Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[Tactical Genius]

Reporter shouting at Trump: "How do you beat Joe Biden?" Trump, pauses. "I think we beat him easily."

You have to hand it to Trump, the bullshitting comes to him naturally.

Actually, I think this is one of the very few comments from Trump that aren't bullshit.
I mean, given the choice between Diet and full fat bigot, who do you think the American people are going to go for?

Trump is doing alot of things that would resonate in middle America. Threatening the Chinese to remind them who's boss. Extracting trade concessions from the Whiney Canadians. Putting in place the Europeans who have taken free American protection (in the form of NATO) for granted.

Who cares about the Russians, they are a regional power at best. And where the F is Crimea, is it one of those shith0le counties like Africa?

[anton pulisov]

Well, yeah, I agree that he beats Biden easily. Throw in some playground putdowns from Trump (as in that clip) and he has Biden in a mess.

If the choice is between Republican-lite and Republican, then it is obvious who is going to show up to the polls and who isn't...

[Tactical Genius]

Looks like Biden and Sanders are neck and neck in Iowa.
I don't think Biden would get the nomination as he is too gaff prone.

[Nefertiti2]

Warren in West Virginia

https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1131267435141750785

[Satchmo Distel]

It would be funny if Trump beat Biden in the popular vote but Biden got the win by taking the rust belt by narrow margins. The downside is that we get Joe Biden.

Sanders should, in theory, be able to take the rust belt by bigger margins.

[San Bernardhinault]

I've said it before. While Elizabeth Warren might not make the best Presidential Candidate out of the current field of Democrats, I'm inclined to think that she'd make the best President.

I don't know who'd make the best candidate, but at the moment - despite some obvious flaws - I think it might be Buttigieg. All of them are pretty badly flawed in one way or another.

I remain utterly baffled by the electability argument put forward for both of the ancient white dudes.

[Lang Spoon]

Yep Warren is the only candidate with proper policies, and radical ones at that. Sanders is empty windy rhetoric as far as I can see. I really can't see Buttigieg surviving a proper race but. That Nathan Robinson article illustrates why he will deflate the leftist/minority/wc vote through his relentless triangulating nothingness and be a gift to Trump. This year's Beto.

Trump will walk this shit between suppression and the uselessness of the DNC.

[Nefertiti2]

Sanders is good. So is Warren (on domestic stuff, anyway).

the rest are wastes of space,

[anton pulisov]

Sanders is all about pointing out the injustice and getting people to the polls who wouldn't otherwise come to the polls.

No, his policies aren't as well drafted as Warren, and it would be better if they were. But I suppose when he is elected he can become the Lefty Bush. Bush also had zero concrete policies when he was running, but after he got elected his administration of Ayn Rand devotee lawyers and lobbyists delivered for his corporate-fascist base. They even got safety valve requirements for oil platforms thrown out, so that BP could save a few hundred grand.

Sanders-Warren would be an interesting ticket.

I don't see the point of collectively referring to Biden and Sanders as the "ancient white dudes" because they are clearly worlds apart in terms of policy. Needless identity politics.

[San Bernardhinault]

I don't see the point of collectively referring to Biden and Sanders as the "ancient white dudes" because they are clearly worlds apart in terms of policy. Needless identity politics.

It's a way of bundling two people I see as equally unelectable by using a common characteristic. They're unelectable for almost entirely different reasons (although I do think their age is close to disqualifying unless they were truly exceptional candidates), but I think they both make terrible candidates.

[Nefertiti2]

Except Sanders. Who has finally made left politics central to the Democratic campaign and inspired the likes of AOC.

Strange notion of terrible you have....

[Tactical Genius]

No comment......

[San Bernardhinault]

Except Sanders. Who has finally made left politics central to the Democratic campaign and inspired the likes of AOC.

Strange notion of terrible you have....

I think "central" is quite a push.

But while making left politics relevant to the Democratic Party is a good thing, that doesn't mean he'll be a good candidate in a national election. He was already a poor candidate beaten in a two horse race against the piss-poor Hillary Clinton - and then achieved most of his success in caucuses rather than in votes with a wider franchise.

Sanders is important to the change in outlook in the party, but there's no evidence that the wider American public are hankering after a haranguing windbag of a candidate when even a Democratic electorate was underwhelmed. His style is just not suitable. I think he'd be a terrible candidate. (Although probably not as bad as Biden).

[linus]

Sanders would have probably gotten the nomination in 2016 if the playing field were level. His appeal is more about him being an outsider than a leftist. Trump won the nomination and beat Hillary for that same reason.

[San Bernardhinault]

That would make the very remarkable assumption that Democratic voters have the same motivations and behaviours as Republican ones.

[linus]

That's actually been the case for a large enough voting block in states like OH, PA, WI, MI, where enough Democrat voters swang towards Trump to hand him the presidency. It also was the case for Republican voters who went for Obama in 2008, because he was perceived as an outsider who promised real change.

[anton pulisov]

Also remember that Sanders in 2015/16 had very little money, exposure or name recognition. And he was up against a DNC that was funnelling party money into Hillary's campaign and superdelegates who pledged to her from Day 1. So he did pretty damn good in organising a grass roots campaign from the ground up, all things considered.

[ad hoc]

I think "central" is quite a push.

But while making left politics relevant to the Democratic Party is a good thing, that doesn't mean he'll be a good candidate in a national election. He was already a poor candidate beaten in a two horse race against the piss-poor Hillary Clinton - and then achieved most of his success in caucuses rather than in votes with a wider franchise.

Sanders is important to the change in outlook in the party, but there's no evidence that the wider American public are hankering after a haranguing windbag of a candidate when even a Democratic electorate was underwhelmed. His style is just not suitable. I think he'd be a terrible candidate. (Although probably not as bad as Biden).

On pretty much all other matters US political, I really enjoy reading and learning from you SB, but I find your almost personal aversion to Sanders to be a bit of weird one. In 2016 Sanders very nearly won the nomination with the entire deck stacked against him . That in itself was an incredible achievement. He's shifted the debate almost single handedly. He's been a superb politician and advocate for decades (not that I agree with him on everything obviously). I don't think he'd be a great candidate for president this time around, simply because of his age, but his presence on the national stage in the last few years has opened the door for Warren (for example) to be a viable candidate, and for the election of a fantastic new generation of politicians like AOC and Ilhan Omar. But to you he's simply a "haranguing windbag". I honestly don't get your deep seated antipathy to him.

On the election I think democrats need to stop worrying about "who can beat Trump" and start working out who is the best candidate and best potential president. There is no point trying to second guess whether X is the best up against Trump. 35% of the country will vote for Trump come what may. 35% will vote against Trump come what may. Put forward a good candidate who the remaining 30% can see will do a good job as president. Personally i hope it's Warren. She's rubbish (and largely racist) on Palestinian human rights but I suspect she may slowly be getting it on that front.

[linus]

Tulsi Gabbard has the best foreign policy platform, by a longshot, with a non-interventionist stance. She stands a very good chance of beating Trump. Unfortunately she's being blackballed by the MSM.

https://twitter.com/smerc82/status/1129189655633649664

[San Bernardhinault]

Well, I suppose that's as close to the truth as other claims of yours, Linus.

[ursus arctos]

Wrong thread, SB

[San Bernardhinault]

On pretty much all other matters US political, I really enjoy reading and learning from you SB, but I find your almost personal aversion to Sanders to be a bit of weird one. In 2016 Sanders very nearly won the nomination with the entire deck stacked against him . That in itself was an incredible achievement. He's shifted the debate almost single handedly. He's been a superb politician and advocate for decades (not that I agree with him on everything obviously). I don't think he'd be a great candidate for president this time around, simply because of his age, but his presence on the national stage in the last few years has opened the door for Warren (for example) to be a viable candidate, and for the election of a fantastic new generation of politicians like AOC and Ilhan Omar. But to you he's simply a "haranguing windbag". I honestly don't get your deep seated antipathy to him.

I don't disagree with much of this. My antipathy is mostly a reaction to the claim that he's a good candidate. I think his style is not one that has any hope of being popular in a Presidential election. I think too many regular Democrat (general election, rather than primary) voters would get turned off by it who wouldn't get turned off by the same message coming from, say Elizabeth Warren. I think if he were candidate, Trump would be more likely to win by a substantial margin and the advances of the Democratic left would be diminished the same way that they were after the landslide against McGovern.

I think there's a lot of extrapolation from dubious data for people who want to see a Sanders candidacy - they see his success in rust-belty kind of states as suggesting that he'd have beaten Trump in those states. Yet in those rust-belty states his largest success was in Caucuses, where the most politically engaged - and therefore the most amenable to his rhetorical style - dominate. And his support was predominantly from the highly educated and from college students. It was not from the low employment blue collar voters who are the ones everyone seems to be focused on (which is itself something that bothers me, but that's a different question).

TLDR: I don't particularly dislike Sanders. I just think he'd be terrible in a general election. And I find his supporters often massively over-reach in their claims which probably irritates me more than it should.

[Nefertiti2]

Bernie

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1131900152795549696

[ursus arctos]

Mike is right (as he often is)

[URL]https://twitter.com/them_l_g/status/1131971998358360066?s=21[/URL]

[linus]

Sanders would have clearly been a better option than either Clinton or Trump, and still is, but he's also been duplicitous on interventionism, and has had a history of tacitly supporting Israeli aggression, as he did in 2006 IIRC when Israel attacked Lebanon and more recently in 2014 (that last instance is well-documented in the link below).

https://electronicintifada.net/conte...alestine/15581

Sanders is also a lot more hawkish and pro-interventionist than his image conveys.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-...pro-war-party/

https://www.mintpressnews.com/bernie...stance/208066/