2020 Democratic Primary

Katheryne Helendale

🐱 Kitty Queen 🐱
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
7,915
Location
Right... Behind... You...
SL Rez
2007
Joined SLU
October 2009
SLU Posts
65534
Not going to argue with you there. But again... many people do not start paying attention to the race until after the primaries are over. That was me until well into my 30s. Expecting these people to show up was a failing strategy. And even so - if they'd coalesced around someone else, I wouldn't be nearly as incensed as I am about Biden. If they coalesced around Amy Klobuchar, this would have been a much easier pill to swallow.
I'm sure most of us here would have rather people coalesced around somebody else. Nobody is going to debate that. But the fact of the matter is, they chose Biden, so that's who we have. Your choices are now Biden or Trump. Grousing about it at this point serves no purpose other than to further divide us.
 

Cristalle

Lady of the House
Joined
Sep 24, 2018
Messages
1,376
Location
Flori-duh
SL Rez
2006
Joined SLU
July 8, 2008
SLU Posts
2903
What the fuck ever. You come in here insinuating that people are so easily influenced by Russians or Russian plants, and don't expect any pushback. I don't come here with the purpose of cutting down other voters. I usually save my ire for candidates but this stupid tactic of attacking VOTERS for their choices is not only dumb, but the real poison that prevents any kind of unity and is the greater danger to our democracy. Expecting people to just roll over and give up their votes for nothing is a bad thing, and should not be normalized.
 

Beebo Brink

Climate Apocalypse Alarmist
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
5,488
SL Rez
2006
But the fact of the matter is, they chose Biden, so that's who we have. Your choices are now Biden or Trump. Grousing about it at this point serves no purpose other than to further divide us.
They overwhelmingly chose Biden. Perhaps it was nostalgia for the Obama days, or the emotional need for a trusted father figure, who the fuck knows, but it was a clear win. And because I believe in the democratic process, I've accepted that who and what I want for this country is not a vision shared by the majority. It is what it is.
 

Veritable Quandry

Specializing in derails and train wrecks.
Joined
Sep 19, 2018
Messages
4,000
Location
Columbus, OH
SL Rez
2010
Joined SLU
20something
SLU Posts
42
I believe it came down to competence. With a dose of coalition building.

As a Senator, Biden put in the work, traded votes, and made connections both inside the Democratic caucus and with outside allies in unions, trade groups, and interest groups.

As Vice President, Biden was active and supportive in one of the most competent and scandal-free administrations this country has ever had. The only reason the Obama administration had few accomplishments is that Obama put everything behind the ACA and that hardened an irrational opposition.

Right now there is a strong desire for professionalism and competence. Someone to repair the damage and make our government function again. I can understand that. Major policy initiatives will have to wait until we can function as a country.

I wish we could have had a more progressive nominee. And sexism played a major role in the primaries. But I can vote for Biden. Given what any president can do in this political climate, at least our expectations will be tempered to match reality. Despite the glaring flaws this pandemic has exposed to more people, too many of them are frightened for their lives and livelihoods to leap into the unknown. We need stability before major change.
 

Beebo Brink

Climate Apocalypse Alarmist
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
5,488
SL Rez
2006
I wish we could have had a more progressive nominee. And sexism played a major role in the primaries. But I can vote for Biden. Given what any president can do in this political climate, at least our expectations will be tempered to match reality. Despite the glaring flaws this pandemic has exposed to more people, too many of them are frightened for their lives and livelihoods to leap into the unknown. We need stability before major change.
Just as importantly, the next term (probably several) will be limited to re-building everything Trump tore down. And even that effort will be largely determined by the composition of Congress. If we don't take back the Senate, I'll settle for a stalemate in which no further damage can be done. Just the presidential appointments alone will be enough.

My dreams of a progressive America are pretty shredded by now. I don't think we have an educated, principled electorate that can support that vision anymore. All empires come to an end, and I think we've peaked and are sliding down the other side of that hill now. We can put on the brakes now and then, to slow our descent, but our glory days -- such as they were -- are over.

One of the biggest blows of the Trump presidency has been to shatter the illusion of our supremacy. Even for nations and cultures that despised us, there was the belief that we were powerful and competent. We're still powerful, but the appearance of competence has been shattered.
 

Eunoli

SLU Cassandra
VVO Supporter 🍦🎈👾❤
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
1,050
SL Rez
2002
What the fuck ever. You come in here insinuating that people are so easily influenced by Russians or Russian plants, and don't expect any pushback. I don't come here with the purpose of cutting down other voters. I usually save my ire for candidates but this stupid tactic of attacking VOTERS for their choices is not only dumb, but the real poison that prevents any kind of unity and is the greater danger to our democracy. Expecting people to just roll over and give up their votes for nothing is a bad thing, and should not be normalized.
You literally get your news from RT. You told us that. The fact that your posts often mirror Russian talking points doesn't help.
 

Jolene Benoir

Hello World
VVO Supporter 🍦🎈👾❤
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
3,115
Location
Minnesnowta
SL Rez
2007
Joined SLU
Dec 2010
You never struck me as particularly happy either, mostly angry.

https://www.virtualverse.one/forums/members/salome.530/#latest-activity
Oh look, one of those who is constantly proclaiming that she would like to see more *civility* is personally attacking another user after said user made a general statement about the behavior of some others.

What's the matter, did it hit too close to home? If you didn't see yourself in her depiction I doubt you would have felt the need to attack.
 
  • 1Hug
Reactions: Salome

Salome

Vermicious Knid
Joined
Oct 21, 2018
Messages
892
Location
Carmen Sandiego's Pocket
SL Rez
2004
Joined SLU
Fuck I don't remember
My dreams of a progressive America are pretty shredded by now. I don't think we have an educated, principled electorate that can support that vision anymore. All empires come to an end, and I think we've peaked and are sliding down the other side of that hill now. We can put on the brakes now and then, to slow our descent, but our glory days -- such as they were -- are over.
I try not to tumble into too much despair because I know that’s the opposition’s goal. To discourage prople, convince them to throw away their votes, and stop trying. I try and think about how bad things were at different stages in the past and tell myself those people had to keep on trudging with many fewer resources, so the least I can do is keep trying.

The courts, of course, are what keeps gutting me. Even accepting all the horror — the unimaginable damage we’ve caused the innocent people being terrorized and separated from children at our borders, the dead we’ve callously shrugged off in Puerto Rico, etc. Even finding a way to live with all that, the incompetence and corruption that the courts have been seeded with for a generation makes me wonder how any law we do manage to pass will ever hold up again. I don’t know how we fix that. And it’s so frustrating that people don’t understand how government works to prioritize that kind of thing over their own idiocy.

I also don’t know what to do with the fact that we’re dealing with a brainwashed electorate on both sides of the extremes. On one hand, you’ve got the FOX-fed rabble who traffic in hate, fear, and insecurity and will insist the sky is red instead of blue if that‘s what they’re told. I used to think they’d just mostly die off, but we’ve seen enough of the younger generation get radicalized online via “movements“ like Gamergate, etc, that soft peddle the racism, misogyny, and toxic nonsense they gravitate toward. Now we have the added burden of the fauxgressive far-right funded and Russia-fed left of GG/TYT falling for the same flavors of disinformation only convinced of their own righteousness. Something has to break in those misinformation cycles before we’re going to be able to really swing the hesitant center toward real progress. But I have started to believe more and more it’s not going to happen in my lifetime.

So, yeah, I think looking at those insurmountable-feeling issues, the pragmatic majority opted for someone who has the experience and the connections to start repairing the damage on day one. Get us back aligned with our proper allies. Rebuild and re-enforce the social safety nets that have been decimated. Get the fucking monsters out of their appointed positions. Try and restaff some of the expertise we’ve lost in droves. Halt the needless cruelty. Remove someone who doesn’t want to set off a nuclear bomb just to get his jollies. Etc, etc etc. If we grab the Senate for a couple years maybe we can expand the ACA, advance some environmental necessities, and put some of these criminals in jail. But my once hopeful ambitions have been tempered. Just doing triage on the wounded is going to take so much time and resources. The GOP always makes sure of that on their way out the door, and the far-left always pretends it never happened.

Most people don’t understand the damage that has been happening across the board at all levels for the last couple years, especially the “both sides are the same” nutters. You’d think 100,000 unnecessary dead would wake some of them up, but it’s disheartening how many of them just shrug and slip that into their existing talking points instead of absorbing the scope of the cost of incompetence and abject cruelty.
 

Cindy Claveau

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 21, 2018
Messages
1,724
Location
Kansas
SL Rez
2005
Joined SLU
June 2007
SLU Posts
44403
Sorry if I'm tardy with this but I did wonder how long it would take for the press to expose Reade for what she is.

As her lawyer quits, Biden accuser Tara Reade’s credibility is challenged by lawyers whose clients she testified against as an expert witness

Several California defense attorneys said Friday that they would attempt to overturn criminal convictions that relied upon testimony from Tara Reade, the former Senate aide who accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993, because she may have provided false information under oath.During testimony in Monterey County court cases in which she was called as an expert on domestic violence, Reade said that she had received a bachelor's degree from Antioch University, had never taken the bar exam after graduating from law school and had been a legislative assistant in Biden’s office. Those claims have since been documented as false or been called into doubt in stories published since she made her accusation against Biden.
 

Innula Zenovka

Nasty Brit
VVO Supporter 🍦🎈👾❤
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
19,742
SLU Posts
18459
I've sometimes wondered about the mentality of the European communists in the 1930s who followed the official Party line that fascism was developed by capitalism in its death throes, as a final doomed response to the workers' world revolution, led by Comrade Stalin and the USSR, so cooperation with anti-fascists and anti-nazis outside the CP (be they Conservatives, liberals, social democrats or non-party socialists) was out of the question, since such parties, by accepting capitalism (or by not being part of the USSR-dominated Communist International) were no better than the fascists themselves.

This had catastrophic results, of course, particularly in Spain and Germany.

Now I begin to understand it, reading the posts by the die-hard Bernie supporters.

ETA

 
Last edited:

Innula Zenovka

Nasty Brit
VVO Supporter 🍦🎈👾❤
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
19,742
SLU Posts
18459
Excellent post by Stonekettle from 2016 about why he was voting for HRC -- not just against Trump but for HRC.

As he suggests, it stands up very well today.

 
  • 1Thanks
Reactions: Shiloh Lyric

Beebo Brink

Climate Apocalypse Alarmist
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
5,488
SL Rez
2006
I try not to tumble into too much despair because I know that’s the opposition’s goal.
I don't see my perspective as despair. Whether I'm right or wrong about my view of things, it's rooted in attempt to understand and recognize trends in history. One can point to the end of the Roman Empire without being steeped in despair. It was a long process of decline, as I believe ours will be, just because that's the way ruling cycles tend to run. A sudden and total collapse is less likely (but always an option as well).

Most people don’t understand the damage that has been happening across the board at all levels for the last couple years...
When we stopped requiring Civics instruction in every classroom in the country, we set ourselves up for today, but even so the rot must have started earlier. Because that change required a generation of adults who no longer felt civics was a key value to instill in future generations. That lack of knowledge and understanding has turned our democracy into swiss cheese.
 
Last edited:

Cristalle

Lady of the House
Joined
Sep 24, 2018
Messages
1,376
Location
Flori-duh
SL Rez
2006
Joined SLU
July 8, 2008
SLU Posts
2903
You literally get your news from RT. You told us that. The fact that your posts often mirror Russian talking points doesn't help.
Pavlov would be jealous. Do you see Russians around every corner?

I occasionally get news from the Americans that have shows on RT America. These are Americans that often have different points of view, because of their own ideology, not because the Russians put them up to anything. You have no idea what you're talking about, except that you are trained to see everything that you don't agree with as being a Russian talking point.
 
  • 1Agree
Reactions: Aeon Jiminy

Salome

Vermicious Knid
Joined
Oct 21, 2018
Messages
892
Location
Carmen Sandiego's Pocket
SL Rez
2004
Joined SLU
Fuck I don't remember
I don't see my perspective as despair.
Yes, I understand. Sorry if it seemed like I was projecting that onto you. I was mostly speaking for myself in regards to the constant chicken little refrains I see displayed in social media. There is an agenda in play constantly trying to convince people things are so broken they can never be fixed and so it‘s hopeless to try.


That lack of knowledge and understanding has turned our democracy into swiss cheese.
The Right has always been well funded in all its attempts to control textbooks for as long as I’ve been alive, regardless of if that was about maintaining the myth of “state’s rights,” the attempts to reject evolution, or the watering down of civics. But I think the biggest push in my lifetime was during the Reagan era and the consumerization of children. It became more important to churn out consumers and obedient workers than educated citizens with an appreciation for civil service and social awareness.
 

danielravennest

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 21, 2018
Messages
3,708
SLU Posts
9073
Like we all haven’t had to accept candidates that weren’t our ideal.
With our current form of representative democracy it is almost impossible to get a candidate or office-holder who is ideal for any given person. Members of Congress and the President/Vice President have to deal with every subject that comes up as federal business. The odds that their platform/actions will perfectly match your preferences across the board is nearly zero. The best we can hope for is someone will match you on the subjects that are most important to you. On top of that, with candidates you have no assurance that once in office they will do what they promised. For office-holders you at least have a record to go on.

So what we as voters get to do is choose candidates who are nearest our preference, or run for office ourselves. That's the only choices we have.