Democratic Primaries Thread

[dpareja]

The point Nader makes when someone accuses him of being a spoiler is that all Gore needed to do to win the election was win Tennessee. You know, his home state.

[Cloud3514]

https://www.axios.com/bernie-sanders-defund-police-091387de-e132-458e-b048-b367cb44ce18.html?fbclid=IwAR36GQnn3Bv8EA1peqssSPFms7lbUfkRW4EuR8rar3xsC4HLwWo9ML2wBEg

Curious that I have yet to see any Bernie Bros or Bernie or Busters criticize Bernie for agreeing with Biden almost entirely on police reform. They're both dead wrong on it, but it really would be nice to see them apply the same standards they have for Biden to 78 year old Jesus.

[niam2023]

You're expecting cultists to behave logically?

[Kanzenkankaku]

https://www.axios.com/bernie-sanders-defund-police-091387de-e132-458e-b048-b367cb44ce18.html?fbclid=IwAR36GQnn3Bv8EA1peqssSPFms7lbUfkRW4EuR8rar3xsC4HLwWo9ML2wBEg

Curious that I have yet to see any Bernie Bros or Bernie or Busters criticize Bernie for agreeing with Biden almost entirely on police reform. They're both dead wrong on it, but it really would be nice to see them apply the same standards they have for Biden to 78 year old Jesus.

I still follow a few on twitter I met through the Bernie organizing part of that hellsite and I've seen several. I wouldn't jump to conclusions if you don't follow or talk to people in those circles like I do. Theres a lot of them that are mad at Bernie for a lot of things recently, including endorsing Biden at all, which I see as silly because he always endorses the eventual democrat nominee because well... he's a democrat even though he runs as independent when in Vermont. And also he's right that Biden is preferable to Trump.

This vague gesticulation at imagined hypocrisy or silence is embarrassing coming from right wingers equally as much as it is from members of this forum.

[Cloud3514]

Please. I shouldn't have to point out when I'm making generalizations or using hyperbole. It would be absurd to assume that all Bernie supporters are applying a double standard, but that doesn't make the ones that do any less hypocritical. For my experience, with one exception who conveniently stayed quiet until I posted about it on Facebook, not one of the Bernie supporter friends I have have said anything about it, even after it was directly pointed out to them. And the one that did acknowledge it? She's very much in the "Bernie was the compromise" camp that irks for a number of reasons.

And what do I see Twitter Bernie Bros doing? Latching onto the part where Biden said he wants to put $300 million into funding reforms while happily ignoring that Bernie agrees with him almost entirely on this issue. Which is the same thing they do every time Biden says something. They take his statement out of context to make him look bad. "I would veto Medicare 4 All?" "Aim for the legs?" And these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, there are Bernie supporters who are upset about Bernie for things as simple as even daring to compromise with the Democrats, but like I said, the "Bernie was the compromise" horseshit pisses me off for other reasons.

[Askold]

I am amazed at the amount of people I see saying something like "I vote for Trump because I heard that Biden did [thing that Trump has also done]."

[dpareja]

I am amazed at the amount of people I see saying something like "I vote for Trump because I heard that Biden did [thing that Trump has also done]."

Because if the media were to acknowledge that Trump has done said things after saying that Biden did, they'd be accused by Republicans of being "lieberal media" and wanting to "silence conservatives".

Or something like that.

[SCarpelan]

Yes, there are Bernie supporters who are upset about Bernie for things as simple as even daring to compromise with the Democrats, but like I said, the "Bernie was the compromise" horseshit pisses me off for other reasons.

Why? If you have actual leftist policies regarding the conflict between capital and labor it's a very logical stance. Sanders was a moderate left candidate among centrist/moderate right crowd* in the primary. It's not Sanders who is extreme in his politics (his radicalism is nowadays just rhetorical - "political revolution" etc), it's the American political landscape that has moved to the right. When that happens, what is "common sense" in political world follows along.

*with the exception of Bloomberg who is an outright fascist

[Cloud3514]

Even Noam Chomsky has endorsed Biden because the reality is that Trump MUST be removed and is too dangerous to be allowed to have a second term. I don't believe for a second that Chomsky is happy about it, but he's calling for people act strategically based on a bad option and an absolutely atrocious option.

And that's exactly why it irks me. No one is asking people to like Biden or even actively campaign for him. "Bernie was the compromise" is, ironically, a way to excuse a refusal to compromise. It comes across as saying "well, we can't fix it immediately, no point in trying" while the Trump administration keeps trying to push towards becoming a dictatorship.

Yes, I'm advocating for vote blue no matter who, but that's because vote blue no matter who doesn't mean that the Democrats are all good or right, but because the Republican party has become so fucking corrupt that just about anyone is an improvement.

[dpareja]

And the counterargument is that, yes, Biden is better than Trump, but Biden is still sufficiently awful (advocating cutting retirement programs, voting for illegal wars, opposing busing, supporting numerous free trade deals, the 1991 and 1994 crime bills...) that some people cannot, as a matter of conscience, countenance voting for either candidate.

And before you say, "that's half a vote for Trump then", well, a Trump supporter could turn around and say, hey, Trump agrees with you more on trade and passed the First Step Act, not voting for him is half a vote for Biden!

The "half a vote" paradigm only works when you're talking about a voter who is making a special exception in this case not to vote for the Democratic candidate. If their standard was always to vote for candidates with whom they are in sufficient ideological agreement, and that standard was previously satisfied but no longer is with Biden, it doesn't apply.

[Cloud3514]

I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain why some of the things you've brought up without context or modern perspective are reductionist because that's beside the point and there's no way I'm going to be able to convince you that Biden's platform is more progressive than you give it credit for because, well, it's really not by much. His platform is mostly center left positions that would make good first steps but are very much not solutions in and of themselves with some asinine center right positions peppered in.

Now, I've misspoken on the meat of your argument before, so let me just make it as clear as possible: Abstaining or voting third party is not actively helping Trump. Spite voting for Trump does, but obviously that's an entirely different action (also, I assume way fewer people will spite vote for Trump).

However, abstaining and acting like you're making a noble action is little different than offering thoughts and prayers while the Trump administration actively discriminates against people of color and the LGBT community. Trump is actively cruel and is actively trying to become a dictator. What you're presenting is a false equivalence because Biden and Trump are two extremely different kinds of politicians. So, no, it isn't actively helping Trump to sit out, but it does hurt the people that the Trump administration is persecuting by means of inaction.

The first step to fixing any problem is to stop the thing that is actively causing the damage (note: assuming there is one, which in this case there is). It's like saying that you might as well let your house burn down because the fire department isn't going to help you fix it. Of course this isn't the same as throwing gasoline on the fire, making it worse, but it sure as hell isn't going to help.

[SCarpelan]

Even Noam Chomsky has endorsed Biden because the reality is that Trump MUST be removed and is too dangerous to be allowed to have a second term. I don't believe for a second that Chomsky is happy about it, but he's calling for people act strategically based on a bad option and an absolutely atrocious option.

And that's exactly why it irks me. No one is asking people to like Biden or even actively campaign for him. "Bernie was the compromise" is, ironically, a way to excuse a refusal to compromise. It comes across as saying "well, we can't fix it immediately, no point in trying" while the Trump administration keeps trying to push towards becoming a dictatorship.

Yes, I'm advocating for vote blue no matter who, but that's because vote blue no matter who doesn't mean that the Democrats are all good or right, but because the Republican party has become so fucking corrupt that just about anyone is an improvement.

If that person is either living in a safe state or is an activist who works outside the electoral sphere and was temporarily interested in electoralism because there was someone they thought might make a difference I have no problem with this take. I would try to convince them to vote for Biden if they live in a swing state but would respect their decision if they refused. Besides activism and organizing outside party politics I've also seen people like this discuss the importance of voting blue on downballot races since even in the electoral realm the presidential election is just part of the picture.

If the person is just one of the extremely online people throwing a tantrum then they need to grow up, though.

By the way, if Sanders is a compromise candidate for someone then by definition they are willing to compromise since they have already done so. Even Sanders isn't enough for those who don't see compromise as an option and they have been gloating about every bad take he has had as justifications for their view.

[dpareja]

I suspect that a lot of the people who have said, "I can't vote for Biden because of his support for policies A/B/C/etc" (and rhetoric and platforms are one thing, actual votes and bill sponsorships are another, because the former are words and the latter are actions) don't like that that's the stance to which their consciences have driven them. I would be very surprised if more than a tiny percentage spite-voted for Trump.

And the other thing that I think your analogy misses is that the Obama/Biden status quo sucked for a lot of people. What swung 2016 to Trump? People who had twice voted for Obama, and then switched to Trump because Obama hadn't made their lives any better--if anything they'd gotten worse, and they feared that their lives would get even worse than they already were if certain policies Obama advocated for (such as implementing the TPP, which Clinton was calling the "gold standard" of trade deals until Sanders pretty much forced her to be against it, and which Obama continued to advocate for even then) were to become law.

Trump isn't the disease. Trump is a symptom of a deeper rot that's been festering since the 1970s at least (as noted by Noam Chomsky), and that rot has been sustained by and growing under the leadership of politicians such as Biden. It's the rot of a system that produces "socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor" that's causing the damage. A continuation of that system, such as under a Biden presidency, would only serve to produce another candidate from the far right like Trump, except one who isn't as obviously grotesque, incompetent, and idiotic as Trump, and won't be so blatant in his attempt to implement fascist policies so quickly--someone like Viktor Orbán, whose first government (1998-2002) was generally considered a pretty standard European conservative government by my understanding.

The only equivalence being presented, essentially, is that the answer to the question, "Gun to your head, Biden or Trump?" is, for left-wing voters who vote on the basis of ideological agreement and conscience, "The bullet."

Biden might be better overall (though worse than Trump on a few select issues), but still sufficiently bad that a vote for them is unconscionable.

And when you tell someone to ignore their conscience--which is what telling them to vote for Biden is--don't be surprised when they tell you to fuck off, don't be surprised if they dismiss you as a partisan hack, and don't be surprised if it makes them less inclined to vote for any candidates from your preferred party in future.

[DarkPhoenix]

such as implementing the TPP, which Clinton was calling the "gold standard" of trade deals until Sanders pretty much forced her to be against it, and which Obama continued to advocate for even then

Which version?  The original, or the Republican rewritten version which was a major piece of shit?  Because you're conflating the two; it was the former that Clinton called the "gold standard" of trade deals, and it was the latter that both of them were 100% against.

[niam2023]

And what? What is it you want Dpareja?

What's your solution to this system?

Because if its some kind of grand revolution, I can tell you surprisingly few people on this board will probably be in it for your revolution.