Democratic Party Presidential Candidates for 2020

[Cristalle]

There is no good argument for giving Assad and Putin unchecked power.

We set the stage for this level of a mess by invading Iraq. We definitely should not have done that, but isolationism now will not fix it.

This is not an argument “in favor of war.” Giving Putin what he wants will not protect us and our most traditional allies from more war. He’s proved he will take what he can, because he’s determined to have a sphere of influence surrounding Russia to insulate it. This does not make it okay to abandon these people to losing their sovereignty completely.

If we want the US to stop playing world police, we should support strong international institutions with teeth. But of course our right wing can’t have that (encouraged by Russia).

Sorry, but I disagree about Assad. What threat is Assad to us? He isn't out there attacking us. He didn't fly planes into the World Trade Center. Saudi Arabia did. Assad didn't provoke us. We are in his country, trying to topple him, not the other way around. He's a threat to his people, not ours. If you want to make the humanitarian argument, I will reiterate that the US is comfortable with north of 70% of the strongman dictators who are threats to their people in the world, but they are not being bombed by our military. The humanitarian argument is just a cover for our ambitions for oil or preserving the petrodollar. Are we going to war for the Rohingya? No. The Phillipines? No. You may not be making the explicit argument "in favor of war" but war is the logical and expected result. It is what is going on in Syria now, where we are giving weapons to the people who are actively working to bring us harm at a later time. It is not "isolationism" to resort to soft power instead of bombs. Bombs are not our only tool.

As for Putin, we already are a check on Putin in a number of ways.

 

[Brenda Archer]

Sorry, but I disagree about Assad. What threat is Assad to us? He isn't out there attacking us. He didn't fly planes into the World Trade Center. Saudi Arabia did. Assad didn't provoke us. We are in his country, trying to topple him, not the other way around. He's a threat to his people, not ours. If you want to make the humanitarian argument, I will reiterate that the US is comfortable with north of 70% of the strongman dictators who are threats to their people in the world, but they are not being bombed by our military. The humanitarian argument is just a cover for our ambitions for oil or preserving the petrodollar. Are we going to war for the Rohingya? No. The Phillipines? No. You may not be making the explicit argument "in favor of war" but war is the logical and expected result. It is what is going on in Syria now, where we are giving weapons to the people who are actively working to bring us harm at a later time. It is not "isolationism" to resort to soft power instead of bombs. Bombs are not our only tool.

As for Putin, we already are a check on Putin in a number of ways.

It’s not Assad by himself that’s the worst problem (for the US), it’s the combination of Assad and Putin building a bulwark so close to Israel.

I have big problems with Netanyahu’s government and the settlers but there’s a reason the joke is that Israel is the 51st state.

I agree that the whole situation is as corrupt and expensive as can be. But the US is not inherently broke, we are being plundered by a tax cut that is redistributing wealth upwards and straining the social fabric.

Letting Syria go even further to hell will just intensify a refugee crisis that is straining politics in Europe. That does affect us directly. All these Pan-European right movements are coming together in a piece with what started out as our Neo-Confederates.

Isolationism can’t work. We don’t have a way to wall off the world. Either our military, or a revitalized coalition of democracies, are going to have to keep an assertive posture against Putin for the foreseeable future.

I’d rather a coalition was doing it, but we won’t be able to push for such a thing until our hard Right is good and buried. They oppose such things and have no standing internationally. We are treading water until they’re defeated.

 

[danielravennest]

Either our military, or a revitalized coalition of democracies, are going to have to keep an assertive posture against Putin for the foreseeable future.

You know what is putting pressure on Putin? Electric cars. A lot of Russia's income comes from fossil fuels. Guess what electric cars don't need? It doesn't matter *where* those cars are, oil is traded globally, so a drop in demand drops the oil price, and affects Russia's economy. The world is on track to sell 2.5 million electric cars this year, or 2.5% of all auto production. Aside from computer hackers, what modern industry does Russia have? They are going to become as economically obsolete as coal miners.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

You know what is putting pressure on Putin? Electric cars. A lot of Russia's income comes from fossil fuels. Guess what electric cars don't need? It doesn't matter *where* those cars are, oil is traded globally, so a drop in demand drops the oil price, and affects Russia's economy. The world is on track to sell 2.5 million electric cars this year, or 2.5% of all auto production. Aside from computer hackers, what modern industry does Russia have? They are going to become as economically obsolete as coal miners.

You are really overestimating the impact of 2.5 million cars have on the oil demand on global scale a lot. In 2015 there have been around 1.2 billion cars world wide; replace 2.5 million with electric cars, which is around 2 promille, and for sure the impact on oil demand is marginal at best, while in the mean time the car fleet is still growing with combustion engines building the majority, so in other words the demand increases.

And given the fact that at the moment around 60 million cars are being produced a year, it will take around 20 years to replace the current fleet. So even if by magic only electric cars would be produced from now on, it will take 10 years until the majority in the car fleet would be electrical cars.

And here we are only talking about cars; electrical engines for long range trucks are still not feasable, because the energy density of the batteries is way too low. And oh, we do use oil for ships and air crafts as well. And heating. And as raw material for the chemical industry.

So sorry, this won't happen anytime soon, instead the IEA is still predicting a steady increase of oil demand in their new policies scenario in the World Energy Outlook for the next decades.

 

[Eunoli]

Sorry, but I disagree about Assad. What threat is Assad to us? He isn't out there attacking us. He didn't fly planes into the World Trade Center. Saudi Arabia did. Assad didn't provoke us. We are in his country, trying to topple him, not the other way around. He's a threat to his people, not ours.

By this logic, we were right to stay out of WW2 until Pearl Harbor. I don't think that's an argument many Americans will agree with. Crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity and should never be left to stand. The man attacks civilians with chemical weapons. Full stop.

 

[Cristalle]

By this logic, we were right to stay out of WW2 until Pearl Harbor. I don't think that's an argument many Americans will agree with. Crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity and should never be left to stand. The man attacks civilians with chemical weapons. Full stop.

No. Assad wasn't expanding across his borders, like Hitler. And it doesn't change the fact that we do not aid every oppressed people. The Rohingya barely rate a mention in the crawl of our news media and their situation is worse than what Assad was doing before our war spilled over to Syria.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

By this logic, we were right to stay out of WW2 until Pearl Harbor. I don't think that's an argument many Americans will agree with. Crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity and should never be left to stand. The man attacks civilians with chemical weapons. Full stop.

You are playing the moral obligation card here right now. America is in no believable position to do whatsoever, because otherwise it would have closed Guantanamo Bay long ago, there would be no Abu Guraib scandal, no secret prisons of its intelligence agencies around the world, no drone attacks where the death of civialian bystanders is considered to be passable, and its close alliance with Saudi Arabia would have been shunned long ago, just to name a few examples. I could go one like this for hours.

 

[Eunoli]

You are playing the moral obligation card here right now. America is in no believable position to do whatsoever..

Just because America has done the wrong thing in the past doesn't mean it is obligated to do the wrong thing in the future. Trump won't do the right thing, but bad behavior doesn't negate ethical obligations.

 

[Han Held]

The problem being ...Guantanamo Bay, drone attacks and our Saudi alliance are wrong things being done in the present.

 

[Romana]

I was reading a tweet critical of Marianne Williamson, and some of her devoted followers (a few bots and some true believers) were deluging the OP with, "no, you're wrong, read what she said, update," etc. Tweet is here: Before responding (such I eventually thought better of) I decided to look for myself. Started with the mental illness issue. And the OP was right. In Ms Williamson's world depression is not a mental illness at all, and people just need to take a bubble bath, meditate, and love. It's a good thing she almost certainly won't be the candidate. I'd hate to have her in charge of coming up with a health plan.

 

[Romana]

Bwahahaha the Bernie doll looks like Statler or Waldorf from The Muppet Show. So does the Biden one.
The 45 do looks altogether too pleasant and cheerful.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Just because America has done the wrong thing in the past doesn't mean it is obligated to do the wrong thing in the future. Trump won't do the right thing, but bad behavior doesn't negate ethical obligations.

Your view on politics is hopeful, because it means that you've got still a working morale compass. Unfortunately though American politics, like of the most othern Western world alike, has nothing to do with morale or spreading human rights, but it is all about power and influence by any means necessary.

It's realpolitik; Macchiavelli, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It is all about maintaining the current sphere of influence, and increasing it, while mitigating the rise of other powers, nothing more and nothing less. Human rights are there just a shallow phase for the press, which is not enforced at all.

Or for example China - China put over one million (!) Uigurs in "correction camps", as they call them. But I am pretty sure that this plays a minor role in Trump's trade war, if any. Nor will he refuse to talk with Xi Jinping, if he visits again.

Just for some enlightening read this article about American involvement in regime changes in the Wikipedia.

I agree that Trump won't do the right thing, but for example Obama did neither, although he wanted to close Guantanamo Bay. Did he close it? No. What he instead introduced was a massive increase of drone bombing. The American government is totally okay with injuring and even killing civilian bystanders for example, who are near their target.

And the American involvement in Syria is not about human rights, but about preventing the construction of pipelines according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

 

[Brenda Archer]

The problem being ...Guantanamo Bay, drone attacks and our Saudi alliance are wrong things being done in the present.

We're all kinds of wrong.

We still can't give Syria to Putin.

 

[danielravennest]

You are really overestimating the impact of 2.5 million cars have on the oil demand on global scale a lot.

It is not absolute demand that is important, but rather the sensitivity of price to supply and demand. Blow up one tanker in the Straits of Hormuz, and the price jumps 10%. This is why OPEC + Russia conspired to limit production a few days ago. The rise in price from the restriction more than compensates for reduced volume of sales.

Also, electric car sales are not going to stay at 2.5 million. They were 2 million last year, 0.5 million in 2015, and zero in 2010. As battery costs come down, they become more competitive in terms of price and range per charge. You eventually reach a transition point where most cars sold will be electric.

 

[Eunoli]

The problem being ...Guantanamo Bay, drone attacks and our Saudi alliance are wrong things being done in the present.

Yup. We still do terrible things. What's happening at our borders is our nation's great shame right now. It still doesn't mean that we should allow evil to flourish or for Putin to gain everything he wants.

 

[Han Held]

Yup. We still do terrible things. What's happening at our borders is our nation's great shame right now. It still doesn't mean that we should allow evil to flourish or for Putin to gain everything he wants.

Of course, I agree with that. I simply think that we need to be as clear eyed as possible and not give into moral pretenses that open us up to "whataboutyou"ism.

I think we can ...and we need to... make the practical and moral arguments without falling into the "world's policemen" trap. (I'm not accusing you of that, I'm just pointing out it's a danger)

 

[Cristalle]

Yup. We still do terrible things. What's happening at our borders is our nation's great shame right now. It still doesn't mean that we should allow evil to flourish or for Putin to gain everything he wants.

We have to be more judicious about how we use our resources, because they are finite. 18 years and nothing in Afghanistan is a sign that we should get out. Syria's civil war is not something we should try to arbitrate, because the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.

 

[Free]

 

[Romana]

Joe Biden casts doubt on possible 2020 bid during cancer summit

Biden said he "desperately" wants to change the political landscape, and named other possible contenders

www.cbsnews.com