The General US Politics Thread

It's really hard to argue that they didn't both "completely suck" and "suck completely" at the same time, considering they were the most needlessly repressive aspects of the whole package.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 24th 2020 at 11:40:54 AM

@Rob: Taking umbrage is not the same as surprise.

Yep. Heck, just look at my signature.

I personally didn't know what Sanders' opinion on these kinds of regimes were until recently. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had been soft on them decades ago, but I wouldn't hold that against him too much because people can change, and there probably would have been less information available about those countries and their policies for a lot of Sanders' career.

Moreover, I have been browsing this thread for a little over 3 years and can recall few instances of people in this thread mentioning Sanders' opinion about these regimes either. That's not to say that they didn't happen, but certainly not to the extent or recently enough it for it to be a relevant thing to mention for this discussion.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Feb 24th 2020 at 12:49:28 PM

Also, a lot of cuban heathcare renow is window dressing and I know because my father decide to go to a cuban doctor to make a eye operation....he lost near 80% by a botch operation by the doctor.

My father can said he nearly lost a eye of his face for suporting ideology.

He was soft on Castro. That interview on Sixty Minutes was about his comments on Cuba in the Eighties. Back then he said in an interview that he felt "physically nauseated" by JFK's speech on Castro and Cuba.

Here's a tweet with a vid of the old interview.

Edited by M84 on Feb 25th 2020 at 12:46:17 AM

Honestly, the intellectual rigor of his statement is immaterial to the effect it has on his electoral performance. Is praising Cuba's system in any way whatsoever going to win him votes?

If not, throw it out. All other concerns must be subordinated to this one.

Someone asked what Sanders is meant to do in such a situation, I’d argue that he should reject the premise of the question.

He can dodge with “the American people don’t care what I said about Cuba 40 years ago, they care about what I want to do for America today”, he can challenge with “my views on Cuba are detailed and can’t be boiled down to a single soundbite, your attempt to boil down my complicated views is an attempt to deceive the American public and a sign once again that cooperate America doesn’t believe the American people can be trusted with complicated positions that reflect complex situations”, he could even go meta with “let’s look at why you’re asking this question, you’re not asking it because you want the American people to understand my position on Cuba, you’re asking it to try and force me into a corner, you want me to give one of two answers, either of which will allow you to discredit me, I’m not playing your game”.

What you don’t do is honestly answer the question in simple terms that can easily be misinterpreted, that’s the mistake Corbyn made in the UK and it cost us dearly.

i guess Obama is tone deaf too, since he also praised the education system of Cuba

But an elderly Jewish Democratic Socialist has never won a primary after praising Cuba!

Edited by Clarste on Feb 25th 2020 at 12:54:59 PM

The difference is Obama didn't say that while running for office to unseat someone like Trump.

I feel like half the thread is defending the what is said when the other half has apprehensions about how it was said.

I think it was probably a dumb thing to say, but I'm not sure if it'll have any ramifications in the polls.

And Obama didn't also follow up on that by praising mainland China.

It probably won't, except maybe in Florida.

Not bringing up mainland China would have been a good idea too.

Edited by M84 on Feb 25th 2020 at 5:11:15 PM

Not Nationwide, but if it sticks it's gonna be a minor issue in Florida.

But the race is still long

Hopefully my parents don't find out about the China comment, because that's exactly the kind of thing that could potentially get them to stay at home on election day. Especially considering the Hong Kong situation opened up fresh wounds regarding their bitterness towards the Chinese government. Chinese Americans in my generation can move past it, but I'm not so sure about theirs, seeing as many of them risked their lives to escape the poverty the government inflicted on them.

The really ironic thing to me is that if Sanders is speaking specifically about the economic boom times brought on by Xiaoping's then that was the result of the Chinese economy taking a hard right turn into the kinds of neoliberal excesses his campaign aims to curtail. To clarify I don't think this necessarily makes him a hypocrite, if anything good for him not basing his judgments off of blind loyalty to the left, but it means his comment just looks even more bizarre and pointless.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 25th 2020 at 4:32:51 AM

Again, Sanders made his China comments back in August, not yesterday. Not saying I agree with it, rather that it doesn't have the same immediate impact like his Castro comment.

I don’t think disavowing those statements would be that beneficial either. In fact it opens up questions about his honesty and allows the Republicans tactics of painting anyone to the left of them as a “scary crypto-Stalinist” to be more effective.

Right now, Chris Matthew’s own implications about Sanders simply made him look an out of touch raving lunatic. He would look less like one if Sanders suddenly started avoiding all those questions about his previous views of Communist regimes.

No, we're talking about the comment he made in the town hall mentioned earlier.

Here's a tweet about it.

Edited by M84 on Feb 25th 2020 at 7:36:40 PM

Warren has a new ad out slamming Bloomberg for his ad blitz and reminding people that Bloomberg donated to the Republican incumbent she defeated in her 2012 Senate race.

I think this is smart. Regardless of who else may win, Warren despises Bloomberg as a matter of principle- the campaign script now has volunteers mentioning his racism and sexism. Attacking corrupt billionaires makes her look tough and ready to win.

She’s doing more to draw lines with Bernie as a progressive who gets things done, but with Bloomberg she can hit harder.

Edited by wisewillow on Feb 25th 2020 at 6:14:25 AM

Bloomberg is basically a punchbag at this point

That's demeaning to the fine profession of training pugilists and martial artist across the globe. Heck, even calling Bloomberg a fine target would make most of those unhappy: it's not exactly training skills when it amounts to hitting a barn from close range.

I dunno what Bloomberg thought he'd get from this, but it's backfired on him.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Feb 25th 2020 at 2:39:35 PM

At what point will it have diminishing returns for Warren, I wonder?

What absolute nonsense, praising China for raising hundreds of millions of their citizens out of poverty is perfectly reasonable. No one said "this can only happen in their authoritarian system", just because it could happen in a democracy does not make the benefits to people's lives any less real.

I agree with the idea that Sanders' comments are bad politics but the idea that they're factually or morally wrong is inane.

Just because a government can be rightfully criticized for its behavior in other spheres does not mean that facts magically disappear, yes Cuba has raised the standard of living of its citizens yes China has undergone incredible changes that benefited its people. Intellectual honesty requires us to accept such facts, even if politically it may not be advisable for Sanders to state them.

There's also a certain amount of hubris in us declaring, either directly or by inference, that representative democracy is the only viable way to raise standards of living or create a functional nation. Frankly, the trend of such democracies over the past few decades has been towards increasing authoritarianism, the U.S. included.

It may well be that authoritarianism is the natural state of human political affairs. If you were to give every human being on the planet an equal vote in such matters, would democracy win? Are we that afraid of competing ideologies that we ostracize anyone who admits that maybe they can do things right once in a while?

If things keep going as they are, China will win. They'll have the most dominant economy in the world, the largest productively employed population, etc. Will we go to our graves muttering about how "democracy was better" or accept that we have to actually compete, not just declare ourselves the moral victor and go home sucking our thumbs?

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 25th 2020 at 9:55:37 AM