Political Roundtable Part XXVIII

[DCZards]

I might have said it a little differently but you are absolutely correct. Bernie is tone deaf (and obstinate) when it comes to appealing to African American voters...or anyone else outside of his current base of support.

It didn’t help when after Biden won SC some Sanders supporters labeled the mostly black voters there “low information voters.”

Biden does have the advantage as well as being Obama's vice president. Sanders did get the endorsement of Jessie Jackson but can't seem to beat Biden in this demographic especially in the South.

The Obama connection is definitely an advantage for Biden with African Americans. But the biggest advantage that Joe has with black folks is that most of them believe he can beat Trump...and that Bernie can't.

[Pointgod]

Guys stop fighting I like you both!

[montestewart]

It's a little funny to imagine Trump dying from Coronavirus after saying it's a Dem manufactured hoax, I mean he would deserve the hell out of it, but I just can't be happy about a germaphobe dying from precisely the thing he's irrationally terrified of. Ugh, that is just the worst possible way to go, imo.

I think that was a Tales from the Crypt story

[dobrojim]

At the risk of stating the obvious, based on tonight’s results, it’s over.

If Bernie had the support of more voters, he’d be the nominee.
He’s been unable to demonstrate he can lead the revolution he
wants to anything approaching majority status, even within
just the Democratic Party say nothing of the general electorate.
On that basis and given what’s at stake, a Trump 2nd term,
people that see beating Trump as the overwhelming top priority,
Bernie simply shouldn’t be the nominee.

Was Biden my first choice? Absolutely not. He’s cast some votes as Senator
that I think we’re really poor to put it mildly. I’d definitely preferred a
more progressive candidate. With the outcome of the general election
at stake, it’s not time to gamble simply because I preferred someone else.

Vote blue, no matter who.

[dobrojim]

Progressives should continue fighting the good fight for
their policies. There’s a hugely better chance of those
policies becoming reality after Trump loses and zero chance
of them happening if Trump wins.

[FAH1223]

I wonder if Bernie runs until June, amass delegates, gets some leverage on the party platform again.

Or does Bernie drop out in April?

If you were Sanders, what would you do?

I'd be absolutely shocked if Bernie doesn't drag this out a fair bit longer and then throw some stones at various institutions in defeat, even it's as simple as being obviously insincere about the whole thing.

If I were Sanders, I'd have dropped out from the start and supported Warren. Making a big push to try to see some of the reforms I claim to so strongly desire actually have a chance of coming to pass in my lifetime. Clearly it doesn't matter what I would do in Sanders' place. Sanders' big problem is that he doesn't actually plan to the degree a lot of his competitors do. Living in the moment can actually be an advantage when it comes to rallying together but to actually achieve lasting success generally requires a plan for that.

Nah, Bernie was in it to win it. Warren turned out to have run a worse campaign that got hijacked by consultants who didn't let her be herself.

Bernie's big problem is he didn't get a bigger slice of voters over 45 years old. If his campaign had pivoted to the older voters and shown how Bernie isn't a crazy radical and works like a normie Dem in the House and then Senate, his committment to Social Security and all that... this race would be tied or Sanders would be ahead in the delegate count.

I thought he'd do better with black voters than he's shown. Maybe its impossible to beat Obama's VP with black voters.

He's killing it with 18-44 demographic though they haven't turned out. He's killing it with Latinos too. He's put in work that in theory should help the Dems in the general.

I do agree with you that he doesn't plan ahead well. The campaign seemed to believe that winning 30-35% of the vote in the crowded field would be enough to get a big delegate lead on Super Tuesday cause of California and a strong Texas operation.

It nearly worked except... they didn't anticipate candidates dropping to consolidate around Joe. Naive and it shows Bernie didn't have the political insiders needed to play the game of getting endorsements and the hard hitting politics needed to broaden the base.

Its unfortunate. Cause Bernie is part of a larger progressive movement but this movement needs to change. It has to study US history.

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[Zonkerbl]

Yeah, I agree that MSNBC, particularly the morning show with Mika and whatsisname, were all in for Biden from the very beginning. It was very obvious.

A lot of people (including my wife) are furious for how Bernie behaved in 2016 and blame him for HRC losing. It may not be true that Bernie cost HRC the election, but it is certainly true that a large number of people, particularly women, blame him for it.

And people seem to like Biden, even though his policies are for crap. Hopefully he will pivot to the left. Also looking forward to seeing who his vp pick is.

[Zonkerbl]

Warren didn't run a bad campaign. She ran exactly the kind of campaign she wanted to run. She was sick and tired of mealy mouthed politicians making vague promises on the campaign trail and she tried her damnedest to be as precise as possible everywhere she could. She ran on that no bs strategy even when the air came out when the details of her m4a plan revealed just how impossible the whole idea was. Lots of taxes on unrealized capital gains that hinged crucially on being able to guess the value of huge real estate assets that the owner had absolutely no intention of ever selling (so no credible market valuations available), for example.

For someone so anchored to reality, why did she advocate for m4a before doing the math and realizing it was unachievable? That's when the air started to go out of her campaign.

The other problem is that she started to run up against the fundamental obstacle in US presidential politics - early on she could reach the hardcore political fans who were actually paying attention and get their support. But the large majority of actual voters don't give a rats a$$ about policy. They looked at her and were like, well, there's no memes about her. Who is this person? She absolutely refused to run a low brow campaign and it eventually came back to bite her. I admire her for it and I just wish America was better.

Everybody knows who Biden is, everybody in the country knows the tragedy he's been through, everybody knows what a nice guy he is, and right now that's all we want. Nevermind that he's on the record as being against m4a, won't legalize marijuana, and is absolutely delusional about being able to work with Republicans, so he won't get rid of the filibuster. Well, I don't know if he has any say in that actually. But he will bring all the angry Dems out in droves in 2020 giving them a chance to take the Senate. Republicans were willing to sacrifice *all* their principles for a Supreme court majority - I guess we have to do the same for a two year Senate majority - maybe we can undo some of the damage Trump did.

[Zonkerbl]

So there was this guy on Rachel Maddow the other night who was an expert in oil commodities saying that the collapse in oil prices caused Russia to misbehave in the global oil price conspiracy and Saudi Arabia started pumping out oil hand over fist to drive prices below what is economically viable for Russia to get them back in line. So the two thousand point plummet of the Dow a couple days ago was coincident with the coronavirus but not coronavirus linked. Sure enough, looks like Putin got the message and the stock market recovered, although oil prices haven't yet risen to where they need to be for Russia to make money.

[daSwami]

"An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society because under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information." -Albert Einstein

[Ruzious]

So there was this guy on Rachel Maddow the other night who was an expert in oil commodities saying that the collapse in oil prices caused Russia to misbehave in the global oil price conspiracy and Saudi Arabia started pumping out oil hand over fist to drive prices below what is economically viable for Russia to get them back in line. So the two thousand point plummet of the Dow a couple days ago was coincident with the coronavirus but not coronavirus linked. Sure enough, looks like Putin got the message and the stock market recovered, although oil prices haven't yet risen to where they need to be for Russia to make money.

Occidental Petroleum (OXY) is still down more than 2 3rds from what it was a week ago. I expect we've seen just the tip of the iceburg/roller coaster of the stock market's volatility that's soon to come.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Bernie Sanders ran a Presidential campaign in 2016. Pretending that isn't why Dems are moving left is MASK OFF time I guess

Why would you credit Bernie Sanders for that and not the changing political climate in general? You don't think all those voters out there who are increasingly concerned about the environment would have somehow been significantly less so if not for Bernie? You don't think universal child care would be an issue if not for Bernie? Bernie is absolutely a part of the discussion but as with all individuals, he's a decidedly small part of the discussion.

Perhaps not everything is some sort of Machiavellian plot against Bernie? Maybe it wasn't people moving left to squeeze out Bernie because they didn't like him but rather that people collectively moved left and Bernie fizzled a bit because of it? Maybe Bernie is struggling more facing off against a man than a woman because collectively people have certain biases, whether they know it or not? Maybe Russia's continued attempts to polarize political discourse and effectively divide and conquer are having an effect?

I don't have answers to all of these things. It might be some, all or none of them. It definitely doesn't pass the smell test to suggest that Bernie is responsible for the nation's entire political discussion shifting like that. If that's "MASK OFF" (whatever that means), then... sure? Mask off what, exactly? Why is it that a person can't be for massive political overhauls on several fronts while also questioning Bernie Sanders' brilliance?

[dckingsfan]

Man if Bernie loses by double digits in Michigan that's going to be just brutal

RIP my twitter feed

Did it?

52.89% v 36.39%

[dckingsfan]

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. "Vote Blue no Matter Who" is a prime example of this phenomena.

Same with #nevertrump?

[dckingsfan]

It wasn’t just the results of the primaries on Tuesday that spelled the end, though they were miserable for Sanders. It was the realization that, for the first time, Sanders’ campaign had no excuse — and nothing better to look forward to.

Sanders can’t win, he said. “But he will be able to bargain.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/11/bernie-sanders-primaries-takeaways-125390

[Pointgod]

At the risk of stating the obvious, based on tonight’s results, it’s over.

If Bernie had the support of more voters, he’d be the nominee.
He’s been unable to demonstrate he can lead the revolution he
wants to anything approaching majority status, even within
just the Democratic Party say nothing of the general electorate.
On that basis and given what’s at stake, a Trump 2nd term,
people that see beating Trump as the overwhelming top priority,
Bernie simply shouldn’t be the nominee.

Was Biden my first choice? Absolutely not. He’s cast some votes as Senator
that I think we’re really poor to put it mildly. I’d definitely preferred a
more progressive candidate. With the outcome of the general election
at stake, it’s not time to gamble simply because I preferred someone else.

Vote blue, no matter who.

I think the results of this primary showed that Bernie’s popularity in 2016 was more anti Hillary and sexism than pro Sanders. It’s amazing the same districts and counties that Bernie won in 2016 he got demolished by Biden this primary. For all the hand wringing from Bernie supporters about black voters it’s white people going to Biden that hurt him this cycle.

The writing is on the wall but I don’t see a problem with him staying in the race at least for the debate to see if he can make one last pitch to the American people. To be fair to Warren and Sanders I believe the electorate would be more willing to take a risk if it wasn’t **** Trump on the other side. This was as much a referendum on Trump as anything else.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

?s=19

[Ruzious]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-radical-plan-waive-payroll-192517459.html Trump wants to pay for a payroll tax holiday - either through the rest of the year or permanently - by basically bankrupting Social Security and taking chunks out of the Medicare budget.

VOTE!!!

[Pointgod]

Progressives should continue fighting the good fight for
their policies. There’s a hugely better chance of those
policies becoming reality after Trump loses and zero chance
of them happening if Trump wins.

Progressives should actually try to put forth reasonable legislation through Congress if the Democrats win back the Presidency and Senate. I truly believe that Biden ran for the right reasons to restore a broken country after the mess Donald Trump left it in. I don’t think he gives a shot about reelection and the man doesn’t need more political clout or connections. The mans not a demagogue, he’s not Republican like many on the left want to paint him. This is politics 101, coalition building and influence is how things move forward.

[daSwami]

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. "Vote Blue no Matter Who" is a prime example of this phenomena.

Same with #nevertrump?

Nah, I don't believe that "group" ever actually existed.