Democratic Candidate 2020

[dyqik]

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.

Where have I taken your criticism of US foreign policy really badly or personally? I largely agree with the criticisms, although your position is also incredibly naive if you think that US foreign policy becoming less active would result in anything much other than Russia or China filling that void.

What I find incredibly irritating is your complete lack of nuance and the fact that you don't seem to have any real understanding of US domestic politics, or any realistic idea of how it could actually change for the better. But you feel the need to declare that only one candidate is good, and that all other candidates are dishonest and the same. I showed you were wrong, and you accepted that for local congressional representatives, but you then made exactly the same statement again above. This is the personality cult, and it's incredibly problematic if you want the US to change in a more progressive direction. It's also a childish position to take, and demonstrates that you don't want to really think about complexity, process, or how to make real change.

[secret squirrel]

Where have I taken your criticism of US foreign policy really badly or personally? I largely agree with the criticisms, although your position is also incredibly naive if you think that US foreign policy becoming less active would result in anything much other than Russia or China filling that void.

What I find incredibly irritating is your complete lack of nuance and the fact that you don't seem to have any real understanding of US domestic politics, or any realistic idea of how it could actually change for the better. But you feel the need to declare that only one candidate is good, and that all other candidates are dishonest and the same. I showed you were wrong, and you accepted that for local congressional representatives, but you then made exactly the same statement again above. This is the personality cult, and it's incredibly problematic if you want the US to change in a more progressive direction. It's also a childish position to take, and demonstrates that you don't want to really think about complexity, process, or how to make real change.

When did I say all the other candidates are the same? I did originally say Bernie was the only good candidate, in a jokey context as described in my post. When did I make 'exactly the same statement as above again?' I'm just not sure I know what you're talking about. I think Bernie is the best candidate, because he has workable democratic socialist policies and a clear and consistent vision in opposition to the Republican narrative.

What I remember saying in previous posts is that the centrist, gradualist approach to change isn't working. Or at least, the drift in American economic policy has been all in the opposite direction for decades. I think people who think business as usual politicking and cutting deals is going to be enough are naive actually. Meaningful change is going to need sustained pressure from social movements, industrial action, riots etc. Sanders getting elected would just be a first step.

Pressures from the modern form of capitalism and climate change are mounting fast, and time is running out. My fear is that 20 years from now the Democratic party will be outflanked on the economic left by socially far right populists. I can see this taking shape in the rhetoric of Trumpism and the rants of people like Tucker Carlson. The time will soon come that the people running America will have to make decisions on which hundreds of millions of lives in the developing world depend (even more so than today). I really don't want Ecofacsists in charge when that time comes. I see electing people like Bernie sanders as a necessary but not sufficient condition to counter this threat.

As for foreign policy, yeah, if America disappeared from the world another despotic power would fill the void. But that doesn't mean the constant violent meddling in politics in the Middle East, South America etc., the looting of Africa and so on was/is justified. That didn't happen because America needed to do it to counter the Soviets or the Chinese. It happened because the organizations who made decisions about when to do that kind of stuff were and are functionally psychopathic.

[Bewildered]

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 agree with what you write in the last paragraph, but to me that is not consistent with what you wrote at the top ie, "They wouldn't, because they are honest. And they will support whoever wins the nomination." Nor do I think squirrel's disagreement with statement or any of his other post i've read leads to the conclusion you draw in the first paragraph.

[Bewildered]

f.ck me sideways.

My Polish uncle, who grew up not far from Auschwitz, whose family tree was rendered into a stump and who made it over here to fight the Nazis, would leave the room if Stalin was mentioned. That's how f.cking bad the USSR was.

Did someone say Stalin wasn't bad? I missed that.

"once Stalin had purged the USSR of any and all dissenting voices and terrified the remaining population into utter slavish obedience that would last for two generations, Brezhnev was able to actually be a pretty chilled out leader" is what you said.

I find it hard to follow your point here and given (as far as I recall) how you have called for good rational arguments over emotive responses in other debates I am surprised by these posts. The top one seems irrelevant to what squirrel argued, since he had already said multiple times stalin was horibkle and tried to discuss a comparison of the soviet union either without the stalin period or at least one that goes beyond it. The last response is then an unfair paraphrasing of what he wrote that even if true doesn't make your first post anymore relevant.

Anyway I guess what you want to say is that the other regiemes carried on sever oppression of their own people and the fact that they didn't murder people like stalin was because communist party control of the population was cemented by the brutal methods he had used? is that about right?

[sorry dyqik, I find this as or maybe more interesting the actual topic, I am fine with a split for this discussion if starts with post earlier than this (this one makes little sense in isolation)]

[Bewildered]

Well put.

Putin is a criminal and a mobster. As far as I know, he hasn't been responsible for the deaths of 20-million of his own people though.

The USSR was highly corrupt - that's how a lot of the oligarchs managed to get so wealthy when it was collapsing. They were already in a cosy position under communism.

Do you realize that in the years immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union life expectancy in Russia dropped from 65 to just under 58, and that it didn't get back up to Soviet levels till 2012? The neoliberalization of Russia was a humanitarian disaster, and it was American pressure that forced it to play out in the way it did, aided by Yeltsin's greed of course. Gorbachev's vision of greater national autonomy and cooperative ownership was much better then both the Soviet system and what actually happened, but unfortunately it wasn't to be.

Also, that 20 million figure is a significant exaggeration. I think better estimates have it lower, at around 10 million. Obviously this is a very large number, but we might as well be accurate. A more serious point is that Stalin was the absolute lowest point of the USSR. After his death it wasn't anything like as bad as that, though it was still quite bad in a lot of ways. So Putin is not as bad as Stalin, though if we counted up the number of his own people killed by his sh.t social policies we might also get a large number. But life under Putin is probably worse than under, say, Brezhnev.

I agree with a bunch of the specific things you say here (upto some of woodchoppers corrections) and in other posts, and I agree that western countries have done awful things in the past and more recently, but i think I disagree with the genuine spirit of what you have been saying.

I think that in the period of the soviet union (1918-1991), which is post chattel slavery in the US and the violent genocide of native americans, western countries (which does not include nazi germany of course) did not do things that are as bad as what USSR did, and in the same period treated their own populations far far better. I also think if we compare post stalin period only that western countries treated their own populations far better than the soviet union treated theirs. The disparity is not as extreme and there are huge downsides (massive inequality, exploitation, etc) but overall my impression is the soviet union was a much worse place to be and a much worse government to have (regardless of disparities in natural resources etc). I think how they treat their own populations is important to consider separately from what they do to others (while it absolutely does not excuse what they have done to other countries) , because it provides a model for how other countries should be run and influences the future of our societies. I would prefer to live in the model of america than the model from the soviet union, and I think the scandanavian model (despite what some on both sides may argue) is much more influenced by the american one than the soviet one.

[secret squirrel]

I agree with a bunch of the specific things you say here (upto some of woodchoppers corrections) and in other posts, and I agree that western countries have done awful things in the past and more recently, but i think I disagree with the genuine spirit of what you have been saying.

I think that in the period of the soviet union (1918-1991), which is post chattel slavery in the US and the violent genocide of native americans, western countries (which does not include nazi germany of course) did not do things that are as bad as what USSR did, and in the same period treated their own populations far far better. I also think if we compare post stalin period only that western countries treated their own populations far better than the soviet union treated theirs. The disparity is not as extreme and there are huge downsides (massive inequality, exploitation, etc) but overall my impression is the soviet union was a much worse place to be and a much worse government to have (regardless of disparities in natural resources etc). I think how they treat their own populations is important to consider separately from what they do to others (while it absolutely does not excuse what they have done to other countries) , because it provides a model for how other countries should be run and influences the future of our societies. I would prefer to live in the model of america than the model from the soviet union, and I think the scandanavian model (despite what some on both sides may argue) is much more influenced by the american one than the soviet one.

Yes certainly the USA was a far, far better place to be a white and not terribly well off person than the USSR. There is no counterpart to the Holodomor in the US in the same period, though as I mentioned before, if we look at other Western countries we can look at something like the Bengal famine. There's no counterpart to the purges of the 30s either. While anti-communist activities in the red-scare era made life very difficult for a lot of left-leaning people in the US, people were not being shot in the hundreds of thousands as they were in the USSR.

There are some caveats to the relatively rosy picture of life in the USA vs the USSR though. First, treatment of minorities, specifically the Black community, in America has been appalling in this period, and even today where legislation is not overtly racist as it was before, the legacy of previous decades lives on in massive inequality, incarceration rates etc. Second, the idea has been raised that American foreign policy, while brutal, was in some sense 'necessary', or at least regarded as necessary at the time. Well, if we're going to allow that kind of defense we should also apply it to the Soviet Union. The Soviets, for the entirety of their history were under immensely more pressure than the US. Russia prior to the revolution was a peasant society. Soviet leaders correctly predicted they would at some point in the near future be forced into a war of annihilation. Farm collectivization turned out to be a really bad idea, not even taking into account the huge human cost, it just didn't increase productivity (I believe it reduced it), but it is understandable how the Soviet authorities at the time felt extreme measures were necessary in their drive to industrialization. As a historical aside, I believe Soviet advisers in the 50s tried to warn Mao away from making similarly catastrophic mistakes, but sadly they were not successful.

My point isn't to defend collectivization, or the purges, but to say that since the US was mildly repressive at home, and extremely brutal away, in the face of essentially zero threat to their regime, it is at least understandable how the very real threat of collapse induced the kind of brutality seen in the USSR. This doesn't absolve people like Stalin of personal responsibility of course.

[lpm]

The 77-year old former Vice President seems nicely placed for Super Tuesday. 78-year old Bloomberg hopefully is going backwards fast - it will be his first actual appearance on the ballots on Tuesday and if he does poorly he'll look a bit ridiculous. While Buttigieg is going to get a jolt back to reality.

Warren and Klobuchar are getting squeezed out, quite a lot due to sexism. The 78-year old Vermont Senator is still ahead for Super Tuesday, god help us.

I'm amazed how little attention is being paid to Covid's impact on the race. The Chinese death rate is 14.8% at 80+, 8.0% at 70-79. These people are all rich, so will get elite healthcare. Let's say it averages 4% for these three 77-78 year old men, one of who has serious heart problems, one of who has minor issue of heart stents, one who seems in good health. The chance of at least one of them dying of Covid is something like 12% over the next couple of years. What's going to happen on the campaign trail? Sanders shaking hands with coughing admirers?

The Presidency ending up as a race between Vice President candidate Pence and Vice President candidate Harris would be a great twist.

[Bird on a Fire]

The 77-year old former Vice President seems nicely placed for Super Tuesday. 78-year old Bloomberg hopefully is going backwards fast - it will be his first actual appearance on the ballots on Tuesday and if he does poorly he'll look a bit ridiculous. While Buttigieg is going to get a jolt back to reality.

Warren and Klobuchar are getting squeezed out, quite a lot due to sexism. The 78-year old Vermont Senator is still ahead for Super Tuesday, god help us.

I'm amazed how little attention is being paid to Covid's impact on the race. The Chinese death rate is 14.8% at 80+, 8.0% at 70-79. These people are all rich, so will get elite healthcare. Let's say it averages 4% for these three 77-78 year old men, one of who has serious heart problems, one of who has minor issue of heart stents, one who seems in good health. The chance of at least one of them dying of Covid is something like 12% over the next couple of years. What's going to happen on the campaign trail? Sanders shaking hands with coughing admirers?

The Presidency ending up as a race between Vice President candidate Pence and Vice President candidate Harris would be a great twist.

Even without covid there's a good chance the next prez will die in office. Attention has certainly been paid to the fact that most of the leading candidates have actuarially iffy-looking odds of completing the term, e.g. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... old-116117

[Fishnut]

Buttigieg has dropped out

[lpm]

The youngest male candidate left in the race is... 77 years old.

[Woodchopper]

The youngest male candidate left in the race is... 77 years old.

I had been hoping that the presidential election wouldn't be between two old, white, straight men. But its looking more like it will be.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Before he slips out of public consciousness I just wanted to get my "Buttigieg Buttigieg baker's man" joke in.

[secret squirrel]

Part of me wants Biden to get the nomination just for the potential Trump vs Biden debates. The absolute state of humanity. Honestly.

[Bird on a Fire]

Part of me wants Biden to get the nomination just for the potential Trump vs Biden debates. The absolute state of humanity. Honestly.

OTOH, putting a competent, young speaker up against Trump's sundowning swiss-cheese of a brain would look like elder abuse.

Perhaps Bernie is in the sweet spot - old enough not to seem like a physical threat, but still sane enough to make sense.

[plebian]

Buttigieg has dropped out

Thank f.ck, he was a tw.t.

[dyqik]

Part of me wants Biden to get the nomination just for the potential Trump vs Biden debates. The absolute state of humanity. Honestly.

OTOH, putting a competent, young speaker up against Trump's sundowning swiss-cheese of a brain would look like elder abuse.

Perhaps Bernie is in the sweet spot - old enough not to seem like a physical threat, but still sane enough to make sense.

Someone as sharp as Warren would make as much sense, and lose the "too young" label, to be replaced with "not enough balls" label.

[Bird on a Fire]

Buttigieg has dropped out

Thank f.ck, he was a tw.t.

tHaT's HoMoPhObIa!

[Bird on a Fire]

Part of me wants Biden to get the nomination just for the potential Trump vs Biden debates. The absolute state of humanity. Honestly.

OTOH, putting a competent, young speaker up against Trump's sundowning swiss-cheese of a brain would look like elder abuse.

Perhaps Bernie is in the sweet spot - old enough not to seem like a physical threat, but still sane enough to make sense.

Someone as sharp as Warren would make as much sense, and lose the "too young" label, to be replaced with "not enough balls" label.

Yes, Warren would be good too.

I don't have a problem with politicians being old, as long as they're not out-of-touch or senile.

[lpm]

Biden is incredibly out of touch.

But he'll win, that's the main thing.

[Bird on a Fire]

Biden is incredibly out of touch.

But he'll win, that's the main thing.

I thought the polling showed that any of the leading candidates were roughly equivalently able to beat Trump? For instance, this from Fox yesterday shows Biden, Sanders and Bloomberg all beating Trump (Warren, unfortunately, within the margin of error):

Forty-two percent would vote to re-elect Trump if the election were today. That’s up from 38 percent in May 2019 and the largest share he’s received to-date.

On the other side, a majority of 52 percent would vote for someone else. That puts the president underwater by 10 points, an improvement from a net negative of 16 points in May 2019.

At the extremes: 32 percent would definitely vote for Trump vs. 45 would definitely back someone else.

The NYT is also ambivalent on the issue of electability https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/us/p ... trump.html

It seems that the US public would really like to replace Donald Trump with pretty much any other old white man, so the Democrats might as well choose the one they prefer.

Obviously this is all about the popular vote, rather than electoral college - has any advanced polling been done to try to account for the extra weight given to voters in smaller, more rural states?

[lpm]

Klobuchar. Out. Endorses Biden.

The moderate vote is no longer split. On the left, Sanders and Warren. Moderate: Biden. From the racist Republican wing of the party: Bloomberg.

There's a 15% threshold barrier for getting delegates. With 6 in the race that matters more than with 4. Biden should now beat the threshold everywhere, limiting Sanders lead. But Sanders will still be a bit ahead on delegates after tomorrow.

[lpm]

Biden is incredibly out of touch.

But he'll win, that's the main thing.

I thought the polling showed that any of the leading candidates were roughly equivalently able to beat Trump? For instance, this from Fox yesterday shows Biden, Sanders and Bloomberg all beating Trump (Warren, unfortunately, within the margin of error):

Forty-two percent would vote to re-elect Trump if the election were today. That’s up from 38 percent in May 2019 and the largest share he’s received to-date.

On the other side, a majority of 52 percent would vote for someone else. That puts the president underwater by 10 points, an improvement from a net negative of 16 points in May 2019.

At the extremes: 32 percent would definitely vote for Trump vs. 45 would definitely back someone else.

The NYT is also ambivalent on the issue of electability https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/us/p ... trump.html

It seems that the US public would really like to replace Donald Trump with pretty much any other old white man, so the Democrats might as well choose the one they prefer.

Obviously this is all about the popular vote, rather than electoral college - has any advanced polling been done to try to account for the extra weight given to voters in smaller, more rural states?

Coat tails for the Senate and House also matter. Biden might only be marginally better in the presidency race - but almost certainly is better down ticket than Sanders.

[bolo]

Coat tails for the Senate and House also matter. Biden might only be marginally better in the presidency race - but almost certainly is better down ticket than Sanders.

Even if Sanders squeaked out a close win, there is a risk that his name on the ballot in swing districts would give the Republicans the House back.

[dyqik]

There's a fairly high chance of Warren (or Bloomberg, but I think he'll fold unless he does astonishingly well tomorrow) going into a contested convention holding the balance of delegates between Biden and Sanders.

What that turns into, I'm not sure, but a negotiated deal that sees Sanders delegates back Warren to prevent a Biden nomination surely isn't out of the question entirely?

[dyqik]

Coat tails for the Senate and House also matter. Biden might only be marginally better in the presidency race - but almost certainly is better down ticket than Sanders.

Not least because the convertible Senate and House races are, by definition, somewhat red districts.