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2020 US Presidential Election Discussion

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HybridXD

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oh snap you’re not the one that was meant for, my fault.

Ahem.

Buddhahobo Buddhahobo what did you mean by “genocide denialism?”

I understand the words but not how they apply to Democrats in general or any of their current members in office / seeking election. Everything else you posted made perfect sense and I mainly agree just this one thing totally feels like from ... left field (ha!).
To give a TLDR version as this is in no way how I want to be spending my evening:

I am not talking about the Democratic party in general in the sentence you're asking for elaboration on, but about the Justice Democrats (i.e., the small group of Sanders-backed congresswomen who actually managed to win in 2018).

This is, largely, a reference to Illham Omar who refused to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide back in November and justified it while speaking near word-for-word the official stance of the Turkish government. That she's effectively incapable of going a month without making yet another inflammatory comment about Jews is another massive issue, where she seems to only feel comfortable doing her job so long as it gives her an excuse to equate Jews to Nazis (which has won her the admiration of, among others, KKK Grand Wizard David Duke). Or like when she denounced the creation of the Black-Jewish caucus as a jewish conspiracy because they unanimously refused to let her join.

Her last stunt IIRC was going on a trip to Palestine with fellow Justice Democrat Rashida Tlaib sponsored by a known hate group known for naming streets after suicide bombers and accusing Jews of baking their bread with the blood of kidnapped Christian children.

That both of them have immediate ties to Louis "I'm not anti-semite, I'm anti-termite" Farrakahn should also be all one really needs to know about their constant "gaffes".

We then have some people he supported, such as Cenk Ugyur, founder of 'The Young Turks', notable Armenian Genocide denialist and all around scumbag. As the second link shows Sanders later retracted his endorsement from the massive backlash, but he unfortunately he's kept notable anti-semite Linda Sarsour on as a campaign surrogate.

So, again:



I trust the highly publicized spats AOC and "the squad" keep instigating with Pelosi do not require a refresher?
Pick up the DAM PHONE BECAUSE I F-ING CALLED IT.
 
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Buddhahobo

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Persona kids, Persona squids.
Pick up the DAM PHONE BECAUSE I F-ING CALLED IT.
Was this post really necessary?

So an outsider demogauge from the left must challenge him.
Bernie Sanders has been in politics for the last 39 years, and part of Congress for 29 years.

By any sane metric, that's the opposite of an outsider. He is unequivocally part of what constitutes "The Ruling Class" in the US.
 
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HybridXD

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Was this post really necessary?



Bernie Sanders has been in politics for the last 39 years, and part of Congress for 29 years.

By any sane metric, that's the opposite of an outsider. He is unequivocally part of what constitutes "The Ruling Class" in the US.
Don’t be so serious. Have some humor!

I know bernie is just an fake nice guy opportunist. But I don’t think we have much of a choice but to support him if we want to kick Cadet Bone spurs out of the White House. Hopefully, blooemburg can save us. I’m starting to really like him. He’ll definitely kick agent orange ass in the general. But Agolf and his master Putin keep sending their followers to give Bernie artificial boost and votes. I’m starting to lose hope in my party
 

StoicPhantom

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Biden does substantially better in states with minority populations and working class populations, neither of whom are known for having the time to attend caucuses. Of which, what, about 150,000 people attend out of several million in Iowa IIRC?
By current results, Biden got bodied in the minority vote. Sanders has over twice as much. That's part of my point, is that he didn't do well in any way he was supposed to, minorities included.

There's little evidence to support that.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-low-turnout-110674

I was going off this. If you have better info, let's hear it.

The 2018 midterm elections had a massive 20% increase in voter turnout compared to 2014, but besides few examples the Sanders backed candidate failed miserably. It was the moderates, and the people coming out to vote for the moderates, that took the House.
https://www.vox.com/2018/11/7/18071700/progressive-democrats-house-midterm-elections-2018

Even though progressive candidates lost in the House, it doesn’t tell the full story of the 2018 election. Levin was quick to point out moderate, red-state Democrats in the Senate tried to appeal to Trump voters and still lost badly.

“When we run moderate candidates, we are not succeeding in peeling off the Trump voters,” he said. “It’s hard to look at the results in the Senate and say Beto [should have] run a campaign like [Indiana’s Joe] Donnelly, [Missouri’s Claire] McCaskill, and [Arizona’s Kyrsten] Sinema, because he did better than all of them, in a tougher state than them.”
The thing about only looking purely at the numbers of an entire election, is that you can spin the narrative any way you want. This is the real story about 2018. Yes "moderates" enjoyed their victories in their blue states, but so-called Red State Democrats, the ones that have to be the "conservative" and "moderate" candidates got wiped out, further proving my point that "moderates" never seem to turn up where they count.

And you can't spin the most conservative of Democrats like Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly as "went too far left", given they had the fiercest opposition to the Progressive wing of the party.

...The app they used was literally them trying to appease Sanders because he outright refused to use an app from a reputable company in 2016.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/28/bernie-sanders-yells-at-microsofts-cloud/
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/sanders-campaign-suspicious-corporate-influence-iowa-caucus

Both Iowa still using the caucus system in 2020 and the untested app "from a shady company" were both due the national party bowing to Sander's standard brand of anti-intellectual antagonism towards competency.
There is nothing in those articles that indicates Sanders had any influence over the implementation of this app or that he was advocating for this app or that the IDP implemented on his insistence. It said that he had concerns about Microsoft, who has many donations to Hillary Clinton, overseeing the results. Much like we have concerns about this app overseeing the results, that has connections to many of Sanders's opponents. That's completely normal and is not "yelling at clouds" to be concerned with conflicts of interest. Not to mention Microsofts's spotty history with software security, which I would think would be important to the people who are convinced Russia hacked the election.

Nor does implementing this specific app address those concerns or setup an independent entity in any way. Stop spreading fake news.

So, bluntly, Reagan was the moderate choice
No he wasn't.

During his tenure as Governer, he raised taxes (gasp), waged his own personal war on colleges, sicked the National Guard on war protesters, and was the first to ban firearms on Government property. He campaigned on gutting Social Security, which had previously been considered political suicide and his economic reforms that has shaped our economy since.

That might seem perfectly normal today, given the current state of the Republican Party, but that was all radical back in the day, and just goes to show how his radical policies have shaped the Republican Party today.

It took Bill Clinton coming from absolutely nowhere and publicly bringing the party back to center that he won.
In other words, a major shift in strategy and direction, that he was historically relevant for. And "center" is relative. Just because you like the direction he brought the party in, doesn't mean that is the "center". From the perspective of his time, he radically shifted the party to the right.

Then we get to 2000 where, however hard it is to remember it, Bush was meant to bring in a new era of "Compassionate Conservatism" and won on a feel-good and inclusive family-oriented platform with incredibly high approval across most minorities.
...Meaning he took the party in a radical new direction. And won doing so.

Obama was Obama, not really anything to say there. Many, many people voted for him, and that there were illegitimate accusations about him doesn't really matter when everyone knew they were baseless.
Yes, that is literally my point. The Republicans didn't think they were baseless, which is why they have an irrational hatred of him to this day. It didn't seem to matter to everyone else and they voted him in twice. Socialist and all. That he was centrist later on isn't the point. The point is that he initially campaigned on radical reform and was labeled all those swear words for it. You could say that he was the original Progressive candidate, a prototype if you will. And he got most of the country, including the Midwest and rust belt states to vote for him.

Your "history lesson" is literally proof of my point, which is that all of the "radical" candidates that significantly shifted the strategy and policy of their party, won, and that all of the milquetoast centrist "moderate" candidates advocating for the status quo, lost.

You. Are. Agreeing. With. Me.

So then that brings us to 2016. Where the moderates...voted for Clinton in the primary. In mass droves. In both delegates and popular vote over Sanders. While also dealing with a multi-decade smear campaign and a baseless corruption inquiry going on at the same time.
So where were they in the gen-
Then in the general, Trump hadn't actually gone completely off the deep end left, the Russians were Russianing, and Clinton had been forced to move further to the left due to Sanders and walk back on many her positions which played into her being seen as "two-faced".
Oh right, Russian conspiracies, mean old Bernie, and apparently fascism and building border walls is preferable to "moving further left" to these "moderates". How very moderate of them.

There's always those cop outs.

For many, Trump did seem like the moderate
Lmfao no. Nobody, not even Trump supporters, would characterize him as "moderate". You don't get monikers like "God Emperor" and "The Donald" by being "moderate". You don't get massive media hysteria and apocalyptic narratives by being "moderate". You certainly don't get your opponent's entire strategy revolving around how "extreme" you are, by being "moderate".

On the social side, Trump advocated for building a giant border wall to solve illegal immigration (no really), banning people of certain ethnicity and religion from entering the US (Constitution violation), called the majority of an entire country "rapists and criminals", repeatedly insinuated that we should have taken Iraq's oil and that he could "shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still retain support", among many other things. Let's not forget "Second Amendment people" an insinuation that violent revolution could happen if he doesn't win.

On the economic side, Trump advocated for Single-payer healthcare (Medicare for all), an axing of the TPP and other trade deals, rebuilding our infrastructure, bringing back outsourced jobs, "draining the swamp", among other suspiciously sounding Bernie like things.

He was to the right of Hillary on social issues and to the left of Hillary on economic issues. At no point ever could you call him a "moderate" and the fact that you can even rationalize that, just goes to show how normalized he is now.

Trump did seem like the moderate and even then Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million.
So uh, by your own metric, the moderate candidate still lost. And you are still agreeing with me.

Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, yes. And Bernie Sander lost to Hillary Clinton, so why they hell am I supposed to believe he'd do better than the person who curb-stomped him in the primary?
He won the states in the primary like Wisconsin and Michigan, she needed and lost in the general? That she lost most of the states in the general that she won in the primary? That primaries are not reflective of the general, where the independent vote is required? Guess who does well with independents?

And "curb-stomped" is hardly what I would call that. A nobody who didn't take corporate pac money, had the gate keeping media against him, and the entire party establishment, had every card stacked against him and in his opponent's favor, that everyone treated as a joke, ran a pretty close race, all things considered. If anything, Hillary under performed.

Obama brought in new voters, as 2008 and 2012 showed.
You mean bringing in new voters helps you win? Almost like that's been my point? And as we can see in Iowa, Bernie has the most new voter support.

Backlash against Trump brought in new voters, as 2018 showed
Not in 2020 Iowa evidently.

They didn't bring in new voters
That is objectively false, go look it up.

Michael Bloomberg as a private citizen did more to help the Democrats in the last four years than Sanders has.
Hope you have a source for that.

If there's supposed to be La Revolution on its way of "Justice Democrats" to tear down the establishment...where the hell were they two years ago?

Where the hell were they four years ago?
Trying to survive being crushed by their own party establishment, you know the ones going on about "unity". I hope I don't have to remind you how Bernie rallied hard for Hillary and how the vast majority of his base voted Hillary. It was primarily old "moderates" that voted for Trump.

And of the very few who are now in Congress, what have they accomplished
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-to-15-dollars-2018-10
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-i-told-you-so-as-amazon-facebook-move-to-nyc

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-02-06/sanders-claims-record-fundraising-haul-in-january
https://abc14news.com/2020/01/31/aoc-breaks-her-fundraising-record-in-crusade-to-take-on-dccc/

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/

To name a few. And I guarantee that those will help people far more than increasing Trump's military budget and other things "totally not Republican" Pelosi has done.




To give a TLDR version as this is in no way how I want to be spending my evening:
Here's Cenk acknowledging the Armenian Genocide and explaining why he held different opinions in college, aka decades ago.

Ilhan didn't handle that well at all, but I don't think she is a genocide denier nor does she represent the views of Justice Democrats on the whole. She was using that as a general protest on how the US was distracting from it's current war crimes and using this as a political weapon, but she did it in a very clumsy manner.

If you can find a statement where she explicitly denies the Armenian Genocide and not just votes "present' on a pointless resolution, I'll gladly join you in condemning her, but you can't honestly say the movement would be with her on that in general.

The rest is fake news, stop spreading it.





Also I'm convinced HybridXD is a troll, so we should probably stop responding to it. I meant for my post to it as an open question to everyone reading this topic, not a direct response to him. An account a few months old, with the vast majority of posts in this topic, posts that are very divisive and confrontational and lacking substance, smells like a troll to me.
 

remilia

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Update:
Andrew Yang, Michael Bennett, Deval Patrick all drop out of the race.
Bernie wins New Hampshire.
Not many polls from Nevada yet.
 

StoicPhantom

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So New Hampshire is down and managed to not repeatedly **** themselves over the last week like Iowa. Long story short, Iowa results still aren't finalized and the Sanders campaign is requesting a partial recanvass of the still outstanding and incorrect precincts. CNN jumped the gun in declaring a victor, but the other major news outlets are refusing to call Iowa, citing the discrepancies and errors that have yet to be fixed. Seems the IDP are saying that correcting those errors would be "compromising the integrity of the election" (paraphrasing) and are refusing to do so. So I don't know when we'll get the final results.

But **** the Iowa caucus, I'm tired of talking about it. Let's get into New Hampshire.

Bernie won by a tight margin, but no IDP to **** things up. It was expected, but not by as small of a margin. Narrative coming out of this is that Bernie under performed and this is actually a bad sign and all, as expected from the MSM. Even though he won, it's being down played quite a bit. But I don't think this is the full story.

CNN exit poll https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/state/new-hampshire

Bernie's demographic trend is holding steady and Pete is picking up the wealthy white suburbans. Nothing interesting or unusual there. What is interesting is that Bernie is leading in independents (open primary) and crushing those who voted third party in the 2016 general. Those will be important demographics in the general. As will the youth and minority votes that Bernie is leading in. This tells me two things.


First, Bernie's demographics have significantly shifted. He is no longer getting the older anti-Hillary white vote, which currently seems to be split between the other three, although Bernie does enjoy a significant amount of second choice picks from them. And his minority support is far stronger than it was in 2016. He still held significant sway with the youth vote in 2016, but it really seems to be surging this time around.

Which means that Iowa and New Hampshire, being primarily old and white, are no longer strong states for him and this demographic shift could explain why he seems to have performed worse than his double digit win in 2016. And yet, not only did he still win the popular vote in both states, but we might see him enjoy larger margins when we hit the more diverse and representative of the party base states. Pete in contrast, could potentially suffer hard in the upcoming Super Tuesday, as his minority support is very poor and his current demographic is contested by the other three.


Second, Bernie's support is far stronger than the other candidates. We saw hints of this all through Iowa, but people really are "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and this might be why the older vote has less turnout, in that they might have decided they would just stay home on the primary and only vote in the general. This could be good news for Bernie, as the higher youth turnout could help sway things in his favor and is what demonstrably carried him to victory, along with the minority vote.

And that's possibly going to spell trouble for moderate candidates, as they have no real support and their base is going to be fickle as a result. It wouldn't take very much to shift their faith and vote for another candidate, and given most of them seem to only care about beating Trump, if Bernie surges, they might go for him instead.


So in conclusion, Bernie enjoys the most diverse and supportive base of everyone running. Warren seems to be losing women and the educated to Pete. Biden is just straight up collapsing and may not even take SC. Klobuchar is kind of just there, didn't seem to surge much from the debate. Pete didn't seem to tank too hard from his horrible debate performance, but isn't expanding his narrow base either and got hit pretty hard on his gentrification of South Bend and disproportionate jailing of minorities in the debate. Though I guess he can't really poll lower than the 0% he is currently polling with black voters nationally lol. The moderate candidates seem to be splitting their base, which also has a danger of hopping over to Bernie.

I don't see Warren lasting much longer, SC is Biden's last stand, Pete is going to face some tough times ahead with his minority issues, Klobuchar is probably going to keep being okay for a bit. Steyer is just no and I have no idea what will happen with Bloomberg, who is lurking in the shadows of Super Tuesday. All I know is he spent more than every candidate combined on ads and has not been attacked by the media or on the debate stage.

#BloombergIsRacist was trending on Twitter monday, in response to this thread about Bloomberg's Stop and Frisk policy. It got CNN's attention, where they promptly tried to downplay it, which is horrible, but it's CNN. This was intended to serve as a reminder, as national polling puts Bloomberg at second to Biden in the black vote. I don't know how much impact this will have on Bloomberg though.


Overall, it's looking it might come down to Bernie vs Pete/Bloomberg. But not before Super Tuesday, which might let Bernie do well enough to avoid a brokered convention. Bloomberg seems to be Pete on steroids, so will probably crush Pete. Meaning we might have Bernie vs Bloomberg. And Bloomberg will be absolutely horrible for turnout in the general. Being an egomaniacal authoritarian billionaire with a horrible view on minorities, is going to be a difficult case to make against an egomaniacal authoritarian billionaire with a horrible view on minorities after all.


Onward to Nevada.
 

remilia

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So New Hampshire is down and managed to not repeatedly **** themselves over the last week like Iowa. Long story short, Iowa results still aren't finalized and the Sanders campaign is requesting a partial recanvass of the still outstanding and incorrect precincts. CNN jumped the gun in declaring a victor, but the other major news outlets are refusing to call Iowa, citing the discrepancies and errors that have yet to be fixed. Seems the IDP are saying that correcting those errors would be "compromising the integrity of the election" (paraphrasing) and are refusing to do so. So I don't know when we'll get the final results.

But **** the Iowa caucus, I'm tired of talking about it. Let's get into New Hampshire.
Iowa has been so demoralizing. I'm so glad New Hampshire shifted the tone into a much more positive one. Hopefully this is the last year we ever see a caucus ever again.

Bernie won by a tight margin, but no IDP to **** things up. It was expected, but not by as small of a margin. Narrative coming out of this is that Bernie under performed and this is actually a bad sign and all, as expected from the MSM. Even though he won, it's being down played quite a bit. But I don't think this is the full story.

CNN exit poll https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/state/new-hampshire

Bernie's demographic trend is holding steady and Pete is picking up the wealthy white suburbans. Nothing interesting or unusual there. What is interesting is that Bernie is leading in independents (open primary) and crushing those who voted third party in the 2016 general. Those will be important demographics in the general. As will the youth and minority votes that Bernie is leading in. This tells me two things.


First, Bernie's demographics have significantly shifted. He is no longer getting the older anti-Hillary white vote, which currently seems to be split between the other three, although Bernie does enjoy a significant amount of second choice picks from them. And his minority support is far stronger than it was in 2016. He still held significant sway with the youth vote in 2016, but it really seems to be surging this time around.

Which means that Iowa and New Hampshire, being primarily old and white, are no longer strong states for him and this demographic shift could explain why he seems to have performed worse than his double digit win in 2016. And yet, not only did he still win the popular vote in both states, but we might see him enjoy larger margins when we hit the more diverse and representative of the party base states. Pete in contrast, could potentially suffer hard in the upcoming Super Tuesday, as his minority support is very poor and his current demographic is contested by the other three.


Second, Bernie's support is far stronger than the other candidates. We saw hints of this all through Iowa, but people really are "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and this might be why the older vote has less turnout, in that they might have decided they would just stay home on the primary and only vote in the general. This could be good news for Bernie, as the higher youth turnout could help sway things in his favor and is what demonstrably carried him to victory, along with the minority vote.

And that's possibly going to spell trouble for moderate candidates, as they have no real support and their base is going to be fickle as a result. It wouldn't take very much to shift their faith and vote for another candidate, and given most of them seem to only care about beating Trump, if Bernie surges, they might go for him instead.


So in conclusion, Bernie enjoys the most diverse and supportive base of everyone running. Warren seems to be losing women and the educated to Pete. Biden is just straight up collapsing and may not even take SC. Klobuchar is kind of just there, didn't seem to surge much from the debate. Pete didn't seem to tank too hard from his horrible debate performance, but isn't expanding his narrow base either and got hit pretty hard on his gentrification of South Bend and disproportionate jailing of minorities in the debate. Though I guess he can't really poll lower than the 0% he is currently polling with black voters nationally lol. The moderate candidates seem to be splitting their base, which also has a danger of hopping over to Bernie.
Cosigned.

I don't see Warren lasting much longer, SC is Biden's last stand, Pete is going to face some tough times ahead with his minority issues, Klobuchar is probably going to keep being okay for a bit. Steyer is just no and I have no idea what will happen with Bloomberg, who is lurking in the shadows of Super Tuesday. All I know is he spent more than every candidate combined on ads and has not been attacked by the media or on the debate stage.
I mostly agree although I will say Steyer actually has some support both in Nevada and South Carolina so I wouldn't count him out just yet till we see how those go. Last I checked he was polling at second place in both those states. If he does poorly in both though he's most likely going to drop out.


#BloombergIsRacist was trending on Twitter monday, in response to this thread about Bloomberg's Stop and Frisk policy. It got CNN's attention, where they promptly tried to downplay it, which is horrible, but it's CNN. This was intended to serve as a reminder, as national polling puts Bloomberg at second to Biden in the black vote. I don't know how much impact this will have on Bloomberg though.

Overall, it's looking it might come down to Bernie vs Pete/Bloomberg. But not before Super Tuesday, which might let Bernie do well enough to avoid a brokered convention. Bloomberg seems to be Pete on steroids, so will probably crush Pete. Meaning we might have Bernie vs Bloomberg. And Bloomberg will be absolutely horrible for turnout in the general. Being an egomaniacal authoritarian billionaire with a horrible view on minorities, is going to be a difficult case to make against an egomaniacal authoritarian billionaire with a horrible view on minorities after all.


Onward to Nevada.
I hope Bloomberg is hurt by the backlash he is receiving but his campaign really is a "how much of an election can money buy?" and right now he's looking like he could have an impact. Bernie I think could do very well vs him as he contrasts well with Bloomberg, even moreso than Pete.

I'm thinking Bernie could very well win Nevada too. Not sure who else aside from Steyer would be competitive there.
 
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Sucumbio

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I don't think Bloomberg is running to win rather he's inserting himself into the election process to serve as a contrast to the other candidates. He's a good punching bag for anti capitalism and yet a stronger voice of moderate tone even compared to Biden because he at least can afford to lose. Biden has been a strong choice since last year but he has also been who Trump wants to go against because there's literally no surprises with him he's an open book. I wrote off Warren once Bernie started gaining such huge traction. But I won't count Pete out just yet.
 

StoicPhantom

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Way late on this, given it's Super Tuesday. Bernie crushed in Nevada due to his coalition that actually reflects the party base and Biden crushed South Carolina due to it being among the least representative of the party. SC is being spun as Biden having the black vote, but a quick look at the exit polls shows that Bernie is beating Biden in younger black voters. Bernie in general won voters under 40, so it seems like SC's older population worked against him.

There have been a lot of stuff happening since then though, and what I really wanted to touch on before tonight. Pete, Steyer, and Klobuchar have dropped out and Pete and Klobuchar have endorsed Biden. Beto has come back from the grave to also endorse Biden and Biden is getting lots of endorsements from the party establishment. It's pretty clear that some calls were made behind the scenes and the establishment is now coalescing behind Biden.

This has now made Bernie's giant lead shrink considerably in recent polling. Worse yet, it looks like Warren isn't going to drop out, despite polling in the single digits and the Progressive vote may remain split. By even the most generous metrics for Biden, it looks like Bernie is still going to be the winner overall, but it might not be enough to get a majority.

However, this isn't the time for Bernie supporters to get discouraged. This recent timing is designed to do so, but let's not forget that Bernie overturned unfavorable demographics in Iowa and New Hampshire through a surge in the youth vote. That has been a demonstrable advantage in this race, so as long as young voters turn out in large numbers, he might still maintain a solid lead.

I don't know what possesses Warren to believe that she will be able to win at a possible brokered convention, but her supporters that have Bernie as their second should evaluate whether a potential Biden nominee is really worth voting for an incredibly slim shot. She hasn't exactly been doing well, but every vote counts in a race like this one and she is splitting some potential votes, even if few.


But I want to make clear for Bernie supporters overall that things are far from over and to not get discouraged by recent events or even the outcome of Super Tuesday. If you are considering voting for him, do so, because he needs to run up the score, especially in big states like Texas and California. The more of a lead he has, the more leverage come the convention his campaign will have. And for young supporters especially, your vote is incredibly important this time around and will be the deciding factor overall. The worst thing that can happen is a depression in turnout, so make sure you vote today or whenever your state is up.


Will possibly be sleeping through the count tonight unfortunately, but damn am I nervous for what I might wake up to. If I can sleep at all.
 

Buddhahobo

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Persona kids, Persona squids.
Courtesy of 538:

3rbxa6.jpg


I'll make a substantial post in a day or two, but for likely the biggest WTF of tonight:

Due to the single delegate she won in Samoa, Tulsi Gabbard is now eligible for the next debate.
 
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StoicPhantom

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Alright, not the news I really wanted to wake up to, but not the end of the world the internet is making it out to be either. For all the doom and gloom for Bernie's supposed major defeat, the worst outcome is Biden having a slight lead. Depending on how math falls in California, he may tie or even beat Biden. That's still a very competitive race and the polls have been horribly wrong all primary. Let's all remember that Biden was supposed to win Iowa by double digits and he didn't even make top 3.

Of the upcoming states, Bernie won Michigan, Idaho, North Dakota, Democrats Abroad, and was within .2 of Missouri in 2016. It's not an entirely accurate forecast, given Bernie's demographic change, but at least in Michigan he won with a heavy Muslim majority and the Iowa caucus shows that he is still favorable with that demographic. The point is that this is still a competitive race and Bernie people need to make sure they don't depress in turnout over discouragement.

The good news is that this was an unprecedented speedy consolidation by the establishment and it caught Bernie off guard. He seems to have regrouped quickly and is finally taking off the kid gloves and going after Biden's record. There's still plenty of debates left to highlight his potential early dementia and terrible record.

The bad news is that Bloomberg has dropped out and will likely endorse Biden and Warren still seems to be holding on to her delusion of victory so far. Whether or not she will reconsider, we should go forward with the assumption that we will no longer be able to count on Bloomberg splitting the vote.


It's still competitive, but this means young people need to get out and vote. Contrary to earlier in the race, the youth turnout was lower than 2016's Super Tuesday. Not so coincidentally in all the states Biden won or picked up delegates he shouldn't have (Vermont). Where youth turnout was significant, was California, where Bernie won. This highlights once again the need for younger people to show up or Bernie loses. He clinched the popular vote in Iowa and New Hampshire due to them, despite those being demographically bad for him this time around.

So young people in the upcoming states need to stop screwing around and come out to vote for Bernie. If they show up, he wins. If they don't show up, he loses. If he loses, Sleepy Joe will get rolled hard by Trump and you will lose the best chance for change you will probably get for a long time and possibly ever, given the deadline for climate change reversal is in four years. Warren's complete betrayal of everything she supposedly stood for in a desperate bid for power, should show how difficult it is to find a candidate like Bernie.

It's pretty clear that "moderates" have committed to the exact same strategy that sunk Hillary in 2016 and Biden is not going to save you. Once his incoherence gets on the debate stage and Trump starts hammering him on his Social Security and criminal justice record, it will become pretty clear that he doesn't have a shot. A few mentions of Anita Hill and insinuations of primary rigging later and he'll complete the playbook he used to defeat Hillary in 2016.


So let me reiterate, you are completely and utterly ****ed if Biden gets the nominee. Even if Biden wins, he's already signaled that he will "compromise" with Republicans, AKA give them everything they want and **** the rest of us over. But he's not going to win. Independents already view him as corrupt and Ukraine will hang over him. Republicans won't go for him over Trump and Progressives won't turn out to vote for him. He puts people like me between a rock and a hard place with his penchant for wanting to cut vital programs like Social Security that we depend on to survive. And let's not forget this.

So make sure you get out and vote. Even if establishment Voltron has assembled, that just puts them on par with Bernie's behemoth. But part of that behemoth is young people. And if people get discouraged and don't turn out, then the movement is probably done. You have nothing to lose by voting, other than maybe a few of hours of your life, but everything to lose by not voting.
 

link2702

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Stop with the hyper emotional sensationalist bs.

We’re not “****ed” if biden wins. Just because he says he’ll “compromise” with republicans does not mean bend over backwards for them.

We’re “****ed” if trump wins a second term, that is actual reality. Half his cabinet is still empty, including very important positions (hey look at one they scrambled to fill when the corona virus epidemic started, had it been already filled with competent people the response would have been far less a cluster****), the other half is filled with incompetent crooked businessesmen like him, and/or “yes men” that will do whatever trump tells them to.


Biden from the first day would have everything filled. He knows how the system works as opposed to the current moron. He knows that when top generals tell him the best course of action to listen to them, and not parade around like a dumbass claiming he knows best and to ignore the military intelligence community.

Look, I want bernie to win, i voted bernie yesterday, I’d much rather have him than biden. But I also know what is at stake if trump“wins” another term. Our country can’t handle him acting above the law anymore and the gop letting him get away with it, our country can’t handle half the positions of the cabinet being empty, with the other half filled with incompetence and crooks. We can’t handle 4 more years of a loud mouth bigot who constantly demonizes the media and tries to encourage his supporters to act with violence against anyone that disagrees with him

If I have to choose between biden and the toddler in chief, I’ll go with biden.

I’d also argue that the American people would also rather have stability again, and not someone with very divisive ideas just on the opposite end of the spectrum. Bernie has some pretty radical proposals that while I’d like to see, are no doubt things that not everyone would get behind.

People also always forget that to get someone like bernie at the top, you need to start at the bottom. Why aren’t more people voting for people like him at the local and state level? Why are folks so quick to push for folks like him at the top but neglect the bottom?

If you want change like this you gotta start from the bottom up, not top down.
 
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StoicPhantom

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We’re “****ed” if trump wins a second term, that is actual reality.
But he's not going to win. Independents already view him as corrupt and Ukraine will hang over him. Republicans won't go for him over Trump and Progressives won't turn out to vote for him. He puts people like me between a rock and a hard place with his penchant for wanting to cut vital programs like Social Security that we depend on to survive. And let's not forget this.
We are ****ed if Biden wins the nominee because he won't win the presidency. That's not "hyper emotional sensationalist bs" that's looking at the cold hard facts of 2016. Point to me where Biden is different from Hillary. And not some vague idea of "he appeals to moderates", I want actual concrete logic. How does Biden get around the fact that he is basically a worse Hillary in an even more polarized political climate? Do you think independents will pick him this time around, even though he is corrupt? How about Progressives still angry about 2016 and would be about 2020? What does he even offer anyone?

Just because he says he’ll “compromise” with republicans does not mean bend over backwards for them.
No that's just what the guy who's legacy he is trying to lean on did. Remember Obama's "Grand Bargain"? How he was going to cut Social Security and Welfare for people like me to try to appease Republicans? And how he only failed because they would just refuse anything he offered?

Biden's and the Democratic Party's interests converge with Trump's. They've been trying to cut Social Security and other Entitlements, they've been voting for Trump's military budget, and they have the same donors. That's why they are currently struggling to form a real strategy against Trump, because they don't have anything to separate themselves other than social issues. Which you can easily find videos of Biden's horrible record on that.

Obama bent over backwards for Republicans during his presidency and got nothing in return. Biden will try to do the same and won't get anything in return, but they may take him up on his cuts anyways, given he's not Obama. I can't afford to have that happen nor can a lot of people I know.

I’d also argue that the American people would also rather have stability again, and not someone with very divisive ideas just on the opposite end of the spectrum. Bernie has some pretty radical proposals that while I’d like to see, are no doubt things that not everyone would get behind.
And that's the problem with the "moderates" is that Biden et al. making things stable is a delusion. Just because you keep the Government static, doesn't mean the world's circumstances are going to remain static. Like it or not, the world is in constant flux and so is it's problems.

You wanna talk about the Corona virus? What do you think would happen in a country where no one can afford healthcare? Do you think the people who live paycheck to paycheck, who are used to enduring through sickness, are going to miss work to get themselves tested and potentially quarantined for two weeks? Do you think people can afford treatment and hospitalization with healthcare costs being so ludicrous?

That is a potential disaster waiting to happen, whether it's Trump or Biden. America is simply not equipped to handle a pandemic like this. And it is a potential disaster brought entirely by the "moderates" dragging their feet, with the added irony that the virus primarily kills older people.

How about climate change? California and Australia are currently on fire, the Midwest was underwater last year, sea levels are rising, we are seeing increasingly hotter temps, storms and natural disasters are getting worse, and the permafrost in the arctic is melting, unleashing who knows what. This is only the beginning, as things are going to get exponentially worse in the coming decades.

Have you taken a look at Biden's plan? It isn't even close to realistic for what needs to be done. You think Bernie's plan is costly? Try looking at the tens of trillions we have already and will in the future spend on dealing with the consequences of climate change. Bernie's plan is paltry compared to that.


It's not about "radical", it's about adapting and equipping America for the changing times. For all the "pragmatism", "realism", and "being the adult in the room" "moderates" crow about, retreating into a bubble of nostalgia for the good old days in the face of looming disaster is the most childish thing you could do.

People also always forget that to get someone like bernie at the top, you need to start at the bottom. Why aren’t more people voting for people like him at the local and state level? Why are folks so quick to push for folks like him at the top but neglect the bottom?
Who is AOC, Ro Khanna, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and many others? What is Justice Democrats, Brand New Congress, Our Revolution? What is Secular Talk, The Young Turks, Democracy Now, The Intercept, and many others? What is Wolf Pac, Courage for Change, National Nurses United, The Sunrise Movement, Fight for Fifteen? Who are the millions of faceless volunteers and donors that staff and fund various Progressive campaigns?

If you want change like this you gotta start from the bottom up, not top down.
I got that thanks. Not that this had any relevance to my post.

Look, I want bernie to win, i voted bernie yesterday, I’d much rather have him than biden.
Which was the entire crux of my post, get out and vote Bernie. The rest was laying out the consequences for not doing so.


You, like all the other "Vote Blue No Matter Who" types, are putting the cart before the horse. You don't resign yourself to voting for whatever candidate the Democrats **** out, you vote for candidates that you want that can also bring new voters that won't share your VBNMW hivemind. The reason why the establishment wing was tanking early on, was because of all the VBNMW types mindlessly milling from milquetoast candidate to milquetoast candidate, with no real differences to latch on to.

Because if you have no real values or thought and are just going to pick any candidate, then how are you supposed to choose between any candidates? That was the hilarity of Iowa and NH and the logical conclusion of VBNMW, there wasn't anything prompting anyone to pick any "moderate" candidate. The party establishment had to force a consolidation or the one candidate actually running on an ideology and real policy would have run away with things.

And that's not going to work in the general. Trump's base is like Bernie's, full of ideologues that are devoted to him. The "moderates" might be mindless soldiers, but the left is self-aware enough that you can't just **** out a Republican and expect them to vote for them. Independents have a fundamental hatred of establishments and are going to be choosy to begin with.

How are you going to distinguish Biden from Trump? Biden can't attack Trump on his weak points like healthcare, because Biden shares the same donors and thus the same weakness. Biden can't attack Trump on his social issues, because Biden has a long history of those as well. Trump can however, attack Biden from the left on economics, which is how he won 2016.

And as far as personality cults go, look at Biden's exit polls and you will see how most of his support is last minute. Trump has absolute devotion from his. A shaky coalition of voters that don't really care about Biden, that hate Biden, or that are voting for him based off of some illusion of "electability" isn't going to hold up to something like that.


So my point ultimately is that Biden won't save you from Trump. And that's why you should stop screwing around and vote Bernie.
 

Buddhahobo

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Okay, so now in our Super Tuesday world, what happened?

1) The moderates fused together to make Voltron
2) Warren and Bloomberg acted as spoilers for Sanders and Biden respectively
3) Biden did fantastic vs Sanders, and Bloomberg beat out Warren almost everywhere
4) Tulsi Gabbard got a single delegate from American Samoa.

Of particular note are (a) all of the states Biden won that he wasn't ever expected to, (b) voter turnout per state and (c) how poorly Sanders did even when comparing him to himself from 2016

Let's start with the spoils and a quick refresher of what the Biden campaign's strategy was.

Similar to the path walked by Bill Clinton and Obama, the expectation was Biden would ride out losses in Iowa and/or New Hampshire which are two of the most homogeneous states in the country, curbstomp in South Carolina which has a (deliberate) history of signifying how the entire Deep South will vote, then ride it out to 1st place on Super Tuesday.

And he overperformed.

Not only did he win all the states he was expected to win on Tuesday, he won them up to a full +20 higher than expected over Sanders. Then there are all the states he wasn't expected to win such as Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maine, and Texas. All in all, it was a massive win for Biden and a massive blow to Sander's assertion that he's the chosen one who will bring in all the voters.

Like, seriously. Minnesota was supposed to have as Biden as a distant third and instead he won it with 38.6%, nearly a full +10 over Sanders.
---------------------
And how things like that happen are pretty important.
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So what was the big thing that showcased Biden vs Sanders? Was it demographics? Was it money? Was it platform?

It was Early Voting vs Day-Of Voting.

In California for instance, which we likely won't know the full results of until the end of the week at least, people have been able to send in their ballots for the last month. This is even worse in places like Colorado where the mail-in ballots all have to be recieved by Super Tuesday to be accepted, as opposed to stamped and sent on Super Tuesday like in California. That means all the major bombshells leading up to Tuesday had no effect on that state, with similar effects in other states.

As expected, there are a lot of angry people who feel they wasted their vote now. Along with Caucuses, Early Mail-In Voting is likely to be under a whole lot of fire for next election.

Now for absolute numbers, we can look at Virginia, a state Biden won with a whopping 53.3%. Now realize that Virginia had a 70% increase in voter turnout from 2016, and Texas is also notable for their 45% increase from 2016. If Bernie Bros want to argue that Sanders is the only person capable of increasing turnout, this is ironically the the largest set of data possible to show they've been right all along; Bernie Sanders is uniquely capable of inspiring millions of people across the country to come out to the polls and wholeheartedly vote against him.

RIP in pepperoni, I guess?

Dude even did worse in his own state.
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What if Bloomberg / Warren had dropped out?
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Biden would have still won, and substantially at that looking at the data. Had Bloomberg alone dropped out, I think we're all in agreement that 99% of that is going to Biden. We'd be looking at a +14.4 to go along with Biden's +4 win, for example.

Warren is a different can of worms entirely. A lot of people in the Sanders camps are furious at Warren right now, and honestly I can't wait for them to start fuming. There's a decent shot that, even if Sanders himself doesn't pull the trigger, his base will sufficiently alienate and antagonize the Warren base enough that she might even end up endorsing Biden.

This is equally important when you look at her demographics compared to Sanders; Warren's are substantially more educated, more suburban, and more female. Like I said in a previous post, Warren wasn't really in Sanders lane, she was in Buttigiegs when it came to demographics. Had Warren dropped out before Super Tuesday, I'd say you're looking at atleast a 50:50 split in their votes between Sanders and Biden.

-

But let's talk a bit more about Bloomberg. He may be out of the race, but he has regional offices everywhere in the country, a legion of well paid staff at a nice $18/hr, and previously promised that they'd all have jobs till November. The effects this will have on Democratic chances on down-ballots cannot be overstated.

Welp, Warren's out. Biden or Sanders.......... Ugh this is going to be a long 8 months.
Coming third in her own state had to hurt.

Refusing to give an endorsement is certainly noteworthy, though.

So my point ultimately is that Biden won't save you from Trump. And that's why you should stop screwing around and vote Bernie.
Biden increased turnout massively, got more votes than Bernie, and won both more states in total and more important states for the general.

This isn't Iowa anymore where Sanders can come in second place and spin it as if he won a national mandate due to getting a dismal 40,000 votes in a state with a population of 3 million.

But please, continue to spend the next few months writing Donald Trump's attack ads and calling black people ******** for not voting for your messiah.

It's worked so well for the Sanders camp so far, clearly.

Here's Cenk acknowledging the Armenian Genocide and explaining why he held different opinions in college, aka decades ago.
The Armenian Genocide was carried out by "The Young Turks" political group.

Cenk literally named his show after them, so you can imagine what one ought do with his non-apology from last year. i.e., as soon as he decided he wanted to run for office.

It's like denying the Holocaust and naming your long running 'news show' "Hitler's Youth".

The rest is fake news, stop spreading it.
So fake news the Democratic Speaker of the House and the Democratic Minority Senate Leader both keep having to call her out to stop being a little Neo-Nazi. :rolleyes:

But hey, I can see how you can be annoyed by me badmouthing the KKK's favorite politician, so I'll move on.

Who is AOC, Ro Khanna, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and many others? What is Justice Democrats, Brand New Congress, Our Revolution?
Speaking of the Justice Democrats, their Armenian Genocide denialist pick Cenk Ugyur lost his race while getting a mere 5% of the vote.

Their backed candidate also lost in Texas. And their candidate in Georgia. And California. And...

In fact, two years later, the Justice Democrats only success is still AOC being elected in a district where the incumbent Democrat didn't show up until the end and with 2% of the district voting for her.
 
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StoicPhantom

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RIP in pepperoni, I guess?
Alright, time for some narrative busting with some facts.


The polls were wrong period. They had Bernie winning by quite a bit before SC and they had Biden doing the same after SC. The result was somewhere in the middle. Any expectation of a major victory for any candidate was a false one, so trying to spin what is a narrow victory/defeat as a major win/loss is just plain inaccurate. NYT has a gap of 71 delegates between them currently and Bernie's biggest wins of Utah and California still haven't been fully counted. It could widen, it could shrink, Bernie could be the actual winner, but right now it isn't anywhere close to a blowout.

Let's check with ST 2016. Not only did Bernie lose most of the states he lost then, but he had significantly better margins than 2016. Hillary beat Bernie by double digit margins more than Biden did. Meaning, Biden performed significantly worse than his predecessor, while Bernie improved his standing in those states, at least relative to the "moderate" candidate. Yes he lost a couple he won before, but he picked up the behemoth in California that he lost in 2016. You'll also notice the final delegate gap is much bigger then, than it is now.


So who actually underperformed in 2016? Was it Bernie with a (potential) narrow delegate loss, but significantly improved margins? Or was it Biden, with a significantly worse performance than his predecessor, despite supposedly turning out more voters? And what does performing worse than Hillary in his own primary, say about Biden's general election chances? And doesn't this at least somewhat kill the narrative that Biden will benefit from not being hindered by the anti-Hillary types?

Then there's these interesting tidbits:

https://twitter.com/blakezeff/status/1235237883587497994

Seems almost every state is onboard with M4A. Which makes it rather bizarre that a lot of them went to the anti-M4A candidate. This smells suspiciously like the "electability" argument rearing it's ugly head. This is what carried Dems to their demise in 2016, so this isn't looking good already for 2020 prospects.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...14-states-hold-primaries-n1146871/ncrd1149276

The usual massive poll closing right before an important election, that just so happened to disproportionately affect one of Bernie's strongest demographics, Latinos. I wonder what impact that might have had?

https://twitter.com/OrganizingPower/status/1235743774581624833


This reminds me very much of Brexit, where everyone was googling what it is they just voted on. I wonder how many Biden voters knew what they were getting into?

Rather than this being some major victory for Biden and the end of Bernie's campaign, this seems more like the usual systemic rigging/voter suppression/voter ignorance/media bias/establishment shenanigans that have the establishment mess crashing over the finish line. For all the Voltron assembly and media blitz, Biden still barely managed to eke out a win on a day that went hard for Hillary in 2016.

And if he did get all these endorsements from the establishment and allegedly turn out all these "normie" voters not present in 2016, then why did he perform much worse than Hillary? Somethings not really adding up from this narrative of Biden enthusiasm conflicting with the hard numbers. If turnout for Bernie really was that bad, supposedly disproving his theory of turning out new demos, then shouldn't these margins be even greater than 2016?


This entire narrative of Biden suddenly dominating with a narrow lead and 32 states still remaining is entirely bull****. It's bad enough that it's become the dominant narrative with the usual suspects, but that Progressives are also buying into this nonsense is downright maddening. Biden "overperformed" misleading polls and Bernie did better than ST 2016. With the above numbers, it raises more concerns for Biden's GE chances, than it does Bernie's.

Biden increased turnout massively, got more votes than Bernie, and won both more states in total and more important states for the general.
Looking at actual exit polls, not media narrative, we can see that, apart from outliers like VA, it was Bernie that did overwhelming well with non-Democrats. What Biden brought out was Democrats who don't normally vote in primaries, but do so in the general. Meaning, he isn't actually bringing as many new people into the party. That's consistent with the previous states, where Bernie is dominating them as well as the youth vote.

Important states being the states Democrats get routinely slaughtered in the GE? I'm not seeing any WI or PA and I'm seeing a lot of states that Hillary won in the primary and subsequently got rolled hard in the general by Trump. Is it me or is most of Biden's wins concentrated in deep red states? Maybe we should question why states least representative of the party base have so much sway in the primary. It's worth noting that Biden's first win in his last three primaries is SC, among the least representative of the party base.

But please, continue to spend the next few months writing Donald Trump's attack ads and calling black people ******** for not voting for your messiah.
The **** are you going on about? No one called black people anything and Biden is writing Trump's attack ads himself. See this and Trump's recent town hall for example.

Cenk literally named his show after them, so you can imagine what one ought do with his non-apology from last year. i.e., as soon as he decided he wanted to run for office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks

Young Turks were a heterodox group of liberal intellectuals and revolutionaries, united by their opposition to the absolutist regime of Abdul Hamid and desire to reinstate the constitution.[5] After the sultan's overthrow, Young Turks began to splinter and two main factions formed: more liberal and pro-decentralization Young Turks (including CUP's original founders) formed the Freedom and Accord Party (also known as the Liberal Union or Liberal Entente),[6] and the Turkish nationalist, pro-centralization and radical wing among the Young Turks remained in the Party of Union and Progress.[7] The groups' power struggle continued until 1913, when CUP seized power from Freedom and Accord with a coup. The new CUP leadership (Three Pashas) then exercised absolute control over the Ottoman Empire, overseeing the empire's entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers and the Armenian Genocide during the war.
But most importantly

The term "Young Turk" is now used to signify "a progressive, revolutionary, or rebellious member of an organization, political party, etc, especially one agitating for radical reform"[8] and various groups in different countries have been named Young Turks because of their rebellious or revolutionary nature.
I don't really like Cenk that much on a personal level nor do I watch TYT, but I do find it annoying when people try to smear them with things that can be clarified in a five minute google search. There's also that layer of hypocrisy that comes with the """woke""" crowd's ignorance of Turkish history and culture that leads to this misinformation.

Or are you one of those people that think because Hitler co-opted the National Socialist (NaZi) Party, that means he was actually a socialist?

So fake news the Democratic Speaker of the House and the Democratic Minority Senate Leader both keep having to call her out to stop being a little Neo-Nazi. :rolleyes:

But hey, I can see how you can be annoyed by me badmouthing the KKK's favorite politician, so I'll move on.
I'm sure the Christian white supremacists have a secret affinity for brown Muslims and not that this was a clear hit piece. But you haven't actually said anything of substance nor did you point to me any real evidence.

Either refute my post or stop spreading fake news.

Their backed candidate also lost in Texas. And their candidate in Georgia. And California. And...
Gómez came in second in the race behind fellow Democrat Sara Jacobs. Due to California’s unique primary system, both will advance to the general election in November.
In fact, two years later, the Justice Democrats only success is still AOC being elected in a district where the incumbent Democrat didn't show up until the end and with 2% of the district voting for her.
https://www.justicedemocrats.com/candidates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Democrats

26 JDs won their primaries in 2018 alone and their are seven currently in office. And you fundamentally misunderstand what they are. To be a JD, you have to support their policy list. That's it. They do support potential candidates, but sitting politicians can become part of the JD if they want to.

You also have to put this into the context of this movement being four years old and not limited to JD either. Challenging entities that are funded billions by corporations, have all of the institutional privileges and media access they want, and lots of name recognition, isn't going to be easy. The fact that they have the wins they do, off small dollar donations and volunteers, is remarkable in itself.

Not that any of this had to do with the post you quoted, which was showing that there are attempts at a bottom up movement, not a **** waving contest, like you seem to want to have.
 

Buddhahobo

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It's shaping up to be another blowout for Biden, so much so Sanders has informed people that he will not be giving any speech tonight.

Biden, meanwhile, is giving a speech as if he's beginning his run in the General Election.

I guess the question now is whether Sanders drops out, or if he decides to draw it out in as bloody as manner as possible till the very end for the second time, fail at doing so, then beg the Super-delegates to vote for him.
 
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Alicorn

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Sanders refuses to drop out even when its pretty clear he can't beat Biden. Bernie is doing the same thing he did in 2016. He has confirmed his status as a spoiler candidate.
 

StoicPhantom

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Sanders refuses to drop out even when its pretty clear he can't beat Biden. Bernie is doing the same thing he did in 2016. He has confirmed his status as a spoiler candidate.
...You can't be a spoiler in a two candidate primary. The whole point of primaries is that you hash these things out before the general. There's no point in him dropping now when Biden has yet to attain a majority and Bernie isn't mathematically eliminated. Comebacks can and have happened and Corona virus is proving everything Bernie said about the system correct and had we elected him in 2016, we wouldn't be having a lot of the problems we are having now.

Whether or not that will sway things back in his favor I don't know, but there isn't really any benefit to him dropping now.
 

Sucumbio

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I think for the sake of the democratic party itself Bernie has to stay in it or potentially cost the party in general all the Bernie followers who have decreed they'd vote for no one else. Right now in March that is. Once we get to the point where there's only one candidate then the party can concentrate on rallying behind whoever wins. But it's too soon to declare Biden is it because much of what's important to younger democrats is only represented by Bernie Sanders. And without the younger vote there's much less chance Trump will be defeated.
 

Buddhahobo

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I think for the sake of the democratic party itself Bernie has to stay in it or potentially cost the party in general all the Bernie followers who have decreed they'd vote for no one else. Right now in March that is. Once we get to the point where there's only one candidate then the party can concentrate on rallying behind whoever wins.
I mean, there is the fact how there's a whole pandemic going on and if he'd drop out then there won't be any more primaries and he's statistically incapable of winning, so...

Or how he's using campaigning as an excuse not to do his damn job as a Senator and vote for coronavirus stimulus bills, so...

Honestly, a question for you: Bernie followers have shown that they aren’t even willing to come out and vote for Sanders in the Primary, whereas voter turn out is at records high across the country and voting for Biden.

What evidence is there that they (a) will come out to vote in the General in any noticeable quantity or (b) even exist in real life to begin with?

Even the demographic argument doesn't really exist if you look at the polls that came out of places like Virginia, Mississippi, and Florida. The only real metric on if you vote Sanders is if you're (a) Living in a county with a giant college or (b) are Mexican-American and probably live in Southern California. As it turns out the people who used to live in many of those South American socialist dictatorships Sanders won’t stop praising will not vote for the dude who defends the people who killed their families lives. Strange, ain’t it? I didn't check the end-of-the-night results, but I remember reading that even Bloomberg, the guy who dropped out of the race two days after you could early-mail-in your ballot, did better than Sanders in Florida.

It’s not even just them either. He never even attempted to talk to South Carolina Senator Clyburn, nor did he reach out to any member of the Black caucus party. His strategy was literally to win the nomination with 30% of the vote, and deemed the “black vote” useless because he thought it would fragment between the two black candidates; Kamela Harris and Cory Booker.

And even if one takes as fact that people who clearly can't be bothered (or don't exist) to vote in the primary will totally vote in the general, Biden and Sanders are tied for the youth vote vs Trump.

There's no point in him dropping now when Biden has yet to attain a majority and Bernie isn't mathematically eliminated. Comebacks can and have happened and Corona virus is proving everything Bernie said about the system correct and had we elected him in 2016, we wouldn't be having a lot of the problems we are having now.
With what states? All of the states Sanders was supposed to do well in have already voted and besides the ever-decreasing narrow Sanders-victory in California Biden won almost all of those states.

Like, seriously. Sanders won Washington on a caucus system in 2016 by +40 points. And this year they allocated via a primary, and Biden won. It’s almost like caucuses are absolutely horrible metrics for the will of the people or something.

That’s a pretty hot take there about the corona-virus, considering how it would also have involved him beating Clinton.

Citation that it would have been just as bad under Clinton, please.

You know what, citation that it would have been just as bad under any of the other major GOP runners too.

Do remember that before Trump ruined it, the Obama administration had increased the CDC’s budget, along with setting up an Emergency Pandemic Task Force in over a dozen different countries in an effort to contain and study any eventual pandemic before it could reach the US mainland.

So along with the above, please provide a third citation to explain how Sanders stump speech on Medicare would have done literally anything to prevent a highly infectious virus that China was jailing doctors for talking about for two whole months before they were forced to admit it and lock down the Wuhan region? Or why his platform on insurance costs would have meant something different in the US, when we can literally just look across the pond and see the ****show that is the UK and Italy right now?
 
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Buddhahobo

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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-joe-biden-democratic-nomination-should-stay-in-race-2020-3?amp&ved=2ahUKEwiKx5P35rnoAhUGEawKHZ1gD2cQFjANegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw37vpEnUln7UbnQ_n6rErVM&ampcf=1

I get you. I'm not saying he should stay in the race to win but his presence is important because again Progressivism is a thing and he can help Biden by forcing him to address issues that are important to younger voters who tend to be progressive voters.
What issues, though?

We're dealing with two politicians who have been in Congress for 30+ years. We know their records, we know who they are, and Biden wins out on actual progressive policy. Gun control reform? Immigration? Foreign policy? Environmental policy? Healthcare? Biden blows him out of the water on each issue.

In fact, Sanders has one of the lowest scores in Congress in that regard, having been beaten out by every single Congresscritter who ran (possible exception of Tulsi Gabbard). Elizabeth Warren in seven years has achieved more than Sanders has in 30. The fact is the Justice Democrats or whatever you want to call the Sanders and AOC camp are just co-opting a previously established word at best when it comes to how people should be viewing self-identified "Progressives" with the amount of **** they've been pulling.

"He's just in it to push Biden further left!" rings especially hollow when it became the new Rallying Cry after "Once they debate 1-on-1 everyone will see that Biden is a dementia ridden stooge!" didn't happen what with Biden not actually having dementia. It rings even more hollow when the 'grand success' of this is Biden adapting a free public college plan for families who make less than $125,000...which was part of Hillary Clinton's 2008 platform and New York State already has, let alone the bold faced lie "He's just in it to push Clinton to the left" was in 2016 and the ramifications of that that our grandchildren will still be paying for.

And as all of this is going on he's blocking stimulus bills during a pandemic when he can even be bothered to show up.

Twice now you've asserted that Sanders has to stay in to force "issues" be addressed by demographics that apparently care very much about those overly vague issues but still don't go out to vote for Sanders. They didn't in 2018, they haven't in 2020. It's really time to finally read the writing on the wall and realize that most of his support is (predominately foreign) twitter-noise and how much the country hated Hillary Clinton in 2016, you know?
 

remilia

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"We know their records, we know who they are, and Biden wins out on actual progressive policy. Gun control reform? Immigration? Foreign policy? Environmental policy? Healthcare? Biden blows him out of the water on each issue. "

Can't tell if you're joking right now or if you're serious and actually think Biden is more progressive than Bernie on things like foreign policy and healthcare lol.
 

StoicPhantom

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Get comfortable, this is going to be a long one.

So along with the above, please provide a third citation to explain how Sanders stump speech on Medicare would have done literally anything to prevent a highly infectious virus that China was jailing doctors for talking about for two whole months before they were forced to admit it and lock down the Wuhan region? Or why his platform on insurance costs would have meant something different in the US, when we can literally just look across the pond and see the ****show that is the UK and Italy right now?
https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/1242798008170938369

Not only is the US on track to have the most cases by far and yesterday it did pass China as the country with most cases, but did so in less time than the UK or Italy or even China. You'll notice that all the countries that managed to get their outbreaks under control quickly have notes that basically amount to aggressive treatment, testing, and quarantine. While administrative incompetence didn't help in the US, Italy, or the UK, the US also does not have the infrastructure to handle this, Trump or no.

https://gizmodo.com/teen-who-died-of-covid-19-was-denied-treatment-because-1842520539

This is a seventeen-year-old that died from treatment denial, because he didn't have health insurance. The info that this virus kills only old people is misleading, because it's younger people that are prioritized over old people in overrun healthcare systems. Just because they die at a lesser rate than old people, doesn't mean that this isn't serious for young people either. It should merit some serious consideration that COVID-19 statistics are done in countries that guarantee healthcare to everyone. Those statistics are from people that were being treated.

What about people that can't afford $30,000 for treatment?

https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/

Tens of millions are uninsured and they are mostly low income and working families. That means they depend on their paycheck to survive and aren't exactly going to be able to quarantine themselves.

https://www.usnews.com/news/economy...ent-could-hit-30-as-coronavirus-slams-economy

Remember Pete's "If you like your private plan, you can keep it"? 30% unemployment is beyond Great Depression levels and that's a lot of people going to lose their health insurance. Private plans are completely pointless if you lose the job they're tied to. Maybe having critical infrastructure be independent from private entities has some upsides.

So we essentially have a situation where poor people who are going need to keep working aren't going to be able to be tested or get treatment or quarantine themselves, like those other countries. Italy and the UK have made massive cuts to their healthcare and haven't had a very responsible administration or populace, much like the US. But they do guarantee healthcare to their citizens, while the US does not.

It bears repeating that the current statistics are based on countries that do guarantee healthcare to their citizens. The US is the outlier here and has lots of unique variables. Not to mention other situations that aren't strictly healthcare related, but will exacerbate the current crisis.



https://www.texasobserver.org/homeless-covid-19-texas/

With staggering levels of homelessness, over half a million, that's a large number of people that don't have adequate shelter to quarantine themselves, no healthcare, no ability to social distance, and no real easy way to track. That's just asking for rampant infection that isn't really going to be easy to contain. If you think Trump flubbing the test kits is bad, how about people that aren't even necessarily on the grid to be tracked and tested in the first place?

https://www.inquirer.com/education/nj-schools-laundry-students-dirty-clothes-20200219.html

There's an increasing issue in the US, where low income families are relying on schools to feed their kids and wash their clothes. Shutting down schools puts these families in a bad situation where they will have to provide the two meals they rely on schools to provide, as well as figure out how to work and take care of their kids at the same time.

There's many more similarly ****ed up situations like these America ignores in favor of pretending life is great, but in the interest of keeping this post as small as possible, I'll just leave with the fact that these are going to have far reaching consequences.



Meanwhile, the top 20% are in dire straights as well. Economic shutdown and a plummeting stock market have them begging for Government handouts. Not necessarily due to being poor, so much as they used their tax cuts to buyback stocks instead of having cash reserves to cushion themselves from a potential crisis like this one. The airlines for instance, had a similar problem during 9/11 and had to be bailed out by the Bush administration.

Greed over stability appears to be a common trend among corporations in this current system, and has led to Congress being forced to bail them out several times over the last twenty years. While poor people are finger wagged at to have at least nine months worth of cash savings, it seems like Capital is content with using the Federal Reserve as their backup option. This has led to a trend of the rich having their assets bailed out with no strings attached, such as the Wall Street crash of 2008 or the GM bailout and the current plan that just passed, that's going to give trillions more.

And because there's no strings attached, there's no incentive to discontinue eschewing stability for profit.

https://spectator.us/big-pharma-trade-association-trump-buy-american-order/

After the inflationary crisis of the 80s, a new system of globalization took hold and manufacturing was gutted in the US in order to take advantage of lax labor laws in other countries and destroy union power simultaneously. This has increased profit margins for corporations and China has become the source the US and other countries rely on for everything from cheap plastic toys to important medical supplies.

Which makes it highly ironic that it's ground zero for COVID-19. Not only does the virus not display symptoms for two weeks, but the high traffic going in and out of China pretty much insured worldwide infection before the PRC even knew what they had, coverup or no. But it also means the global supply chain is halted and thus critical medical supplies that are needed are in short supply for the rest of the world, as Chinese manufacturers are devastated and China prioritizes itself.

There's been some scrambling by the Trump administration to repurpose some plants, including invoking the Defense Production Act, but as the link suggests, there's some heavy opposition by corporations that benefit from this supply chain. But this crisis has shown how silly it was to rely on one country for all of our critical supplies and that maybe we shouldn't kill our own capacity for production to make a few more bucks for the already wealthy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/...us-congress.html?referringSource=articleShare

The current bill that bails everyone out has something for everyone, but has much more for wealthy corporations. 500 billion to be exact. Not only with little in the way of restrictions, but at the discretion of Steve Mnuchin no less. And while it may be another month for poor people to receive their stimulus, these corporations aren't going to have to worry too much.

But there's a more sinister plot in this bill, in that it is structured in a way that exacerbates the current economic inequality. While small businesses tank and die, these mega corporations will experience a much bigger stimulus and that will ultimately trend toward further consolidation and monopolization of the economy and industry. It'll be exactly like the bailout in 2008, but possibly even worse for the bottom 80%.

So not only are we bailing out irresponsible corporations that use their cash reserves to further enrich themselves with stock buybacks once again with public money that we are constantly told by Congress doesn't exist, but we are doing it in a way that further consolidates their power, while fussing over means testing and poor people potentially getting too much.


https://theintercept.com/2020/03/27/coronavirus-stimulus-package-spending/

In the midst of this entire corporate orgy and debacle there is one question that had been repeated ad nauseam in this primary and in 2016, that has been mysteriously absent.

How are we going to pay for it?

For all the bluster over Bernie's platform being "pie in the sky" and the deficit being too high and no money in the public coffers, once again, like in 2008, Congress managed to whip up trillions in short order to bail out the rich. And like the article describes, it was done without cutting other budgets, raising taxes, or otherwise being concerned with the deficit. And it also would have payed for a substantial portion of Bernie's platform to boot.

And as the article and the AOC quote within alludes to, it was never about the logistics or actually coming up with the money, but more the lack of political will and where the priorities of Congress lies. You absolutely can pay for Bernie's entire platform with the amount of money we're about to spend on the fallout of this crisis.

Because if you actually look at his platform and his campaign, not what MSNBC spews out about him, you'll notice he has every single thing covered, that this crisis is exposing. That's how this crisis is proving him right, from healthcare to homelessness. Had we addressed these issues previously, we wouldn't be seeing disaster on the scale we might be about to see.



Because as tempting as it may be to blame everything on Trump and China, the reality is that there was only so much they could do. Yes it would have helped had they taken it seriously and not tried to cover it up, but the virus itself is incredibly difficult to deal with, especially considering China didn't have the luxury of the forewarning the rest of us had. And unlike China, Trump is limited as to what he can do by how the American Government is structured.

Trump is hamstrung by our inadequate infrastructure as would Biden, Hillary, or any of the other candidates. He can't just magically invent everything we need on the spot and anything that is currently proposed is both heavily opposed by Capital and may be a too little too late thing. We needed this infrastructure to be in place and these problems to be fixed before the crisis hit, not during.



And that's why we need a complete system redesign. We let the systems of the 30s and 80s fail and redesigned new ones, but we've been continually bailing out the current one, because it makes Capital profits like nothing before it. And as we've seen over the last few decades, it's been making society deteriorate and has us on the verge of collapse. It's pretty clear that there is no invisible hand floating around making everything work, no consumers disciplining Capital, and no self-discipline or reform from the system itself.

Biden, Hillary, and the other candidates all had a hand in the creation of the current system and have been fighting to keep it this way. They're not going to be reforming it nor is Trump, Pence, or whatever other candidate the GOP ****s out. Congress on the whole has been completely bought by the corporations and has been writing laws at their behest that hinder attempts to reform the system. "Master Legislator" Nancy Pelosi created pay-go which quite literally prevents Democrats from making any progress on anything. If they want to actually do something, they have to cut from something else, insuring they will always take one step back with each step forward.

And that's why it's so important to have a candidate with political courage and vision like Bernie, AOC, and other Progressive politicians. Even if we make it through this crisis, it's projected that COVID-19 will have a resurgence in the winter. If it's already bring us to our knees before it has yet to hit it's peak, what will happen when round 2 hits an already reeling economy and populace?

That's before getting to other disasters like climate change, that will make this one look paltry in comparison.

With what states?
"Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” -Winston Churchill

I'm hoping for something along those lines, but I don't know how this is going to play out. If there's a trend in this primary, it's that you can take nothing for granted.
 

Alicorn

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Trump had a civil duty to alert the public to the dangers of the Corona virus. He failed and continues to fail because he is reluctant to use the full power of the government because he is a man of conflicting interest. He is a business man, a very tight fisted business man. So he doesn't want the government intervening in very lucrative deals. Vinulators are in very high demand right now so of course Trump would not dare stand in the way of the market. It is why he is in office after all he may fail at Foreign Policy, Domestic and International affairs but at least he has the economy to fall back on except he doesn't. This pandemic is exposing all the flaws of Trump and American Conservatism. It is showing the world that for eight years under the Obama administration that the Republican party is self serving and hypocritical.
 

StoicPhantom

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Well that was one of the most unnecessary things he could have done. Wisconsin already sacrificed voted and the rest were all postponed. I'm actually more pissed than if we would have lost from playing it out. I have a feeling that this might be the work of Shakir, who I've heard has been urging him to drop out and has been causing discord in the campaign in general. Never hire someone that was a former aide to Harry Reid and a member of ThinkProgress.

I guess #DemExit might be official for Progressives when Biden loses in November.

Edit: My state just got done mailing mail-in ballot requests to everyone too.
 
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Sucumbio

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Wisconsin got done pretty dirty imho. But I suppose it depends on who you believe. To me all primaries should have been unilaterally postponed until August. 3 months is still enough time to get Caucus focused. But oh well I guess. All I can say now is democrats must believe in their minds and souls that Biden is better than Trump even if they are not there yet because they believed in Sanders. Yes he's more grounded in establishment politics, yes he's wishy washy on extreme solutions. But that's actually ok! We see how divisive Trump scare tactics are. Let's rally behind Joe and end this 4 year stint laden with bigotry and pseudo leadership.

As for Biden's chances people's memories tend to be short. How well our Economy has rebounded by November will dictate who wins.
 

Buddhahobo

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Can't tell if you're joking right now or if you're serious and actually think Biden is more progressive than Bernie on things like foreign policy and healthcare lol.
Bernie literally didn't have a foreign policy and his healthcare plan was pants on ********.

Get comfortable, this is going to be a long one.
Literally none of that has to do with the current crisis of we're running out of physical beds for people to be placed.

Biden, Hillary, and the other candidates all had a hand in the creation of the current system and have been fighting to keep it this way. They're not going to be reforming it nor is Trump, Pence, or whatever other candidate the GOP ****s out.
Friendly reminder that the Clintons have collectively been trying to pass universal healthcare since 1993.

Sanders voted against it, btw.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/bernie-sanders-drops-out.html

Heh guess Bernie agrees with ya Buddha he's out. Joe Biden for president 2020!
If he agreed with me he would have dropped out after Super Tuesday and not force Illinois, Florida, and Arizona to vote after shut-down orders were put into place.
 

StoicPhantom

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All I can say now is democrats must believe in their minds and souls that Biden is better than Trump even if they are not there yet because they believed in Sanders.
Or Democrats can actually make the case that they are better and not pretend they have a mandate on all that is good. I and from the looks of it, a lot of other people are through with "lesser of two evils" and want bare minimum standards instead.

What I'm missing from Biden and the Democrats are proposals that would guarantee us a future. They seem to be running entirely on that they aren't Trump and aren't proposing much of anything on their own. Let's see some actual imaginative proposals that target those of us who are currently struggling, not running on nostalgia from an administration that didn't do **** for us either.

his healthcare plan was pants on ********.
Have you ever bothered to look at it or did you miss the fact every other developed nation has a similar one and they are paying half what we do for full coverage?

Literally none of that has to do with the current crisis of we're running out of physical beds for people to be placed.
If you bothered to actually read it, you would find out that part of the reason why it was this bad was the private health insurance industry refusing to treat patients for free, which will naturally disincentivize people from getting tested and treated if they might end up with a six figure bill. Or be denied treatment entirely like that one teenager. Or having your entire medical supply line tied to one country that happened to be ground zero for the pandemic, because you got rid of your local manufacturing to exploit lax labor laws in other countries and make extra profit.

"Crisis" means more than the just the medical stuff. Our economy was not built to handle prolonged shutdowns and the other economic issues are feeding into the pandemic. Tens of millions are being laid off and lots of people, my family included, didn't have much to begin with. As this continues, fears of people not being able to pay rent or afford food are going to be strong, let alone treatment.

Things I wouldn't have to explain if you actually paid attention and bothered to read.

To achieve this, the Clinton health plan required each US citizen and permanent resident alien to become enrolled in a qualified health plan on his or her own or through programs mandated to be offered by businesses with more than 5,000 full-time employees.
Gee, I wonder why he didn't vote for it. Almost like people don't like being legally forced into for profit healthcare plans designed to price gouge them as much as possible. Kind of like a certain other healthcare plan that did exactly this and forced people who couldn't afford health insurance to pay a fine.

Not to mention how vulnerable tying vital infrastructure like healthcare to third parties could potentially make America. Like what if there was a major crisis that was causing millions to be laid off and lose their employer's insurance?
 

Buddhahobo

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Have you ever bothered to look at it or did you miss the fact every other developed nation has a similar one and they are paying half what we do for full coverage?
Name a single developed nation that has banned private insurance.

Things I wouldn't have to explain if you actually paid attention and bothered to read.
Except none of this has anything to do with Sanders medical plan, and which in turn has nothing to do with the fact that our hospitals are over capacity.

"M4A would allow more people go to the hospital who otherwise wouldn't", even if taken as true, does not mean anything when there is no room at the hospital.

So we're back to you, once again, answering the question you wish I asked instead of the one I did ask.

"Crisis" means more than the just the medical stuff. Our economy was not built to handle prolonged shutdowns and the other economic issues are feeding into the pandemic. Tens of millions are being laid off and lots of people, my family included, didn't have much to begin with. As this continues, fears of people not being able to pay rent or afford food are going to be strong, let alone treatment.
Yes, and now that Sanders isn't using stroking his ego for a vanity campaign as an excuse not to be in DC, maybe he'll finally do his job and vote in those stimulus bills he's been ignoring.
 
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StoicPhantom

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Name a single developed nation that has banned private insurance.
No one said anything about banning private insurance. What was said was banning duplicative care, meaning private insurance wouldn't be able to cover what M4A covers in full. They can still exist for supplemental and cosmetic surgery.

https://theweek.com/articles/850638...all-private-insurance-not-even-bernie-sanders

Canada and Medicare also do this for starters.

Except none of this has anything to do with Sanders medical plan, and which in turn has nothing to do with the fact that our hospitals are over capacity.
Notice the quote of your "citation" and my "Get comfortable, this is going to be a long one" that followed. And how I incorporated your healthcare question into my overall citation to your request on how things wouldn't be any better under anyone else. As in, that whole post was explaining to you why things wouldn't be any better under Clinton or anyone else, like you asked me to.

This is where the paying attention part comes in.

"M4A would allow more people go to the hospital who otherwise wouldn't", even if taken as true, does not mean anything when there is no room at the hospital.
The point is that there wouldn't be this many people infected if we had the capacity to aggressively test and treat like South Korea did. We don't have the capability to manufacture our own tests because we outsourced our manufacturing to China and we don't have the social cooperation of isolation and treatment, because we don't provide free coverage or guarantee everyone can afford it. All things Clinton (both), Biden, and the other candidates helped create, with their trade deals and constant interference for the private health insurance industry.

That. Was. The. Point. Of. That. Post.

Pay. Attention.

Yes, and now that Sanders isn't using stroking his ego for a vanity campaign as an excuse not to be in DC, maybe he'll finally do his job and vote in those stimulus bills he's been ignoring.
:rolleyes:

It would have passed if he was physically there or not, there's no point in him traveling and leaving quarantine for that. Put away your irrational hate boner for him, this is an all ages website.
 

Buddhahobo

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Canada and Medicare also do this for starters.
Canada doesn't seem to think so...

Another paper.

The point is that there wouldn't be this many people infected if we had the capacity to aggressively test and treat like South Korea did.
We do have the capacity to aggressively test and treat in the US, the problem is the CDC is forcing all tests to get approval through the FDA before use.

New York State has significantly more tests done because Governor Cuomo said "**** that" and authorized testing be done immediately using kits made in-state. Hell, the reason we knew about the cases on the West Coast when all of this started was because a bunch of Doctors did the same thing when the FDA forbid them from doing so.

Note that this is significantly better than the countries that do need to get their test kits and supplies from China, with the majority of them shown to be defective.

You would know this if you were paying attention to any of this in the last few weeks.

and we don't have the social cooperation of isolation and treatment, because we don't provide free coverage or guarantee everyone can afford it.
Medical insurance is not why people are still having giant picnics in central park and out playing basketball and other examples of people not giving a ounce of care to social distancing.

Your argument is irrelevant to the question you were asked. It's also, ya know, complete and utter nonsense even then. Is US healthcare insurance to blame for all the people across Europe and the Middle East who still refuse to engage in social distancing?

It would have passed if he was physically there or not, there's no point in him traveling and leaving quarantine for that. Put away your irrational hate boner for him, this is an all ages website.
He wasn't in quarantine, so.
 
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StoicPhantom

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Canada being two op-eds from members of anti-Government Libertarian think tanks? I also don't really see anything that contradicts what I said about banning private insurance.

We do have the capacity to aggressively test and treat in the US, the problem is the CDC is forcing all tests to get approval through the FDA before use.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...shed-as-u-k-finds-antibody-kits-don-t-deliver

Because that is what happens when you don't properly vet your products. We have an FDA for a reason. If our test kits are faulty, it could cause a lot of harm and confusion.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...of-faulty-coronavirus-test-kits-idUSKBN20P09Y

Oh, would you look at that. I guess the FDA did catch faulty test kits last month. Something we wouldn't have to worry about if we could manufacture our own. Which I guess we did end up doing, just a little too late.

New York State has significantly more tests done because Governor Cuomo said "**** that" and authorized testing be done immediately using kits made in-state. Hell, the reason we knew about the cases on the West Coast when all of this started was because a bunch of Doctors did the same thing when the FDA forbid them from doing so.
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-states-like-new-york-are-limiting-covid-19-tests-2020-3

If we have the capacity to aggressively test and treat and Cuomo said ****, then why are they limiting the amount of tests and only to those showing symptoms? I would think that a virus that is asymptomatic for two weeks should not have testing limited to only those that show severe symptoms, no?

Note that this is significantly better than the countries that do need to get their test kits and supplies from China, with the majority of them shown to be defective.
Yeah, that was my point. The initial ones we had from China were defective. We had initial ones from China, because we didn't have the capability to make our own at the time. If we had the ability to make our own, we could have gotten it up to scale much earlier, instead of being forced to ration as we are now.

ou would know this if you were paying attention to any of this in the last few weeks.
Look in the mirror, buddy.

Medical insurance is not why people are still having giant picnics in central park and out playing basketball and other examples of people not giving a ounce of care to social distancing.
No, but it's going to play a part when it comes time to treat people and when premiums go up by 40%. What do you think will happen when medical debt explodes and hospitals go bankrupt? It's going to be pretty difficult to contain a virus when you no longer have healthcare anymore. Almost like running a system that is twice as costly as others wasn't a good idea.

And there may be more waves of this in the winter and potentially later next year.

Your argument is irrelevant to the question you were asked. It's also, ya know, complete and utter nonsense even then. Is US healthcare insurance to blame for all the people across Europe and the Middle East who still refuse to engage in social distancing?
You can't mention irrelevancy and then bring up social distancing in Europe and the Middle East. Everything I said was in relation to how our current system is exacerbating the crisis and why any President can't just wave a magic wand and conjure up resources. Which is what you asked.

Citation that it would have been just as bad under Clinton, please.

You know what, citation that it would have been just as bad under any of the other major GOP runners too.
See?

Also, do tell how it's "complete and utter nonsense." I would love to see how decades of well documented history is wrong. In fact, I spent several hours chasing down sources and constructing a well written post. I'd rather not see it written off with a one liner.

He wasn't in quarantine, so.
Why do you think he was working from home all that time? Because the virus is infecting Congress or did you miss the news about people like Rand Paul? It wouldn't do well for a potential nominee to come down with such a virus at his age.

Not that there wasn't a viral video of him dunking on Congress during that thing, proving he was there, so I don't know why we are talking about this.
 
D

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Leftist here. I am into Marxism-Leninism, anarchism, and other forms of socialism or communism. I cannot settle into one leftist ideology.

Anyways, I will never vote for Trump, because **** him, but I will not vote for Biden either.

Biden has done awful things, like messing up the Middle East, and writing the awful crime bill.

I hate both Trump and Biden. I will never vote for any of them.
 
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Ben Holt

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Leftist here. I am into Marxism-Leninism, anarchism, and other forms of socialism or communism.

Anyways, I will never vote for Trump, because **** him, but I will not vote for Biden either.

Biden has done awful things, like messing up the Middle East, and writing the awful crime bill.

I will just not take any sides during this election. I hate both Trump and Biden.
Not to be "Leftier than thou", but I am also a hardcore Leftist. Anarcho-Communist, Syndicalist, Globalist, whole nine yards. But I say this as a precursor so I cannot be accused of being a Centrist.
I was in that exact same Bernie-or-Bust boat. I was fully prepared to vote Green just to "punish" the Democratic party for pushing Biden (It was no accident that everyone BUT Warren dropped out and endorsed Biden while Warren stayed to take swing votes from Bernie. I 100% am aware that the party f***ed us.), BUT Trump made two moves that simply cannot be tolerated. One being his complete incompetence at best or active malice at worst with his mishandling of COVID-19 which has led to 100,000 American deaths AND counting.
The second, which is even more damning, is Trump's response to BLM. Ignoring it would have been one thing, as that's simply been the unfortunate status quo. But Trump did worse than ignore it. Instead of police reform, he ATTACKED his own cities, most notably Portland. He took the less than 1% of protests that turned into riots (though I still hold that riots are a fair response to a government that doesn't represent its people, but that's a whole other topic), and lumped ALL protesters in as targets for police to attack. He also sent unmarked vans to literally KIDNAP PEACEFUL PROTESTERS and forcefully ID them as potential terrorists. That's WAY too Hitler-y for me. If genocide is a 12 step program, kidnapping and IDing peaceful state enemies is step 11 before outright killing. Not to mention Trump's other outright Fascistic threats such as threatening to revoke citizenship for children of immigrants (birthright citizens) and flag burners (easy target for a state enemy) and wanting to declare Antifa a terrorist organization despite it not even being an organization. Which means that ANYONE could be arbitrarily labeled terrorists if deemed "Anti-fascist".
Even if Antifa WERE an organization, to label them terrorists is still completely wrong and an obvious admission of Fascism. But for real terrorist organizations like ISIS, you have to be an actual member to be a terrorist. It's completely legal under the First Amendment to say, "ISIS is awesome," but you simply cannot join the organization. Trump doesn't even give Antifa THAT level of First Amendment protections.

Beyond that, there are 100 thousand other f*** ups Trump has done, major and minor, but Trump has made it VERY clear that he is ok with full-on Nazi Fascism in the United States, and it is every person's duty to stop that, even if it includes swallowing our pride and voting for Biden. Vote as Left as possible in EVERY election, even if your options suck. Marx himself even said this, as he knew that accelerationism is a gamble with death.

Maybe if this were Kasich, we could have thrown Biden under the bus, but Trump has already been worse than our worst nightmares, and his first term isn't even over. If November comes, and Trump is vindicated with reelection, I shudder to even imagine what he'd attempt, as he's already gone violent.

If I haven't convinced you, here's one of my favorite political commentators who is also a Communist voting for Biden come November:

 
D

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Not to be "Leftier than thou", but I am also a hardcore Leftist. Anarcho-Communist, Syndicalist, Globalist, whole nine yards. But I say this as a precursor so I cannot be accused of being a Centrist.
I was in that exact same Bernie-or-Bust boat. I was fully prepared to vote Green just to "punish" the Democratic party for pushing Biden (It was no accident that everyone BUT Warren dropped out and endorsed Biden while Warren stayed to take swing votes from Bernie. I 100% am aware that the party f***ed us.), BUT Trump made two moves that simply cannot be tolerated. One being his complete incompetence at best or active malice at worst with his mishandling of COVID-19 which has led to 100,000 American deaths AND counting.
The second, which is even more damning, is Trump's response to BLM. Ignoring it would have been one thing, as that's simply been the unfortunate status quo. But Trump did worse than ignore it. Instead of police reform, he ATTACKED his own cities, most notably Portland. He took the less than 1% of protests that turned into riots (though I still hold that riots are a fair response to a government that doesn't represent its people, but that's a whole other topic), and lumped ALL protesters in as targets for police to attack. He also sent unmarked vans to literally KIDNAP PEACEFUL PROTESTERS and forcefully ID them as potential terrorists. That's WAY too Hitler-y for me. If genocide is a 12 step program, kidnapping and IDing peaceful state enemies is step 11 before outright killing. Not to mention Trump's other outright Fascistic threats such as threatening to revoke citizenship for children of immigrants (birthright citizens) and flag burners (easy target for a state enemy) and wanting to declare Antifa a terrorist organization despite it not even being an organization. Which means that ANYONE could be arbitrarily labeled terrorists if deemed "Anti-fascist".
Even if Antifa WERE an organization, to label them terrorists is still completely wrong and an obvious admission of Fascism. But for real terrorist organizations like ISIS, you have to be an actual member to be a terrorist. It's completely legal under the First Amendment to say, "ISIS is awesome," but you simply cannot join the organization. Trump doesn't even give Antifa THAT level of First Amendment protections.

Beyond that, there are 100 thousand other f*** ups Trump has done, major and minor, but Trump has made it VERY clear that he is ok with full-on Nazi Fascism in the United States, and it is every person's duty to stop that, even if it includes swallowing our pride and voting for Biden. Vote as Left as possible in EVERY election, even if your options suck. Marx himself even said this, as he knew that accelerationism is a gamble with death.

Maybe if this were Kasich, we could have thrown Biden under the bus, but Trump has already been worse than our worst nightmares, and his first term isn't even over. If November comes, and Trump is vindicated with reelection, I shudder to even imagine what he'd attempt, as he's already gone violent.

If I haven't convinced you, here's one of my favorite political commentators who is also a Communist voting for Biden come November:

I understand your point. Trump has done awful things, and I agree. However, direct action is always stronger than just hoping your local progressive does something.

Look what happened in Minneapolis. They are set out to disband the police. This wasn't because of Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, or A.O.C.. This was because of the people protesting.

Joe Biden has done awful things too. He worked with Obama to devastate the Middle East, was responsible for the infamous crime bill, touched children and women in inappropriate areas, and bullied Anita Hill. Really, look what Biden did to the Middle East, it is really depressing. Biden was even heavily responsible for the Iraq War.

Lets not forget Kamala Harris is a literal pig and has done some awful things too.

Now Trump and Pence have done atrocious things like Biden and Harris too. I think more people should be educated on leftism to rise up against capitalism rather than just calm down and vote for Biden. Considering Biden doesn't even want ****ing medicare for all, how effective is Biden going to be at improving your lives? We cannot wait any longer for change, change has to happen now.

Relying on Biden and Harris for change is a bit weak, because they work for Wall Street and the many rich corporations and people. Biden even told Wall Street that nothing will fundamentally change.

Voting isn't the answer, it is time for revolution.

Sorry if that last message sounded too preachy, but I am extremely tired of just relying on electoralism to get things done.

Also Vaush sucks, he is racist and transphobic.
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