The General US Politics Thread

A good fudge brownie with chocolate chips and walnuts works for me.

Warren set Bloomberg on fire at her Virginia rally tonight (4,000 people, overflowed the venue so badly there was a line a mile long to get in)

Edited by wisewillow on Feb 13th 2020 at 6:44:10 AM

The 'Bernie Blackout' is most definitely actually a thing. Because the idea behind it isn't that Bernie's getting only negative cover, it's that he gets noticeably less cover than most of the other candidates, positive or negative.

Yeah, Biden's getting a lot of negative cover, but at least they're talking about him. People who dislike him get their dislike reinforced by that coverage. But people who like him get their liking of him reinforced by (mentally) railing against that coverage.

As we saw with Trump, it doesn't matter whether what people are saying about you is good or bad. What matters is that they're talking about you...

And even if you want to argue that maybe they don't want what happened with Trump to happen with Sanders as if the two are comparably bad (and let's be clear: They're not), that still means they're actively staying away from reporting on what's happening with Bernie's campaign in order to influence the results of the Primary. Because in that case they would still be doing so, just while telling themselves they're doing it in order to not influence the Primary.

Sorry to bring this up after a day, but, that's dangerous. Because then you have a smart right, like that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who agrees with us in the whole deal of pro-choice, pro-gays, and everything socially-based, but is economically to the right (which, pretty much, is the core meaning of left and right; economical terms). And, between 2 choices, where the difference rests on one having economical policies and another not, well, the clearly defined one will garner more attention. Remember that one of the most economically conservative candidates in these primaries is not heterosexual.

Identity is HIGHLY important. But it is exploitable, it is not something that would hurt profits after all. The head of the Bank of Santander is a woman, and presents as a feminist. Yet she would rather have in power in Spain the parties less prone to condemn gender violence, because those same parties would have right-wing economical policies she would benefit from.

All in all, "left" is "collective", and "right" is "individual". Identity policies are usually collective movements, but that doesn't mean the only collective movements worth it are identity policies. So, don't ever forget about the economy. Because the right WON'T.

I'm actually convinced that this is why Sanders doesn't mention minorities as often in his public speaking and at his rallies, despite supporting and endorsing minority candidates in a lot of local elections over the years.

He's sticking to established Socialist praxis in the US, which is that you avoid mentioning identity whenever you can. Not because you don't care, but because you kinda have to.

Because there's no surer way to get white, working class southerners to vote against their own economic and social interests than to tell them that some social programme or policy is going to benefit PoCs more than them. Even if they're not in any way racist. Even if they're smart enough that you could explain to them that it's only a technicality because PoCs have a worse starting position and therefore in they and the PoC end up at the same point the latter will have come further.

Because if there's one thing that typifies the white working class southerner, regardless of political affiliation or level of personal xenophobia, it's the ingrained cultural notion that the city dwellers in the North-East and on the West Coast don't give a shit about honest hard working southern folks, except as stereotypically over-the-top racist villains on TV.

Now... Of course that's bullshit, but talking about blacks, which they are not, or LGBT folks, which most of them are not, or women, which 50% of them are not... Well that just reinforces that notion for them that they're not on the agenda, even if they fully sympathise with the plight of minorities.

So instead if you're an old school socialist in the US trying to get a majority of people to support you, you mainly talk about the stuff that you've got planned that benefits everyone who's poor or oppressed and you just don't mention that it's, by necessity, going to benefit minorities more. You still support initiatives to help minorities whenever you can, but you don't make it a core of your public platform.

Edited by Robrecht on Feb 13th 2020 at 4:18:32 PM

And therin lays the flaws of the "class first" type of rhetoric. Doing that, to appease the more...how to put it, self centered? Bigoted? Voting blocks, results in prioritizing the comfort of those voters and supporters over marginaliazed folks. Marginalized folks generally, in turn, suspect you don't have their best interests at heart if you are courting (to use a real life example, Bernie touting an endorsement from Joe Rogan) bigoted voters, distancing them from you. Angry fans who might not hold progressivve social views harass minority folks, who feel further alienated, and Voila. Your base is now made up of (at best) dirtbag left types and (at worst) outright racists, sexists, homophobes etc who like your economic message and little else.

There's a reason one of prevailing calls is for Leftists to center marginalized people's concerns first. Because if you would fairness for all and equality, you first need to not drive away those most marginalized in society. And that means being open about your support and championing programs that help those groups.

And that's perfectly plausible. But, on the other hand, one must be wary of pulling a California, where, despite it being the 8th largest economy in the world by itself, and despite the Republicans governating 8 years using progressive social policies, and afterwards the Democrats governing for 9 years and counting, there is a massive homelessness problem.

The key is balance. Progressive people want to move towards a better world, but we have this issue of each of us only seeing our way. Funnily enough, you can learn more from a diversity of disagreements than from an echo chamber, and that's also a strenght.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 13th 2020 at 10:44:53 AM

California Democrats still have a massive classism problem. Tech bros donate millions to keep California Dems from going too progressive on economics.

SV culture has some serious issues of the soul to put it lightly.

I'm specifically not talking about racists, though.

I'm talking about rural progressives and moderates in the South and the Mid-West who feel like they don't matter to national politicians, frequently even ones from their own state.

The kind that would, just to give a 'random' example, support the Electoral College over a majority vote, despite otherwise being incredibly left wing and progressive, just because of that ingrained notion that rural areas don't matter to city dwellers.

You don't get those people on your side by telling them how good your initiative is going to be for urban blacks, no matter how much they sympathise and support that kind of initiative otherwise. You get them on your side by telling them how good your initiative if going to be for both them and urban blacks.

I know all this for a fact, because I live in the rural area of the Netherlands and we have a similar complex about people in the urbanised areas not giving a toss about us. And despite the fact that our South has traditionally been very socialist (we used to have a lot heavy industry and mining, so a worker organising and solidarity), recently we've had a lot of far-right sentiment pop up as the government keeps making policies that advantage the heavily urbanised areas and disadvantage the rural areas. Even if most of those policies are actually very reasonable from a national perspective.

Examples would be: Spreading out refugees across rural towns, rather than packing them all in the already overcrowded cities. Heavily subsidizing public transport in the cities, rather than the rural areas (because the cities are frequently gridlocked, while the rural areas are not).

The only way that the left is slowly, ever so slowly, taking the south back is by focussing on issues that affect the entire country, like mental healthcare reform. Conversely the only way they take back the south without losing the Randstad is by not mentioning that mental healthcare reform while a benefit to everyone, proportionally benefits the south more because we have the highest incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorders and ADD/ADHD in all of Europe, as well as proportionally higher incidences of Depression, Substance Abuse issues and Anxiety than the Randstad.

Edited by Robrecht on Feb 13th 2020 at 5:27:53 PM

Well, it's official—at least according to Nate Silver and friends. The odds of there being no primary winner are, for the moment, greater than the odds of Sanders winning.

That's not really official, just Nate Silver's estimate. Granted, he's usually pretty good, but he's not official in any capacity.

So what happens if no one wins the primary?

Contested convention

Which is literally an unmitigated disaster

Which would probably guarantee a Trump win, right?

It's not nearly that bad, but it would require the various candidates, superdelegates and DNC officials to all act like adults and come up with, then sell, a deal.

The problem with a brokered convention is that it's been two generations since the parties had brokers. There aren't any old white guys in smoke-filled rooms picking the candidate on the basis of party strategy, and Tom Perez and the others at the DNC are focusing on sending out spam fundraising and trying to avoid looking like another Debbie Schulz (Iowa isn't giving them any credibility boosts either).

And again they’re not predicting that there will be no winner, they’re prediction is that (there is a 37% change that) there will be nobody with a majority of pledged delegates.

That could mean a contested convention, but it doesn’t automatically mean one.

Edited by Silasw on Feb 14th 2020 at 8:02:48 PM

A piece of good news for Biden. Good also for voters, because this "momentum" concept bothers me to no end.

Incidentally, California's problems are less due to politics and more due to NIMBY culture and the fact that some politicians have been effectively taken hostage by them.

It also looks like Trump's newest candidate for the Fed might be in trouble for e.g advocating a currency devaluation war, having in the past supported a return to the gold standard (never mind the inconsistency...) and being seen as too influenceable by Trump.

As mentioned above, 538 only predicts the first requirement for a contested convention - no candidate winning 50% plus 1 of the delegates.

The second requirement is much more unlikely: there has to be at least three competing power blocks within the party that all think they have a chance of their "champion" becoming the nominee and for the level of distrust between the power blocks to be such that efforts for two of the power blocks to team up against the third have come to nothing.

I've been racking my brain trying to conceive of such a situation but it does take a fair bit of imagination, namely because I need to envision a split in one of the existing power blocks (progressive block / centrist block) before considering other factors.

Right now my thinking is as follows:

1. We have one block that is Sanders. Warren might be here, but she may not be for an important reason: we need that vocal minority of Sanders supporters to be causing havoc (Russian influence not withstanding). If they are making a lot of noise then it makes it much more difficult for Sanders to reconcile with one of the other groups.

2. We have a centrist block of whomever is still standing out of Buttigieg, Biden and Klobuchar. Again, Warren may be here, depending on the relative toxicity of Sanders supporters. If this group does go for "power at all costs" they might be holding out for the super delegates, thinking that they should have an advantage with party insiders. Of course, this would be like adding petrol to the fire so there would have to be some pretty deep animosity between the blocks for this to be seen as the safer option.

3. We have the wildcard in Bloomberg. Classically, you'd put him in the centrist wing at this point in time, but as the contest evolves he may find himself isolated as his history as a Republican combined with his blatant efforts to buy the nomination makes him more and more toxic for the rest of the party. I'm basically seeing him as a kingmaker in this scenario but both progressives and centrists shying away from striking a deal because in doing so they are condoning the tactic of buying the nomination which strikes against one of the core principles of the Democratic party.

Edited by singularityshot on Feb 14th 2020 at 4:40:02 AM

Mr Sanders says stop it OK?

This is due to a catering firm receiving harassment from his supporters according to the skim read I just did

Its that people keep making the mistake of assuming that democrats as a party are all or even as a majority as left leaning as us on the internet, there not, and a large amount of moderate and conservative democrats exist.... there preferred candidate dropping away isn't going to make them flow into ours, they are going to find some one else that matches what they want.

Though, for what it seems they do seem to be splitting between Bloomberg and Pete, which has completely neutralized the previous advantage they had of backing a single unified candidate, so that is nice.

That's what I said earlier. Altogether there are more moderate Democrats overall, but presently the vote is split among Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and soon Bloomberg. Thats the main reason Sanders won New Hampshire.

You think a single Moderate Democrats would beat Sanders?

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 14th 2020 at 5:11:22 AM