2020 Democratic Primary

[Anya Ristow]

Once Bernie started using “the establishment“ against Planned Parenthood and leaders like Jim Clyburn

Where did you get that?

 

[Jolene Benoir]

You're overthinking this, but okay...





Trump is the abusive bastard. Uncle Ralf begat the abusive bastard.







no

Remember, Uncle Ralf begat Trump, so how would that be the Democratic party? Hyperbolic blaming of them notwithstanding.

Uncle Ralf is just a cynical view of the American leadership class, from which the millionaire pundits working for their billionaire handlers choose our leaders.

It's also possible the story was just malformed trash.

I see. So Uncle Ralf, the one who is attempting to foist "the other cousin" Joe Biden upon us is not the Democrats, nor the democratic voters making their choices at the polls, but the product of the ever present "deep state" or billionaire class, if you will. They are pulling all of the strings, brainwashing millions of people into voting for anyone but Bernie.

That about right?

 

[Salome]

I see. So Uncle Ralf, the one who is attempting to foist "the other cousin" Joe Biden upon us is not the Democrats, nor the democratic voters making their choices at the polls, but the product of the ever present "deep state" or billionaire class, if you will. They are pulling all of the strings, brainwashing millions of people into voting for anyone but Bernie.

That about right?

I feel like we had this conversation when they outed themselves as getting their “news” from conspiracy nutters... but you’re still trying to apply logic, aren’t you?

 

[Jolene Benoir]

I feel like we had this conversation when they outed themselves as getting their “news” from conspiracy nutters... but you’re still trying to apply logic, aren’t you?

Nods. I just took a time travel trip, courtesy of Kamilah, into the inner workings of the mind of at least one and it helped refresh my memory.

 

[Cristalle]

Where did you get that?

Anya, don't you know? Politicians and people in politically connected organizations are never influenced by things like donors or peer pressure from people who are. It's a conspiracy, there's nothing to it at all! /sarcasm

For your actual information, here: Why Bernie Sanders is fighting with Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign I don't agree with everything in the article but it will at least inform you as to what was discussed.

He had a point. His record on women's reproductive rights and human rights is sterling but the tone police are more interested in smashing dissent.

ETA: Re: Clyburn, Clyburn is one of the biggest recipients of Big Pharma money. Note again that health stocks shot up after Biden's wins on Super Tuesday.

Clyburn has taken more than $1 million in pharma money in a decade, far surpassing peers

Jim Clyburn's contributions from the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, which makes everything from ibuprofen to joint replacements, stands out when matched up to his peers'. The reason is likely

www.postandcourier.com

Clyburn sold his people out by propping up Biden, who will not materially change his people's situation.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

The way I think most Dems think about policy positions now: we are not going to get the leak in the plumbing fixed when the house is on fire.

Going to have to wait til the fire is out.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Anya, don't you know? Politicians and people in politically connected organizations are never influenced by things like donors or peer pressure from people who are. It's a conspiracy, there's nothing to it at all! /sarcasm

Of course there are nuggets of truth in your thesis. There are indeed billionaires/millionaires etc who are using their money to alter our political landscape, greatly helped by things like Citizens United. But, according to you, everyone but Saint Bernie is complicit in it. The entire democratic "establishment" is naturally, complicit, as well. To quote your words that I came across today, "an organization that is not much better than the one that's in power now".

The people choosing to vote for Biden are "what" in your mind? Deluded? Brainwashed? How about me? I voted for Warren. Deluded? Brainwashed? Unable to see that only Bernie is the savior? That he is the only clean democrat? Oh wait...scratch that.

And you wonder why lifelong democrats have doubts about the sincerity of people who tell them that they are wrong for casting their vote as they wish, with the party that has represented them throughout their lives?

 

[Salome]

An Open Letter to White Liberals Blaming 'Low Information' Black Voters for Not Cleaning Up White Folks' Mess

Dear Sir or White Man,

t.co

 

[Salome]

But, according to you, everyone but Saint Bernie is complicit in it. The entire democratic "establishment" is naturally, complicit, as well.

Bernie has been blackmailing Dems not to run anyone against him for years to keep his seat. He‘s been happy to make deals with “the establishment” so he can remain unopposed and have no accountability at the polls because Dems know that it would be handing the seat to the GOP to split votes. He pretends to be an outsider, but the only real job he’s ever had is career politician. His facade is as full of shit as McCain’s “maverick” nonsense was.

 

[Cristalle]

Of course there are nuggets of truth in your thesis. There are indeed billionaires/millionaires etc who are using their money to alter our political landscape, greatly helped by things like Citizens United. But, according to you, everyone but Saint Bernie is complicit in it. The entire democratic "establishment" is naturally, complicit, as well. To quote your words that I came across today, "an organization that is not much better than the one that's in power now".

The people choosing to vote for Biden are "what" in your mind? Deluded? Brainwashed? How about me? I voted for Warren. Deluded? Brainwashed? Unable to see that only Bernie is the savior? That he is the only clean democrat? Oh wait...scratch that.

And you wonder why lifelong democrats have doubts about the sincerity of people who tell them that they are wrong for casting their vote as they wish, with the party that has represented them throughout their lives?

People voting for Biden are comfortable with no change. They're privileged enough to not need an advocate, and it's in their real or perceived financial interests to vote for the status quo.

People who voted for Warren for policy purposes? I can understand them. She proposed good policies that, even with some modest compromises, would have moved the country forward in some ways. I don't agree that she had the conviction to fight as hard for all of them (emphasis on the word all) but her domestic policy positions are respectable. Foreign policy is different for me, but to me she represented half a loaf, and I would have taken it.

People who voted for Warren just because she's a woman? I don't do that kind of politics. I care about policy. That she had good policies would have been an accident of nature. I think that that kind of politics is the very thing some people here are critiquing as cult of personality politics. It's juvenile, uninformed politics to me. Representation without material benefit is mostly useless to me. That Warren was a fairly decent candidate was just lucky.

I don't believe that a party - Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, whatever - should be ingrained into people's identities to the point where they vote against their economic interests. It is no point of pride to me, to see someone tout being a lifelong whatever. Being lifelong Republicans is why the South is as it is. Black people especially being lifelong Democrats and having little to show for it is wrongheaded politics, beyond holding off the worst of the Republican Party. I am a black woman, I am an immigrant, and I support reparations for American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) and I agree in part with their movement because those people should be getting more for their loyalty to the Democratic Party. Watch the videos here of Antonio Moore posted a couple of pages back. I don't agree with him 100% but he has a very valid point of view.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

People voting for Biden are comfortable with no change. They're privileged enough to not need an advocate, and it's in their real or perceived financial interests to vote for the status quo.

This includes, for example, older black voters in South Carolina?

You can't possibly know all this, Cristalle, without someone having conducted rather more in-depth research, talking to voters and to focus groups, and doing some serious statistical analysis, than the few polls that have been conducted so far.

You're simply telling yourself, and others, your preferred version of why people vote as they do, based on how you think things should be.

Your interpretation might, for all I know, be perfectly correct, but in the position the Biden campaign suddenly finds itself -- on the back foot, rather, after the initial good start made him seem almost unstoppable -- would lead me, were I part of it, before coming to any conclusions, first to want to talk to Democrats who voted for Biden to find out what their concerns and motives are.

That's not so I could advocate their preferred policies, necessarily, to the Sanders campaign, but, rather, to find out what they thought made them prefer Biden to Sanders, so my campaign could try to think what, if anything, we could do to remedy our problem with them.

 

[Cristiano]

People voting for Biden are comfortable with no change. They're privileged enough to not need an advocate, and it's in their real or perceived financial interests to vote for the status quo.

These kind of sweeping statements you make are just stupid. I would have voted for Warren because I like her policies and her as a person and find her incredibly impressive. Joe Biden was not my first choice, but I would gladly vote for him before Bernie. I do want change, just not the pie in the sky bullshit that Bernie promises out of both sides of his mouth. My priority right now above all else is to remove the orange cancer from office and start to undo the damage. I am sure many other voters who will vote for Biden feel the same, and it has nothing to do with being comfortable with no change. Keep telling yourself that only those who want Bernie are the enlightened ones. Whatever you need to think, but your generalizations aren't fact.

 

[Brian]

Anya, don't you know? Politicians and people in politically connected organizations are never influenced by things like donors or peer pressure from people who are. It's a conspiracy, there's nothing to it at all! /sarcasm

For your actual information, here:
[...]
will at least inform you as to what was discussed.

Oh ye in danger of losing salvation, rest safely with me while I reinforce your indoctrination faith.

Pay no attention that even that article recognizes universities of higher learning as the cohorts of big pharma because of the research the world requires of them and the disclaimer that there is no sign whatsoever of blood money politics or tit for tat, or that combined yearly political donations from all sources averages 100,000 a year.
We can safely disparage the blacks once they're outed as successful anti-Bernie politicians.

 

[Salome]

 

[Brian]

And I welcome the matching set of screwdrivers I received from the last thread before I was too busy with life to pay attention to it anymore.

 

[Salome]

And I welcome the matching set of screwdrivers I received from the last thread before I was too busy with life to pay attention to it anymore.

What’s funny is you get those even if you ignore them to avoid the bother of dealing with their victim roleplay.

 

[Salome]

These kind of sweeping statements you make are just stupid.

Remember when you thought I was the most exhausting poster you’d ever have to cope with? I couldn’t have devised a better revenge if I’d tried.

 

[Cristalle]

This includes, for example, older black voters in South Carolina?

You can't possibly know all this, Cristalle, without someone having conducted rather more in-depth research, talking to voters and to focus groups, and doing some serious statistical analysis, than the few polls that have been conducted so far.

You're simply telling yourself, and others, your preferred version of why people vote as they do, based on how you think things should be.

Your interpretation might, for all I know, be perfectly correct, but in the position the Biden campaign suddenly finds itself -- on the back foot, rather, after the initial good start made him seem almost unstoppable -- would lead me, were I part of it, before coming to any conclusions, first to want to talk to Democrats who voted for Biden to find out what their concerns and motives are.

That's not so I could advocate their preferred policies, necessarily, to the Sanders campaign, but, rather, to find out what they thought made them prefer Biden to Sanders, so my campaign could try to think what, if anything, we could do to remedy our problem with them.

I took very seriously the article and thread posted that countered the idea that black South Carolinians were "low information" voters.

I omitted mentioning this by mistake as I was more focused on my response to the Warren question. The suburban Biden voters are who I was thinking of.

The way I read the South Carolina situation is twofold:

1. The Clyburn endorsement mattered. The Clyburn endorsement was the trigger for a large portion - indeed the majority of late deciders - of those people, according to polls. And because Super Tuesday went so quickly after, other people took that as a signal as where many blacks were going to vote.

2. Accepting the point of view as that from the twitter/articles I have seen from The Root, or The Nation, the point of older American blacks not trusting the way whites would vote and not trusting that whites would vote for a real progressive, and voting for what they know because it has a D behind the name.

a. Not trusting that whites would vote for a real progressive. I get this, however, I look at history. In 2008, black people did not initially support Obama. But after the whitest of white people in Iowa voted and he won, and he was competitive in New Hampshire primary and Nevada caucuses, people felt like they had "permission" to vote for Obama and they got behind him. This year, despite knowing Biden's record (and him lying about it now), people voted for him even though the whitest of white people and their Latino neighbors in Nevada voted for the true progressive. It's idiosyncratic. No, it's not because they're low information per se, though that is a feature of the American electorate as a whole, not a bug. But maybe it's just cynical politics, nihilistic politics. This dovetails with....

b. Voting D reliably because it's what you know, as articulated by Michael Harriot of The Root. The "he's not a Democrat" argument. It may be comforting for people to vote this way, but as I stated above, I don't agree with this politics. As Antonio Moore says, your vote should be an exchange for something. You shouldn't give it away to someone for nothing in return. People love to make the "oh it's pie in the sky argument" but that's just bollocks to me. You want to start negotiating for the strongest position, not the compromise, because when you DO compromise, you actually get something. I want an advocate, not a placeholder.

c. Fear. Fear is what is animating most Democrats, wanting to just get rid of Trump. If by the grace of God Biden won, and Trump is out of office, that would be nice. However, the overdue recession that Trump has been stalling by bullying the Fed to lower interest rates and the Fed pumping billions of dollars into the market with nary a peep from the media since October would likely come to fruition during the Biden administration. I have ZERO confidence that the former "Senator from MBNA" would fight for the kind of aggressive action needed to bail out main street. The lethargic, top-down bailout that stalled recovery during the 08 financial crisis is precisely what I'd expect him to advocate for, because the kind of people that drove us through that crisis and made those mistakes are exactly the same or same kind of people who will be put into power again. I keep saying that if we don't address the conditions that brought us Trump, we will get WORSE than Trump. And I can easily see worse than Trump showing up and winning in 2024 because of the timid, "business-friendly" capture of the government.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I took very seriously the article and thread posted that countered the idea that black South Carolinians were "low information" voters.

I omitted mentioning this by mistake as I was more focused on my response to the Warren question. The suburban Biden voters are who I was thinking of.

The way I read the South Carolina situation is twofold:

1. The Clyburn endorsement mattered. The Clyburn endorsement was the trigger for a large portion - indeed the majority of late deciders - of those people, according to polls. And because Super Tuesday went so quickly after, other people took that as a signal as where many blacks were going to vote.

2. Accepting the point of view as that from the twitter/articles I have seen from The Root, or The Nation, the point of older American blacks not trusting the way whites would vote and not trusting that whites would vote for a real progressive, and voting for what they know because it has a D behind the name.

a. Not trusting that whites would vote for a real progressive. I get this, however, I look at history. In 2008, black people did not initially support Obama. But after the whitest of white people in Iowa voted and he won, and he was competitive in New Hampshire primary and Nevada caucuses, people felt like they had "permission" to vote for Obama and they got behind him. This year, despite knowing Biden's record (and him lying about it now), people voted for him even though the whitest of white people and their Latino neighbors in Nevada voted for the true progressive. It's idiosyncratic. No, it's not because they're low information per se, though that is a feature of the American electorate as a whole, not a bug. But maybe it's just cynical politics, nihilistic politics. This dovetails with....

b. Voting D reliably because it's what you know, as articulated by Michael Harriot of The Root. The "he's not a Democrat" argument. It may be comforting for people to vote this way, but as I stated above, I don't agree with this politics. As Antonio Moore says, your vote should be an exchange for something. You shouldn't give it away to someone for nothing in return. People love to make the "oh it's pie in the sky argument" but that's just bollocks to me. You want to start negotiating for the strongest position, not the compromise, because when you DO compromise, you actually get something. I want an advocate, not a placeholder.

c. Fear. Fear is what is animating most Democrats, wanting to just get rid of Trump. If by the grace of God Biden won, and Trump is out of office, that would be nice. However, the overdue recession that Trump has been stalling by bullying the Fed to lower interest rates and the Fed pumping billions of dollars into the market with nary a peep from the media since October would likely come to fruition during the Biden administration. I have ZERO confidence that the former "Senator from MBNA" would fight for the kind of aggressive action needed to bail out main street. The lethargic, top-down bailout that stalled recovery during the 08 financial crisis is precisely what I'd expect him to advocate for, because the kind of people that drove us through that crisis and made those mistakes are exactly the same or same kind of people who will be put into power again. I keep saying that if we don't address the conditions that brought us Trump, we will get WORSE than Trump. And I can easily see worse than Trump showing up and winning in 2024 because of the timid, "business-friendly" capture of the government.

Fine, and it's all quite possibly correct.

But where is your data to back it up? Please show me the empirical data, or at least tell me how it was collected, and when and where.

We in the British Labour Party are having this debate at the moment, about why we lost so badly in December, and at least we have reports from the people out on the ground canvassing in various constituencies. Doubtless this will be supplemented, in time, by proper research, but at least it's something to go on.

 

[Cristiano]

It's easier to eyeroll, Cristalle than to back up the insulting generalizations you make about people who don't vote for the person you want them to.