2020 US Election

2020 Democratic Presidential Primary discussion thread

It should be separated from the bullshit trump thread

For me Bernie is the clear-cut choice.  Lifelong lefty activist.  Consistent message forever.  Longest serving independent in U.S. congressional history.  Isn't afraid to call out centrist dems and the media.  Already has a big following.  Most ethical campaign funding choice.  The list goes on and on.

Bernie is the best. And it's good that he actually has similarly minded people this time around. If any other progressive candidate ever wins they have him to thank for showing the public is (increasingly) ready for more progressive policies.

go off Bernie 

low-key angry that Mike Gravel was dropped tho

But does he actually have any chance of winning? I'm all for Bernie, but I'm just wondering if he's too progressive for the average American?

  On 7/31/2019 at 11:33 AM, Squee said:

But does he actually have any chance of winning? I'm all for Bernie, but I'm just wondering if he's too progressive for the average American?

This is what counts, since social media does not reflect how elections turn out. I think 538 very recently had him polling in 4th place. Biden had a 12 point lead over Warren. If Biden wins the nomination, we'll actually be rid of Trump. Most people just want shit to be normal again. I'm cool with that and being more politically active with a Dem in office who actually works for the US.

from what i see it's basically just bernie and warren, the rest are just a bunch of noobs/middle of the road/weak sauce type of candidates. but who's got a better chance against the orange d-bag? usa is ~45% morons who vote republicans no matter what and ~45% dems, what moves the other ~10%? i think bernie speak is still a little too wild and red for general americans, warren focuses on the same issues as bernie but deals with them from a more american yet critical perspective. so doesn't she stand a better chance after all?

Yang was too good for this world and Bernie's old, so I'm gonna bet that Biden's gonna get that bid. Status quo, here we go.

  On 7/31/2019 at 11:33 AM, Squee said:

But does he actually have any chance of winning?

This kind of sentiment is what got us beat in the last election. A lot of the people in the rustbelt states voted Republican because they disliked Clinton so much. These were people that generally voted Democrat. In addition, nearly half of all eligible voters didn't vote. This is purely speculation (like 90% of these threads), but I think a lot of people were disenfranchised by the DNC's choice and the way the primary went.

Joe Biden, aside from being vice president, is not a very strong candidate. This is pretty concerning when you also consider that Gen X and millenial voters are eclipsing baby boomer voters. Biden doesn't hold the same values as the general voting populace.

At the end of the day, if you voted Democrat in the past then that's probably what you're going to vote this time. So pick whoever you want in the primary.

  On 7/31/2019 at 4:57 PM, eugene said:

from what i see it's basically just bernie and warren, the rest are just a bunch of noobs/middle of the road/weak sauce type of candidates. but who's got a better chance against the orange d-bag? usa is ~45% morons who vote republicans no matter what and ~45% dems, what moves the other ~10%? i think bernie speak is still a little too wild and red for general americans, warren focuses on the same issues as bernie but deals with them from a more american yet critical perspective. so doesn't she stand a better chance after all?

I actually see Bernie as a realistic democratic candidate that Trump supporters may vote for.  They definitely won't vote for Biden, they may vote for Bernie.  It's not like Trump supporters think their votes through well.  Bernie has the most in common with Trump - wanting to fuck the system up the ass.  Just in a good way this time.

Also you're being regressive

  On 7/31/2019 at 5:14 PM, Gyroscopic said:

Yang was too good for this world

So shitty what the DNC did to him.

  On 7/31/2019 at 4:57 PM, eugene said:

from what i see it's basically just bernie and warren

well this is (sort of) the case- but i wish warren had supported bernie earlier. not sure if it would work now as i see the entire party being in a mess where they can't even agree on universal healthcare.

unless they plan on out-bullying trump- their best course of action is getting the rino's on their side because that would devastate trump's ego. his base is going to the polls. for sure. the DNC however has to earn those voters back

also: marianne williamson can get my vote 

Marianne is the only candidate brave enough to talk about the dark psychic forces at play

  On 7/31/2019 at 11:33 AM, Squee said:

But does he actually have any chance of winning? I'm all for Bernie, but I'm just wondering if he's too progressive for the average American?

This is the million dollar question. One argument for Bernie is that the democratic base will vote democratic no matter who the nominee is. So the people who prefer Biden over Bernie will still go out and vote for Bernie because they simply vote their party. And if Bernie is the nominee we'll see lots of people who dislike crappy candidates like Biden go out and vote for him.

In addition, I think people who think Biden is really far ahead aren't taking into consideration that the same person who would vote for Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren, would also vote for Bernie. Progressive candidates are in a way interchangable when it comes to polling. I don't think I've seen anyone say they like one progressive candidate and not Bernie. So the people who do are in a great minority. Though I've seen some peeps say they dislike Kamala and like Bernie now that I think about it.

IMHO Biden is polling so well in large part because of name recognition among democratic party 'normies'. They just vote who they recognize and have a similar mentality to the Republican's "We just need to get a republican in office" thing. 

Progressive candidates not so much. For them it's more a case for "which progressive candidate do you prefer slightly over the other" for whatever reason, and I'd vote for all three any day. Whereas if Biden is the chosen nominee I'll have to gather up all my willpower to go out and vote for that stick in the mud.

All that said, IDK if a progressive candidate can win in 2019. Lots of elderly folk still stuck in that Reagan era greed is good mentality. I think there's a reason we see the progressive trend EMERGING now, but it may be a few more election cycles before one can win. However I think in the next 4/8/12 years progressive candidates will be the most popular and for sure will eventually take over the democratic party.

  On 7/31/2019 at 10:39 PM, DavieAddison said:

Marianne is the only candidate brave enough to talk about the dark psychic forces at play

Orb Energy

To be honest I think she's getting too much shit, I know she's not viable but I'm glad she's running. She's articulate and actually laying out really coherent moral political positions in her answers, not just well-rehearsed canned talking points and vague policies. Literally more substantive than the 50% of the DNC field made up of centrist establishment that espouse neither passion nor progressive visions. I know very well she has some red flag positions on specific things but I'm glad she's in the field. She's like the inverse of Trump - absurd but well-meaning and positive. 

Biden is HRC all over again, Dems like him because he's a reminder of the normalcy under Obama and he has that cool uncle vibe that he'd kick Trumps ass after a few beers. That's literally it. I'm really worried he's going to be a built up disappointment if he gets nominated. Policy wise he's still a creepy old white dude and a centrist Dem that's voted for the Iraq War, the GOP lead tough on crime policies of the 80s and 90s, and a de factor corporate lobbyist shrill.

  On 7/31/2019 at 11:39 AM, Candiru said:

I think 538 very recently had him polling in 4th place.

The same 538

I don't mean to dismiss them on the merits of their research and all but the shitty part of Trump is he completely decimated every once reliable indicator in election predictions and expectations by winning in 2016. Any standards and trends consistent in US politics for decades were completely thrown out the window. The Dems need to embrace that from their perspective, I'd argue 2018's gains indicated that progressives can win. I have to point out that there's no longer moderate and independent swing votes at play, it's getting those so fucking disillusioned by establishment Dems like HRC, Biden, and even Obama in 2012 to get drawn in with bold candidates like Sanders, Warren, and to a lesser extent Harris, Castro, and Gabbard. 

538 had the highest percent chance of Trump winning out of any poll. And yeah, a 28.6% chance is still quite a chance, since he did win by very narrow margins in key swing states. Probably areas that were most heavily propagandized on social media, if I had to guess. They also nailed the midterms. They are not the only metric to go by, but they are one of the best. 

^ Wasn't aware of their midterm accuracy, noted. 

I'll vote for Biden of course and I'm voting straight up Dem indefinitely, but with him in particular I'll be holding my nose. 

What's the general substantive argument that he'd be a sure win? Just that he polls well against Trump?  That makes sense. I need to see some polls of registered Dems versus say general public citizens who self-describe as liberal or leftist. 

Also Trump def won heavily propagandized swing districts of swing states and the apathy of those who voted for Obama in the past who didn't show up and/or weren't into HRC clinched. That on top of the decades long systematic effort of the GOP to gerrymander the hell out of districts, leverage toward a Senate majority, and rely on electoral votes. It's plausible Trump could "win" in 2020 against a Dem with 4-5 million more popular votes. It's plausible that a Dem president and Congress will be denied SCOTUS appointments. It's plausible right-wing militias will flex to deny local and state level legislation through force. Trump's presidency has pretty much drawn a line in the sand and we're slowly seeing how right-wing the GOP has become and how complicit the mod GOP is and how much the Dems concede.

Both parties are experiencing sea change but the ugly irony is the Dems are having a substantive debate while the GOP just radicalizes and weaponizes pure authoritarian propaganda, and the centrist establishment continues to flounder in a state of bafflement.

  On 7/31/2019 at 10:39 PM, DavieAddison said:

Marianne is the only candidate brave enough to talk about the dark psychic forces at play

  On 8/1/2019 at 4:02 AM, joshuatxuk said:

^ Wasn't aware of their midterm accuracy, noted. 

I'll vote for Biden of course and I'm voting straight up Dem indefinitely, but with him in particular I'll be holding my nose. 

What's the general substantive argument that he'd be a sure win? Just that he polls well against Trump?  That makes sense. I need to see some polls of registered Dems versus say general public citizens who self-describe as liberal or leftist. 

Also Trump def won heavily propagandized swing districts of swing states and the apathy of those who voted for Obama in the past who didn't show up and/or weren't into HRC clinched. That on top of the decades long systematic effort of the GOP to gerrymander the hell out of districts, leverage toward a Senate majority, and rely on electoral votes. It's plausible Trump could "win" in 2020 against a Dem with 4-5 million more popular votes. It's plausible that a Dem president and Congress will be denied SCOTUS appointments. It's plausible right-wing militias will flex to deny local and state level legislation through force. Trump's presidency has pretty much drawn a line in the sand and we're slowly seeing how right-wing the GOP has become and how complicit the mod GOP is and how much the Dems concede.

Both parties are experiencing sea change but the ugly irony is the Dems are having a substantive debate while the GOP just radicalizes and weaponizes pure authoritarian propaganda, and the centrist establishment continues to flounder in a state of bafflement.

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He polls well, and there are a sizable amount of swing voters(weirdly, they exist) that would vote for him over any other dem. His foreign policy would be strong, where Bernie falls flat. He's not going to say "We don't need a border" which is a losing strategy. Even Warren fucks that up, and her policies are doper than Bernie's. 

I'm not on anyone's team here. There are things we just can't fuck up here if we don't want the country stolen from us by a dipshit treasonous reality TV show host. This is unfortunately a real possibility if dems choose to prioritize the sort of wokeness that pissed people off in the first place. That wokeness is fucking kryptonite and should be nowhere near a debate stage if we really want to see the best outcome here, as weird as that may sound. People from an all white rural area don't care when 14% of America's population(African Americans) are brought up as an example of poverty and desolation, since they can only know their immediate surroundings and that no one cares. The people that get it, clearly get it already. The best possible outcome needs to be tailored for the lowest common denominator too, not just hipster bros in urban areas. I've already fucked this up, but maybe you know what I mean. It's real.

I don't think he decimated any polling processes, you just have to have the awareness that polls are based on probabilities and we've had dozens of Presidents so of course you'll get a few 10% candidates

I am wondering if we need to think about "who can beat trump" so much. i myself think about how a trump debate would go with various candidates, but i am not sure if that needs to be the big factor deciding who gets nominated. what if we went with biden because people thought "biden will beat trump" and then he loses and everyone really liked warren better and thought she would do a better job as president. i think maybe people should just support the person they think should be president.

i hear people talking about how trump is a formidable force and i disagree. i'm alarmed that people dignify the rich kid conman or any adherence to him. it is wrong to recognize trump support as a legitimate position. that's where the media went wrong in 2015 and 2016, and they still do. they go for the largest percent of eyeballs and it - all the time - means glossing over the profound truth to instead bat around easy talking points.

I wouldn't be surprised if Republican strategy right now focuses on tearing into Biden's past when it comes to smelling women's hair and other weird stuff so they can build a super amazing commercial that fucks him up.  BIden's a fucking conservative dipshit and he won't draw out millenial voters who REALLY need to be brought out.  Boomers already vote in every election, they should not be the focus, they are not the bottleneck.  Millenials SHOULD be a big focus, especially when you take into account the fact that millenials are also far superior to boomers at social media, which has exponentially faster information propagation abilities than any other social platform like phones and word of mouth that boomers use.  Mobilize the millenials around big dick bernie and we will destroy Drumpf

I hope that the more Bernie exposes his socialist power level, the more popular he will get.  Federally legalize marijuana, release all prisoners who are in jail for petty drug crimes who were only put there because of racist cops.  Abolish for-profit prisons.  Make corporate political contributions illegal.  Make a more publicly accessible non-partison .gov internet platform to browse the voting records of every politician in US history in comparison to their public statements.  Take over two or three TV channels and use them for non-partisan political debates and discussion forums CSPAN style, no spin or interpretation.  Destroy all corporate tax loopholes.  Increase taxes on the rich significantly.  You can't argue against any of these points and neither can anyone else.