heap. But he's not doing that. Biden's campaign has, repeatedly, affirmed its mission to do harm. They pushed for people to come out and vote in the middle of a loving pandemic when it was already clear it was a victory lap. They have tapped industry lobbyists and told the disaffected that they will receive no sympathy or help. They have indicated a desire to give the filibuster back to the Republicans. And all of this is again ignoring that Biden has, consistently, worked to further conservative interests (ie, harming people), over helping people, including seating conservative judges and promoting bullshit wars and putting children in cages, often doing these things over the objections of his own party. That Biden would normalize his harm as president by doing it more quietly isn't a good endorsement of Biden.

I could easily have been persuaded to vote for loving Pete or Yang or Warren rather than Biden, because of all the candidates I don't think anyone is more dedicated to loving people over than Biden. He might actually, legitimately, be worse than Trump, which is a loving staggering proposition. That it's even remotely close should be disqualifying. And people shouldn't be ashamed for having moral principles that preclude legitimizing a rapist being placed into a position of power. If you can say with a straight face that victims of abuse choosing not to vote for an abuser is reducible to the same level of vitriol and mindless hatred as the red hat and tiki torch mobs, I would suggest maybe you reexamine your own assumptions on morality first.

I wasted too many words on this clunky effort, but I don't know what else there even is to be said on the topic.

This is why I usually just advise Biden Bros to just stop trying, they're acting all alone. The party is not with them. They do not want the left on board, anybody who attempts to bring them on board will be punished. Anybody who adopts the left's messaging will be punished. This is a dangerous game you are all playing, and the party does not have your back.

Biden is free to try to bring the left over that is still willing to hold their nose. But he's not, and he will not. Move on, get on the phones and text banks, go to right wing spaces online, talk to those people and convince them to vote for Biden. That's the party's strategy, and you support the party and its nominee, so get to it.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 18:08

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

If it makes you feel better, just tell yourself that threatening to withhold our votes is the left trying to pull Biden left, a tactic I'm frequently encouraged to do. Don't ask anybody to only start pushing AFTER he's elected though, we all found out how that works out

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 18:11

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

evilweasel posted:

i believe we just had people talking about how holding primaries during the coronavirus outbreak was a plot against bernie

the primaries are still happening lol, Bernie just won't be on the ballot. Cuomo wouldn't even entertain the notion of mail-in expansion or a delay until literally one hour after Bernie dropped, and an hour after that the entire party did a mysterious 180 on primaries going forward including Biden admitting they killed people by insisting on them

Maybe I'm wrong though, maybe WI and IL don't show they were plotting to get Bernie out as soon as possible and hold a massive death count over his head. Maybe they are just too stupid to understand the present moment at all, or maybe they literally just do not care if their own voters live or die

Not really any good interpretations to be found here!

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 18:17

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

anyway I'm not of that particular ideological blob, I hope the party lets the mask keep falling so even more people see what they really are and recoil. It makes my job of getting people to not vote for lovely Dems all the easier. Remove Bernie from every primary going forward, bar all his people down to rando staffers from ever working with the party ever again, put oil tycoons and the worst scum of multiple generations in charge of the campaign, let Bloomberg just buy it outright, let people see what free market liberalism becomes in a crisis and let them try to figure out how it's different than what the Cheeto Benito covfefe is

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 18:20

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

GreyjoyBastard posted:

welp

Probably a good time to remind everybody that the go-to for years for MeToo PR support and various other Dem machine functions, SKD Knickerbocker, is literally owned by a Republican pal of Trump, which means he has access to everything they've got. This is a big consideration considering that it's been revealed to be a catch and kill operation to protect prominent Dems since at least the Franken thing. They're the reason nobody found out about this a year+ ago

The GOP is almost certainly sitting on a mountain of stuff to run against Biden that will all lead back to the central issue Trump will hammer on - "They support all the stuff I'm doing and always have, they're just mad that it's me doing it and not them"

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 18:29

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Mekchu posted:

A partner at SKDKnickerbocker is also involved with the Biden campaign.

that's Dunn, who also did pro bono work helping with Weinstein coverups!

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 18:47

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

evilweasel posted:

such as?

Tlaib or Nina as VP, progressives in the cabinet, and Bernie picks his Chief of Staff. Things that would say "we're not going to do what we did to you under Obama"

these will, of course, never happen

joepinetree posted:

It would be a lot easier to argue that Biden would be less worse if we didn't have the last 2 democratic presidents enabling incredibly regressing legislation that Republicans would have never achieved because of the whole "Nixon in China" thing.

Clinton cut welfare and enacted by far the most aggressive anti-immigrant legislation in the history of this country. Obama essentially made every police officer an ICE deputy.

It is possible to imagine a number of scenarios or areas where Biden is better than Trump. It is also possible to imagine a number of incredibly regressive and harmful policies that only have a shot at passing under Biden. Trump isn't cutting social security or medicare, Biden might.

Does that mean I want Trump to win? No. There are many ways in which Biden could signal that he wouldn't repeat the same strategy of passing regressive legislation because of the cover that the democratic label provides. But not only do we get the opposite of that, we have a concerted effort to make sure that Bernie doesn't get even a minority of delegates in the convention.

Yeah pretty much this, which is why I normally just advise libs to stop trying to scold and brow beat the left into falling in line and instead focus their attention on calling and texting for Biden and going into conservative spaces to drum up support for him there. Biden's entire platform is "none of that Bernie poo poo is going to happen on our watch, his people won't even be able to ask for a seat at the table, we're banking on there being 10 million Jennifer Rubins out there"

the party does not want the left on board, they are not reaching out to us, they are not making a space for us, their candidate literally keeps telling us to our faces to vote for Trump. Go badger chuds like The Party Decided already

yronic heroism posted:

Why should voting be a morality play about which candidate gets rewarded by winning? That makes for a nice Ron Howard movie but you have to buy into a cult of personality. Let�s say they are all bastards. Lincoln was a bastard, FDR was a bastard, LBJ was a huge bastard.

None of that answers what the best way to vote is based on how people�s lives will improve or worsen, what is really achievable (hint: not third party candidates), or really anything that a rational adult should care about. Your whole framing assumes we can�t make utilitarian judgments and relies on personal feelings.

lol, if Biden was a bastard this might apply, but he's not, can you imagine him liberating the slaves when he won't even consider something with far less economic impact on the nation like M4A? lmao

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 21:43

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

evilweasel posted:

no, that's the current reality, though it's not widely understood yet (and could be reversed, but that is...iffy). the entire fracking industry is currently going bankrupt. fracking requires constant drilling because wells are only productive for about two years; they spent the last two years going bankrupt, and then lol the current energy prices happened.

it's not really clear anyone's lending anyone any money to go frack some wells anymore if prices recover next year because everyone who did that for the past decade lost their shirt, even the people in the safest of the safe loans are currently eating poo poo.

The Free Market will save us!

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 21:47

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

The argument is that the Dems have proven that they will use any power they're given given to destroy the left and do nothing to impede the right. Trump, on the other hand, is largely free to ignore both the left and fiscal responsibility nonsense. Biden will use both covid spending and the debt ceiling as an excuse to gut literally everything public or a safety net at all levels

If you're a sunrise kid or M4A advocate, you're as likely to get past chief of staff Mnuchin as Rahm, and for the same reasons

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 23:10

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Also, Biden and Dem leadership isn't even promising to do any of that good stuff, or even listen to what advocates have to say. In fact the only things he has been clear on is that he'd never in a million years pass it

# ¿ Apr 27, 2020 23:11

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

TyrantWD posted:

What world do you live in where progressives who weren't already willing to vote for anyone other than Trump, were persuadable by the party platform? The night of Super Tuesday, we already had a bunch of people saying they will never vote for Biden, under any circumstances.

The entire point of my argument is that making concessions to the left doesn't matter (tactically). You are not winning back a single one of those staunchly anti-Biden progressives with any platform concessions. I am not even pro-Biden, just pointing out how silly it is to expect the establishment to do something that doesn't gain them anything. If Biden agreed to the GND in the platform, does that win over any Never-Bidens? No, you are going to assume he is lying, and at most will put some lame effort into something that he knows will die in committee just to say he tried, and then get back to granting fracking permits.

Biden, like Hillary, is going to live and die entirely on the anti-Trump vote. He very likely does not win, and I didn't think he would win even pre-rape story. Giving Bernie more of a say in drafting the platform and rules for 2024 is not going to change that, and that is why they aren't going to try.

I mean he could do stuff that would be a solid thing people on the left could point to and say, "okay maybe he's not lying" but it'd be stuff that he'd never, ever do in a million years like make Tlaib his VP, or release his proposed cabinet or let Bernie pick his Chief of Staff

the reason this never comes up because nobody - on either side - believes this will ever happen, and everybody believes this precisely because everybody already knows Biden would never do anything to bring the left on board. To place the blame entirely on the left for being unreasonable rather than just realistic is giving the Esptein wing of the party too much credit and making their own refusal to budge seem like the natural and correct thing

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 01:57

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Rainbow Knight posted:

And once again, this isn't voting against Biden or for Trump, it's a strike. when your boss thinks they can push you around you say no" and cut off their funding. You take away their money. Telling democrats "no" is the only real choice we have unless we just want to be given less and less until there's nothing left

yeah that's what I don't get about the outrage, everybody says the left needs to work to get Biden to move left, what's more effective than just straight up saying we won't vote for him because we hate Dems? Historically speaking that works like a charm because they are now aligned at all levels toward the singular purpose of making policy concessions to attract voters who hate them and refuse to vote for them, only to their right

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 02:06

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

GreyjoyBastard posted:

eh, i'm reserving judgement on that,

but i think anything that would make me Actually Like Biden is in fact unlikely, vs my current state of Grudgingly Tolerate and Work Toward The Unlikely Event Of Booting His rear end

_{state conventions, national conventions, talk to your local parties, you people know the drill but i'm gonna keep drilling it

because it's a high impact-to-effort ratio way to save the loving world}

The party's got their guy, he's not going away. They're removing Bernie from ballots and just straight up giving Biden his delegates to ensure Biden is not only The Guy, but that he also has dictatorial control of the entire platform and DNC

He's not shifting, and if you succeed in owning the libs at the conventions they are under no obligation to actually respect the results

I don't mean to be a debbie downer and it's good that you're getting involved and ideally radicalizing people to godless communism, but if you're hoping for some come to god moment at anything above the city level you're gonna end up even madder than before

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 02:14

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

evilweasel posted:

there are a lot of people on "the left" who are already behind biden. this thread is not a representative slice of bernie voters. biden appears to be getting much more of them than hillary is (though the lesson of 2016 is probably part, as is some former bernie voters now being unapologetic trump voters)

Bernie to Biden feels very, very different this time around than Bernie to Hillary was, and in 2016 I was a a horrible hill shill. I can't find a single person who has a good thing to say about Biden even among his supporters, hardly any irl even chide me for outright refusing to vote for him, they agree he's bad and they wish it was somebody else, etc etc. Getting Bernie people on board with Hillary was easy enough in 2016, how's that going this time around in your experience?

Hillary had a lot of enthusiasm among the base for all her faults because she was the embodiment of the machine and Obama's chosen successor, and she had the whole First Woman President thing. Biden's got no hooks for people

None of this gets better for him, it only gets worse, that's how it goes with candidates whose best strategy is to not be seen or heard, ever, because unlike last time the rammed through nominee is going to also be contending with lots of people who voted Hillary working overtime to ensure he loses barring him doing something real (he will not), because this time the party has outright said that his people have no place in the tent, so just vote third party you stupid commies

Bernie to Trump is negligible and has always been a Russiagate level excuse to avoid introspection. The real thing for Dems to look at is Obama to Trump voters, but figuring out why they lost them would result in some unpleasant truths so they never will

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 02:22

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Somfin posted:

There have been folks in here who were probably Bernie voters, speculating about the pros and cons of Trump winning versus Biden winning, the suggestion usually coming down to "gently caress I don't know but they both seem really bad, at least one's over sooner." There have also been folks in here who were probably Bernie voters, saying that they won't vote for Biden because of various issues around him as a person and as a candidate. There have also been folks in here who were probably Bernie voters, saying that they'll withhold their vote entirely because they don't like either of the candidates.

If you firmly believe in a vote for a third party being a vote for Trump, or that not voting for Biden is "electoral arson" (thanks Twitter checkmark), then this is all "Bernie to Trump."

I mean if somebody is struggling hard enough to ignore actual analysis of results to the point that every single person who doesn't vote for Biden is voting for Trump, then Trump's gonna win 50 states, it's not even a contest, he'd be going from like 18% of the eligible population to almost 60%

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 02:45

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

yronic heroism posted:

Them and what 67 seats will accomplish this?

Only need a house majority to impeach

Dems could've turned the thing into an expose on his corruption that lasted until the election, but of course it's the Dems so we get the bare minimum designed from the outset to fail

Obama and the Dem legacy of this era is gonna be losing to an impeached game show host a end time lmao

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 04:33

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

If they meant impeach and convict why did they say it would happen over and over?

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 04:57

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Hey wait a second you were the OP I was responding to

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 04:57

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Lmao HR1, something they're definitely committed to and definitely didn't just put forward because they knew it'd never pass. You can tell they're committed because of all the accessibility and mail in expansions being passed in blue strongholds right now, like uhhhhh forcing in person voting and removing candidates from ballots by fiat in naked acts of voter suppression? That can't be right

The rest of that list just makes you sound delusional, Bidens gonna put the people who caused all the current problems right back in charge, which is exactly what he's doing and what he has promised to do. Also this Gish Gallup poo poo should be probatable

The courts are lost already thanks in large part to the man you're hoping will rescue them somehow. Have fun with that, good luck in November, don't forget to make calls and donate and really reach out to those disaffected moderate Republicans who didn't even turn out for Hillary

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 07:17

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

I expect Biden would deal with COVID exactly as Trump has which is exactly how Biden dealt with the GFC - bring in the experts, listen to them, then do nothing but protect the rich because the measures required are expensive and constitute an unacceptable expansion of labor rights and power

I mean Pelosi is literally giving pressers saying that she only supports the corporate part of the bailout lmao. These are the people you're pinning your hopes of reform on, the ones saying Trump is mostly doing what they would've done?

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 07:20

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Jesus I am so glad that I emerged from my post 2016 cocoon of horror and depression ready to take a hard look at why we lost and turn away from austerity liberalism guided by million year old 9 figure oligarchs

no more need for cognitive dissonance to justify propping up a bunch of losers who hate me just because they're on My Team, blaming everything on Russia or those pernicious Bernard brothers and never having to think about anything beyond that. Straining to forget the past and context so that I can believe that THIS TIME, they aren't lying about doing popular and good stuff

Yinlock posted:

and by "experts" you mean "the people who are responsible for the problem getting so bad"

Surely you aren't implying that unimpeachable figures he has already named as potential figures of power like Summers, Bloomberg, and Daimon have any vested stake in maintaining the status quo no matter the costs

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 07:27

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Bidens gonna nominate Condi Rice lol

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 08:20

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

all this hopeful West Wing trash is the stuff I was telling Bernie people in 2016. I was horrifically wrong then and you're horrifically wrong now. Nobody Biden will empower will change a single thing for the better, the only judges he'll get through will be Heritage and Liberty U chuds, and let me tell you if you're staking your hopes on the people who have gotten disgustingly rich during the status quo altering that status quo fundamentally - people who are backing Biden because he promised them nothing fundamental would change, mind you - this is going to be a horrible, miserable 6 months for you as every week more and more stuff like "Biden hints that he would put Weinstein in charge of Women's Affairs" after he holds a big fundraiser for him comes out.

Biden's done some good stuff, like come around on LGBT stuff and endorsing Roem which helped her no doubt, but he's also done a WHOOOOOLE lot of lovely stuff extremely recently and now he's running for President and his message is "I will fix nothing, I will change nothing, and I will ensure all the people who have been in power and caused all this remain in power." It's the message I've had from Dems my entire life, and I am so goddamned sick of it, and I've had enough. These people are professional losers, they love losing, it's all they know.

He's welcome to try to bring me over, but I'm not holding my breath because I'm not stupid and unlike some I hear the words he's saying. If you want to get mad about the left bailing on the party, maybe look into exactly why they're bailing after being more loyal over the decades than any centrist bloc has been before you scold us all as mental toddlers who just need to lick the boots of your betters because you drat kids don't know anything.

I'm not winnable, I'm lost to the party until the party is no longer to the right of Bernie, but lots are still probably gettable but they aren't without something like an ACTUAL progressive at VP and a cabinet/administration that isn't stuffed full of Summers' and CEOs and lobbyists

Also if the ACA wasn't trash garbage we wouldn't be where we are right now. It's been the law of the land for a decade. If the absolute, best thing you can say in its defense is "it could be good but the party is fundamentally unable to protect it" then it's not worth poo poo and real reform should be pushed for. It's time to accept that Obama's legacy is going to be exactly two things: "first black President" and "Trump"

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 17:43

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

All the stuff you're talking about, putting experts and activists in charge of departments, getting money out of politics, not chaining your campaign to the whims of the ultra rich, this was Bernie's core stuff and what set him apart from the rest of the field. Look how they treated him as a result. You think this is the poo poo they want or believe in?

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 17:44

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

yronic heroism posted:

Nice grudgepost from the former IK guy who chain probates and queues permas �for the lulz.� And who caught a break just yesterday for violating the �don�t call posters fascists� rule itt.

nice post about posters

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 17:47

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

yronic heroism posted:

I love how stuff like this gets posted with no argument let alone proof for this prediction and you accuse us of writing political fan fiction.

lol where do you think all those seats that Schumer is helping McConnell fill, including a SCOTUS one, with these people came from? They just fell from the sky as an act of God and nobody could've done anything about it and nobody is to blame?

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 17:52

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

yronic heroism posted:

Yeah gently caress Schumer for not confirming all Obama�s judges with 46 votes!

so you're admitting that the party is totally subservient to the Republicans, which is exactly what I'm saying as well, and also this doesn't explain why Schumer is actively facilitating ramming through slates of chudges RIGHT NOW for absolutely zero considerations or concessions. The Dems feel the most qualified type of judge to put forward is a heritage of AFP approved one and it's not worth fighting for a moderate because they are fiscal conservatives and will continue to entrench capital's stranglehold on all levers of power

lol remember when Schumer agreed to let DACA die because McConnell promised he'd get around to it eventually if Schumer just agreed to all demands without concession yet again?

you think a party that has behaved as it has in its own primary actually wants something like HR1 to pass and didn't just put it forward as a PR campaign because they knew it was doomed? If not I really suggest you talk to some Cali progressives sometime. Dems looooove to run on popular reforms but absolutely refuse to enact them once in power, something Obama embodied

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:03

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

evilweasel posted:

from the period 2014-2016, when mcconnell controlled which judicial nominees got a vote (the answer was none) because republicans controlled the senate

like, what did you think the answer was

Seat them anyway on the grounds that the Senate had the privilege of a vote on it and declined, create a crisis that you can then use to fire up your base, and hey on the other side of that sort of thing you have a much better chance of winning in 2016!

instead it's better to just lay back and hope for the best, assuming the Republicans are operating in good faith until the very end, obviously. Why bother giving these clowns power if they aren't even going to exercise it except to make things worse?

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:04

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

If you're a Dem, Obama and Biden failed you, period. Biden's platform is "I will continue to fail you like before"

If you're okay with that, well that's your thing, but I want something better

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:06

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

nivdes posted:

Those "tools" would be gone with a voice vote the moment they used them.

okay so your defense is that they're cowards who have no idea how to wield popular power, at best, or more likely are actively opposed to the notion of popular power and instead consulted only their donors and industry lobbyists as to how far they should go

a ringing endorsement

people want to compare Biden to LBJ and FDR but can you imagine him threatening to pack the courts or rip peckers off left and right to get what the Dem base wants? lmao, like he had years and years this decade to do exactly that and instead just meekly rolled over alongside the rest of party leadership

but again I ask - if this is their theory of power and change, why on Earth should I have any interest in empowering them?

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:10

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

as Trabisnokof says, there were people even within the Dem establishment who were agitating for a more aggressive approach that by all accounts would've worked, but they specifically rejected every plan in favor of sitting on their hands, and they did this specifically because they had no actual issue with the idea of the Republicans filling all those seats and securing fiscal conservative control of the judiciary forever, because that is also a project of neoliberalism

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:13

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Wicked Them Beats posted:

Didn't Reid specifically call Biden out as a huge fuckup who ruined negotiations because Biden kept inserting himself into things and giving away poo poo that Reid was trying to trade for concessions? Biden has never been known as a savvy negotiator.

I mean he was widely known as the Senator from Credit Cards so I think he was just advocating on their behalf at the time

How are u posted:

I've seen a lot of self-described leftists ragging on Stacy Abrams, but it would be genuinely fantastic to have somebody who cares as much as she does about voting rights and accessible voting in power. If we end up taking the Senate, keeping the House, and Biden ends up unable to serve his full term then we could possibly pass such sweeping pro-voter reform that it truly would be the effective end of the Republican party for a generation.

the Bloomberg lady who endorsed a gerrymandering plan that effectively killed her own state party? I'm not like hugely critical of her largely because I just don't know much about her, but I've not really heard much that was a ringing endorsement. I've just assumed she's getting elevated because she's done the two things the Dems seem to prize above all else - lose to a Republican, and work with Republicans

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:22

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

evilweasel posted:

i don't get this "maybe democrats secretly don't care about voting rights"

you know why democrats are in favor of expanding voting rights and republicans aren't? because it is directly in the interests of democrats to do so, because they're more likely to get elected if more people can vote. and that is in their interests even if their only plan is to sell everyone out to corporate overlords because if they get elected as, say, governor of georgia, they can command a higher price than as, say, a democrat with no current state office in georgia

then why aren't they doing it in the spaces where they are able to effect that change right now? I mean you can't just say this is an insane possibility when it's been standard practice in blue strongholds since forever

nivdes posted:

they do not have "popular power" or any sort of meaningful power when it comes to blocking judicial nominees

the Dems don't, because they're cowards who are terrified of engaging with or firing up their base. It's why Obama worked a ~~hundred~~ infinity times harder to kill OWS than he did to help the Walker recall campaign. It's why Biden isn't even running on that SCOTUS seat like Trump did and is instead trying to get momentum behind another alien exclusion act

politics does not begin and end in back rooms in congress and they have supporters in every single Republican district whose can be encouraged to be outraged and that outrage harnessed

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:39

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

I still say Harris or Abrams would be the worst possible VP picks, but if Hillary is actually under consideration she's by far the worst

She barely campaigned for Obama in 08 so I don't see her starting now, maybe she's just bored

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:41

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Shere posted:

Hi. I was encouraged by the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee to vote during a loving pandemic, and then told afterwards that this vote was democratic.

They do not seem to have a very high bar set for what they consider to be fair elections. This isn't a secret.

also if you voted by mail to avoid the pandemic, they tossed out your vote! If you want to vote for Bernie in New York, tough poo poo, you'll have to vote for Biden or nobody and it'll still have to be in person!

but yeah I'm sure the Dem machines that are famous for back room electioneering via ballot access are suuuuuper committed to opening things up, if only I could think of an example where they actually followed through on it lmao

meanwhile my Republican governor pushed our primary back and rolled out no-questions absentee exception for this year, and the convenient web form to sign up for it launched today

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:43

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Venomous posted:

like, I genuinely struggle to see how the Democrats have any hope of winning

if they keep Biden and pick Hillary as VP, they're looking at a repeat of 2016 at the bare minimum, but with Trump winning the popular vote decisively

this is going to be a goddamn landslide.

Trump would demand he be able to debate as the VP as well in this case

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:44

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 19:32

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

I, personally, think she's just bored or wanting to do this because it's specifically a women's forum.

But god drat would it just be incredible if Hillary were named VP. Biden wouldn't last a week after the convention

cracks and pings as far as the eyes can see across these lovely forums

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 18:49

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Dem Presidential Primary 2020: Bernie dropped out, all hail nominee Biden

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