The Politics Thread

[DRW50]

30 minutes ago, Khan said:

Meanwhile, this NYT headline -- "Pete Buttigieg can compete (in very white states)." -- is shady as all get-out.  But, I love it.

 

Interesting how the same paper that carries water for a proud racist like Trump is still willing to play those games with the Democrats. 

 

Anyway, I am just being hot-headed. I probably will vote for whoever the nominee is in November, meaningless as it is. I just wish it wasn't for someone who is so completely useless and is supported by so many pieces of trash. 

Edited February 12, 2020 by DRW50

[DramatistDreamer]

13 hours ago, Khan said:

Apparently, a tape where Mike Bloomberg is heard defending stop-and-frisk is making the rounds on social media.  I'm not surprised either, @DramatistDreamer.  Like you said, it was bound to happen.

 

But, I thought Bloomberg's defense of the procedure (which, granted, he has since apologized for) was common knowledge, so where is Twitter's sudden outrage coming from?

 

There are always people who will act brand new (I mean, the woman who claimed she did "eenie-meenie-minee-moe" tells you all you need to know about some parts of the electorate) and as I've been repeatedly told Twitter is not real life anyway, so I only expect a ripple from this.  Half the candidates in the presidential had enacted racist policies anyway and with the racist man in the WH, it seems to be par for the course in U.S. electoral politics. Bloomberg has been blanketing states with ads, despite the fact that he thumbed his nose at the first two states during primary season, he has just as much chance as any of the candidates in the race, due to his deep pockets. Remember, the U.S. loves billionaire white men.  The more crotchety and racist, the better.

9 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

Everyone is being nice to each other except for Bernie who started out OK and went on and on saying he was going to win.

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Hell no.....a woman who was put in her place by Sonny on the View....a screamer and yeller in Warren and Kamala who I never cared for.

 

And I think I have a pretty good idea why you never cared for Kamala. 

[Gray Bunny]

12 hours ago, Khan said:

According to the Washington Post, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren praised each other in their speeches before voters tonight.  This has me imagining what it would be like to have a Klobuchar/Warren administration, with Kamala Harris as U.S. Attorney General.  Man, it would be awesome!

 

Turn around Warren & Klobuchar and it'd be perfectly ideal.

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That thought that used to rattle around in my head that Biden would pick Kamala as VP doesn't seem to matter much anymore, but who knows what SC, NV, and Super Tuesday will bring... 

[Soapsuds]

3 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

 

 

And I think I have a pretty good idea why you never cared for Kamala. 

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Because she came off like a totally fruitcake. Her only bounce came from tearing into hopeless Biden. Why anyone thought she could be president much less a vp were very delusional. 

3 minutes ago, Gray Bunny said:

 

Turn around Warren & Klobuchar and it'd be perfectly ideal.

 

That thought that used to rattle around in my head that Biden would pick Kamala as VP doesn't seem to matter much anymore, but who knows what SC, NV, and Super Tuesday will bring... 

Thank gawd neither is happening.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Soapsuds

[Gray Bunny]

9 hours ago, Khan said:

Removing Donald Trump from office means so much to me that I'll probably vote for whoever ends up being the Democratic nominee.  Even if it turns out to be Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg, I'll vote for them.

 

Ditto. We gotta stop falling in love with our candidates and simply fall in line. 

[Vee]

I’m not going to lose my mind over anything atm. We’ve got a ways to go. I will say the collective media freakout over Sanders gaining is both amusing and predictable. Media largely leans center-right, not “centrist democrat”. For many of them both Sanders and Warren are nightmares, but literally any Democrat nominated, Biden included, will continue to have the same right-framed 30 year old “how will you irresponsible hippies pay for X” questions lobbed at them. As it is, their terror of leftist policy will do nothing but embolden him and the base. And ultimately that is good for us, at least for now. In the general, though, the knives will come out far sharper than before. You can expect a repeat of Chuck Todd demanding Clinton answer for the biblical plagues while coddling Trump. Sanders has never faced that.

 

If Sanders continues his momentum, then he can do a lot of good with the right team and the right choices. It’s never been the ideas I’ve had the issue with, it’s the execution, the people around him and the man’s deeply blinkered, tonedeaf approach to any issue outside his pet platform. I think his supposed Day 1 plans are amateur hour. I don't think he's an evil man; we agree on many things. I think he's deeply arrogant and much of his movement is toxic, and it doesn't have to be. If he doesn’t continue this wave then none of this matters. If he does, then fine - soon it will be time to prove he can do more than talk and blame others.

 

Either way, nothing to do now but wait and watch.

 

[marceline]

1 hour ago, Vee said:

If Sanders continues his momentum, then he can do a lot of good with the right team and the right choices. It’s never been the ideas I’ve had the issue with, it’s the execution, the people around him and the man’s deeply blinkered, tonedeaf approach to any issue outside his pet platform. I think his supposed Day 1 plans are amateur hour. I don't think he's an evil man; we agree on many things. I think he's deeply arrogant and much of his movement is toxic, and it doesn't have to be. If he doesn’t continue this wave then none of this matters. If he does, then fine - soon it will be time to prove he can do more than talk and blame others.

 

I do actually think he's an evil man and when you see the people he surrounds himself with that's a big part of the reason I won't vote for him. Everything about Sanders movement has the feeling of abuse. For five years his cult has been heaping racism, misogyny, and now homophobia at anyone who dares to deny him. Right now Twitter is filled with excited "revolutionaries" who can't wait to line centrists and moderates "up against the wall." There's a DSA candidate in Maine selling merchandise with a guillotine graphic on it. Sanders has spent his life worshiping leftist dictators just like Trump worships the ones on the right. Disenfranchised people will be no safer with Sanders in the White House than we are with Trump. We'd just be exchanging one insane, vengeance-crazed, death cult for another.

[Khan]

12 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I probably will vote for whoever the nominee is in November, meaningless as it is. I just wish it wasn't for someone who is so completely useless and is supported by so many pieces of trash. 

 

Agree.

 

Last night, as I drifted off to sleep, I made up my mind to back Mike Bloomberg, at least for now; but not because I'm enamored with any policies or agendas he has laid out thus far.  As I've said, I don't think any potential successor(s) to Trump will have time enough to enact even a fraction of what they're promising constituents.  He (or she) will be far too busy simply cleaning up the mess the Trump administration has made of our country to institute real change.  As a matter of fact, I think we'll be blessed if he/she is able to restore us to where we were even pre-Trump.

 

I'm getting behind Bloomberg, however, because I believe he has the best shot at defeating Trump in the election -- which, for me, is the only thing that counts.  Like Joe Biden, he has the potential to rally the centrists, the moderates, the Independents and the disenchanted Republicans/"never Trumpers."  (POC haven't forgotten his expansion of Giuliani's stop-and-frisk policy as NYC's mayor, but I would hope even they can recognize what's really at stake here).  Unlike Biden, though, Bloomberg also has the financial firepower to take on Trump and the rest of the GOP; so that, even if he doesn't ultimately land the nomination, the longer he can stay in the race and specifically go after Trump without becoming another, unnecessary drain on the whole process, the more delegates he can pick up and hand over to another candidate (please, God, let it be Joe Biden!) come convention time.

 

Of course, I'm prepared for Bloomberg not making it to the proverbial finish line; in which case, I will back Biden.  He, too, stands to form the right coalition of voters to defeat Trump.  But, my point is, it HAS to be with someone who can unite the many factions within the Democratic party, something I don't believe the other candidates -- Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer and Elizabeth Warren -- can do, or do as effectively.  (Warren might, if the pressure were turned up on voters.  Klobuchar might also, although she would have to work fast to reach POC.  Buttigieg and Sanders, on the other hand, are lost causes where non-white voters are concerned.  Sanders might have a slight edge over Buttigieg, but I think either guy would be a surefire path to defeat.)

 

1 hour ago, marceline said:

I do actually think he's an evil man and when you see the people he surrounds himself with that's a big part of the reason I won't vote for him. Everything about Sanders movement has the feeling of abuse. For five years his cult has been heaping racism, misogyny, and now homophobia at anyone who dares to deny him. Right now Twitter is filled with excited "revolutionaries" who can't wait to line centrists and moderates "up against the wall." There's a DSA candidate in Maine selling merchandise with a guillotine graphic on it. Sanders has spent his life worshiping leftist dictators just like Trump worships the ones on the right. Disenfranchised people will be no safer with Sanders in the White House than we are with Trump. We'd just be exchanging one insane, vengeance-crazed, death cult for another.

 

I feel like I could afford not to vote for Sanders, too, since I don't live in a battleground or swing state.  However, I feel I've come so far from where I was in 2016, when I just sat home (again) and didn't gaf, that I'm afraid of giving myself that "out" again in November.  (Does that make any sense, lol?).  At the end of the day, I want to feel good that I did what I could -- even voted for a racist, misogynistic, homophobic demagogue like Bernie Sanders -- to stave off another four years of Donald Trump.

 

(...Or am I just being stupid as usual?)

 

12 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Interesting how the same paper that carries water for a proud racist like Trump is still willing to play those games with the Democrats.

 

I see it as the NYT trying this time to direct us toward an ultimate "Showcase Showdown" between Donald Trump and either Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders.  Ergo, if Pete Buttigieg continues on this upward trajectory -- and dear God, I hope not -- then I expect to see the headlines become ever more savage (and yes, ever more homophobic, too).

 

7 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

There are always people who will act brand new [...] and as I've been repeatedly told Twitter is not real life anyway, so I only expect a ripple from this.  Half the candidates in the presidential had enacted racist policies anyway and with the racist man in the WH, it seems to be par for the course in U.S. electoral politics.

 

Besides, as repugnant as stop-and-frisk was for NYC and its' African-American and other, ethnically/racially diverse neighborhoods, it now seems almost quaint compared to Trump literally throwing black and brown people in cages and dismissing places like Baltimore as rat-infested hellholes.  (Yup, that's where we are today in this country, where "racist" is the more acceptable alternative to "REALLY racist.")

Edited February 12, 2020 by Khan

[Khan]

4 hours ago, Gray Bunny said:

That thought that used to rattle around in my head that Biden would pick Kamala as VP doesn't seem to matter much anymore, but who knows what SC, NV, and Super Tuesday will bring... 

 

Exactly.  We have to remember this is just one primary (and caucus).  Yes, I include myself.

 

For all we know, by this time next month, we could be looking at Tom Steyer or even (GOD! NO!) Tulsi Gabbard as the front-runner.  That probably won't happen, lol, but you never really know.

[Gray Bunny]

1 hour ago, Khan said:

However, I feel I've come so far from where I was in 2016, when I just sat home (again) and didn't gaf, that I'm afraid of giving myself that "out" again in November.  (Does that make any sense, lol?).  At the end of the day, I want to feel good that I did what I could -- even voted for a racist, misogynistic, homophobic demagogue like Bernie Sanders -- to stave off another four years of Donald Trump.

 

In 2016, I was in a state (Illinois) that was heavily pro-Hillary but I still gladly voted (I'm ashamed to admit, it was my first time voting in a presidential election, despite being able to vote since '04). But this year? We're in the almighty important Wisconsin. And I'll be damned if I don't vote against Trump -- even if it just means cancelling out my dad's.... 

[DramatistDreamer]

1 hour ago, Khan said:

Besides, as repugnant as stop-and-frisk was for NYC and its' African-American and other, ethnically/racially diverse neighborhoods, it now seems almost quaint compared to Trump literally throwing black and brown people in cages and dismissing places like Baltimore as rat-infested hellholes.  (Yup, that's where we are today in this country, where "racist" is the more acceptable alternative to "REALLY racist.")

 

The homeless population exploding during Bloomberg's tenure should be as noteworthy as Stop and Frisk but few people seem to really care about poor people in this country so that won't be an issue.

[Juliajms]

1 hour ago, Khan said:

 

Exactly.  We have to remember this is just one primary (and caucus).  Yes, I include myself.

 

For all we know, by this time next month, we could be looking at Tom Steyer or even (GOD! NO!) Tulsi Gabbard as the front-runner.  That probably won't happen, lol, but you never really know.

Now that would test me when it comes to vote blue no matter who. I still would though.

 

Here's some good news:

 

[marceline]

2 hours ago, Khan said:

For all we know, by this time next month, we could be looking at Tom Steyer or even (GOD! NO!) Tulsi Gabbard as the front-runner.  That probably won't happen, lol, but you never really know.

 

Don't forget, at any moment #NaturalCauses2020 could change everything.

[Wendy]

2 minutes ago, marceline said:

 

Don't forget, at any moment #NaturalCauses2020 could change everything.

 

What a dream come true that would be, especially if it would take Trump AND Barr (both obese!) out. And if McConnell and Graham could then stroke out, perfect! Yes, there would be Pence, but just remove his batteries 'til November...

[Khan]

2 hours ago, marceline said:

Don't forget, at any moment #NaturalCauses2020 could change everything.

 

2 hours ago, Wendy said:

What a dream come true that would be, especially if it would take Trump AND Barr (both obese!) out. And if McConnell and Graham could then stroke out, perfect! Yes, there would be Pence, but just remove his batteries 'til November...

 

As Maude Findlay would say, God'll get you two for that, lol.

 

3 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

The homeless population exploding during Bloomberg's tenure should be as noteworthy as Stop and Frisk but few people seem to really care about poor people in this country so that won't be an issue.

 

It's a shame that so many in this country view homelessness as a moral failing or personal decision rather than the consequence of rising prices and unstable employment.  A damn shame.

 

3 hours ago, Juliajms said:

Now that would test me when it comes to vote blue no matter who.

 

Same.  I mean, a Russian bot over Donald Trump?  Couldn't I "write in" someone instead?  Please?