[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.

karmajay wrote:

If someone backed Trump and now dislikes him but STILL expects someone to "convince" them to vote D or they stay home I'm perfectly fine with that person staying home on voting day.

If they stay home, that's half as good as voting for the D. Better, if they were going to split their ticket!

Increasingly, all I care about is what's the quickest way towards a more equitable distribution of power. More and more 'principles' just turn out to be just words no one ever really believed in anyway.

I just really wish it was 2016 all over again, and I could just root for Hillary, and leave young liberals and liberals with kids to deal with the consequences of their wishes.

Ugh, I have to root for (edit) any inevitable recession to arrive far enough in advance of Election Day to affect Trump's numbers/not saddle the Democrat the way Obama got stuck with bill last time, don't I?

bekkilyn wrote:

All I know is that I am going to be SO MAD if I have to vote for "creepy Joe" due to all the crap, the abortion thing in AL only being the most recent. Of course, Biden is Catholic if I remember correctly, so who knows if he would recant on supporting pro-choice issues as a presidential vs. vice-presidential candidate.

Biden's going to say the right stuff. There's a good chance he even believes it. But my perception is that it's not gut-level die-on-that-hill important for him; if pushed by Republicans he'll trade abortion rights for other liberal goals. I just don't trust him to see the criticality of the issue or the bad faith and deep-set Christianism of the Republicans.

Biden will be like every other liberal dude when abortion is threatened. He'll be very concerned and then ghost the f*cking room. Same as every other faithless ally with women's issues.

That's why the right is going to win on abortion. Because for them it's a litmus test, and for liberals it's a bargaining chip.

lunchbox12682 wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

All I know is that I am going to be SO MAD if I have to vote for "creepy Joe" due to all the crap, the abortion thing in AL only being the most recent. Of course, Biden is Catholic if I remember correctly, so who knows if he would recant on supporting pro-choice issues as a presidential vs. vice-presidential candidate.

He seemed pretty clear on his position during the VP debates against Ryan.

I expect that position could easily flip flop when he's not running under and supporting someone else's platform as he did in in the VP debates. I felt I could trust Hillary Clinton with this particular issue, but I have no trust whatsoever in Biden.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Biden will be like every other liberal dude when abortion is threatened. He'll be very concerned and then ghost the f*cking room. Same as every other faithless ally with women's issues.

That's why the right is going to win on abortion. Because for them it's a litmus test, and for liberals it's a bargaining chip.

Reminds me of some of the conversations I seem to remember here a while back where some people were suggesting if Democrats dropped the "purity test" on abortion and were not so hard-lined on it, liberals would be able to win more elections. Being "very concerned" has about as much impact as "thoughts and prayers" because whenever a bus comes along, sooner or later there will be a woman who can be thrown under it for the sake of "unity".

Bill De Blasio just officially announced. My phone kept trying to autocorrect his last name to “blasé” just now, which is probably more than a little prophetic.

Biden increasingly seems like he would be the next GWB.

GWB or GHWB?

Okay this is going on way too long. They really needed to schedule the election for today, results an hour before the Game of Thrones finale, a nice half-hour to forty five minute speech from the Democratic victor, couple of minutes of post-speech commentary, and then the episode. Time to wrap all the drama up and get on with things.

Whole lot of Biden talk on the Sunday morning shows.

Apparently, there’s a clip going around of Bernie Sanders saying “I don’t know” when asked about abortion rights. Wow.
This guy is not the way you want to go...

I know some people hate it when you just quote yourself, but seriously:

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Biden will be like every other liberal dude when abortion is threatened. He'll be very concerned and then ghost the f*cking room. Same as every other faithless ally with women's issues.

That's why the right is going to win on abortion. Because for them it's a litmus test, and for liberals it's a bargaining chip.

f*ckin' faithless allies.

“Are you in all concerned, though, about this idea that people may try to worry about the sex of a child, or essentially, are those types of restrictions on abortions something you’re open to?” Todd asked.

“That, I mean, that’s a concern,” Sanders said as Todd was asking, then answered, haltingly, “Well, that’s not a, I wouldn’t use a restriction on, that’s an issue that society has got to deal with, and it is of concern.”

“How would you deal with that in the law?” Todd asked.

“I don’t know how, at this particular point, I would deal with it, but that is an issue that we really have got to deal with,” Sanders replied.

Clicking through and seeing (edit: technically, reading--can't play the video right now) the full context, I'm going to wear "f*cking faithless ally" as a badge of honor if this is the level of clickbait we've descended to.

Is this the video in question?

https://mobile.twitter.com/tommyxtop...

It looks like he says “I don’t know” when asked about whether there should be legislation preventing abortions as used to select the gender of a wanted pregnancy.

Edit: On second thought, I think it's just time to pull the rip chord on my participation here. Have fun, kiddos.

Here's the page with text below the video: LINK

DSGamer wrote:

Is this the video in question?

https://mobile.twitter.com/tommyxtop...

It looks like he says “I don’t know” when asked about whether there should be legislation preventing abortions as used to select the gender of a wanted pregnancy.

How would you make legislation to prevent that, which at the same time couldn't be abused to limit choosing abortion for other reasons.
It should have been easier for Sanders to answer that question than it apparently was.
If you want to make sure women have full ability to choose, you also have to accept that some choices might not be what you like. Seems like a very small price to pay for society.
If we ever actually got in a situation where that thought-experiment became a substantial problem (like a big difference between how many boys and girls were born) you could consider laws to fix things. Until then, it seems like people just want to come up with excuses for not protection abortion rights.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Clicking through and seeing (edit: technically, reading--can't play the video right now) the full context, I'm going to wear "f*cking faithless ally" as a badge of honor if this is the level of clickbait we've descended to.

I get what you're saying, but I think you have to read the Sanders criticism within the context of the Democratic party primaries. Of course we're all going to vote for him vs. Trump, that's not really the question. But his apparent ignorance about a particular aspect of the abortion issue means that he's a pretty flawed candidate compared to many of his peers running for the Democratic ticket. I'm not particularly surprised that he's less knowledgeable on abortion issues, because he's always been focused on economic ones. Same reason he comes off sounding so ignorant on racial issues. I like Sanders, but we can do better.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

I like Sanders, but we can do better.

Warren is literally the only option then at this point.

Shadout wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Is this the video in question?

https://mobile.twitter.com/tommyxtop...

It looks like he says “I don’t know” when asked about whether there should be legislation preventing abortions as used to select the gender of a wanted pregnancy.

How would you make legislation to prevent that, which at the same time couldn't be abused to limit choosing abortion for other reasons.
It should have been easier for Sanders to answer that question than it apparently was.
If you want to make sure women have full ability to choose, you also have to accept that some choices might not be what you like. Seems like a very small price to pay for society.
If we ever actually got in a situation where that thought-experiment became a substantial problem (like a big difference between how many boys and girls were born) you could consider laws to fix things. Until then, it seems like people just want to come up with excuses for not protection abortion rights.

That's why I'm confused, I guess. Every answer Sanders gave before this was unequivocal and forceful. And then Chuck Todd proposes a scenario out of Gattaca and he freezes.

Of course it would have been better if he'd been prepared for this or given an unequivocal answer, but the question was fairly exotic. I've never heard that scenario discussed personally. I'm not aware that it's even an issue yet.

ruhk wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

I like Sanders, but we can do better.

Warren is literally the only option then at this point.

I actually like Warren a lot and think she's under-appreciated.

Ironically, though, there's no way she can beat Trump. So everyone is going to drum Sanders out of the race and they're going to get Biden.

DSGamer wrote:
ruhk wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

I like Sanders, but we can do better.

Warren is literally the only option then at this point.

I actually like Warren a lot and think she's under-appreciated.

Ironically, though, there's no way she can beat Trump. So everyone is going to drum Sanders out of the race and they're going to get Biden.

Which means the country goes from running into oncoming traffic to merely jogging into oncoming traffic.

DSGamer wrote:

Of course it would have been better if he'd been prepared for this or given an unequivocal answer, but the question was fairly exotic. I've never heard that scenario discussed personally. I'm not aware that it's even an issue yet.

Dont get me wrong, I am not saying Sanders is a bad candidate, who people shouldn't vote for, because of that answer. Just that it was a bad look, and a little weird, that he suddenly wavers on it.

Why is there no way Warren can beat Trump btw?
If I could choose, which I obviously, for better or worse, can't. she surely would be my choice.

Shadout wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Of course it would have been better if he'd been prepared for this or given an unequivocal answer, but the question was fairly exotic. I've never heard that scenario discussed personally. I'm not aware that it's even an issue yet.

Dont get me wrong, I am not saying Sanders is a bad candidate, who people shouldn't vote for, because of that answer. Just that it was a bad look, and a little weird, that he suddenly wavers on it.

Why is there no way Warren can beat Trump btw?
If I could choose, which I obviously, for better or worse, can't. she surely would be my choice.

Because this thread is a pit of despairing people wailing into the darkness.

DSGamer wrote:

Of course it would have been better if he'd been prepared for this or given an unequivocal answer, but the question was fairly exotic. I've never heard that scenario discussed personally. I'm not aware that it's even an issue yet.

Agreed. That seems like a problem for a different culture. Or do people have abortions in America just to have boys? That would be news to me.

And in that hypothetical I would also not know exactly what the law would have to say to effectively give women 98% choice over their bodily autonomy. 100% choice is easy to write, and 0%-choice-bigot-ville laws are pretty easy to write, but nuanced balance of choice and gattaca-avoidance probably takes more than five seconds.

Pop quiz, Bernie, what's your stance on child seats for hover cars between 10,000 and 20,000 feet? Whoa you don't immediately have an answer for an irrelevant topic? Think of the sky children. Way to waiver, old man.

Chairman_Mao wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Clicking through and seeing (edit: technically, reading--can't play the video right now) the full context, I'm going to wear "f*cking faithless ally" as a badge of honor if this is the level of clickbait we've descended to.

I get what you're saying, but I think you have to read the Sanders criticism within the context of the Democratic party primaries. Of course we're all going to vote for him vs. Trump, that's not really the question. But his apparent ignorance about a particular aspect of the abortion issue means that he's a pretty flawed candidate compared to many of his peers running for the Democratic ticket.

I wouldn't call it ignorance, I'd call it fumbling in trying to give a non-answer to a question that's *not* an aspect of the abortion issue. It's something the right is trying to *make* into an issue.

edit: heck, something the right has been trying to make into an issue since at least *two* elections ago.

It's true that he should have a well-prepared answer ready to go for this question, like the one linked to by Planned Parenthood. I also wouldn't be so sure that the other candidates would have the right answer in that situation. Especially the male ones.

I'm not particularly surprised that he's less knowledgeable on abortion issues, because he's always been focused on economic ones. Same reason he comes off sounding so ignorant on racial issues. I like Sanders, but we can do better.

Well, that's just it--I don't read this criticism within the context of the Democratic party primaries because it sure seemed like a much bigger criticism than just "we can do better."

ruhk wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
ruhk wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

I like Sanders, but we can do better.

Warren is literally the only option then at this point.

I actually like Warren a lot and think she's under-appreciated.

Ironically, though, there's no way she can beat Trump. So everyone is going to drum Sanders out of the race and they're going to get Biden.

Which means the country goes from running into oncoming traffic to merely jogging into oncoming traffic.

I think it means a well-protected bus stop in which to wait for Demographics to become Destiny.

Especially if there's a lot of down-ballot votes for Democrats, double-especially if those are state offices that will be in charge of the redistricting in 2020.

At the very least, the Democrats in control of the Justice Department will mean a heck of a lot. Even if the Biden Administration just investigates, like, the existence of Bigfoot and rumors of a hidden cache of Zima, that's a huge difference from a Trump/unrecused Barr Justice Department in terms of power begetting more power.

He could just have pointed out that it's a non-issue to start with, like he would have within a nanosecond if some social-democratic boogeyman had been thrown at him. That he didn't after effectively four years of presidential campaigning is telling, yes.

And he could also have stated that IF it ever becomes reality that thousands of women are having abortions because they prefer to have a boy that he would personally disagree but still respect female bodily autonomy over his personal opinions. That he didn't instinctively make that distinction is telling too.

Remember too that Iceland has been using abortion to cull their Down Syndrome population by nearly 100%, so this is not a new nor a hypothetical dilemma. China has been doing it to female zygotes too, if I recall.

The flip side is that I don’t know whether we should put limits on abortion for these reasons, either. It’s a thorny issue and I think “I don’t know but we should figure it out” is pretty close to a perfect answer.

I was watching live. I thought WTF is this China? No one cares what gender child they are having here and certainly isn't having abortions for that. I don't watch Fox news or visit Breitbart so I guess I wasn't aware of another bullsh*t Boogeyman that the right has fabricated to keep the sheep afraid and in line.

Really we have to be prepared to argue with people who refuse to live in reality? Only 1.3% of abortions are performed after 21 weeks. But if you listen to Trump or Fox News, you'd think moms were lining up to kill babies that could survive in ICU or be born naturally. Just not true though.

I did think wow a politician actually said "I don't know" instead of changing the question and rambling about something off topic. Thought it was a little bit interesting but didn't realize it was the end of his campaign. Odd.