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2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

“One outstanding and inspiring example of such integrity is the country’s only Independent Congressman, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders.

Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: “Socialist”. In a country where Communism is still the dirtiest of ideological dirty words, in a climate where even liberalism is considered radical, and Socialism is immediately and perhaps willfully confused with Communism, a politician dares to call himself a socialist? He does indeed. Here is someone who has “looked into his own soul” and expressed an ideology, the endorsement of which, in today’s political atmosphere, is analogous to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Even though he has lived through a time in which an admitted socialist could not act in a film, let alone hold a Congressional seat, Sanders is not afraid to be candid about his political persuasion.

After numerous political defeats in his traditionally Republican state, Sanders won the office of mayor of Burlington by ten votes. A successful and popular mayor, he went on to win Vermont’s one Congressional seat in 1990. Since then, he has taken many courageous and politically risky stands on issues facing the nation. He has come under fire from various conservative religious groups because of his support for same-sex marriages. His stance on gun control led to NRA-organized media campaigns against him. Sanders has also shown creativity in organizing drug-shopping trips to Canada for senior citizens to call attention to inflated drug prices in the United States.

While impressive, Sanders’ candor does not itself represent political courage. The nation is teeming with outspoken radicals in one form or another. Most are sooner called crazy than courageous. It is the second half of Sanders’ political role that puts the first half into perspective: he is a powerful force for conciliation and bi-partisanship on Capitol Hill. In Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy wrote that “we should not be too hasty in condemning all compromise as bad morals. For politics and legislation are not matters for inflexible principles or unattainable ideals.” It may seem strange that someone so steadfast in his principles has a reputation as a peacemaker between divided forces in Washington, but this is what makes Sanders truly remarkable. He represents President Kennedy’s ideal of “compromises of issues, not of principles.”

Sanders has used his unique position as the lone Independent Congressman to help Democrats and Republicans force hearings on the internal structure of the International Monetary Fund, which he sees as excessively powerful and unaccountable. He also succeeded in quietly persuading reluctant Republicans and President Clinton to ban the import of products made by under-age workers. Sanders drew some criticism from the far left when he chose to grudgingly endorse President Clinton’s bids for election and re-election as President. Sanders explained that while he disagreed with many of Clinton’s centrist policies, he felt that he was the best option for America’s working class.

Sanders’ positions on many difficult issues are commendable, but his real impact has been as a reaction to the cynical climate which threatens the effectiveness of the democratic system. His energy, candor, conviction, and ability to bring people together stand against the current of opportunism, moral compromise, and partisanship which runs rampant on the American political scene. He and few others like him have the power to restore principle and leadership in Congress and to win back the faith of a voting public weary and wary of political opportunism. Above all, I commend Bernie Sanders for giving me an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption. I have heard that no sensible young person today would want to give his or her life to public service. I can personally assure you this is untrue.”

Pete Buttigieg, 2000, award winning essay on Profiles in Courage at Harvard.

He was clearly inspired to get into politics based on Sanders. Sanders, while in college organized for the Congress of Racial Equality. In January 1962, he went to a rally at the University of Chicago administration building to protest university president George Wells Beadle's segregated campus housing policy. "We feel it is an intolerable situation when Negro and white students of the university cannot live together in university-owned apartments," Sanders said at the protest. He and 32 other students then entered the building and camped outside the president's office. After weeks of sit-ins, Beadle and the university formed a commission to investigate discrimination. Following further protests, the University of Chicago ended official racial segregation in private university housing in the summer of 1963.

Sanders has been solid on racial equality long before Buttigieg was born.
 
It’s tough for me to square Ph’s posts on the F is for Fascism thread around the time Pete was giving this interview and Pete’s words in this interview

 
It’s tough for me to square Ph’s posts on the F is for Fascism thread around the time Pete was giving this interview and Pete’s words in this interview


https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stan

A crazed and or obsessed fan. The term comes from the song Stan by eminem. The term Stan is used to describe a fan who goes to great lengths to obsess over a celebrity.

Stan means you look up to that person, you watch them or you truly love their content. It's another word for saying you idolize someone or something. You would say, "I stan _____" instead of I "I love that person"

Reference to one of the best songs ever by Eminem called "Stan" about an Obsessed fan who ends up killing himself and his wife over Eminem not writing him back.

Basically it describes someone who is all up on their favorite artist's schlong, and can't take criticism or the slightest negative about said artist. But instead of "fans", they're called "Stans", get it?
 
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It’s tough for me to square you all’s posts mocking jhmd for blaming everything on Dem mayors to score political points while you all blame everything on a Dem mayor to score political points.
 
owning the libs is something that would motivate a trump support, to invoke ChrisL's post above

Don’t quite know what this means. No way I’m voting for Trump if that was your insinuation. But, I see Bernie whining and clutching his pearls because billionaires are donating money and it turns me off. I think it’s dumb how he demonizes billionaires as if they’re some evil monolith. Not to mention, it’s incredibly naive to believe he’d be able to pass any of his ultra-progressive policies through if he was elected President. When he has some more realistic proposals, I’ll start listening. Until then, if it’s between him and Pete.... my vote is for Pete.
 
I’m not trying to score political points, I’m making a straightforward argument that Pete Buttigieg’s record on racial justice issues while mayor is poor. That he can’t seem to crack double digits anywhere with nonwhite supporters is telling to me. He essentially made the Bloomberg rationale for stop and frisk as his answer to the straightforward question about unequal outcomes in policing.
 
Don’t quite know what this means. No way I’m voting for Trump if that was your insinuation. But, I see Bernie whining and clutching his pearls because billionaires are donating money and it turns me off. I think it’s dumb how he demonizes billionaires as if they’re some evil monolith. Not to mention, it’s incredibly naive to believe he’d be able to pass any of his ultra-progressive policies through if he was elected President. When he has some more realistic proposals, I’ll start listening. Until then, if it’s between him and Pete.... my vote is for Pete.

Have you looked at his plans? They are different from his rhetoric, fwiw. Also, mandatory plug for my dude Liz Warren, whose brilliance is consistently obscured by legions of mediocre men chasing the nomination.
 
Have you looked at his plans? They are different from his rhetoric, fwiw. Also, mandatory plug for my dude Liz Warren, whose brilliance is consistently obscured by legions of mediocre men chasing the nomination.

It’s his rhetoric that pushes me away. If his plan is for people who don’t like his rhetoric to actually look up and study his plans to garner their vote, I don’t think that’s a recipe for success.

Look at the end of the day, I’m voting for whoever the Dems put up there. But, I just found it funny that Bernie “dismantled” Pete by saying rich people are donating to his campaign. Oh, the humanity!
 
It’s tough for me to square you all’s posts mocking jhmd for blaming everything on Dem mayors to score political points while you all blame everything on a Dem mayor to score political points.

Ph, what?! jhmd's attribution of the downfall of American civilization to the influence of Dem mayors is different from calling a racist policy racist and criticizing the policy's adopter's apologism instead of acknowledgment of that policy's consequences. I'm not referring to Michael Bloomberg, though I could be.

I like to think that "we" have been consistent when it comes to American mayors that have overseen racist police departments and advocate for/defend racist policing practices.
 
It’s his rhetoric that pushes me away. If his plan is for people who don’t like his rhetoric to actually look up and study his plans to garner their vote, I don’t think that’s a recipe for success.

Look at the end of the day, I’m voting for whoever the Dems put up there. But, I just found it funny that Bernie “dismantled” Pete by saying rich people are donating to his campaign. Oh, the humanity!

Whether it’s bad practice or bad optics to accept money from bad people, I think it’s good that Pete has cancelled fundraisers from ICE and private prison contractors, returned money to fossil fuel execs, and taken the fundraiser’s name off an event when he learned the man was a lawyer involved in the Laquan McDonald cover up. Now there are generally two schools of thought on this: 1) any money spent defeating trump is good; 2) money spent beating trump that comes from people who want to do the same things as a Trump administration should not be taken. Pete has clearly, by his actions signaled that he believes #2 to be true, and I agree. But if your point is that #1 is true, that’s where you’re going to get stick from Sanders, Warren, and their supporters.
 
It’s his rhetoric that pushes me away. If his plan is for people who don’t like his rhetoric to actually look up and study his plans to garner their vote, I don’t think that’s a recipe for success.

Look at the end of the day, I’m voting for whoever the Dems put up there. But, I just found it funny that Bernie “dismantled” Pete by saying rich people are donating to his campaign. Oh, the humanity!

Dismantling is pretty dumb word for it, but that's Twitter for you.

I would argue that a good campaign (and good campaigning) has some degree of distance between rhetoric and plans.

An example: I'm a big Warren fan, but Warren campaigning as a wonk came back to bite her when Buttigieg's campaign went after her "how will you pay for that?!" and "fiscal responsibility" attacks. There was a clear answer in her plan (seriously, look it up!), but it was almost impossible for her to articulate that level of policy complexity in soundbite. Meanwhile, Sanders is running on an almost identical plan, but wasn't held to the same degree of scrutiny because of how well his campaign is able to spin rhetoric. It makes me sad that Sanders is outpolling Warren, but there's no denying how effective his rhetoric has been and how ineffective Warren's has been during this primary season.

Obama's campaign in 2008 represents the case of another candidate who ran on rhetoric that was different from his policy platforms to pretty great effect.

Rhetoric galvanizes voters in contemporary elections. The most effective rhetoric can do a lot more than the most effective plan.
 
 
The Forbes article said like 40 billionaires donated up to the max, some less, to his campaign. We’re talking about $100K or so out of the millions he’s raised starting from scratch a year ago. The idea that those 40 billionaires “own” Pete more than any other donors is nuts as is the idea that Bernie turning down max donations from a few billionaires while being a millionaire himself and taking money from millionaires is a big sacrifice.
 
It isn’t a big sacrifice. It’s also a big part of why he has 1.5 million individual donors and has out fundraised Pete by tens of millions.
 
It isn’t a big sacrifice. It’s also a big part of why he has 1.5 million individual donors and has out fundraised Pete by tens of millions.

I guess. But it’s much more important that he ran before, had leftover funds from his senate campaign, and didn’t have to start from scratch.

The deck is stacked against Pete which will make it harder for other grassroots campaigns going forward.
 
The deck is stacked against Pete.

The deck is stacked against the 37 year old white male mayor of the 308th largest city in the United States without any meaningful national or federal-level political experience who just won the Iowa primary during his first attempt at running for president. That's news to me. It seems like Pete's deck has worked out for him nicely compared to past small town mayors' experiences running for president.

Also, how claiming that the "deck is stacked against" different from claiming that the process is "rigged against?" I'm asking for a Bro I know.
 
Dismantling is pretty dumb word for it, but that's Twitter for you.

I would argue that a good campaign (and good campaigning) has some degree of distance between rhetoric and plans.

An example: I'm a big Warren fan, but Warren campaigning as a wonk came back to bite her when Buttigieg's campaign went after her "how will you pay for that?!" and "fiscal responsibility" attacks. There was a clear answer in her plan (seriously, look it up!), but it was almost impossible for her to articulate that level of policy complexity in soundbite. Meanwhile, Sanders is running on an almost identical plan, but wasn't held to the same degree of scrutiny because of how well his campaign is able to spin rhetoric. It makes me sad that Sanders is outpolling Warren, but there's no denying how effective his rhetoric has been and how ineffective Warren's has been during this primary season.

Obama's campaign in 2008 represents the case of another candidate who ran on rhetoric that was different from his policy platforms to pretty great effect.

Rhetoric galvanizes voters in contemporary elections. The most effective rhetoric can do a lot more than the most effective plan.

It also didn't hurt Sanders that their competitors were attacking Warren at a time when they were totally underestimating him, so much that they used him in their attacks. As Dave Weigel noted at the time:

 
It also didn't hurt Sanders that their competitors were attacking Warren at a time when they were totally underestimating him, so much that they used him in their attacks. As Dave Weigel noted at the time:


I erroneously used the adjective "odious" to describe those attacks, but, looking back on them, it was misogyny rearing its ugly head and it was definitely intentional by both Buttigieg and Biden campaigns.

And, while we're arguing about how the deck is stacked against Pete Buttigieg, it's worth a reminder about how the deck is actually stacked against working class Americans:

Then last winter, Raghav slid into a deep depression. He’d had depression for some time but was managing it with Lexapro. Although Raghav’s day job didn’t give him insurance, a former doctor continued to call in his prescription, a fix he knew wouldn’t last forever. When the side effects of the medication became overwhelming, Raghav went off it, and when his depression worsened, he tried self-medicating with Zoloft he got from a friend. It didn’t work.

He couldn’t afford to see a psychiatrist. Talk therapy was too expensive, and although his friends and I offered to help with the cost, he understandably wanted to handle it himself. Many days Raghav slept until 5 p.m.; every day I scrambled and failed to find ways to cheer him up. His depression made him angry. Our political debates stopped feeling flirty and started to hurt. We broke up, got back together, and broke up again.

One of the biggest arguments we ever had was about Medicare for All. Although I didn’t have insurance, I believed that with tweaks to Obamacare, our problems could be solved. But Raghav believed true Medicare for All—healthcare that was free at the point of service with everyone automatically enrolled—was a life or death issue.

It turned out he was right: Six months after we said I love you, Raghav was dead. I was told his death was an accident—self-medicating gone wrong. When the pills weren’t working, Raghav drank in an effort to numb his inescapable pain. I’m convinced he’d still be here if he had health insurance to get the care he needed. At his funeral, I finally met Jake, the Bernie Bro I swore I’d never speak to.

About 45,000 people in the US die every year from not having insurance. Sometimes the causes are obvious—a lack of insulin or a cancerous tumor that goes unchecked. But there are also more insidious, cumulative circumstances that lead to the same conclusion. One morning Raghav didn’t wake up, and he never would again.

After his death, I was steeped in a kind of pain I didn’t know was possible—heavy, consuming, shattering. I finally understood how Raghav felt all the time. I got into secular Buddhism, muted happy couples on Instagram. I painted my room teal and decorated, trying to make it look like a place I could someday, one day, have sex again. I stormed out on a friend who suggested Raghav died because of astrology. The only thing that really helped was trying to better understand Raghav’s politics. I followed the journalists he followed on Twitter and read his favorite political authors. I retraced his steps to understand how he’d make sense of a tragedy like this.

I didn’t grieve alone. Raghav’s Bernie Bro friends were not a bunch of sexists after all. Some were socialist feminist women, some were great guys. In the months that followed Raghav’s death, they made sure I ate and didn’t isolate myself. We’ve since stayed up till 3 a.m. working on jokes and talking a lot about Bernie Sanders. This weekend, all of us, including Jake, are heading to New Hampshire to canvass for Bernie, the only 2020 candidate who unequivocally supports for Medicare for All. I’m one of the bros now, I guess.
 
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