Author Topic: Democratic Primaries Thread  (Read 30720 times)

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Offline SCarpelan

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #180 on: April 09, 2020, 04:28:40 pm »
Some statistical information for the non-voter conversation. In 2016, the nonvoters were not privileged liberals. Instead, they were the underprivileged: poor, young, mostly non-whites.

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Almost half of non-voters in the 2016 presidential election were non-white, even though they compose only one-fourth of the voting population. Even more extreme is the data on class: more than half of non-voters — 56% — are quite poor, making less than $30,000, even though that income group constitutes just over one-fourth of the voting population. The people who choose to vote are disproportionately privileged; those who are non-privileged choose disproportionately not to vote.

These non-voters are whom Sanders campaign targeted with some success. If they don't vote for Biden, it's not because they are privileged and petty. It's because they don't trust either party is interested in improving their lives, Sanders's campaign and policies are what brought them to the voting booth in the first place. For the Democratic party to have a future after the baby boomer generation is gone they need to attract these voters and Sanders showed what type of policies might do that.

I'd say a good portion of that is voter suppression; it works really well on the poor, and we know the Repubs specifically target the black and Latino communities.

From the same article:

Quote
A separate Pew survey, in 2017, of people who are not registered to vote found exactly the opposite: that people who refrain from participating in the electoral process largely do so because they are dissatisfied with the choices or believe voting will not change their lives. As Pew put it: “The unregistered were more likely to say they do not vote because they dislike politics or believe voting will not make a difference, while people who are registered but vote infrequently say they do not vote more often because they are not informed enough about the candidates or issues.”

Indeed, that Pew survey of unregistered voters found that the most common cause for not registering is that they do not want to vote, and the most common reasons have nothing to do with voter suppression and everything to do with beliefs about the worthlessness of the elections. As Pew put it, “forty-four percent of eligible unregistered individuals say they do not want to vote,” while “25 percent say they are unregistered because they have not been inspired by a candidate or issue.”

Voter suppression is an issue and influences those elections where there are a lot of inspired minority voters, this admittedly underplays that part. The older minority voters are the ones who are motivated and whom the voter suppression hurts the most. They are also the ones who have gathered more wealth than the younger generations - although this is relative, their wealth is still a lot less than white people of the same age. The younger,  most underprivileged voters aren't inspired at all to even try to vote.

Again, the explicit strategy of Sanders campaign was to bring them to the polls and they did have some success even in the primary where it is much more difficult to motivate voters compared to the general election.

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(click to show/hide)

This is the type of discourse I see among the activist left. Dissecting what the Sanders campaign did right and what they did wrong, reminding people that even if the campaign was successful it would have only been one small step in the leftist political project, not the ultimate goal. This is the type of people who were at the ideological core of the campaign. People who understand that the actual political goals are decades in the future and activism takes place both in the electoral sphere and outside it.

Offline dpareja

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #181 on: April 09, 2020, 04:38:45 pm »
(If you look at Canadian federal elections in 2006, 2008 and 2011, the share of the popular vote among parties getting either 5% or electing one member enjoyed by left-wing parties--Liberals, New Democrats, and Greens in the latter two--went from 50.5% in 2006, to 51.8% in 2008, to 53.9% in 2011. But each time the Conservatives got more seats, winning a majority in 2011. Then a bunch of NDP and Green voters went for the Liberals in 2015 because of Justin Trudeau's promise to bring in proportional representation and the realization, once again, that the NDP and Greens can't crack the Liberals' ~18% base... on which he promptly reneged when Parliament didn't recommend the system he wanted, and used the majority those same voters, who voted for him on the promise of proportional representation, had given him to kill any chance at getting proportional representation. Goddammit I despise the Liberal Party, very nearly as much as I despise the Conservative Party.)

I voted for the NDP's in the provincial election, but the fact is the NDP's don't pick up votes because when they actually GET a chance to run things, they tend to fuck it up.  Not as bad as the CPoC (it'd be hard to figure out how to fuck up worse than THAT), but enough that they rarely keep any gains they manage to achieve.  Bob Rae alone likely put Ontario out of reach for them for a generation...

And I don't know if you've noticed, but the problem with a lot of people in the Sanders wing in the US is that they have the same views on compromise as the Republican segment do; that it's the worst possible thing you could do.  Just look at their reaction to Warren's plan to get to M4A... The end result is the same as Bernie's, but because it wasn't one huge step, but a series of steps, they screamed that it was selling out...

This temper tantrum over Bernie bowing out is in fact their view on compromise taken to the candidate level; ie, "Give us the candidate WE demand!"...

My criticism was not of Liberal voters--I try never to criticize voters for voting how they voted (or didn't vote), whatever I may think of their reasons for doing so. My criticism was of the Liberal Party and their betrayal of their promise of electoral reform.

As for conservatives being uncompromising... if the Left will compromise and the Right will not, then you either stick with the status quo or move in a conservative direction. The Left loses in this scenario, and hence many have concluded that the only approach to get their preferred policies enacted is to be similarly uncompromising.

EDIT: I may elaborate later; I don't have time to do so at the moment.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2020, 04:51:24 pm by dpareja »
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Offline DarkPhoenix

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #182 on: April 09, 2020, 06:48:54 pm »
(If you look at Canadian federal elections in 2006, 2008 and 2011, the share of the popular vote among parties getting either 5% or electing one member enjoyed by left-wing parties--Liberals, New Democrats, and Greens in the latter two--went from 50.5% in 2006, to 51.8% in 2008, to 53.9% in 2011. But each time the Conservatives got more seats, winning a majority in 2011. Then a bunch of NDP and Green voters went for the Liberals in 2015 because of Justin Trudeau's promise to bring in proportional representation and the realization, once again, that the NDP and Greens can't crack the Liberals' ~18% base... on which he promptly reneged when Parliament didn't recommend the system he wanted, and used the majority those same voters, who voted for him on the promise of proportional representation, had given him to kill any chance at getting proportional representation. Goddammit I despise the Liberal Party, very nearly as much as I despise the Conservative Party.)

I voted for the NDP's in the provincial election, but the fact is the NDP's don't pick up votes because when they actually GET a chance to run things, they tend to fuck it up.  Not as bad as the CPoC (it'd be hard to figure out how to fuck up worse than THAT), but enough that they rarely keep any gains they manage to achieve.  Bob Rae alone likely put Ontario out of reach for them for a generation...

And I don't know if you've noticed, but the problem with a lot of people in the Sanders wing in the US is that they have the same views on compromise as the Republican segment do; that it's the worst possible thing you could do.  Just look at their reaction to Warren's plan to get to M4A... The end result is the same as Bernie's, but because it wasn't one huge step, but a series of steps, they screamed that it was selling out...

This temper tantrum over Bernie bowing out is in fact their view on compromise taken to the candidate level; ie, "Give us the candidate WE demand!"...

My criticism was not of Liberal voters--I try never to criticize voters for voting how they voted (or didn't vote), whatever I may think of their reasons for doing so. My criticism was of the Liberal Party and their betrayal of their promise of electoral reform.

As for conservatives being uncompromising... if the Left will compromise and the Right will not, then you either stick with the status quo or move in a conservative direction. The Left loses in this scenario, and hence many have concluded that the only approach to get their preferred policies enacted is to be similarly uncompromising.

EDIT: I may elaborate later; I don't have time to do so at the moment.

I was actually going to say that the Left shouldn't compromise with the Right when the Right refuses to compromise.  But when it comes to the Bernie guys, they reject compromise with the people who WANT to work with them.  Elizabeth Warren is a great example; they called her a snake and a sellout because she proposed taking steps to M4A rather than trying to jump to it immediately...

Offline Cloud3514

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #183 on: April 09, 2020, 09:23:22 pm »
Sanders' press secretary, almost two days after he's conceded, is still on Twitter actively campaigning against Joe Biden, which helps exactly one person: Donald Trump. This is EXACTLY what Phoenix is talking about. Instead of taking wins where they can and making steps towards the rest, if they can't have EVERYTHING, they'd rather have nothing.
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Offline niam2023

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #184 on: April 09, 2020, 09:50:17 pm »
Is that the crazy Twitter woman people were talking about a while back?
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Offline DarkPhoenix

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #185 on: April 10, 2020, 12:10:42 am »
Sanders' press secretary, almost two days after he's conceded, is still on Twitter actively campaigning against Joe Biden, which helps exactly one person: Donald Trump. This is EXACTLY what Phoenix is talking about. Instead of taking wins where they can and making steps towards the rest, if they can't have EVERYTHING, they'd rather have nothing.

Briahna Joy Gray, the woman who boasted about voting for Jill Stein in the last election...

I hear that David Sirota (who was also part of Bernie's team) is also going nuts with the anti-Biden campaigning.  This is why you don't hire people for your campaign who are only good at mud-slinging...

Offline Cloud3514

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #186 on: April 10, 2020, 12:48:57 am »
It absolutely floors me that Sanders learned NOTHING from 2016. He has the exact same problems this year. His supporters are noticeably more vitriolic, he completely failed to expand his base, he still acts like even the most reasonable and logical compromise is an inexcusable sign of weakness, he still kept attacking his primary opponents LONG after he should have pivoted to actively campaigning against Trump, he still keeps hiring people that worship him like a holy savior to work for him. It reeks of him blaming everything but himself for his own failings.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2020, 12:51:39 am by Cloud3514 »
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Offline Vanto

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #187 on: April 10, 2020, 05:59:55 pm »
I think that unless the universalist left and the identitarian left learn to work together, the Democrats will keep on nominating Clinton Democrat "status quo" candidates for POTUS. They simply can't afford to be at each other's throats if they really want to put their preferred candidates in the Oval Office.
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Offline Kanzenkankaku

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #188 on: April 11, 2020, 05:22:31 am »
"People are willing to listen to what you have to say. You just need to step up and vote---"

"BUT I WANT I WANT I WANT I WANT I WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT!!!"

Yeah, that's my take on most of this as well.  Bernie doesn't compromise.  His base considers that a strength; "He'll keep fighting for what you DESERVE!"

But politics is mainly about compromise.  The problem with the US right now is that the Right refuses to compromise on anything.  I don't think the same attitude coming from the Left helps.

Bernie has trouble breaking out of his 30% base because he won't compromise, and because his surrogates and supporters won't compromise, and to a lot of people on the outside, that looks a lot like dismissing their concerns...

Some statistical information for the non-voter conversation. In 2016, the nonvoters were not privileged liberals. Instead, they were the underprivileged: poor, young, mostly non-whites.

Quote
Almost half of non-voters in the 2016 presidential election were non-white, even though they compose only one-fourth of the voting population. Even more extreme is the data on class: more than half of non-voters — 56% — are quite poor, making less than $30,000, even though that income group constitutes just over one-fourth of the voting population. The people who choose to vote are disproportionately privileged; those who are non-privileged choose disproportionately not to vote.

These non-voters are whom Sanders campaign targeted with some success. If they don't vote for Biden, it's not because they are privileged and petty. It's because they don't trust either party is interested in improving their lives, Sanders's campaign and policies are what brought them to the voting booth in the first place. For the Democratic party to have a future after the baby boomer generation is gone they need to attract these voters and Sanders showed what type of policies might do that.

I'd say a good portion of that is voter suppression; it works really well on the poor, and we know the Repubs specifically target the black and Latino communities.

Bernie doesn't compromise? What world do you live in?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-image-left-wing-purist-belied-record-compromise-n1143956
He compromises all the time?

https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/dealing-with-difficult-people-daily/bernie-sanders-keeps-his-pragmatism-under-wraps/
He appears unyielding because he's fighting to push people more in his direction, because he wants to bring up doing whats best for people. But when it comes down to it and he needs to compromise, he does exactly that.

The only concerns being roundly dismissed at the moment are lefties. Who don't exactly have the institutional power to "purity test" Biden or any of his own godawful surrogates the same way certain media outlets have to tar and paint Bernie's surrogates and supporters as bad.

Offline Askold

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #189 on: April 13, 2020, 05:27:18 am »
Someone on Reddit complained about how many Bernie Sanders fansubs are filled with Trump supporters pretending to be Bernie Bros and trying to make Bernie supporters to either vote for Trump or at least to not to vote for Biden.

Someone comforted him by saying "Do not worry, his online base doesnt vote anyway."
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Offline Vanto

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #190 on: April 14, 2020, 04:20:12 pm »
I've heard speculation that the plan is for Biden to pick Hillary as his running mate, then resign shortly after he wins the election. We should take this prediction with a massive grain of salt.

Speaking of, who would you like to see as Biden's running mate?
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Offline dpareja

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #191 on: April 14, 2020, 04:31:49 pm »
Nina Turner.

Failing her, Barbara Lee.

But after that, I suspect Gretchen Whitmer.
Quote from: Jordan Duram
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Offline lord gibbon

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #192 on: April 14, 2020, 05:48:07 pm »
Elizabeth Warren would probably be the best choice. She's (relatively) young, and could really get progressives on board more than, say, Harris.
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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #193 on: April 14, 2020, 05:56:58 pm »
Amy Klobuchar.
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Offline dpareja

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Re: Democratic Primaries Thread
« Reply #194 on: April 14, 2020, 06:31:38 pm »
Elizabeth Warren would probably be the best choice. She's (relatively) young, and could really get progressives on board more than, say, Harris.

Given the events of this election, Warren is politically dead to a large chunk of the left. Lee would stand a better chance.
Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.