Democratic Candidate 2020

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dyqik
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by dyqik » Thu Mar 26, 2020 7:04 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote:
Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:22 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:18 am
I mean, maybe. But I don't think dealing with (AFAICT credible) cases like this should be a partisan process.
Of course no, but remember, we are dealing with US politics
With a known serial sexual abuser in the White House, and at least two on the Supreme Court.

Not that that's a reason why she should be ignored, but the reality is that it'll be used to dismiss all the claims against Trump.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Fri Mar 27, 2020 12:53 pm

dyqik wrote:
Thu Mar 26, 2020 7:04 pm
With a known serial sexual abuser in the White House, and at least two on the Supreme Court.

Not that that's a reason why she should be ignored, but the reality is that it'll be used to dismiss all the claims against Trump.
Kind of depends how the Democrats react doesn't it? I mean, Trump's supporters are going to dismiss all claims against him anyway, but if the Liberal demographic that is usually very vocal about rape and sexual assault is mysteriously low key about this then it will give them ammunition to talk about Liberal hypocrisy. And they'll be right too for that matter. I mean, we know the American right only cares about women's' rights to the exact minimum extent they can get away with, and they don't really pretend otherwise. Liberals on the other hand have been extremely loudly pro women's rights in recent years. If the same people who were denouncing Bernie Sanders for projecting raw, undefinable sexist energy a short while ago don't see these accusations against Biden as a massive deal, then they will have well and truly given themselves away.

Not that being hypocritical or not makes much of a difference in the business of winning elections though I guess. So whatever.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:25 pm

The Twitter response I've seen to this has been (a) very muted, compared with the concerns about Sanders' unelectable sexism, and (b) more along the lines of "she definitely must be yet another Russian asset" than "#BelieveWomen".
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by lpm » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:04 pm

I think we can safely assume every Presidential candidate, from both parties, till the end of time, will be accused of sexual assaults. Including female candidates.

Will be true in most cases, going by the historical record of previous presidents.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:23 pm

lpm wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:04 pm
I think we can safely assume every Presidential candidate, from both parties, till the end of time, will be accused of sexual assaults. Including female candidates.

Will be true in most cases, going by the historical record of previous presidents.
I mean yes I guess if you insist on nominating extremely overtly creepy guys with well documented histories of sexist behaviour.

On the other hand, Bernie Sanders has no sexual assault allegations against, despite being widely disliked by establishment types.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:49 pm

secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:23 pm
lpm wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:04 pm
I think we can safely assume every Presidential candidate, from both parties, till the end of time, will be accused of sexual assaults. Including female candidates.

Will be true in most cases, going by the historical record of previous presidents.
I mean yes I guess if you insist on nominating extremely overtly creepy guys with well documented histories of sexist behaviour.

On the other hand, Bernie Sanders has no sexual assault allegations against, despite being widely disliked by establishment types.
I don't think lpm is being entirely serious. It would be enormously surprising if allegations had emerged about Warren, or Sanders for that matter, whereas various things about Biden were already public record before he looked set to take the nomination.

I'm starting to get concerned that the lessons of 2016 haven't been learned at all. The Democratic Party really, really should have this election in their bag. It's theirs to lose. Nominating a candidate with a legitimately flawed record isn't part of a sensible strategy, but I think they've doubled down so hard on Biden that's who their stuck with.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by dyqik » Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:16 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:49 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:23 pm
lpm wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:04 pm
I think we can safely assume every Presidential candidate, from both parties, till the end of time, will be accused of sexual assaults. Including female candidates.

Will be true in most cases, going by the historical record of previous presidents.
I mean yes I guess if you insist on nominating extremely overtly creepy guys with well documented histories of sexist behaviour.

On the other hand, Bernie Sanders has no sexual assault allegations against, despite being widely disliked by establishment types.
I don't think lpm is being entirely serious. It would be enormously surprising if allegations had emerged about Warren, or Sanders for that matter, whereas various things about Biden were already public record before he looked set to take the nomination.
Allegations were made against Warren. By the pointless troll Jacob Wohl, but it happened.

You can absolutely guarantee that there would be allegations against Sanders if he won the nomination. Until then, it serves the GOP for those allegations not to be made.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:52 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:25 pm
The Twitter response I've seen to this has been (a) very muted, compared with the concerns about Sanders' unelectable sexism, and (b) more along the lines of "she definitely must be yet another Russian asset" than "#BelieveWomen".
Maybe the wokeness was performative after all. Huh.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:03 am

secret squirrel wrote:
Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:52 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:25 pm
The Twitter response I've seen to this has been (a) very muted, compared with the concerns about Sanders' unelectable sexism, and (b) more along the lines of "she definitely must be yet another Russian asset" than "#BelieveWomen".
Maybe the wokeness was performative after all. Huh.
I think it's pretty clear that the misogyny of Bernie bros is so potent it can even make other people downplay the seriousness of sexual assault allegations when their political agenda demands it.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:40 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:03 am
secret squirrel wrote:
Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:52 am
Maybe the wokeness was performative after all. Huh.
I think it's pretty clear that the misogyny of Bernie bros is so potent it can even make other people downplay the seriousness of sexual assault allegations when their political agenda demands it.
Look, Biden may or may not have raped someone, but Bernie's projection of raw, nebulous sexist energy makes well to do women on Twitter feel uncomfortable.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Squeak » Thu Apr 02, 2020 7:08 am

Perhaps I'm being naive but I'm waiting for the Biden rape allegation to get into mainstream newspapers before I pay too much attention to it. A quick google for Biden Tara Reade turns up all sorts of muckraker and partisan blogs but nothing from places like the NY Times or WashPo or even Politico. It's not as though those publications hide from airing similar allegations against politicians across the spectrum but they do tend to take a bit more care with their fact checking than private blogs. Until it passes the sniff test of reputable and suable journalists, I'm a little cautious, especially given the well-publicised shenanigans of people like Jacob Wohl.

I'm no fan of Biden and I'll be horrified if this does turn out to be credible. But I don't think it's a betrayal of the metoo movement to wait until it gets enough legs to pass the fairly lax defamation standards that apply to news articles about public figures in the US.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Thu Apr 02, 2020 8:52 am

The NYT etc. reported on the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh in detail when they were in the form of an anonymous letter though. If these allegations had been made against Sanders the mainstream American press would have been all over them, and at a deep level I cannot respect the credibility of someone who doesn't understand this.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Squeak » Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:34 am

All the big media outlets have been publishing stories about Biden's handsiness for ages. Several of them were treating his campaign as a write-off for months, even though he was leading in the polls. I struggle to believe that the NY Times, WashPo, LA Times, Atlantic, Politico, CNN, Slate, New Yorker, etc, etc are all suffocating this obvious story from the fever swamps unless there's something wrong with it. Or are they all part of the DNC conspiracy?

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by secret squirrel » Thu Apr 02, 2020 12:31 pm

Squeak wrote:
Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:34 am
All the big media outlets have been publishing stories about Biden's handsiness for ages. Several of them were treating his campaign as a write-off for months, even though he was leading in the polls. I struggle to believe that the NY Times, WashPo, LA Times, Atlantic, Politico, CNN, Slate, New Yorker, etc, etc are all suffocating this obvious story from the fever swamps unless there's something wrong with it. Or are they all part of the DNC conspiracy?
They are all broadly aligned with the DNC yes, though it's not a conspiracy. I think that when the NYT etc. heard the accusations against Kavanaugh they thought they were serious and they sincerely believed it was important to take them at face value without casting aspersions on the integrity of the anonymous accuser. They felt that, as a matter of principle, women should be taken seriously in these matters and they saw no reason to doubt that a person making such serious allegations, even anonymously, would have credible reasons for doing so. They recognized the tactics and arguments that apologists for rape and sexual assault use to dismiss the testimony of victims and they were anxious to avoid them. On the other hand, I think that when they heard the accusations against Biden they thought about how a person might use such accusations to destabilize the political process. They were genuinely concerned about Russian trolls and the like and it occurred to them how easy it would be for a person to make an accusation like this for some political or personal advantage. After all, it was a long time ago... why didn't she come forward before? Did she not recently write a fawning article about Putin? No, there's something distinctly fishy about this one. Far better to wait for some more concrete evidence. In any case, is beating Trump not the most important thing at the moment? It would be terrible if a false accusation we to derail the campaign. And so on.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Apr 02, 2020 12:59 pm

Google searching for "Biden assault allegations [newspaper name]" for any of the mainstream centre/centre-left outlets produces a lot of articles about Biden's generally problematic nature with women around this time last year, including in places like NYT and WaPo, back when everyone was writing him off as a past-it and the wrong kind of voice for politics right now. Since his dramatic comeback as the chosen one to defeat the scary socialist Sanders the amount of criticism seems to have dropped off rapidly, even though Biden doesn't seem to have changed at all and the new allegations are somewhat consistent with the existing picture.

Newspapers have a tricky balance to strike between pandering to their customers, pandering to their advertisers and setting their owners' agendas - not to mention reporting facts - so I'm not sure exactly what to blame for this pattern (if I'm not much mistaken).

Four years is too long to remember - how did those papers treat Clinton around this point in the race in 2016?
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by dyqik » Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:07 pm

This might help: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -president

We were in the phase where Hillary Clinton was the presumed nominee, but before Obama endorsed her. Sanders had a much better chance of winning the nomination on 1st April 2016 than he did on 1st April 2020.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by lpm » Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:00 pm

Sanders suspends his campaign.

Biden is the nominee.

Or is he, says the coronavirus waiting in the wings.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:01 pm

I think it's a shame.

Just when the importance of universal healthcare will be forefront in everybody's minds. Just when it's obvious that technocratic gradualism isn't the only game in town. Just when the power of the kinds of mass mobilisations Sanders specialises in is being demonstrated every day on the news.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:02 pm

Just when it is most important to get rid of Trump with the candidate with the best chance of beating him

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:08 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:02 pm
Just when it is most important to get rid of Trump with the candidate with the best chance of beating him
Last time I checked, the polling indicated they had an equal chance of beating Trump. Has that changed? Of course, the polling was wrong in 2016 and could be wrong again now, but I don't see what else we have to go on.

Trump is really unpopular - all they need is a candidate who motivates enough people to turn up and vote. The "electability" argument was also made for Clinton, as I recall.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:17 pm

Last polling I checked had Biden a few points further ahead, hence my comment.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:31 pm

Fair enough.

I guess we just have to hope Biden wins, but narrowly - comfortably enough that Trump is defeated, but not such a huge landslide that they could have gone for a worthwhile candidate instead.
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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by bolo » Wed Apr 08, 2020 7:22 pm

Nope, what you want is a landslide, to increase the chance that the Senate will flip. That's more important than proving some point about what might have been.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Apr 08, 2020 7:39 pm

bolo wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 7:22 pm
Nope, what you want is a landslide, to increase the chance that the Senate will flip. That's more important than proving some point about what might have been.
This. Sanders's supporters need to get over themselves and drop the tribalism. If they really care about kids in cages, etc - and I'm sure most do - then rally behind the campaign that can put an end to it.

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Re: Democratic Candidate 2020

Post by dyqik » Wed Apr 08, 2020 7:40 pm

bolo wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 7:22 pm
Nope, what you want is a landslide, to increase the chance that the Senate will flip. That's more important than proving some point about what might have been.
And that's also a result whereby Sanders plus Warren could end up holding some significant power in the Senate - a Democratic proposal with a majority of 2 or 3 would allow them to override the right of the Democratic party (Manchin and Jones (if he holds Alabama)), but demand concessions to do so.

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