Cont: 2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part IV

[Distracted1]

And this, in a nutshell, is why I don't take seriously the "hIlLaRy wOn tHe pOpUlAr vOtE" meme. The way the US election system works, there are too many confounding factors to derive any kind of majoritarian legitimacy from the "popular vote".

Trump agrees with you. Things would definitely turn out differently without efforts to curb attempts of a "one man-one vote" system.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/trump-republican-party-voting-reform-coronavirus

 

[varwoche]

<snip for brevity>

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I consider SCOTUS makeup as the most important thing. Perhaps you share my delight with Sotomayor, Kagan and RBG. Even if not, surely you see the stark difference compared to Kavanaugh.

It's narrow-minded to see Biden and Trump (generic democrat and generic republican if you prefer) as insignificantly different. SCOTUS alone is a profound difference.

 

[Delvo]

Biden's only gotten more dedicated to making Republicans happy, not less, since his enthusiastic defense of Clarence Thomas (and badgering of Anita Hill in that noble cause). He will not be a defender of Supreme Court sanity.

The difference between Trump and Biden on most subjects isn't their general pattern of doing generic Republican things. It's how they act about it afterward. Trump describes it in terms of fighting against the evil conspiracy of Democrats, whereas Biden describes it in terms of wonderful happy "bipartisanship" with a choir singing Kumbaya in the meeting room. But either way the real-world result is just whatever the mainstream Republican oligarchs wanted.

 

[SezMe]

.....In order for things in this country to not just get better but even just quit getting worse, the other party needs to learn the same fact. Right now, they're insistent on kicking their own base while it's down and rolling over for the other party to kick all of us, and that's what a Biden win will only encourage more of.

Based on your entire post, I'm interested how you define the "base" in that sentence.

 

[varwoche]

Biden's only gotten more dedicated to making Republicans happy, not less, since his enthusiastic defense of Clarence Thomas (and badgering of Anita Hill in that noble cause). He will not be a defender of Supreme Court sanity.

The difference between Trump and Biden on most subjects isn't their general pattern of doing generic Republican things. It's how they act about it afterward. Trump describes it in terms of fighting against the evil conspiracy of Democrats, whereas Biden describes it in terms of wonderful happy "bipartisanship" with a choir singing Kumbaya in the meeting room. But either way the real-world result is just whatever the mainstream Republican oligarchs wanted.

I don't assign very much weight to platitudes spoken by candidates. No matter...

Forget Biden and Trump. Consider generic D and generic R. Do you recognize the stark difference it means for SCOTUS? It's painfully obvious. It's not subtle. Do you really need the SCOTUS votes itemized? (Not here. And I'm not volunteering anyway.)

SCOTUS is the only thing I'm talking about here. I assume it matters to you too. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Aridas]

I don't assign very much weight to platitudes spoken by candidates. No matter...

Forget Biden and Trump. Consider generic D and generic R. Do you recognize the stark difference it means for SCOTUS? It's painfully obvious. It's not subtle. Do you really need the SCOTUS votes itemized? (Not here. And I'm not volunteering anyway.)

SCOTUS is the only thing I'm talking about here. I assume it matters to you too. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I've heard the situation compared to Virginia's. Supposedly, the Democratic governor has a history of decidedly not being a progressive, but, well, he's worked well with the just flipped legislature and plenty of progressive priorities are getting done. Much the same can be expected of Biden, provided that the voters can get him a Congress that's willing to push progressive priorities. Without said Congress, of course, it'll be rather hard to get progressive priorities to really happen anyways, even if we got Sanders.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

The main problem with the Bernie Stans is that, like the far larger group of Fox/Limbaugh lunatics who make up the GOP base, they're prone to conspiracy theory, purity tests, and disasterbation. I dunno what they're doing now that they have an actual disaster that they helped cause, and I don't really care - they have no understanding of voting strategically, so they just freak out and either don't vote at all, or vote third party. And while I said I'd never vote Bloomberg, Maryland is very safe in any case. Cheeto Benito has been plainly the worst possible choice since he started pushing birtherism. In another state, the math would change, although either would be awful.


But hey, they now have their planet-wide disaster they wanted to wack off to. And White People^TM, the brand name not every white American, got it as well.

Curious how you frame this as purity tests. Take the lack of universal health care in the US, which is often cited as a Bernie bro purity test.

We have leaders in this country talking about the community making noble sacrifices - staying home from work, curtailing social activities, giving money to charity, etc etc, in order to defeat this pandemic. At the same time, they defend a system that leaves people totally uncovered for medical emergencies.

Unless some drastic action is taken, this pandemic is going to bankrupt uninsured and underinsured people who have the expensive misfortune of spending several days in the ICU. Without intervention, our for-profit system will bankrupt hospitals serving communities with high numbers of uninsured people who consume expensive care, but never make good on the debt.

Is universal health care still a purity test? Or is it just pointing out that this system is an abject failure?

Here is a purity test I fully endorse. Nobody who voted for the Iraq war should have a place in politics. The amount of blood and treasure that have been pissed away because of this disastrous decision is immense to the point of being impossible to conceive. Now we have a right wing that largely insists that the decision was sound, and a supposed left wing that pretends they never supported it or that they aren't responsible for the disastrous consequences while still employing the same rationale that lead to the original mistake.

"Purity test" is the moderate wings wave of hand-waving away the plain fact that the Democratic party has been captured by the right and transformed into a center-right party. It's a way of dismissing the plain fact that the supposed liberal party has a proven track record of making the wrong decisions time and time again, for lacking conviction and courage, and for defending right-wing institutions.

"Purity test" is just a term that exist to completely insulate the powerful from the consequences of their decisions.

 

[Delvo]

And the whole "purity test" accusation is being pushed by the same people who keep saying that it's bad if a candidate draws votes from the other side because those would be the unclean impure voters we don't want (even though the only thing that matters is "ELECTABLE!!!!!").

 

[wareyin]

And the whole "purity test" accusation is being pushed by the same people who keep saying that it's bad if a candidate draws votes from the other side because those would be the unclean impure voters we don't want (even though the only thing that matters is "ELECTABLE!!!!!").

Really? You don't think there are Biden supporters hoping that all of the moderate Republicans and never-Trump Republicans will hold their nose and vote for Biden over 4 more years of Trump? If one were to go by social media, more moderate conservatives will be voting for the candidate on the left than Bernie bros. Hopefully those are just the outsized noise of a few unreasonable BBs, but again, they didn't turn out for Bernie in the primary so they can't be relied on too much in the general.

 

[Delvo]

Forget Biden and Trump. Consider generic D and generic R. Do you recognize the stark difference it means for SCOTUS?

Yes... decreasingly so while "generic" continues sliding to the right, but yes overall, for now.

* * *

To me, the better argument against Trump might be not judicial appointments but his habit of giving orders a President just can't order and having those orders obeyed anyway. That's the dynamic of a dictator. Biden would be conservative, but he'd be legally & constitutionally so. On the other hand, now that Trump and his zombie horde have demonstrated how easily it can be done (and that the "opposition" is too perpetually spineless to ever ever hold them accountable for any of it), there's nothing to stop the next trump after Trump from doing it and pushing it even farther, and the same Democrat self-defeatist attitude that gives us Biden would also keep giving us more of those later...

 

[JoeMorgue]

Man the veal must be really good in this restaurant.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Man the veal must be really good in this restaurant.

It's 2022, and we can all sit back knowing that Biden is doing a much better job leading us into another voluntary military adventure in the ME than Trump ever would.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Yes... decreasingly so while "generic" continues sliding to the right, but yes overall, for now.

* * *

To me, the better argument against Trump might be not judicial appointments but his habit of giving orders a President just can't order and having those orders obeyed anyway. That's the dynamic of a dictator. Biden would be conservative, but he'd be legally & constitutionally so. On the other hand, now that Trump and his zombie horde have demonstrated how easily it can be done (and that the "opposition" is too perpetually spineless to ever ever hold them accountable for any of it), there's nothing to stop the next trump after Trump from doing it and pushing it even farther, and the same Democrat self-defeatist attitude that gives us Biden would also keep giving us more of those later...

Weimar Joe 2020! Put all those populist grievances on the back burner and really let the flavors simmer and meld.

Edit: This is of course assuming that "electable" Joe actually manages to win, which I have very little confidence one way or the other.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It's 2022, and we can all sit back knowing that Biden is doing a much better job leading us into another voluntary military adventure in the ME than Trump ever would.

Again "Biden and Trump are the same" is an argument so dripping in spite and reality denial that I won't waste my breath countering them.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Again "Biden and Trump are the same" is an argument so dripping in spite and reality denial that I won't waste my breath countering them.

Are you going to be shocked when Joe doesn't close the border camps, or is it going to be ok because he'll give them blankets and soap when Trump wouldn't?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Are you going to be shocked when Joe doesn't close the border camps, or is it going to be ok because he'll give them blankets and soap when Trump wouldn't?

"If the candidate that wins doesn't do everything, he's the same as the candidate that does nothing."

 

[Delvo]

Actually, on military expeditionism, Biden and Trump aren't the same. Biden's worse.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

"If the candidate that wins doesn't do everything, he's the same as the candidate that does nothing."

Our concentration camps have lower death rates, vote blue.

They aren't the same, you're right. Safer concentration camps are definitely preferable to more dangerous ones.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Hmmm... veal.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Hmmm... veal.

I know you're very infatuated with this analogy, but I honestly can say I really don't understand what point you're trying to make here anymore. Care you re-establish the analogy here and explain it?