[Discussion] The (likely) Depressing Road to the 2020 Election Thread

It's going to be a circus.

Will 45 get impeached or step down or challenged? All 3? MAYBE.

Will the democrats eat themselves alive and hobble literally every potential candidate before the primaries are done? PROBABLY.

Talk about that junk here.

Zona wrote:

If you go to his totals page it looks like he’s in the pocket of Big Retirees.

Retirees are the biggest donor for just about every candidate and PAC.

It's essentially a terribly named category for people who are wealthy, but who list "retired" as their profession on federal documents. I say wealthy because sites like Open Secrets only count donations of more than $200 in their "Retirees" industry.

ruhk wrote:

I mean, he was in congress for six years and in local government for a decade or so. Even if he didn’t accomplish much he has experience.

Whoops, I somehow missed that. I feel stupid.

OG_slinger wrote:
Zona wrote:

If you go to his totals page it looks like he’s in the pocket of Big Retirees.

Retirees are the biggest donor for just about every candidate and PAC.

It's essentially a terribly named category for people who are wealthy, but who list "retired" as their profession on federal documents. I say wealthy because sites like Open Secrets only count donations of more than $200 in their "Retirees" industry.

Interesting!
I think the overall point still stands though. There are plenty of reasonable avenues to criticize Beto, but I don't think this one stands up to scrutiny. People working in the Oil industry donating to someone running in Texas is hardly shocking, and it still barely made the top 20 sources of donations. People seem to take those numbers as if they where companies themselves or PAC's acting on their behalf making the contributions as opposed to people who just happen to work in those industries.

If I donate to a campaign* it will end up being filed under Aviation, but I'm hardly Boeing or Airbus.

*I'm actually still unclear if I can donate to political campaigns. I'm a Federal contractor, but as an employee of a company that holds a contract rather then being directly contracted myself.

I'm firmly in the Mayor Pete column now. Good gravy.

Don’t underestimate the appeal of a young charismatic white guy I guess.

Zona wrote:

Don’t underestimate the appeal of a young charismatic white guy I guess.

I'd prefer if the focus was on policy and issues. Just because you can make a lot of money doesn't automatically qualify you to be president. Our society continues to seem to head down this road and we're enabling it.

JC wrote:
Zona wrote:

Don’t underestimate the appeal of a young charismatic white guy I guess.

I'd prefer if the focus was on policy and issues. Just because you can make a lot of money doesn't automatically qualify you to be president. Our society continues to seem to head down this road and we're enabling it.

There is zero chance Beto will be doing that. He cannot really afford to, because policy wise he looks like a moderate republican. He's only left for Texas.

JC wrote:

I'd prefer if the focus was on policy and issues. Just because you can make a lot of money doesn't automatically qualify you to be president. Our society continues to seem to head down this road and we're enabling it.

No, but NOT being able to raise a lot of money does DISqualify you from running for president.

JC wrote:
Zona wrote:

Don’t underestimate the appeal of a young charismatic white guy I guess.

I'd prefer if the focus was on policy and issues. Just because you can make a lot of money doesn't automatically qualify you to be president. Our society continues to seem to head down this road and we're enabling it.

I wouldn't say we're enabling it, we're making the best of it. 2020 will be both the chance to kick Trump out before he gets another four years, and a chance to undo the gerrymandering of 2010. Just those two things will make a huge difference when it comes to setting the table for better policies and issues.

Jonman wrote:
JC wrote:

I'd prefer if the focus was on policy and issues. Just because you can make a lot of money doesn't automatically qualify you to be president. Our society continues to seem to head down this road and we're enabling it.

No, but NOT being able to raise a lot of money does DISqualify you from running for president.

Agreed. That's the other end of the same problem.

Still my favorite post about, well, all the major Democratic candidates:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/bwOclgD.png)

JC wrote:

I'd prefer if the focus was on policy and issues. Just because you can make a lot of money doesn't automatically qualify you to be president. Our society continues to seem to head down this road and we're enabling it.

I thought this Vox video did a great job framing the biggest problem with our current news coverage, which is the tendency to only ever discuss political outcomes and strategy and rarely ever talk about how to solve problems. The video is about the Green New Deal, specifically, but the media tactic, called Tactical Framing, affects everything. And it's frustrating as hell and probably a big driver behind all this polarization.

And frustratingly, they put that video out without a link to anything that DOES describe the Green New Deal :p

polypusher wrote:

And frustratingly, they put that video out without a link to anything that DOES describe the Green New Deal :p

The youtube video description does link out to their big explainer on the topic.

Nice, that was not the case last week. Some of the comments linked there.

The White House wants to see the Mueller report before anyone else so that they can claim executive privilege.

That’s horse sh*t

Washington (CNN) — White House lawyers expect to have an opportunity to review whatever version of Robert Mueller's report Attorney General Bill Barr submits to Congress before it reaches lawmakers and the public, multiple sources familiar with the matter said, setting up a potential political battle over the hotly anticipated document.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/18/pol...

I totally remember when Clinton claimed executive privilege and people didn't rush out to buy hastily printed books of The Starr Report.

Doh. Sorry. Wrong thread! Although it's still pertinent to just about every thread there is.

Strong language aside, this article just about summarizes what I think about Beto's candidacy:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articl...

Honestly, I'm not very hopeful at this point. The US is probably gonna get Biden or Beto, or maybe 4 more years of Trump. Either way, not one of those is going to do anything about climate change, inequality, racism, or any of the other serious issues of our time and the US is slowly going to go further into hellworld, dragging the rest of us with them, due to their cultural influence. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic here.

Meh, if a Beto candidacy pulls enough senators over the finish line that we don’t have to rely on Manchin and Sinema it would be... fine. I don’t see him vetoing anything that makes it to his desk. Not my preferred outcome but what you going to do. I have a feeling we overestimate the appeal of far leftist policy over bland charisma even in the Democratic primarie base.

I’d love to be pleasantly surprised and get a Warren candidacy, or Shocked at a Mayor Pete.

This is why I'm terrified. We're already seeing signs of people folding their arms and saying, "Well, that's not the democratic nominee I wanted, so they're going to be terrible." That's a wonderful recipe for Trump getting eight years in the White House. We all need to realize that any candidate that is our perfect candidate probably couldn't get elected. I'd love someone who campaigned on massive tax increases for the wealthy, closing investment tax and offshore banking loopholes, ferocious penalties for police agencies that turn a blind eye to racism and brutality, a massive nationwide program to work towards eliminating our greenhouse gas emissions, the creation of constitutional amendments for everything from equal pay for women and protections for LGBTQ individuals, and a dozen more things. I'd love that person, and would eagerly work with them.

But they would not get elected.

It's not enough that they want to do the right thing. They have to be able to convince enough Americans that it actually IS the right thing to get the votes needed to get into office. And a moderate Democrat that waffles about climate change, voting rights, income inequality, and all of the other issues we're passionate about who WINS the election will get more done about those things than a leftist candidate that is as passionate as we are who loses. Full stop.

trichy wrote:

But they would not get elected.

Why are you convinced that this is the case?

nako wrote:
trichy wrote:

But they would not get elected.

Why are you convinced that this is the case?

I had a political science professor that once stated that if Pol Pot was running against Gandhi in the US presidential election, that 40% would vote for whichever one was a democrat, 40% would vote for whichever one was a republican, and the remaining 20% would decide who won. (Who was in which party is irrelevant for this experiment). The election will be won or lost by independents. Those of us who are violently opposed to Donald Trump will either vote for his opponent or not vote at all. Those who are raving fanatics for the Trump cult will vote for him, period. As such, the election will most likely ride on the shoulders of those who are uncomfortable with Trump's behavior, but haven't fully bought into the idea of a socialist winning the presidency, seeing their taxes increase to pay for social programs and environmental initiatives, a major push to drastically reduce income inequality, and other programs that many of us believe to be essential. If a candidate pushes too hard in that direction, they may decide to stick with the devil they know.

This is anecdotal, so I fully recognize it's worthless as quantifiable data. But my mother LOATHES Donald Trump. She finds him reprehensible and a fool. However, she also grew up with decades of propaganda insisting upon the idea that socialism was evil. She is 68 years old, and as much as I've tried, I don't believe that her mind will be changed on that. If the election is Bernie Sanders vs. Trump, she will vote for Trump before she votes for an avowed socialist. I would rather a candidate that captures all of those votes than one that frightens them away. One will almost definitely win. One will probably not.

My personal preference, of course, is that the nuclear bomb of the Mueller report combined with the inevitable economic crash that economists are predicting will render Trump and all of those who obsessively supported him radioactive, and that the Republican party as we know it will collapse. I would much rather be voting between a leftist candidate and a liberal candidate. That's a worthy debate, and one that offers genuine options for our country. But our next election will be the democratic candidate versus that vile, narcissistic nightmare, and I want the person best poised to absolutely dominate in the election.

Look, I wish the bulk of the country felt the way most of the people on this forum do about these issues. Unfortunately, in many cases, that's not true. We can't just yell, "Climate change is going to kill us all!" loudly and expect people to shrug their shoulders and change decades of political conditioning, no matter how true that statement is. We HAVE to take into account the reality of the voters when choosing a candidate.

I think this article sums up a lot of how I feel about Beto. While it acknowledges that he's not as left-wing as AOC or Sanders, it does point out all of the clearly stated issues that he's going to take heat for, including:

FiveThirtyEight wrote:

- Supporting the abolition of for-profit and private prisons.
- Supporting a ban on so-called assault weapons.
- Supporting the elimination of bail sentences that require people to pay money to be released from jail ahead of trial.
- Criticizing not only Trump’s border wall, but also some of the existing barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border and the increase in border security spending over the last decade. (“Yes, absolutely, I’d take the wall down,” he said in February, referring to the border fencing in the El Paso region.)
- Supporting the impeachment of President Trump (O’Rourke took this stance during his Senate campaign. I doubt that he will push this issue during his presidential run, but it was somewhat surprising that he adopted it last year. Other Democrats, like 2020 hopeful Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, didn’t take this stance even as they were running in more liberal states than Texas.).
- Supporting a proposal to allow anyone who wants to enroll in a Medicare-like insurance plan the option to do so.
- Supporting an increase of the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
- Supporting marijuana legalization.
- Opposing the death penalty.
- Supporting NFL players kneeling during the national anthem in protest of racism.
- Describing himself as benefiting from “white privilege.”

Again, he's far from my ideal candidate. But if he turns out to be the candidate with the best chance of kicking Trump's ass, and pushes for those points above? I'll be satisfied.

trichy wrote:

I think this article sums up a lot of how I feel about Beto. While it acknowledges that he's not as left-wing as AOC or Sanders, it does point out all of the clearly stated issues that he's going to take heat for, including:

FiveThirtyEight wrote:

- Supporting the abolition of for-profit and private prisons.
- Supporting a ban on so-called assault weapons.
- Supporting the elimination of bail sentences that require people to pay money to be released from jail ahead of trial.
- Criticizing not only Trump’s border wall, but also some of the existing barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border and the increase in border security spending over the last decade. (“Yes, absolutely, I’d take the wall down,” he said in February, referring to the border fencing in the El Paso region.)
- Supporting the impeachment of President Trump (O’Rourke took this stance during his Senate campaign. I doubt that he will push this issue during his presidential run, but it was somewhat surprising that he adopted it last year. Other Democrats, like 2020 hopeful Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, didn’t take this stance even as they were running in more liberal states than Texas.).
- Supporting a proposal to allow anyone who wants to enroll in a Medicare-like insurance plan the option to do so.
- Supporting an increase of the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
- Supporting marijuana legalization.
- Opposing the death penalty.
- Supporting NFL players kneeling during the national anthem in protest of racism.
- Describing himself as benefiting from “white privilege.”

Again, he's far from my ideal candidate. But if he turns out to be the candidate with the best chance of kicking Trump's ass, and pushes for those points above? I'll be satisfied.

I would like to see more pro-environment stuff in there, but against Trump, if he's the Democrat, he's getting my vote.

I see where you're coming from with this, trichy, but I myself believe that it's not the few people swinging between dems and reps one needs to convince to vote for the lesser evil, but rather to incentivize the ~40+% of people who usually don't bother voting at all to do so this time around. And you won't do that with another run-of-the-mill candidate, but you might with one that actually represents their interests, like a leftist would. (I'm also not entirely convinced by either Bernie or Warren, but they're the best two choices from my point of view.)

I don't have data to back this up (other than turnout, but the makeup of those who don't vote is entirely conjecture), but I don't see data to back up the opposite either, so for now I'll trust my instinct on this one.

Ultimately I’m backing Sanders, but I do think Sanders should step out and let Warren preemptively give him the VP nod. The two of them together would be unstoppable.
Won’t happen, but one can dream.

nako wrote:

I see where you're coming from with this, trichy, but I myself believe that it's not the few people swinging between dems and reps one needs to convince to vote for the lesser evil, but rather to incentivize the ~40+% of people who usually don't bother voting at all to do so this time around. And you won't do that with another run-of-the-mill candidate, but you might with one that actually represents their interests, like a leftist would. (I'm also not entirely convinced by either Bernie or Warren, but they're the best two choices from my point of view.)

I don't have data to back this up (other than turnout, but the makeup of those who don't vote is entirely conjecture), but I don't see data to back up the opposite either, so for now I'll trust my instinct on this one.

The problem for me is I’m not actually sure a large chunk of non voters are untapped leftist. I think it’s more likely that the larger majority of that 40% are simply apathetic. I believe at this point that people as left as myself overestimate our actual share of the electorate.

My fear is that people to the left of say Beto aren’t enough to win an election, but are enough to lose one.

I'm not sure left/right and policy details are what it's about. I think it's about people feeling like a candidate gives them a voice to shout back at the powerful interests they feel powerless to fight back against.

I don't think the opposite of that is left or right exactly. I think the opposite of that is people who feel like the system was working for them, but they feel Trump is dangerous and out of control.

If there's a single (because I think the breakdown of potential Democratic voters will be *really* complex) needle to thread here, I think it's between people who are angry that the system is rigged, and people who just think Trump is corrupt. If there's one narrative that threads that needle, it's that Trump is both the symptom and the cause of the worst corruption in the system.

I think a candidate who can speak to that is the most 'electable' candidate. Assuming they're actually a good politician in the sense of being able to deliver that message in a way that resonates with voters.