2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

[TownieDeac]

So a race to the bottom?

This ideal right here is why our two political parties suck so much now. Just keep voting for the slightly less terrible candidate.

And yell at kids for not liking it.

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

What's "untrue"?

Neither could have a majority is true.

As shown by Pirsig, you could get more first place votes (a plurality) but still lose because you didn't do as well for second and third place. So, that's also true.

Just because I post something, you don't need to have a Pavlovian response that I am wrong.

I guess by your understanding, you aren't wrong, because you are only counting top-choice votes

but that's the point, if the top-choice gets a plurality (like the 17.5% received by Mayor Lightfoot in round 1 of the Chicago 2019 election), why is that a better system than one with a runoff?

 

[BillBrasky]

But hey brown people can technically live in the same neighborhoods now as white people, but jokes on them because only a small percentage of black/brown people will ever be provided with the educational and economic opportunities needed to afford that lifestyle.

But look at us we're so progressive and benevolent living in our rich (mostly) white wealth bubbles!

^ 21st century moderate liberalism

 

[BillBrasky]

To put it a different way the 1950-60's Eisenhower/Nixon GOP base did more to help poor people than the RJ/Biden wing of the 2020 Democratic Party.

But hey look at our social victories that made life for already well off people a little nicer. Don't mind the fact that our tax policies destroy the lives of millions born into poverty.

 

[avalon]

Third party votes take away from the other candidates. Voting is about trying to get the person elected who most supports your issues. If your candidate can't win, then you should look for the closest to your ideals or vote against a person you know will harm your future.

That's why ranked choice voting is great, you can vote for your first choice without taking away from other candidates.

 

[RJKarl]

To put it a different way the 1950-60's Eisenhower/Nixon GOP base did more to help poor people than the RJ/Biden wing of the 2020 Democratic Party.

How many times do I have to say Biden is not now and never has been close to my top choice before you'll actually pay attention?

You don't pay attention at all if you believe those are my positions about race in this country. But it is much easier just to post RJ ------ to fit your needs. It's lazy and dishonest. Sadly, you aren't alone doing this.

 

[Strickland33]

What was your take on the article?

She should get media coverage and she deserves to have her story heard. But there are three issues that damage her credibility.

1. Biden has over 40 years in the federal government and she's the only person to accuse him of sexual assault. Talk about "Creepy Joe" all you want but there's a fine line between unwanted touching and putting his fingers in her vagina. If more women come forward, that will help her case.

2. She came out twice before with allegations of unwanted touching. The first was 3 weeks before Biden entered the Democrat primary. The second was less than two weeks before Iowa. Now she came out again shortly after Biden essentially wrapped up the nomination, but this time with much stronger allegations.

3. She's a strong Bernie supporter. Clearly Bernie is staying in the race for a reason after losing badly. This may be it. After a year of Bernie supporters spreading lies about other candidates, the optics are horrible.

I'll just start by saying you either believe women or you don't. You have made your position clear here and it is disappointing.

#3 is shameful, Ph, so I'm not going to acknowledge it beyond saying this: I don't care if she voted for Donald Trump and posted about it in Cyrillic on Facebook. If Joe Biden sexually assaulted her, then it doesn't fucking matter if she likes Putin and knows Russian.

Re: 1 - how can more women come forward if everybody from partisan legal advocates to the news media has been spiking the story? The press should absolutely cover this story and do its due diligence to determine whether or not the allegations are warranted. Just because it's inconvenient politically doesn't mean that she does not deserve to be taken seriously.

Re: 2 - You sound like a Kavanaugh shill right now. It sounds like she has been pursuing press attention and legal support for awhile, but has been blocked. From the Democracy Now story that I posted:

Reade approached the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund in January looking for assistance, but was reportedly told the fund could not help her because Biden is a candidate for federal office, and pursuing a case could jeopardize the fund’s nonprofit status. The Intercept reports the public relations firm representing Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund is SKDKnickerbocker, whose managing director, Anita Dunn, is top adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign.

That's a really bad look, man.

You probably won't read this, but here's a story from The Intercept that details the timeline.

Reade deserves to be heard. Full stop.

 

[Strickland33]

oh and she's not a strong Sanders supporter. She was a strong Warren supporter who switched to Sanders after Warren dropped out.

 

[TownieDeac]

The timing of Reade hearing no from the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund really stinks as they got a huge donation from the Biden campaign in the actual month they finally got around to telling her no, their first donation of its kind.

catamount has been more consistent on this front than Ph/ChrisL. At least he's Don't Believe Women consistently.

 

[BillBrasky]

How many times do I have to say Biden is not now and never has been close to my top choice before you'll actually pay attention?

You don't pay attention at all if you believe those are my positions about race in this country. But it is much easier just to post RJ ------ to fit your needs. It's lazy and dishonest. Sadly, you aren't alone doing this.

Dude who YOU vote for is a representation of YOUR political beliefs. I hold conservatives and liberals to the same standard. If you vote for Trump, then you support everything he has done and said up until that day. Same for Biden or any other Dem candidate.

Take responsibility for your actions Boomer.

 

[RJKarl]

My actions for racial equality started long before you were born and continue through today. You dismiss actual actions.

Who is going to do more for race relations, Biden or Trump? That's the choice we have.

You are still being lazy.

 

[TownieDeac]

Who has ruined more black lives to date?

 

[BillBrasky]

My mother is an evangelical conservative who "doesn't support Trump" but will still vote for him and his ilk, and I remind her of that all the time. You don't get to vote for a human being and the disavow their actions. At the end of the day YOUR VOTE is the most consequential thing you do to influence the lives of others. Unless you are personally donating billions to charity, then your donations, volunteer time, etc. are minuscule compared the social programs that the government could be funding.

If you vote for someone who is going to underfund or cut programs in lieu of low taxes, which will lead to the poverty, sickness and death of millions, then you have blood on your hands. If you're a Christian (or religious in any manner) don't think your God isn't paying attention to who you vote for and what that vote means for the lives of others.

 

[RJKarl]

Who has ruined more black lives to date?

Probably Bernie for voting against the Brady Bill and for protecting gun manufacturers from being sued all those times. See, I can do it too.

Don't try to play gotcha. It doesn't help anything.

 

[DeaconSig]

I'll just start by saying you either believe women or you don't. You have made your position clear here and it is disappointing.

#3 is shameful, Ph, so I'm not going to acknowledge it beyond saying this: I don't care if she voted for Donald Trump and posted about it in Cyrillic on Facebook. If Joe Biden sexually assaulted her, then it doesn't fucking matter if she likes Putin and knows Russian.

Re: 1 - how can more women come forward if everybody from partisan legal advocates to the news media has been spiking the story? The press should absolutely cover this story and do its due diligence to determine whether or not the allegations are warranted. Just because it's inconvenient politically doesn't mean that she does not deserve to be taken seriously.

Re: 2 - You sound like a Kavanaugh shill right now. It sounds like she has been pursuing press attention and legal support for awhile, but has been blocked. From the Democracy Now story that I posted:



That's a really bad look, man.

You probably won't read this, but here's a story from The Intercept that details the timeline.

Reade deserves to be heard. Full stop.

Three things are true, best I can tell:
1) The story should be vetted in the same way all other stories of sexual assault against political figures are vetted- it shouldn't be buried because it is against Biden;
2) One concern about the story is the inconsistent way in which she told it- this doesn't mean her allegations are untrue, but it is inconsistent;
3) People are freaked out because the world only cares if democratic officials are accused of sexual assault, and the thought that a 30-year old sexual assault allegation would bring down the presumptive democratic nominee when President Trump is in the White House and Justice Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court is hard to take.

 

[PhDeac]

I mean caucuses are insane too, whether you call them participation trophies or just weird outdated bean counting. Ranked choice has real benefits in actually deriving data about people's first and second choices the party can use to therefore determine electability rather than foisting that impossible challenge on an electorate who generally doesn't know what it's doing.

Ranked choice voting is good if you’re actually interested in gauging what people want. First to the post voting is good if you just see politics as a competition to be won or lost.

Ranked choice is fine to a point, but the end result is not satisfying. The vast majority of voters get a second or third choice they're meh about. Do a multi-stage national primary and get voters to the point where they're affirmatively voting for the nominee.

I mean he sucked his wife's fingers at a campaign event and has been called creepy joe for decades. Substantiated or not, Trump could have made that stick anyway. Of course it doesn't help, but it also doesn't make Dems look great who are going back and deleting their old Kavanaugh takes because of fear their "Believe Women" takes will look bad defending Biden in 2020.

"Believe Women" was always a problematic overly simplistic slogan that treats women as pure damsels in distress rather than regular people, some of whom are truthful and some of whom are not. In fact, "Believe Women" plays into the Republican argument that women's allegations are just used to take down powerful men in the court of public opinion. It also ignores a long history of devious white women accusing innocent black men of rape and sexual assault. "Believe Women" got Emmitt Till killed.

All claims need to be evaluated on their own merits and get the media coverage and fact finding efforts they deserve. I agreed that with Strick that "Reade deserves to be heard. Full stop." But I don't believe she needs to be uncritically believed. If a woman came out and claimed Bernie sexually harassed her, they'd claim it was a plot by the Dem establishment.

But hey brown people can technically live in the same neighborhoods now as white people, but jokes on them because only a small percentage of black/brown people will ever be provided with the educational and economic opportunities needed to afford that lifestyle.

But look at us we're so progressive and benevolent living in our rich (mostly) white wealth bubbles!

^ 21st century moderate liberalism

That describes way more progressives than you're willing to admit, especially the ones who don't seem to understand why Black voters by and large don't support Bernie.

 

[Strickland33]

Three things are true, best I can tell:
1) The story should be vetted in the same way all other stories of sexual assault against political figures are vetted- it shouldn't be buried because it is against Biden;
2) One concern about the story is the inconsistent way in which she told it- this doesn't mean her allegations are untrue, but it is inconsistent;
3) People are freaked out because the world only cares if democratic officials are accused of sexual assault, and the thought that a 30-year old sexual assault allegation would bring down the presumptive democratic nominee when President Trump is in the White House and Justice Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court is hard to take.

I agree with this completely.

It's hard to take, but that shouldn't be grounds to bury the story. I know that you're not saying that, but plenty of folks are. I believe women and am generally against giving sexual harassers and assaulters platforms via politics. I was a big fan of Franken and Hill, but agree that that kind of bullshit has no place in Congress. I hope we reach a time where this isn't a partisan issue.

 

[TownieDeac]

Probably Bernie for voting against the Brady Bill and for protecting gun manufacturers from being sued all those times. See, I can do it too.

Don't try to play gotcha. It doesn't help anything.

Do you actually think that? A lot more black men in jail than dead from gun violence.

 

[Strickland33]

"Believe Women" was always a problematic overly simplistic slogan that treats women as pure damsels in distress rather than regular people, some of whom are truthful and some of whom are not. In fact, "Believe Women" plays into the Republican argument that women's allegations are just used to take down powerful men in the court of public opinion. It also ignores a long history of devious white women accusing innocent black men of rape and sexual assault. "Believe Women" got Emmitt Till killed.

All claims need to be evaluated on their own merits and get the media coverage and fact finding efforts they deserve. I agreed that with Strick that "Reade deserves to be heard. Full stop." But I don't believe she needs to be uncritically believed. If a woman came out and claimed Bernie sexually harassed her, they'd claim it was a plot by the Dem establishment.

You're constructing a straw man argument here. Nobody here is suggesting that she needs to be uncritically believed. "Believe women" in its 21st century meaning refers specifically to using institutional levers such as the media and the legal system to make sure that serial rapists like Harvey Weinstein aren't allowed to use those levers to bully women into silence. Nobody is advocating for uncritically believing women and even that suggestion just fucking sucks. The Emmitt Till comment is true, but bringing it up in this instance is shameful, man. Joe Biden is arguably the second most powerful white man in the country. He's in the position to become the most powerful white man in the country. Invoking lynching rhetoric is Trump apologist-level mental gymnastics.

 

[BillBrasky]

That describes way more progressives than you're willing to admit, especially the ones who don't seem to understand why Black voters by and large don't support Bernie.

Oh yeah I'm taking shots as the faux progressives too. Way too many Bernie supporters that haven't spent a day of their lives interacting with people of color. That being said it shouldn't go unnoticed that most young notable progressives who are POC are Bernie backers. His macro economic policies, which is truly the only thing that matters when it comes to wide scale poverty reduction, would do far more to improve the lives of minorities born into that situation than anything coming out of the Clinton/Obama/Biden wing.