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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Going to disagree with Biden being better than Sanders. He has most of the same issues with Sanders, but without even having the progressive policy goals. Moreover, Biden's the one who in particular helped contribute to the mistreatment of Anita Hill.
Both aren't great, but foreign policy is not enough to sink Sanders below...well, all the baggage Biden is carrying.
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -FighteerThe best thing to do would be for young Democrats to try and torpedo Biden early by strongly supporting either Bernie or Warren. Biden's strong support right now is probably because he is the old person's candidate, and as usual, every detail is a dealbreaker for young Democrats.
We'll have to see what happens in the debates. If Warren or Bernie can keep Biden sounding like a mean old bastard by focusing on the economy, he's done.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on May 3rd 2019 at 1:23:00 PM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."You call moral struggles "competition"? I'm struggling to articulate how offensive I find that framing.
Mod note: don't make it personal. You will get thumped next time.
Edited by nombretomado on May 3rd 2019 at 10:33:13 AM
The main thing with Biden is people thinking he can easily beat Trump (probably due to him being an old white man as well) and a positive association with Obama. That's pretty much it as far as I can tell, the nitty gritty of his voting record and his previous dreadful actions like the Anita Hill trial don't seem to matter much at this stage.
Expect to see more coverage of his record, policies, and gaffes in the months to come now that he's running.
538 predicted as much. Mainstream media won't like him being the candidate since he'd be "too boring", and leftwing media won't like him because he's very clearly not leftwing.
Still, the key may be if he makes new gaffes during the campaign itself.
Edited by M84 on May 4th 2019 at 1:48:03 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Biden is actually trying to change that by claiming he'd love to go out and beat Trump up. He's also trying to do other stunts to get attention.
We'll see how that works.
Like I said, I don't like Biden as a candidate but I've still got him having the best odds by far.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Ok guys I get that a lot of people are sour over "the media" (although it hardly ever gets more specific than saying Fox News and that's frequently as a separate thing so it's.... the vagueness over that lazy criticism has gotten as old as the white guys we're complaining about, honestly) but saying that "the media", which covers a pretty broad spectrum even if you're just talking about major news channels, would gladly oversee our democracy crumbling if it boosts their ratings is just pointlessly cynical and unhelpful. Keep in mind that any of them that aren't right wing outlets are more than a bit concerned with the whole freedom of the press and free speech thing that Trump is constantly challenging. They're in this as much as we are.
You are aware that the media (largly cable news) massively distorted the facts in 2016 to help get Trump elected because they wanted ratings? The reason that “but her emails” was a huge thing wasn’t down to just Republicans, it’s because CNN and everyone else ran with the story for ratings even though they knew it was false.
That’s before we touch on how cable news helped Trump win the republican primary by providing him with free ad time because they knew he’d draw in ratings if he was the republican candidate.
CNN probably did more to get Trump elected in 2016 than the Russians did.
That’s before we touch on more recent stuff, like how so many news outlets let Bar use them to spread lies about the outcome of the Muller report, because again they wanted ratings.
They would totally let American democracy burn to the ground if they could get the first shot of the ashes.
Just because Trump is attacking someone doesn’t make them a good person, that very much applies to CNN and cable news.
Edited by Silasw on May 4th 2019 at 9:18:33 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThe media constantly gave Trump free coverage because he was an embarrassing but famous candidate who created stories. The 24 hour news cycle at work. I don't even entirely blame them, though, because his antics are news. It's just the public that voted for him didn't care.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Yeah, complaining about the media in general is not helpful. Complaining about certain ways of reporting on specific channels, yes, but painting them all with the same brush isn't helpful. Especially since outside of the outright propaganda channels the media has done its job since Trump got elected.
Only if you consider their job to be making money.
If you consider their job to be reporting the facts and holding politicians to account then TV news (especially cable news) has failed grossly. How many times has CNN allowed Trump people to use their network as a platform to spout lies, often unchallenged, how many times have even MSNBC broadcast footage of Sarah Sanders or Trump lying to the public without properly labelling the entire thing as lies? How many times have we had to endure the same old “Republicans say the sky is green, democrats say it’s blue, we aren’t going to determine the facts, instead we want you to give us your opinions and we will treat them as if they’re facts” shit, especially over climate change?
American television news is garbage that’s actively harming the Americana public by providing them with inaccurate information and falsely acting as if provable lies are equally valid as provable facts.
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Clinton’s emails (an actual case of fake news) was more hyped in 2016 by the media than any Trump scandal), it’s not that people didn’t care about the things Trump did, they didn’t know what Trump did the same way they knew that Hillary had committed horrific crimes with her emails.
The public heard more more cable news in 2016 about Hillary’s emails than anything else, that alone shows what side the cable news media are one.
Edited by Silasw on May 4th 2019 at 10:13:31 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Keep in mind that my access to the American media is largely CNN and MSNBC (I refuse to delve too deep into Fox news), and despite some slip ups and sensation mongering, they have done a pretty good job calling out Trump and his people out on his lies - past the election. I think we all agreed that they failed badly beforehand.
Now, I DO think that their coverage is questionable, but less in what they report and more in what they don't report. They spend too much time on the "news of the day" and not enough on underlying problems in the US system.
So, no, it isn't as easy as saying that the media is as a whole is outright negative, because without said media, a lot of what Trump did would still be under wraps. It were partly reporters who followed the money trail and/or correcting past mistakes.
I think a large question is whatch constitutes the Far Left and what you mean.
A lot of people blamed Bernie-its for the Hillary loss or were angry at him for distracting from her but that's generally sour grapes in my opinion. People have been looking for someone to blame for Trump aside from, well, the people who voted for him.
There's a deep divide here and I don't think there should be.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Maybe. Looking at the lexiters and all the Leftist channels supporting the notion that the whole Russia influence story is a hoax it seems that way. But I think it is more that the Russian troll farms target ALL groupings which they think can be helpful to their cause and that includes the left-leaning ones. Hence people on the far left are targeted with roughly the same kind of propaganda the people who are leaning to the far right get.

Doesn't Biden actually have decent ratings vis a vis younger(ish) Democrats? Higher than you'd think, given his record.
I attribute a lot of it to his association with Obama.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.