Democratic Candidate 2020

[secret squirrel]

Do you mind if I ask how old you are, Squirrel? Is the USSR part of history for you? Or was the Cold War something you lived with, a persistent fear of nuclear war and knowledge that 500 miles away there was an iron curtain with 400 million people trapped behind it, living in horrific totalitarian states.

Us winning the Cold War was a huge leap forward for the human race, freeing nations and oppressed peoples. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a wonderful thing; excusing the dictators who maintained it is contemptible.

Decent people with votes don't praise Hitler for being nice to his dog. And they don't praise nice things about Moscow - they go straight to the fact that the USSR was one of humanity's worst ever crimes.

I was alive when the Berlin wall came down, but I wasn't old enough to be paying attention. Not sure what your point is about nuclear war though. You realize the Soviets were terrified the Americans would initiate too right? And with good reason. You know a first strike was proposed and seriously discussed at the highest levels of the US military?

Anyway, with the exception of Woodchopper none of you has engaged with my points at all. I like to think the reason you won't seriously consider Western atrocities is that you're worried I'm right and you'll be cursed to a future of taking the unpopular side of tedious internet debates with smug Liberals.

Seriously though, you guys are just awful (with noble exceptions). It's like the editorial board of the NYT all climbed into a van and farted at the same time.

[dyqik]

Did Corbyn ever have consistent polling showing that he would beat the incumbent? My memory is short.

The national head to head polling is useless. What counts is polling in the swing states needed to win the college. Trump is doing well in those polls.
Sanders has not done well in getting out the vote in the primaries. The people voting are the ones who generally vote in primaries, not new Dems.
The Powers That Be will do the same thing to Sanders as they did to Corbyn. You need a stealthier left candidate. Warren would be good, but America will never elect a woman president.

Part of me wants Trump to win because it will hasten the decline of American hegemony. But it will be bad for American people.

Huh? The primaries are only open to Democrat supporters.

That depends on the state. e.g. The New Hampshire Democratic Primary is open to Democratic and unaffiliated voters, South Carolina is open.

Nevada and Iowa don't hold primaries, but caucuses, which aren't at all representative of turnout.

[Herainestold]

Huh? The primaries are only open to Democrat supporters, and so far Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada have all had record turnout. Whether that's partly driven by people wanting to vote against Sanders I couldn't say, but my unscientific opinion is that Sanders support would probably be greater amongst new registers than old-school Dems and yet he seems to have won those states already.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — It is the most politically provocative part of Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign pitch: that his progressive movement will bring millions of nonvoters into the November election, driving record turnout especially among disaffected working-class Americans and young people.

And yet despite a virtual tie in Iowa, a narrow victory in New Hampshire and a big triumph in Nevada, the first three nominating contests reveal a fundamental challenge for Mr. Sanders’s political revolution: He may be winning, but not because of his longstanding pledge to expand the Democratic base.

The results so far show that Mr. Sanders has prevailed by broadening his appeal among traditional Democratic voters, not by fundamentally transforming the electorate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/us/p ... oters.html

I think Sanders will win the primary but lose the general.

[dyqik]

Do you mind if I ask how old you are, Squirrel? Is the USSR part of history for you? Or was the Cold War something you lived with, a persistent fear of nuclear war and knowledge that 500 miles away there was an iron curtain with 400 million people trapped behind it, living in horrific totalitarian states.

Us winning the Cold War was a huge leap forward for the human race, freeing nations and oppressed peoples. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a wonderful thing; excusing the dictators who maintained it is contemptible.

Decent people with votes don't praise Hitler for being nice to his dog. And they don't praise nice things about Moscow - they go straight to the fact that the USSR was one of humanity's worst ever crimes.

I was alive when the Berlin wall came down, but I wasn't old enough to be paying attention. Not sure what your point is about nuclear war though. You realize the Soviets were terrified the Americans would initiate too right? And with good reason. You know a first strike was proposed and seriously discussed at the highest levels of the US military?

Anyway, with the exception of Woodchopper none of you has engaged with my points at all. I like to think the reason you won't seriously consider Western atrocities is that you're worried I'm right and you'll be cursed to a future of taking the unpopular side of tedious internet debates with smug Liberals.

Seriously though, you guys are just awful (with noble exceptions). It's like the editorial board of the NYT all climbed into a van and farted at the same time.

Are we as bad as Hitler? Or even as bad as Stalin?

[dyqik]

Can we take the dictator praise to a different thread and leave this one to sensible grown up politics?

No. It's directly relevant to why Sanders is such a risk.

We seem to have a derail here anyway. I can split the topic, but won't if people would rather I didn't.

Please can you split this thread, so those of us trying to talk about the US 2020 election don't have to put up with this discussion which is utterly irrelevant?

[secret squirrel]

Successfully concocts intellectually vacuous, dishonest attack on Sanders in imitation of forthcoming right-wing propaganda

Falls for it hook, line and sinker and says things most people, rightly or wrongly, find even more objectionable

Let's hope this isn't how the public conversation goes should Sanders win the nomination. The correct response is something like:

Don't be f.cking daft - you can praise a public transport system without praising the politics of the people who built it. I like the Metropolitan line, but that doesn't mean I support British imperialism in India.

It won't convince Trump supporters, of course, but the remaining sensible people in the US desperately need not to put each other off, and appearing to downplay the atrocities of one of the last century's most reviled dictators is sure as sh.t a good way to freak people out.

I don't really count this as a public conversation. Obviously if I were a public figure in the Sanders campaign I wouldn't make these points. I don't think anything I or anyone says here makes a difference to the Sanders' chances, or anything else for that matter. My hope is that a few people will actually look into the things I'm talking about. The facts speak for themselves if someone is prepared to actually consider them.

[secret squirrel]

Are we as bad as Hitler? Or even as bad as Stalin?

Let's say, worse than Stalin, but not as bad as Hitler. Around 1.3 Pol Pots worth of awfulness. Or approximately one Dick Cheney.

[dyqik]

Successfully concocts intellectually vacuous, dishonest attack on Sanders in imitation of forthcoming right-wing propaganda

Falls for it hook, line and sinker and says things most people, rightly or wrongly, find even more objectionable

Let's hope this isn't how the public conversation goes should Sanders win the nomination. The correct response is something like:

Don't be f.cking daft - you can praise a public transport system without praising the politics of the people who built it. I like the Metropolitan line, but that doesn't mean I support British imperialism in India.

It won't convince Trump supporters, of course, but the remaining sensible people in the US desperately need not to put each other off, and appearing to downplay the atrocities of one of the last century's most reviled dictators is sure as sh.t a good way to freak people out.

I don't really count this as a public conversation. Obviously if I were a public figure in the Sanders campaign I wouldn't make these points. I don't think anything I or anyone says here makes a difference to the Sanders' chances, or anything else for that matter. My hope is that a few people will actually look into the things I'm talking about. The facts speak for themselves if someone is prepared to actually consider them.

This is a public conversation, indexed by Google, etc. Not an important one, but still public.

[secret squirrel]

This is a public conversation, indexed by Google, etc. Not an important one, but still public.

Yes obviously it's literally a public conversation. I just don't count it as part of The Public Conversation..

[lpm]

The primaries are only open to Democrat supporters

There are open primaries, where red-hatted Maga-morons have been going to vote on who they want as candidate. And they are voting for Sanders.

[Bird on a Fire]

The primaries are only open to Democrat supporters

There are open primaries, where red-hatted Maga-morons have been going to vote on who they want as candidate. And they are voting for Sanders.

Is there any evidence that this is a significant phenomenon?

[lpm]

No, it won't make any difference. But there's absolutely no question who Trump and Putin want to run against. Same as the Conservatives who joined Labour to vote for Corbyn - didn't make a difference to the result, but the Conservatives were delirious with delight at getting their preferred opponent.

[lpm]

No. It's directly relevant to why Sanders is such a risk.

We seem to have a derail here anyway. I can split the topic, but won't if people would rather I didn't.

Please can you split this thread, so those of us trying to talk about the US 2020 election don't have to put up with this discussion which is utterly irrelevant?

No. That would be misleading. This isn't about whether USSR and USA are terrible. It's about why Sanders is a terrible candidate.

Secret Squirrel wants to take it out of the context of what American voters think. That is the whole point of the discussion. American voters like the USA and hate the USSR. There will be attacks on Sanders showing him liking minor aspects of the USSR and criticising significant things about the USA. How will Sanders respond? By doubling down, same a with his praise of Cuban education.

None of us are considering Western atrocities on this thread because there is absolutely no chance that discussing Western atrocities will be part of the US electorate's discussion this year - except in the context of slamming Sanders for his reasonable, but electorally disastrous, comments on America's global failings. In a country where they salute the flag every morning and where even Obama took a beating for hinting at a tiny little doubt about American exceptionalism, how do you think an argument about "but we also threatened the Commies with nukes" is going to go?

[Herainestold]

Secret Squirrel and lpm are both correct in different ways. If you took the last 50 years (ie post Stalin) and compared the death toll from the USSR/Russia and the West (mostly USA) , America would be way ahead.
However, pointing that out, and pointing out that Sanders was on the right side of history - is guaranteed to lose you the election.

Here is an article from a few years back on Bernie Sanders and his views on foreign policy. Its not sympatheric to Bernie and shows what he is up against -in the context of an American election.

So to my fellow journalists: the next one of you who gets caught in one of Sanders’s riffs about the CIA’s involvement in the overthrow of Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh, ask him one of my questions. Ask him how consistent he has been on foreign policy. And help him answer a question posed by a Burlington Free Press journalist in 1985, who wondered if his useful idiot trip to Nicaragua would come back to haunt him in a future race.

“The answer is ‘probably.’ But I’ll be damned if I know how.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-bern ... a-a-lesson

[secret squirrel]

I agree with lpm and others when they say my arguments would be electoral suicide for Sanders to make. However, I think he and his team are smart enough to avoid making that mistake. You can't generalize from the Cuban education issue, because Cuba is way less of a bogeyman than the USSR. If it were easy to knock Sanders down by getting him to appear to support Stalin, say, the other Democrats would be doing it right now.

[dyqik]

I agree with lpm and others when they say my arguments would be electoral suicide for Sanders to make. However, I think he and his team are smart enough to avoid making that mistake. You can't generalize from the Cuban education issue, because Cuba is way less of a bogeyman than the USSR. If it were easy to knock Sanders down by getting him to appear to support Stalin, say, the other Democrats would be doing it right now.

They wouldn't, because they are honest. And they will support whoever wins the nomination.

That doesn't apply to Trump etc.

[secret squirrel]

They wouldn't, because they are honest. And they will support whoever wins the nomination.

That doesn't apply to Trump etc.

I don't recognize reality in this comment at all. I guess we live in very different worlds.

[Woodchopper]

We seem to have a derail here anyway. I can split the topic, but won't if people would rather I didn't.

Please can you split this thread, so those of us trying to talk about the US 2020 election don't have to put up with this discussion which is utterly irrelevant?

No. That would be misleading. This isn't about whether USSR and USA are terrible. It's about why Sanders is a terrible candidate.

There isn’t agreement among the participants in the thread so I’ll stick with the status quo and leave it as it is for now.

[dyqik]

They wouldn't, because they are honest. And they will support whoever wins the nomination.

That doesn't apply to Trump etc.

I don't recognize reality in this comment at all. I guess we live in very different worlds.

Yes. You live in one of anti-Democratic party propaganda and lies, and believe that all western politicians except your darling Bernie Sanders are actively evil. You've been indoctrinated into a cult of personality if you believe that Sanders is the only honest person in US politics or the Democratic primary race, or that all Democratic candidates will do anything, however immoral, to destroy Bernie Sanders.

Note that the converse of this is not that the US is wonderful and Democratic party is wonderful. It's that the Democratic party and the US is made of a bunch of humans with differing motivations and views, and different primary concerns, with a complex history and culture.

[dyqik]

Please can you split this thread, so those of us trying to talk about the US 2020 election don't have to put up with this discussion which is utterly irrelevant?

No. That would be misleading. This isn't about whether USSR and USA are terrible. It's about why Sanders is a terrible candidate.

There isn’t agreement among the participants in the thread so I’ll stick with the status quo and leave it as it is for now.

I'll be starting a new thread to discuss the US election then, because this one is derailed to f.ck now and not about the US election.

[Bird on a Fire]

They wouldn't, because they are honest. And they will support whoever wins the nomination.

That doesn't apply to Trump etc.

I don't recognize reality in this comment at all. I guess we live in very different worlds.

Yes. You live in one of anti-Democratic party propaganda and lies, and believe that all western politicians except your darling Bernie Sanders are actively evil. You've been indoctrinated into a cult of personality if you believe that Sanders is the only honest person in US politics or the Democratic primary race, or that all Democratic candidates will do anything, however immoral, to destroy Bernie Sanders.

Note that the converse of this is not that the US is wonderful and Democratic party is wonderful. It's that the Democratic party and the US is made of a bunch of humans with differing motivations and views, and different primary concerns, with a complex history and culture.

I'm not sure it's wise to assume that everyone critical of mainstream US politics has been indoctrinated into a Sanders cult.

[dyqik]

I don't recognize reality in this comment at all. I guess we live in very different worlds.

Yes. You live in one of anti-Democratic party propaganda and lies, and believe that all western politicians except your darling Bernie Sanders are actively evil. You've been indoctrinated into a cult of personality if you believe that Sanders is the only honest person in US politics or the Democratic primary race, or that all Democratic candidates will do anything, however immoral, to destroy Bernie Sanders.

Note that the converse of this is not that the US is wonderful and Democratic party is wonderful. It's that the Democratic party and the US is made of a bunch of humans with differing motivations and views, and different primary concerns, with a complex history and culture.

I'm not sure it's wise to assume that everyone critical of mainstream US politics has been indoctrinated into a Sanders cult.

I'm not assuming that. After all, I'm critical of mainstream US politics all the time.

I'm basing it on the statements of the poster in question, who says he can not recognize any honesty in Democratic candidates and says that Sanders is the only choice.

The only logical conclusion from that is that secret squirrel believes that the entire Democratic party is both stupid and entirely lacking in honesty, and that Sanders isn't at all. That's a personality cult.

[dyqik]

For example, in suggesting that Sanders has been fully scrutinized and as dishonestly attacked by rival Democrats as he will be by the GOP, secret squirrel is saying that the Democratic candidates are too stupid to realize that they need Sanders' voters in November. This is obviously false, because it's discussed all the f.cking time.

[dyqik]

Oh, and I should probably point out that Sanders is probably my second choice when I go and vote on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, I don't get ranked choice voting though, so I haven't though too hard about my second choice.

[secret squirrel]

I'm not assuming that. After all, I'm critical of mainstream US politics all the time.

I'm basing it on the statements of the poster in question, who says he can not recognize any honesty in Democratic candidates and says that Sanders is the only choice.

The only logical conclusion from that is that secret squirrel believes that the entire Democratic party is both stupid and entirely lacking in honesty, and that Sanders isn't at all. That's a personality cult.

This is a pretty bonkers take to be honest. The thread started with generally lightweight commentary and all too familiar largely empty criticisms of Sanders, and I posted a jokingly phrased comment mainly in reply to lpm. I went for what seemed to me to be a good natured wind up of you about good Democratic party members. You saw through it, but I read about the people in the links you posted and said they were ok to pretty good. I formally retracted my claim about good democrats only endorsing Sanders. I kind of assumed the way I phrased it would make it double clear it wasn't ever intended seriously. Later, when the subject came up I posted some controversial opinions backed up with well documented facts about American imperialism in the 20th century, which I stand by. You take criticism of US foreign policy really personally for some reason. And then we got to here where you're essentially making stuff up. I mean, I think you're probably a decent and well intentioned person. But I don't think your views are well represented by the Democratic party establishment, and it's weird to me that you seem to think they are.