Stop using “purity” as a goddamn sarcastic pejorative in a discussion about the direction of the Democratic Party’s leadership?
Not supporting repeated wars and acts of war in the Middle East isn’t fucking “purity,” it’s not “virtue signalling” or whatever other right wing paradigm bullshit you want to throw at it to make it seem foolish and naive.
I use it as a pejorative for people that haven't had to worry that their votes or stances would cost them on the world stage, while simultaneously criticizing people who have done so.
Bernie hasn't had to drone-strike anyone... yet. But he's said he's open to it, and you can bet he'll likely have to do it, and that's BEFORE we consider the post-Trump hell world he would inherit. If that day comes, will your support waver, or will you concede that not everything is clear cut, and that sometimes everything is fucked up, and that sometimes doing the best you can sometimes isn't going to be enough?
What does this mean re: Sanders? Do you remember what politics were like in 2003? Opposing the Iraq War ended careers left right and center.
But was his career in jeopardy at that point? Sanders didn't even make it to the Senate until 2007, and prior to that, the only close contest for him as a Rep was in 1994. Did anybody even know who he was in 2001 *2003?
Stop using “purity” as a goddamn sarcastic pejorative in a discussion about the direction of the Democratic Party’s leadership?
Not supporting repeated wars and acts of war in the Middle East isn’t fucking “purity,” it’s not “virtue signalling” or whatever other right wing paradigm bullshit you want to throw at it to make it seem foolish and naive.
I use it as a pejorative for people that haven't had to worry that their votes or stances would cost them on the world stage, while simultaneously criticizing people who have done so.
Bernie hasn't had to drone-strike anyone... yet. But he's said he's open to it, and you can bet he'll likely have to do it, and that's BEFORE we consider the post-Trump hell world he would inherit. If that day comes, will your support waver, or will you concede that not everything is clear cut, and that sometimes everything is fucked up, and that sometimes doing the best you can sometimes isn't going to be enough?
What does this mean re: Sanders? Do you remember what politics were like in 2003? Opposing the Iraq War ended careers left right and center.
But was his career in jeopardy at that point? Sanders didn't even make it to the Senate until 2007, and prior to that, the only close contest for him as a Rep was in 1994. Did anybody even know who he was in 2001 *2003?
Yes. Lots of people lost their careers. Do you really not remember what the country was like? Its was a massive liability to be on the right side. Sanders took the risk. He's done this before. He was an early and eager endorser of LBGT rights long before it was even socially mainstream, to say nothing of politically so.
I'm really not sure where you're trying to go with this.
The overall point that it can be very easy for members of Congress to "take a stand" on an issue is a good one. People like the Pauls, either one really, do this shit all the time because it's meaningless. Your vote probably won't matter and since Congress has ceded so much power to the Executive on so many things anyway, you don't have to worry about it mattering either way anyway. This is especially true on foreign policy issues where Congress has been more then happy for a long time to criticize executive actions while not having to be responsible for those decisions one way or the other. This isn't to say those criticisms are necessarily wrong, just that this is a pretty standard dynamic between the executive and congress. Congress, on many levels, enjoys being able to fling shit from the sidelines without having to be responsible.
And it basically exists in foreign policy as much as it does because Congress rarely has to make the kind of calls on foreign policy issues where they are really gonna be held to any account for the results whichever way they vote. The President generally gets the most say on the issue and takes most of the praise and/or blame for the results.
The end result on that is that I think congressional records on foreign policy just rarely end up being all the meaningful. You get a few big moments, like the Iraq War vote, that can generate some headlines. But even that is kind of disconnected from what happens as President and more ends up as a political attack then any sort of meaningful statement on foreign policy as it relates to most of the stuff being talked about here. Because congress just doesn't make those kind of decisions almost ever and even when they do it's pretty high level. eg- they make some vote on the AUMF, they don't approve operations on basically any level. Congresspeople in the sense that matters for the presidency barely have a foreign policy record.
The end result is that unless you expect a candidate to dismantle american hegemony upon entering office, something I would not hold my breath on if I were you, they are very quickly going to be doing a lot of the same kind of things you see every president do with america's foreign policy power. Because at that point, for the first time, they will actually be making meaningful decisions on that front in a way congresspeople never have to.
There is also the whole thing where the Democrats especially just don't talk much about foreign policy in primaries, baring a few big flashpoints. Part of that is that the public, baring those big issues, doesn't give a shit about it and doesn't vote based around it. But another part of it is, imo, that no one really wants to get into that argument because it exposes some large divides between the establishment, both in the party and in DC, parts of the activist base of the party and the rest of the base of the party. There are differences that basically no one on the elected or wants-to-be-elected side wants to get into fights over. No one wins there.
There is also the whole thing where the Democrats especially just don't talk much about foreign policy in primaries, baring a few big flashpoints. Part of that is that the public, baring those big issues, doesn't give a shit about it and doesn't vote based around it. But another part of it is, imo, that no one really wants to get into that argument because it exposes some large divides between the establishment, both in the party and in DC, parts of the activist base of the party and the rest of the base of the party. There are differences that basically no one on the elected or wants-to-be-elected side wants to get into fights over. No one wins there.
Dave Weigel was at some candidate appearances and the strikes didn't come up TODAY until 20 or 30 minutes into the Q&A sessions. Democratic voters just don't see foreign policy as a priority.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Stop using “purity” as a goddamn sarcastic pejorative in a discussion about the direction of the Democratic Party’s leadership?
Not supporting repeated wars and acts of war in the Middle East isn’t fucking “purity,” it’s not “virtue signalling” or whatever other right wing paradigm bullshit you want to throw at it to make it seem foolish and naive.
I use it as a pejorative for people that haven't had to worry that their votes or stances would cost them on the world stage, while simultaneously criticizing people who have done so.
Bernie hasn't had to drone-strike anyone... yet. But he's said he's open to it, and you can bet he'll likely have to do it, and that's BEFORE we consider the post-Trump hell world he would inherit. If that day comes, will your support waver, or will you concede that not everything is clear cut, and that sometimes everything is fucked up, and that sometimes doing the best you can sometimes isn't going to be enough?
What does this mean re: Sanders? Do you remember what politics were like in 2003? Opposing the Iraq War ended careers left right and center.
But was his career in jeopardy at that point? Sanders didn't even make it to the Senate until 2007, and prior to that, the only close contest for him as a Rep was in 1994. Did anybody even know who he was in 2001 *2003?
Yes. Lots of people lost their careers. Do you really not remember what the country was like? Its was a massive liability to be on the right side. Sanders took the risk. He's done this before. He was an early and eager endorser of LBGT rights long before it was even socially mainstream, to say nothing of politically so.
I'm really not sure where you're trying to go with this.
Not in Vermont it wasn't. What the political environment of the country is like doesn't determine what happens to congressional careers, or we wouldn't all still be putting up with Mitch McConnell. Congresscritters get to stay as long as they can keep their particular district happy, and we're all well aware that some districts are kept happy by things that do not in any way resemble the national popular will. Sanders has always been in a position to hold whatever ground he'd like to because he has never had to risk anything to do so; he can take positions that would cost other candidates their seats for free because he happens to represent an unusually small, unusually monolithic constituency that wants him to.
He isn't the guy who took the left-wing position before everyone else because he's prescient, or because he has some surfeit of moral fiber that other candidates lack; it's because he's spent his whole career as the silly crazy-uncle mascot of a tiny, areligious, ethnically-homogeneous left-wing stronghold, and as a result he's been able to freely thumb his nose at whole swathes of issues in a way that candidates who have to run in real elections can't. It's the opposite of experience - it's 30 years of playing with the colorful plastic steering wheel in the passenger seat, able to freely spin it however he likes without crashing because he never actually had to keep the car on the road and being praised for having the courage to make bold navigational choices the person in the seat with the actual wheel never could.
He's never had to worry about pissing off the religious part of his base, because he represents the least-religious state in the nation. (That, incidentally, is the actual reason for his 'early and eager' endorsement of LGBT rights - it's great that he did it but it doesn't exactly come off as a daring profile in courage that could have torpedoed his career when you have enough information to frame it in its full context: "Popular congressman who routinely wins re-election by 20+ point margins and represents a state which has both the lowest proportion of religious constituents and the third-highest proportion of LGBT constituents of any state in the country is early advocate of LGBT rights! How daring!")
He's never had to try and navigate sensitive racial issues, because he represents a state that's 96% white and staying that way.
He's never had constituents pushing him to be tough on crime, because Vermont has the lowest violent crime rate in the nation. Never had to placate a faction of voters mad about immigration, because Vermont doesn't get any. Never had to deal with hawkish supporters who want him to 'stand up' to whoever overseas or vulture capitalists who want him to be more 'pro-business' because Vermont is our nation's strategic reserve of aging hippies. He avoided these pitfalls not because he was a leftist trendsetter bravely taking the moral position no matter the cost, but because he had the privilege of representing a population that simply didn't put them in front of him in the first place.
He's never had to consider tacking to the center to win an election, because most of his congressional elections have been either functionally or literally unopposed; the last time he lost to a Republican was A)in the 80s and B)happened because he got 38% of the vote as an independent in an election where the Democrat also got 19% of the vote, thus allowing the Republican candidate to win with 41%!
Virtually the only issue on which Vermont's demographics put his constituents' specific wants at odds with the furthest-left end of the spectrum in a way that might force Sanders to actually take a risk is the fact that their low population density, lack of major urban centers, and low rate of violent crime make them predisposed to being pro-gun and hey presto guess where Bernie breaks with the left-wing orthodoxy! A massive liability to be on the right side, indeed.
Under these conditions, it seems pretty fucking hard to seriously argue that virtually any position Sanders has ever taken was 'risky'.
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Abbalah gets it.
AOC can afford to be as "brave" as she wants in D+20 Brooklyn, whereas people like Abby Finkenauer in an Iowa swing district are taking a real chance publicly backing impeachment. She's also the second youngest woman ever elected to Congress at 30.
I don't want to take away from AOC, but the outspoken status she enjoys comes from a position of near-perfect security. She doesn't have to budge from progressive orthodoxy... she's in Brooklyn. Let her run vs Joe Manchin in WV, and we'll see if it doesn't turn out like Paula Jean Swearengin who was a good candidate in a state that didn't want her.
I suppose, then, Biden and Warren are also "playing with the colorful plastic steering wheel in the passenger seat" since they are also from small northeastern states that are Democratic strongholds and they win elections with 20+ margins, etc. Which candidate has the "actual wheel"?
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Warren's only been in public office for 6 years to Bernie's... how many?
Biden has flaws in his Senatorial record due to positions and legislation he pushed for a man with an eye toward executive leadership which he tried for starting 1988 when he was 46. Bernie didn't even join the Senate till 2007 when he was 66, and didn't run for president till his mid 70s.
I think we just managed to find the track of debate actually more insulting than the purity nonsense.
“Yeah! Fuck those safe state, safe district dems/dem-caucusing independents! They’ll never have to take a tough stance ever, with their safe toy steering wheel hippy Brooklynite Vermonteers and higher than average LGBT population! Their positions are meaningless because they aren’t at risk of a GOP challenger to contend with!”
No seriously what the hell and where even did the AOC tangent come from outside of what feels like the nested frustrations of interfactional rivalries?
I think we just managed to find the track of debate actually more insulting than the purity nonsense.
“Yeah! Fuck those safe state, safe district dems/dem-caucusing independents! They’ll never have to take a tough stance ever, with their safe toy steering wheel hippy Brooklynite Vermonteers and higher than average LGBT population! Their positions are meaningless because they aren’t at risk of a GOP challenger to contend with!”
No seriously what the hell and where even did the AOC tangent come from outside of what feels like the nested frustrations of interfactional rivalries?
I think you're misreading it. It's not that people from safe districts can't have opinions that reflect a progressive position. It's that they shouldn't get bonus points for courage for doing so, which some were arguing that Bernie deserved, for bucking the trend nationally, but weren't actually controversial for the percentage of the actual population that controlled his electoral chances.
Nothing wrong with people in D+20 districts/states having progressive opinions. Heck, they should, it's likely the will of their electorates. But you don't get to argue it was a tough decision for them to take.
I'm just glad to know people will support death camps and such as long as the D signing it is in a risky district.
Why be right when you can pad the numbers? Thats all it really is, right? Our team has more, who cares how they vote?
What a silly stance to have. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. You can dissect that any way you want, but in the end whether the person loses their job or not doesn't matter to me. Because what's the use of them having that job if they are going to make shitty choices.
If the question is, 'Should we pointlessly slaughter more brown people on the other side of the world cause MURICA' I don't care if you're in a R+30 area. You go out, kill a bald eagle, scribble 'Hell no' on an American flag, slap the speaker with it several dozen times then burn it right there while in session. You make the right choice. Not worry about staying in a position of power you do nothing good with because you're afraid of losing it. If that's the excuse and they aren't actually just super ok with murdering faceless non-white people on the other side of the world.
Are we going to argue that it wasn't politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s? This whole thing has gotten beyond parody.
Its not even clear how this is supposed to be a defense of Biden, even if it keeps getting offered as one.
Warren's only been in public office for 6 years to Bernie's... how many?
Biden has flaws in his Senatorial record due to positions and legislation he pushed for a man with an eye toward executive leadership which he tried for starting 1988 when he was 46. Bernie didn't even join the Senate till 2007 when he was 66, and didn't run for president till his mid 70s.
Who gets to be held responsible for what seems to be a conveniently moving target.
Are we going to argue that it wasn't politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s? This whole thing has gotten beyond parody.
Its not even clear how this is supposed to be a defense of Biden, even if it keeps getting offered as one.
It’s the whole “tough and tried men making hard choices in the real world” real politik bullshit
Sanders opposition to the war doesn’t count because he was in a safe district of peace loving hippies that wouldn’t have tossed him out for opposing the war, but apparently in Delaware things are much more grim and gritty, so it doesn’t really matter that Biden supported the war, what else could he have done, get ridden out on a rail with the Dixie Chicks?
That seems to be the appeal of the argument anyway, and it feels as bullshit now, if not more so, when we last played the Iraq War Vote game in 2008
Obama was right back then; the yes votes supplied by the Democratic Party wound up giving Bush a blank check on one of the most destructive and destabilizing military campaigns in modern history, a campaign that instigated a firestorm of terror and initiated cycles of violence that will take decades to solve, if anyone actually tries to.
We need to stop fucking defending that fucking vote. Especially with the current administration ramping up a war with Iran, and many of the same players pulling out the Iraq War cheer squad playbook again.
Also the person calling Bernie fake-woke because of his 'Easy district' seems to be unaware of Sanders being arrested for demonstration during the equal rights movements, campaigning against segregation and any number of things in his 20s.
I've surely never been arrested for standing up for minority rights. So I must be the most poser racist in the world if the guy out there literally marching with MLK in Washington only did it because he's a time traveler who knew he'd be a Congress critter in a safe district decades later.
Figuring out the calculus of how much voting for or against the bill a month before midterm elections in a political environment filled with constituents braying for blood in response to thousands of Americans dying on our soil a year before fueled by misdirection and lies about WMDs peddled by the Republican Executive, would have been extremely difficult for those up for re-election in areas that weren't liberal strongholds. I don't hold anyone's vote against them, doubly so since they (and the public they answer to) were given fabricated information to base their decisions off of. I'd rather blame the Republicans for lying than the Democrats who were led astray by those lies.
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
edited January 2020
Yeah AOC is waaaaaay off topic here, I can bold that if you like.
Are we going to argue that it wasn't politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s? This whole thing has gotten beyond parody.
Its not even clear how this is supposed to be a defense of Biden, even if it keeps getting offered as one.
It’s the whole “tough and tried men making hard choices in the real world” real politik bullshit
Sanders opposition to the war doesn’t count because he was in a safe district of peace loving hippies that wouldn’t have tossed him out for opposing the war, but apparently in Delaware things are much more grim and gritty, so it doesn’t really matter that Biden supported the war, what else could he have done, get ridden out on a rail with the Dixie Chicks?
That seems to be the appeal of the argument anyway, and it feels as bullshit now, if not more so, when we last played the Iraq War Vote game in 2008
What the...? No. No that stuff you just said is not what is happening here. None of that should be your takeaway from this, it is a bad and harmful takeaway that IS bullshit and also the wrong thing to bring home that will actively hurt his chances. He's really never had to change. He is in a very safe seat in a very progressive (if shockingly white) state where he is loved and the message lines up nearly exactly, and so he gets to make all the controversial statements he likes with little to no consequence. Whether or not his calls were the right ones, if his ideas would have cost him he wouldn't be a Senator in Vermont in the first place and we wouldn't be having this conversation, not because Vermont is soft hippies or whatever but because his message is on the label unchanged forever and he would have been unelectable there. The same message probably wouldn't have been heard the same in Delaware, and so he would not have won there not because Delaware is... gritty? But because he doesn't change it. I get that it can be hard to call someone brave if they they obviously don't need to be.
Now, before you go getting your paper crinkled, this is the kind of thing that can be a deadly weakness or an absolute strength. Dude is about a million, he's never really needed to temper his statements and he's probably not going to start now. That can be a very good thing that could allow him to keep some of those convictions at the desk of a soul-crushing office. He's kept them all this time, and I don't think anybody's going to be able to take them away from him now. On at least one level, I really hope they can't. That person who it's hard to call really brave also just isn't scared, and in politics that can be a real asset because voters can sense fear and he does not change his message. It's probably why he's gotten as far as he has the second cycle in a row. You can't buy that kind of determination.
Back to that deadly weakness though... Sanders is rough, because it's not enough that he sell his message to voters as is. He can't get as many as he'll need on his platform alone, because they're not looking to buy what he's selling for any of a great many reasons. A time may come where he needs to temper his message at least somewhat for votes in a general election, and just because he's never really had to worry about that (if he had we wouldn't be having this conversation because he wouldn't have changed to get elected), he may really fall down. If he can't or won't modulate once he's on the ballot his supporters will need to do that for him, and that is just... so much more work than it might otherwise need to be.
His supporters will need to sell him, and sell him hard, because he has never really run up against having to do it himself on the kind of stage we'll be talking about come August. He's stood in front of a hell of a lot of people who were all there to hear what they knew he wanted to say, and they lined up four times around the block just to hear him say it in person. He has never had to convince the sheer number of people he will need to vote for him in the general who aren't already on the same page. I've sacrificed just gobs of my time, money, and mental health to work with people who doggedly campaign for him. You can believe me when I say that while he is my favorite mad yelling hippie grandpa who hugs kittens and wants equal rights, he is not an easy sell to people who aren't basically almost on board as it is. He's amazing because he doesn't budge on what matters, but also he doesn't budge on anything and it's the same inflexibility that can make it harder to get an in with the people you're trying to convince. You need to be able to turn bad things about him into good things. Most of the time it's not even a stretch, because those bad things really can, for the most part, be good things, but in order to do that you need to take a brutally honest look at what they are, because they probably won't change with criticism like they might with another candidate so you can move on to something else.
It would be pretty cool if he could steamroll all the way through election day with just what's on the label, but it is a large bet to place and even if you take economics out of the equation he is not a safe candidate. He is from a uniquely marginalized community that has a uniquely marginalized background and tumultuous present, and with the current administration and very recent international developments, he is fully set up to fail on that alone. I get the feeling that people don't really understand that, just like they don't really seem to understand how all those things will play together when he's up against the GOP. That will be months of work. Sanders v. Trump has the potential to be the ugliest race you'll ever see full of the ugliest exchanges you'll ever see. Other Sanders supporters need to get it quick and quit acting like the Primaries are the hard part, because this time they just aren't. If you actually want him in office then tough-guy politics cannot be enough to tire you out right now, especially when they won't even REALLY start for months.
ceres on
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
IMO, if you want a look at what passionate but utterly intransigent hard-leftism gets you in the age of shameless ratfucking lying conservatives and media who will let them get away with it, the UK politics thread is right over there.
Personally, I don't want to wake up on the morning of 4 November and hear "the real fight starts now."
Commander Zoom on
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
Are we going to argue that it wasn't politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s? This whole thing has gotten beyond parody.
Yes, we are. Or, if you actually read the argument, we will more specifically argue the following: It was not politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s if you had the good fortune to be a politician who met the following criteria: 1)You had already established yourself as a popular brand with your local constituency, 2)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having one of the highest proportion of LGBT voters of any state in the country, 3)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having the lowest proportion of religious voters of any state in the country, 4)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of being D+20, 5) That same D+20 split made your seat very safe by simple party alignment, 6)Your local constituency was unusually easy to placate by virtue of being very small and monolithic such that they largely like and dislike the same actions, you don't have large competing factions with opposite positions on the same issues, and issues that are contentious in more diverse districts are largely kept from the forefront. It helps if you can also 7)have that popular brand you established locally be largely based on your cantankerously contrarian demeanor such that the simple act of taking a nationally unpopular position reinforces your brand in itself.
If you were in a position to meet all those criteria then yeah, being transgender-friendly in the 80s was a pretty safe play. Most people weren't! But Bernie was.
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
And that's the real question at play here, which is why I'm more concerned about Biden or Mayor Pete winning the nomination.
Centrists or fed up Republicans aren't going to be enthusiastic about a Sanders or Warren campaign. And that's understandable. It's a hold-your-nose and vote for the non-criminal. But there will be a crapload of people on the left that ARE enthusiastic, and will donate significant time, money and energy to getting that candidate elected.
But if it's Biden or Pete, will they have the same amount of people committing time, money and energy? It'll won't be none (because Trump is an existential threat) but surely it'll be less from the left, and I'm not sure it'll be made up by the centrists and former right.
An election is about the number of votes, obviously. But how you get those votes is a combination of being palatable to the most number of voters, AND having turnout based on time, money and enthusiasm of the supporter base, who do the canvassing and enrolling and engagement that can get the "sometimes" voters back to the polls.
And I'm seeing that being an issue for the centrist candidates. It goes from a rally cry of a combination of "Yay my team" and "Fuck Trump", to just the latter. And I'm shit scared that won't be enough. Maybe they'll make up for it with corporate money for ads rather than boots on the ground, if the leftist corporate leaders aren't freaking about Warren or Sanders.
I don't know. The last 5 years of politics in the US, UK and AU have me really cynical about the best way to defeat these fucking lunatics. This isn't two decades ago, when losing my preference was met with "Ehh, I'd rather the other guy, but I can live with this" to "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE ELECTORATE?". I don't have the answers, and the consequences of failure are just so much higher now.
Are we going to argue that it wasn't politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s? This whole thing has gotten beyond parody.
Yes, we are. Or, if you actually read the argument, we will more specifically argue the following: It was not politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s if you had the good fortune to be a politician who met the following criteria: 1)You had already established yourself as a popular brand with your local constituency, 2)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having one of the highest proportion of LGBT voters of any state in the country, 3)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having the lowest proportion of religious voters of any state in the country, 4)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of being D+20, 5) That same D+20 split made your seat very safe by simple party alignment, 6)Your local constituency was unusually easy to placate by virtue of being very small and monolithic such that they largely like and dislike the same actions, you don't have large competing factions with opposite positions on the same issues, and issues that are contentious in more diverse districts are largely kept from the forefront. It helps if you can also 7)have that popular brand you established locally be largely based on your cantankerously contrarian demeanor such that the simple act of taking a nationally unpopular position reinforces your brand in itself.
If you were in a position to meet all those criteria then yeah, being transgender-friendly in the 80s was a pretty safe play. Most people weren't! But Bernie was.
Weighing all tests of bravery and courage against local trends is perhaps the most cynical thing I have seen in a while. Your analysis this page has been morally despicable. It also assumes that all good acts are first put through a political calculator so obnoxiously calculated that one could never be the right kind of brave. Given that we are also talking about a period of time where no one was speaking up about AIDS or the plight of gay people, I would like to suggest that you have absolutely no idea of the cultural and political circumstances surrounding what was the snuffing of the gay liberation movement by a terrifying disease.
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
That sort of thing is a turnout depressor. I imagine your friends and family know you as a guy who knows a bit about politics and keeps on top of current events. So if you post on Facebook “grudgingly dragging myself to the polls to vote Sanders, even though I think he’ll screw everything up, at least he’s not Trump” you might depress a less politically committed friend who thinks “If spool32 who reads 3 newspapers and breathes politics think that Sanders sucks I don’t think I’ll bother lining up to vote. At least Trump is doing well for the economy even if he’s a scumbag.”
Are we going to argue that it wasn't politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s? This whole thing has gotten beyond parody.
Yes, we are. Or, if you actually read the argument, we will more specifically argue the following: It was not politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s if you had the good fortune to be a politician who met the following criteria: 1)You had already established yourself as a popular brand with your local constituency, 2)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having one of the highest proportion of LGBT voters of any state in the country, 3)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having the lowest proportion of religious voters of any state in the country, 4)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of being D+20, 5) That same D+20 split made your seat very safe by simple party alignment, 6)Your local constituency was unusually easy to placate by virtue of being very small and monolithic such that they largely like and dislike the same actions, you don't have large competing factions with opposite positions on the same issues, and issues that are contentious in more diverse districts are largely kept from the forefront. It helps if you can also 7)have that popular brand you established locally be largely based on your cantankerously contrarian demeanor such that the simple act of taking a nationally unpopular position reinforces your brand in itself.
If you were in a position to meet all those criteria then yeah, being transgender-friendly in the 80s was a pretty safe play. Most people weren't! But Bernie was.
Weighing all tests of bravery and courage against local trends is perhaps the most cynical thing I have seen in a while. Your analysis this page has been morally despicable. It also assumes that all good acts are first put through a political calculator so obnoxiously calculated that one could never be the right kind of brave. Given that we are also talking about a period of time where no one was speaking up about AIDS or the plight of gay people, I would like to suggest that you have absolutely no idea of the cultural and political circumstances surrounding what was the snuffing of the gay liberation movement by a terrifying disease.
All acts of bravery and courage are measured against the local conditions. I can openly campaign for girls in every country in the world to get a full education because I have nothing on the line. Those in the country doing the same thing are risking a fuckton more and rightly get credit for it. This isn't to say Bernie should get criticized for his stances, but it also means we should look at the context under which he could take these stances.
I also chafe at the idea of giving sole credit to an ally about the AIDS epidemic and what it meant for the LGBT+ community, but that is an entirely different topic. My short version is I strenuously object to the claim that "no one" but Bernie was speaking up.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
That sort of thing is a turnout depressor. I imagine your friends and family know you as a guy who knows a bit about politics and keeps on top of current events. So if you post on Facebook “grudgingly dragging myself to the polls to vote Sanders, even though I think he’ll screw everything up, at least he’s not Trump” you might depress a less politically committed friend who thinks “If spool32 who reads 3 newspapers and breathes politics think that Sanders sucks I don’t think I’ll bother lining up to vote. At least Trump is doing well for the economy even if he’s a scumbag.”
Asking people to fake excitement is a lot though.
Rational actors will vote for whomever has a D by their name this election because christ almighty just look at 3-4 of the other threads on the front of the forum right now, but it doesn't mean we will all be super duper cheerleaders for them if they don't align with our political ideology.
Like, I will gladly punch in Sanders for president if it is him versus trump. I'd do it twice if it were legal. But I am not going to be glad if that is the choice I have to make, and I worry about how many people might stay home (or turn up for trump) if it is him.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
These arguments against Sanders apply at least equally to Joe Biden
Sure. And Biden gets plenty of shit thrown his way here as well. Some heated, some with a weary sigh, but I can't say there are all that many strident and vocal Biden supporters here.
Sanders, however, has a contingent of strong and vocal supporters, who are eager to sing his praises and debate the merits of critique.
Which is why this thread sees a lot of talk pro and con on Bernie and more eye rolling and hopes someone manages to unseat Biden before he's actually in the general election.
Like, you're not wrong, but I don't think you're going to see much pushback on the notion either.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
That sort of thing is a turnout depressor. I imagine your friends and family know you as a guy who knows a bit about politics and keeps on top of current events. So if you post on Facebook “grudgingly dragging myself to the polls to vote Sanders, even though I think he’ll screw everything up, at least he’s not Trump” you might depress a less politically committed friend who thinks “If spool32 who reads 3 newspapers and breathes politics think that Sanders sucks I don’t think I’ll bother lining up to vote. At least Trump is doing well for the economy even if he’s a scumbag.”
Both ways are a depressor! A candidate Spool's happy with will depress the votes of people like Sammich who'll just throw their hands up and not vote, especially if they're in a blue state/district where "my vote doesn't matter anyway, the Dem will win here without me." The Democrats are fucked coming and going, which is why they've been on their back foot for decades now: they have no reliable support like the Republicans have. Whenever they start to get somewhere, conservatives vote for their opponents and liberals stop voting because it wasn't good enough/wasn't quick enough, so the boulder rolls down the hill yet again and more people get crushed. The calculus with 2020 is to figure out which audience is bigger and in the right spots to not only win the Presidency but retain the House and make inroads on the Senate: the crowd of people to the right-center who might decide to not vote Trump/Republican if the Dem nominee is appealing enough (with a potential bonus of them potentially deciding to vote Dem) or the people on the far left who will only bother to vote at all if the Dem nominee for President is up to their standards, regardless of who else is up for election in their state/district. The people who support Biden do so not because they think he's the best liberal candidate, but because they are looking to the general and thinking that the former group is bigger than the latter and Biden's the only one on the ticket that'll appeal to them.
Opty on
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
Sanders started his political career in the 80s as a mayor, so literally the first point of that test seems unfulfilled. Also, VT may have been "unusually friendly" to trans people in the 80s but "unusually friendly" in the 80s meant "we probably won't throw rocks at you on sight".
My feelings about Sanders are not all positive but denying that the man has the strength of his convictions seems... like an inaccurate criticism.
And like, for the sake of argument let's imagine that every move Sanders has ever made has been pure craven political calculation. He'd still be fundamentally correct in his analysis of the Iraq war vote, and Joe Biden was very very wrong. That the people doing the right thing did it for the wrong reasons or it was easy for them to so it doesn't absolve the people who did the wrong thing of their responsibility for the consequences, regardless if how politically dangerous it would have been for them.
Are we going to argue that it wasn't politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s? This whole thing has gotten beyond parody.
Yes, we are. Or, if you actually read the argument, we will more specifically argue the following: It was not politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s if you had the good fortune to be a politician who met the following criteria: 1)You had already established yourself as a popular brand with your local constituency, 2)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having one of the highest proportion of LGBT voters of any state in the country, 3)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having the lowest proportion of religious voters of any state in the country, 4)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of being D+20, 5) That same D+20 split made your seat very safe by simple party alignment, 6)Your local constituency was unusually easy to placate by virtue of being very small and monolithic such that they largely like and dislike the same actions, you don't have large competing factions with opposite positions on the same issues, and issues that are contentious in more diverse districts are largely kept from the forefront. It helps if you can also 7)have that popular brand you established locally be largely based on your cantankerously contrarian demeanor such that the simple act of taking a nationally unpopular position reinforces your brand in itself.
If you were in a position to meet all those criteria then yeah, being transgender-friendly in the 80s was a pretty safe play. Most people weren't! But Bernie was.
Weighing all tests of bravery and courage against local trends is perhaps the most cynical thing I have seen in a while. Your analysis this page has been morally despicable. It also assumes that all good acts are first put through a political calculator so obnoxiously calculated that one could never be the right kind of brave. Given that we are also talking about a period of time where no one was speaking up about AIDS or the plight of gay people, I would like to suggest that you have absolutely no idea of the cultural and political circumstances surrounding what was the snuffing of the gay liberation movement by a terrifying disease.
All acts of bravery and courage are measured against the local conditions. I can openly campaign for girls in every country in the world to get a full education because I have nothing on the line. Those in the country doing the same thing are risking a fuckton more and rightly get credit for it. This isn't to say Bernie should get criticized for his stances, but it also means we should look at the context under which he could take these stances.
I also chafe at the idea of giving sole credit to an ally about the AIDS epidemic and what it meant for the LGBT+ community, but that is an entirely different topic. My short version is I strenuously object to the claim that "no one" but Bernie was speaking up.
I didn't credit Bernie with being the sole supporter for the AIDS epidemic so whatever argument you think you're making, it's has nothing to do with what I said. But supporting AIDS and LGBT people in the 80s is in and of itself a brave act.
Sanders started his political career in the 80s as a mayor, so literally the first point of that test seems unfulfilled. Also, VT may have been "unusually friendly" to trans people in the 80s but "unusually friendly" in the 80s meant "we probably won't throw rocks at you on sight".
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
That sort of thing is a turnout depressor. I imagine your friends and family know you as a guy who knows a bit about politics and keeps on top of current events. So if you post on Facebook “grudgingly dragging myself to the polls to vote Sanders, even though I think he’ll screw everything up, at least he’s not Trump” you might depress a less politically committed friend who thinks “If spool32 who reads 3 newspapers and breathes politics think that Sanders sucks I don’t think I’ll bother lining up to vote. At least Trump is doing well for the economy even if he’s a scumbag.”
Both ways are a depressor! A candidate Spool's happy with will depress the votes of people like Sammich who'll just throw their hands up and not vote, especially if they're in a blue state/district where "my vote doesn't matter anyway, the Dem will win here without me." The Democrats are fucked coming and going, which is why they've been on their back foot for decades now: they have no reliable support like the Republicans have. Whenever they start to get somewhere, conservatives vote for their opponents and liberals stop voting because it wasn't good enough/wasn't quick enough, so the boulder rolls down the hill yet again and more people get crushed. The calculus with 2020 is to figure out which audience is bigger and in the right spots to not only win the Presidency but retain the House and make inroads on the Senate: the crowd of people to the right-center who might decide to not vote Trump/Republican if the Dem nominee is appealing enough (with a potential bonus of them potentially deciding to vote Dem) or the people on the far left who will only bother to vote at all if the Dem nominee for President is up to their standards, regardless of who else is up for election in their state/district. The people who support Biden do so not because they think he's the best liberal candidate, but because they are looking to the general and thinking that the former group is bigger than the latter and Biden's the only one on the ticket that'll appeal to them.
Absolutely.
That's why Biden is so steady in the polls. He may be as exciting as extra geography homework to young voters, but he's not scary to the Democrat baby boomers (of all races) who are the ones who will reliably turn up at the polls if they don't hate the candidate. Young voters are notoriously bad at things like registering to vote in time.
If Biden was 10 years younger I would support him for that reason.
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
That sort of thing is a turnout depressor. I imagine your friends and family know you as a guy who knows a bit about politics and keeps on top of current events. So if you post on Facebook “grudgingly dragging myself to the polls to vote Sanders, even though I think he’ll screw everything up, at least he’s not Trump” you might depress a less politically committed friend who thinks “If spool32 who reads 3 newspapers and breathes politics think that Sanders sucks I don’t think I’ll bother lining up to vote. At least Trump is doing well for the economy even if he’s a scumbag.”
Both ways are a depressor! A candidate Spool's happy with will depress the votes of people like Sammich who'll just throw their hands up and not vote, especially if they're in a blue state/district where "my vote doesn't matter anyway, the Dem will win here without me." The Democrats are fucked coming and going, which is why they've been on their back foot for decades now: they have no reliable support like the Republicans have. Whenever they start to get somewhere, conservatives vote for their opponents and liberals stop voting because it wasn't good enough/wasn't quick enough, so the boulder rolls down the hill yet again and more people get crushed. The calculus with 2020 is to figure out which audience is bigger and in the right spots to not only win the Presidency but retain the House and make inroads on the Senate: the crowd of people to the right-center who might decide to not vote Trump/Republican if the Dem nominee is appealing enough (with a potential bonus of them potentially deciding to vote Dem) or the people on the far left who will only bother to vote at all if the Dem nominee for President is up to their standards, regardless of who else is up for election in their state/district. The people who support Biden do so not because they think he's the best liberal candidate, but because they are looking to the general and thinking that the former group is bigger than the latter and Biden's the only one on the ticket that'll appeal to them.
And it isn’t simply the size of the respective groups either. If a far-left Dem candidate flips a moderate voter from D to R, that’s twice as costly to winning as a moderate Dem candidate flipping a far-left vote from D to non-voting or voting third party.
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
That sort of thing is a turnout depressor. I imagine your friends and family know you as a guy who knows a bit about politics and keeps on top of current events. So if you post on Facebook “grudgingly dragging myself to the polls to vote Sanders, even though I think he’ll screw everything up, at least he’s not Trump” you might depress a less politically committed friend who thinks “If spool32 who reads 3 newspapers and breathes politics think that Sanders sucks I don’t think I’ll bother lining up to vote. At least Trump is doing well for the economy even if he’s a scumbag.”
Both ways are a depressor! A candidate Spool's happy with will depress the votes of people like Sammich who'll just throw their hands up and not vote, especially if they're in a blue state/district where "my vote doesn't matter anyway, the Dem will win here without me." The Democrats are fucked coming and going, which is why they've been on their back foot for decades now: they have no reliable support like the Republicans have. Whenever they start to get somewhere, conservatives vote for their opponents and liberals stop voting because it wasn't good enough/wasn't quick enough, so the boulder rolls down the hill yet again and more people get crushed. The calculus with 2020 is to figure out which audience is bigger and in the right spots to not only win the Presidency but retain the House and make inroads on the Senate: the crowd of people to the right-center who might decide to not vote Trump/Republican if the Dem nominee is appealing enough (with a potential bonus of them potentially deciding to vote Dem) or the people on the far left who will only bother to vote at all if the Dem nominee for President is up to their standards, regardless of who else is up for election in their state/district. The people who support Biden do so not because they think he's the best liberal candidate, but because they are looking to the general and thinking that the former group is bigger than the latter and Biden's the only one on the ticket that'll appeal to them.
And it isn’t simply the size of the respective groups either. If a far-left Dem candidate flips a moderate voter from D to R, that’s twice as costly to winning as a moderate Dem candidate flipping a far-left vote from D to non-voting or voting third party.
That's a really clever insight.
[edit] Trump's extreme obnoxiousness might help here. A moderate Democrat might not be able to force themselves to vote Trump even if they hate Sanders.
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
And that's the real question at play here, which is why I'm more concerned about Biden or Mayor Pete winning the nomination.
Centrists or fed up Republicans aren't going to be enthusiastic about a Sanders or Warren campaign. And that's understandable. It's a hold-your-nose and vote for the non-criminal. But there will be a crapload of people on the left that ARE enthusiastic, and will donate significant time, money and energy to getting that candidate elected.
But if it's Biden or Pete, will they have the same amount of people committing time, money and energy? It'll won't be none (because Trump is an existential threat) but surely it'll be less from the left, and I'm not sure it'll be made up by the centrists and former right.
An election is about the number of votes, obviously. But how you get those votes is a combination of being palatable to the most number of voters, AND having turnout based on time, money and enthusiasm of the supporter base, who do the canvassing and enrolling and engagement that can get the "sometimes" voters back to the polls.
And I'm seeing that being an issue for the centrist candidates. It goes from a rally cry of a combination of "Yay my team" and "Fuck Trump", to just the latter. And I'm shit scared that won't be enough. Maybe they'll make up for it with corporate money for ads rather than boots on the ground, if the leftist corporate leaders aren't freaking about Warren or Sanders.
I don't know. The last 5 years of politics in the US, UK and AU have me really cynical about the best way to defeat these fucking lunatics. This isn't two decades ago, when losing my preference was met with "Ehh, I'd rather the other guy, but I can live with this" to "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE ELECTORATE?". I don't have the answers, and the consequences of failure are just so much higher now.
Critically, progressives need to remember that Biden and Buttigieg are on their team!!!!
Centrist Democrats will push things toward the progressive agenda. That's unquestionably true. Progressives, though, will not necessarily push things toward a moderate or centrist agenda.
the time for driving policy left-of-center is after you help everyone return there.
For Sanders supporters, the real fight begins the second he gets the nomination, when he'll suddenly be campaigning against people who are actually hostile to everything about him and just don't care about numbers and facts. He looks set up to do okay in the Primaries this year, but if he actually get the nomination... I really hope his people are on their A-game, because his message does not change and probably won't play well. Among other issues.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
And that's the real question at play here, which is why I'm more concerned about Biden or Mayor Pete winning the nomination.
Centrists or fed up Republicans aren't going to be enthusiastic about a Sanders or Warren campaign. And that's understandable. It's a hold-your-nose and vote for the non-criminal. But there will be a crapload of people on the left that ARE enthusiastic, and will donate significant time, money and energy to getting that candidate elected.
But if it's Biden or Pete, will they have the same amount of people committing time, money and energy? It'll won't be none (because Trump is an existential threat) but surely it'll be less from the left, and I'm not sure it'll be made up by the centrists and former right.
An election is about the number of votes, obviously. But how you get those votes is a combination of being palatable to the most number of voters, AND having turnout based on time, money and enthusiasm of the supporter base, who do the canvassing and enrolling and engagement that can get the "sometimes" voters back to the polls.
And I'm seeing that being an issue for the centrist candidates. It goes from a rally cry of a combination of "Yay my team" and "Fuck Trump", to just the latter. And I'm shit scared that won't be enough. Maybe they'll make up for it with corporate money for ads rather than boots on the ground, if the leftist corporate leaders aren't freaking about Warren or Sanders.
I don't know. The last 5 years of politics in the US, UK and AU have me really cynical about the best way to defeat these fucking lunatics. This isn't two decades ago, when losing my preference was met with "Ehh, I'd rather the other guy, but I can live with this" to "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE ELECTORATE?". I don't have the answers, and the consequences of failure are just so much higher now.
Critically, progressives need to remember that Biden and Buttigieg are on their team!!!!
Centrist Democrats will push things toward the progressive agenda. That's unquestionably true. Progressives, though, will not necessarily push things toward a moderate or centrist agenda.
the time for driving policy left-of-center is after you help everyone return there.
It really isn't. Biden and Pete are spending the primary campaigning against even mild progressive politics.
Posts
But was his career in jeopardy at that point? Sanders didn't even make it to the Senate until 2007, and prior to that, the only close contest for him as a Rep was in 1994. Did anybody even know who he was in 2001 *2003?
Yes. Lots of people lost their careers. Do you really not remember what the country was like? Its was a massive liability to be on the right side. Sanders took the risk. He's done this before. He was an early and eager endorser of LBGT rights long before it was even socially mainstream, to say nothing of politically so.
I'm really not sure where you're trying to go with this.
And it basically exists in foreign policy as much as it does because Congress rarely has to make the kind of calls on foreign policy issues where they are really gonna be held to any account for the results whichever way they vote. The President generally gets the most say on the issue and takes most of the praise and/or blame for the results.
The end result on that is that I think congressional records on foreign policy just rarely end up being all the meaningful. You get a few big moments, like the Iraq War vote, that can generate some headlines. But even that is kind of disconnected from what happens as President and more ends up as a political attack then any sort of meaningful statement on foreign policy as it relates to most of the stuff being talked about here. Because congress just doesn't make those kind of decisions almost ever and even when they do it's pretty high level. eg- they make some vote on the AUMF, they don't approve operations on basically any level. Congresspeople in the sense that matters for the presidency barely have a foreign policy record.
The end result is that unless you expect a candidate to dismantle american hegemony upon entering office, something I would not hold my breath on if I were you, they are very quickly going to be doing a lot of the same kind of things you see every president do with america's foreign policy power. Because at that point, for the first time, they will actually be making meaningful decisions on that front in a way congresspeople never have to.
I mean, Williamson is also technically still in the race.
Dave Weigel was at some candidate appearances and the strikes didn't come up TODAY until 20 or 30 minutes into the Q&A sessions. Democratic voters just don't see foreign policy as a priority.
Not in Vermont it wasn't. What the political environment of the country is like doesn't determine what happens to congressional careers, or we wouldn't all still be putting up with Mitch McConnell. Congresscritters get to stay as long as they can keep their particular district happy, and we're all well aware that some districts are kept happy by things that do not in any way resemble the national popular will. Sanders has always been in a position to hold whatever ground he'd like to because he has never had to risk anything to do so; he can take positions that would cost other candidates their seats for free because he happens to represent an unusually small, unusually monolithic constituency that wants him to.
He isn't the guy who took the left-wing position before everyone else because he's prescient, or because he has some surfeit of moral fiber that other candidates lack; it's because he's spent his whole career as the silly crazy-uncle mascot of a tiny, areligious, ethnically-homogeneous left-wing stronghold, and as a result he's been able to freely thumb his nose at whole swathes of issues in a way that candidates who have to run in real elections can't. It's the opposite of experience - it's 30 years of playing with the colorful plastic steering wheel in the passenger seat, able to freely spin it however he likes without crashing because he never actually had to keep the car on the road and being praised for having the courage to make bold navigational choices the person in the seat with the actual wheel never could.
He's never had to worry about pissing off the religious part of his base, because he represents the least-religious state in the nation. (That, incidentally, is the actual reason for his 'early and eager' endorsement of LGBT rights - it's great that he did it but it doesn't exactly come off as a daring profile in courage that could have torpedoed his career when you have enough information to frame it in its full context: "Popular congressman who routinely wins re-election by 20+ point margins and represents a state which has both the lowest proportion of religious constituents and the third-highest proportion of LGBT constituents of any state in the country is early advocate of LGBT rights! How daring!")
He's never had to try and navigate sensitive racial issues, because he represents a state that's 96% white and staying that way.
He's never had constituents pushing him to be tough on crime, because Vermont has the lowest violent crime rate in the nation. Never had to placate a faction of voters mad about immigration, because Vermont doesn't get any. Never had to deal with hawkish supporters who want him to 'stand up' to whoever overseas or vulture capitalists who want him to be more 'pro-business' because Vermont is our nation's strategic reserve of aging hippies. He avoided these pitfalls not because he was a leftist trendsetter bravely taking the moral position no matter the cost, but because he had the privilege of representing a population that simply didn't put them in front of him in the first place.
He's never had to consider tacking to the center to win an election, because most of his congressional elections have been either functionally or literally unopposed; the last time he lost to a Republican was A)in the 80s and B)happened because he got 38% of the vote as an independent in an election where the Democrat also got 19% of the vote, thus allowing the Republican candidate to win with 41%!
Virtually the only issue on which Vermont's demographics put his constituents' specific wants at odds with the furthest-left end of the spectrum in a way that might force Sanders to actually take a risk is the fact that their low population density, lack of major urban centers, and low rate of violent crime make them predisposed to being pro-gun and hey presto guess where Bernie breaks with the left-wing orthodoxy! A massive liability to be on the right side, indeed.
Under these conditions, it seems pretty fucking hard to seriously argue that virtually any position Sanders has ever taken was 'risky'.
AOC can afford to be as "brave" as she wants in D+20 Brooklyn, whereas people like Abby Finkenauer in an Iowa swing district are taking a real chance publicly backing impeachment. She's also the second youngest woman ever elected to Congress at 30.
I don't want to take away from AOC, but the outspoken status she enjoys comes from a position of near-perfect security. She doesn't have to budge from progressive orthodoxy... she's in Brooklyn. Let her run vs Joe Manchin in WV, and we'll see if it doesn't turn out like Paula Jean Swearengin who was a good candidate in a state that didn't want her.
Biden has flaws in his Senatorial record due to positions and legislation he pushed for a man with an eye toward executive leadership which he tried for starting 1988 when he was 46. Bernie didn't even join the Senate till 2007 when he was 66, and didn't run for president till his mid 70s.
“Yeah! Fuck those safe state, safe district dems/dem-caucusing independents! They’ll never have to take a tough stance ever, with their safe toy steering wheel hippy Brooklynite Vermonteers and higher than average LGBT population! Their positions are meaningless because they aren’t at risk of a GOP challenger to contend with!”
No seriously what the hell and where even did the AOC tangent come from outside of what feels like the nested frustrations of interfactional rivalries?
I think you're misreading it. It's not that people from safe districts can't have opinions that reflect a progressive position. It's that they shouldn't get bonus points for courage for doing so, which some were arguing that Bernie deserved, for bucking the trend nationally, but weren't actually controversial for the percentage of the actual population that controlled his electoral chances.
Nothing wrong with people in D+20 districts/states having progressive opinions. Heck, they should, it's likely the will of their electorates. But you don't get to argue it was a tough decision for them to take.
Why be right when you can pad the numbers? Thats all it really is, right? Our team has more, who cares how they vote?
What a silly stance to have. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. You can dissect that any way you want, but in the end whether the person loses their job or not doesn't matter to me. Because what's the use of them having that job if they are going to make shitty choices.
If the question is, 'Should we pointlessly slaughter more brown people on the other side of the world cause MURICA' I don't care if you're in a R+30 area. You go out, kill a bald eagle, scribble 'Hell no' on an American flag, slap the speaker with it several dozen times then burn it right there while in session. You make the right choice. Not worry about staying in a position of power you do nothing good with because you're afraid of losing it. If that's the excuse and they aren't actually just super ok with murdering faceless non-white people on the other side of the world.
Its not even clear how this is supposed to be a defense of Biden, even if it keeps getting offered as one.
Who gets to be held responsible for what seems to be a conveniently moving target.
It’s the whole “tough and tried men making hard choices in the real world” real politik bullshit
Sanders opposition to the war doesn’t count because he was in a safe district of peace loving hippies that wouldn’t have tossed him out for opposing the war, but apparently in Delaware things are much more grim and gritty, so it doesn’t really matter that Biden supported the war, what else could he have done, get ridden out on a rail with the Dixie Chicks?
That seems to be the appeal of the argument anyway, and it feels as bullshit now, if not more so, when we last played the Iraq War Vote game in 2008
Obama was right back then; the yes votes supplied by the Democratic Party wound up giving Bush a blank check on one of the most destructive and destabilizing military campaigns in modern history, a campaign that instigated a firestorm of terror and initiated cycles of violence that will take decades to solve, if anyone actually tries to.
We need to stop fucking defending that fucking vote. Especially with the current administration ramping up a war with Iran, and many of the same players pulling out the Iraq War cheer squad playbook again.
I've surely never been arrested for standing up for minority rights. So I must be the most poser racist in the world if the guy out there literally marching with MLK in Washington only did it because he's a time traveler who knew he'd be a Congress critter in a safe district decades later.
What the...? No. No that stuff you just said is not what is happening here. None of that should be your takeaway from this, it is a bad and harmful takeaway that IS bullshit and also the wrong thing to bring home that will actively hurt his chances. He's really never had to change. He is in a very safe seat in a very progressive (if shockingly white) state where he is loved and the message lines up nearly exactly, and so he gets to make all the controversial statements he likes with little to no consequence. Whether or not his calls were the right ones, if his ideas would have cost him he wouldn't be a Senator in Vermont in the first place and we wouldn't be having this conversation, not because Vermont is soft hippies or whatever but because his message is on the label unchanged forever and he would have been unelectable there. The same message probably wouldn't have been heard the same in Delaware, and so he would not have won there not because Delaware is... gritty? But because he doesn't change it. I get that it can be hard to call someone brave if they they obviously don't need to be.
Now, before you go getting your paper crinkled, this is the kind of thing that can be a deadly weakness or an absolute strength. Dude is about a million, he's never really needed to temper his statements and he's probably not going to start now. That can be a very good thing that could allow him to keep some of those convictions at the desk of a soul-crushing office. He's kept them all this time, and I don't think anybody's going to be able to take them away from him now. On at least one level, I really hope they can't. That person who it's hard to call really brave also just isn't scared, and in politics that can be a real asset because voters can sense fear and he does not change his message. It's probably why he's gotten as far as he has the second cycle in a row. You can't buy that kind of determination.
Back to that deadly weakness though... Sanders is rough, because it's not enough that he sell his message to voters as is. He can't get as many as he'll need on his platform alone, because they're not looking to buy what he's selling for any of a great many reasons. A time may come where he needs to temper his message at least somewhat for votes in a general election, and just because he's never really had to worry about that (if he had we wouldn't be having this conversation because he wouldn't have changed to get elected), he may really fall down. If he can't or won't modulate once he's on the ballot his supporters will need to do that for him, and that is just... so much more work than it might otherwise need to be.
His supporters will need to sell him, and sell him hard, because he has never really run up against having to do it himself on the kind of stage we'll be talking about come August. He's stood in front of a hell of a lot of people who were all there to hear what they knew he wanted to say, and they lined up four times around the block just to hear him say it in person. He has never had to convince the sheer number of people he will need to vote for him in the general who aren't already on the same page. I've sacrificed just gobs of my time, money, and mental health to work with people who doggedly campaign for him. You can believe me when I say that while he is my favorite mad yelling hippie grandpa who hugs kittens and wants equal rights, he is not an easy sell to people who aren't basically almost on board as it is. He's amazing because he doesn't budge on what matters, but also he doesn't budge on anything and it's the same inflexibility that can make it harder to get an in with the people you're trying to convince. You need to be able to turn bad things about him into good things. Most of the time it's not even a stretch, because those bad things really can, for the most part, be good things, but in order to do that you need to take a brutally honest look at what they are, because they probably won't change with criticism like they might with another candidate so you can move on to something else.
It would be pretty cool if he could steamroll all the way through election day with just what's on the label, but it is a large bet to place and even if you take economics out of the equation he is not a safe candidate. He is from a uniquely marginalized community that has a uniquely marginalized background and tumultuous present, and with the current administration and very recent international developments, he is fully set up to fail on that alone. I get the feeling that people don't really understand that, just like they don't really seem to understand how all those things will play together when he's up against the GOP. That will be months of work. Sanders v. Trump has the potential to be the ugliest race you'll ever see full of the ugliest exchanges you'll ever see. Other Sanders supporters need to get it quick and quit acting like the Primaries are the hard part, because this time they just aren't. If you actually want him in office then tough-guy politics cannot be enough to tire you out right now, especially when they won't even REALLY start for months.
Personally, I don't want to wake up on the morning of 4 November and hear "the real fight starts now."
Yes, we are. Or, if you actually read the argument, we will more specifically argue the following: It was not politically risky to be openly friendly to transgender people in the 80s if you had the good fortune to be a politician who met the following criteria: 1)You had already established yourself as a popular brand with your local constituency, 2)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having one of the highest proportion of LGBT voters of any state in the country, 3)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of having the lowest proportion of religious voters of any state in the country, 4)Your local constituency was unusually friendly to transgender rights by virtue of being D+20, 5) That same D+20 split made your seat very safe by simple party alignment, 6)Your local constituency was unusually easy to placate by virtue of being very small and monolithic such that they largely like and dislike the same actions, you don't have large competing factions with opposite positions on the same issues, and issues that are contentious in more diverse districts are largely kept from the forefront. It helps if you can also 7)have that popular brand you established locally be largely based on your cantankerously contrarian demeanor such that the simple act of taking a nationally unpopular position reinforces your brand in itself.
If you were in a position to meet all those criteria then yeah, being transgender-friendly in the 80s was a pretty safe play. Most people weren't! But Bernie was.
super true. Real talk here, I'm not going to do a lot to get him over the finish line either. It's going to be an Anybody But Trump election for me at that point, entirely about explaining why it's going to suck pretty fuckin bad but at least he won't be an actual criminal imbecile.
And that's the real question at play here, which is why I'm more concerned about Biden or Mayor Pete winning the nomination.
Centrists or fed up Republicans aren't going to be enthusiastic about a Sanders or Warren campaign. And that's understandable. It's a hold-your-nose and vote for the non-criminal. But there will be a crapload of people on the left that ARE enthusiastic, and will donate significant time, money and energy to getting that candidate elected.
But if it's Biden or Pete, will they have the same amount of people committing time, money and energy? It'll won't be none (because Trump is an existential threat) but surely it'll be less from the left, and I'm not sure it'll be made up by the centrists and former right.
An election is about the number of votes, obviously. But how you get those votes is a combination of being palatable to the most number of voters, AND having turnout based on time, money and enthusiasm of the supporter base, who do the canvassing and enrolling and engagement that can get the "sometimes" voters back to the polls.
And I'm seeing that being an issue for the centrist candidates. It goes from a rally cry of a combination of "Yay my team" and "Fuck Trump", to just the latter. And I'm shit scared that won't be enough. Maybe they'll make up for it with corporate money for ads rather than boots on the ground, if the leftist corporate leaders aren't freaking about Warren or Sanders.
I don't know. The last 5 years of politics in the US, UK and AU have me really cynical about the best way to defeat these fucking lunatics. This isn't two decades ago, when losing my preference was met with "Ehh, I'd rather the other guy, but I can live with this" to "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE ELECTORATE?". I don't have the answers, and the consequences of failure are just so much higher now.
That sort of thing is a turnout depressor. I imagine your friends and family know you as a guy who knows a bit about politics and keeps on top of current events. So if you post on Facebook “grudgingly dragging myself to the polls to vote Sanders, even though I think he’ll screw everything up, at least he’s not Trump” you might depress a less politically committed friend who thinks “If spool32 who reads 3 newspapers and breathes politics think that Sanders sucks I don’t think I’ll bother lining up to vote. At least Trump is doing well for the economy even if he’s a scumbag.”
All acts of bravery and courage are measured against the local conditions. I can openly campaign for girls in every country in the world to get a full education because I have nothing on the line. Those in the country doing the same thing are risking a fuckton more and rightly get credit for it. This isn't to say Bernie should get criticized for his stances, but it also means we should look at the context under which he could take these stances.
I also chafe at the idea of giving sole credit to an ally about the AIDS epidemic and what it meant for the LGBT+ community, but that is an entirely different topic. My short version is I strenuously object to the claim that "no one" but Bernie was speaking up.
Asking people to fake excitement is a lot though.
Rational actors will vote for whomever has a D by their name this election because christ almighty just look at 3-4 of the other threads on the front of the forum right now, but it doesn't mean we will all be super duper cheerleaders for them if they don't align with our political ideology.
Like, I will gladly punch in Sanders for president if it is him versus trump. I'd do it twice if it were legal. But I am not going to be glad if that is the choice I have to make, and I worry about how many people might stay home (or turn up for trump) if it is him.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Sure. And Biden gets plenty of shit thrown his way here as well. Some heated, some with a weary sigh, but I can't say there are all that many strident and vocal Biden supporters here.
Sanders, however, has a contingent of strong and vocal supporters, who are eager to sing his praises and debate the merits of critique.
Which is why this thread sees a lot of talk pro and con on Bernie and more eye rolling and hopes someone manages to unseat Biden before he's actually in the general election.
Like, you're not wrong, but I don't think you're going to see much pushback on the notion either.
Both ways are a depressor! A candidate Spool's happy with will depress the votes of people like Sammich who'll just throw their hands up and not vote, especially if they're in a blue state/district where "my vote doesn't matter anyway, the Dem will win here without me." The Democrats are fucked coming and going, which is why they've been on their back foot for decades now: they have no reliable support like the Republicans have. Whenever they start to get somewhere, conservatives vote for their opponents and liberals stop voting because it wasn't good enough/wasn't quick enough, so the boulder rolls down the hill yet again and more people get crushed. The calculus with 2020 is to figure out which audience is bigger and in the right spots to not only win the Presidency but retain the House and make inroads on the Senate: the crowd of people to the right-center who might decide to not vote Trump/Republican if the Dem nominee is appealing enough (with a potential bonus of them potentially deciding to vote Dem) or the people on the far left who will only bother to vote at all if the Dem nominee for President is up to their standards, regardless of who else is up for election in their state/district. The people who support Biden do so not because they think he's the best liberal candidate, but because they are looking to the general and thinking that the former group is bigger than the latter and Biden's the only one on the ticket that'll appeal to them.
My feelings about Sanders are not all positive but denying that the man has the strength of his convictions seems... like an inaccurate criticism.
And like, for the sake of argument let's imagine that every move Sanders has ever made has been pure craven political calculation. He'd still be fundamentally correct in his analysis of the Iraq war vote, and Joe Biden was very very wrong. That the people doing the right thing did it for the wrong reasons or it was easy for them to so it doesn't absolve the people who did the wrong thing of their responsibility for the consequences, regardless if how politically dangerous it would have been for them.
Absolutely.
That's why Biden is so steady in the polls. He may be as exciting as extra geography homework to young voters, but he's not scary to the Democrat baby boomers (of all races) who are the ones who will reliably turn up at the polls if they don't hate the candidate. Young voters are notoriously bad at things like registering to vote in time.
If Biden was 10 years younger I would support him for that reason.
And it isn’t simply the size of the respective groups either. If a far-left Dem candidate flips a moderate voter from D to R, that’s twice as costly to winning as a moderate Dem candidate flipping a far-left vote from D to non-voting or voting third party.
That's a really clever insight.
[edit] Trump's extreme obnoxiousness might help here. A moderate Democrat might not be able to force themselves to vote Trump even if they hate Sanders.
Critically, progressives need to remember that Biden and Buttigieg are on their team!!!!
Centrist Democrats will push things toward the progressive agenda. That's unquestionably true. Progressives, though, will not necessarily push things toward a moderate or centrist agenda.
the time for driving policy left-of-center is after you help everyone return there.
It really isn't. Biden and Pete are spending the primary campaigning against even mild progressive politics.