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

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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.

December 31st, 2018: Elizabeth Warren throws her hat in the ring to start fundraising.

Here we go. Hold on to your butts and hope we don't all kill each other before we're done with primary season.

and so it begins

Does it have to be horrible? I mean is the state of all politics and public life in the US such that it can't be a good contest between honest and caring people?

farley3k wrote:

Does it have to be horrible? I mean is the state of all politics and public life in the US such that it can't be a good contest between honest and caring people?

Yes.

farley3k wrote:

Does it have to be horrible? I mean is the state of all politics and public life in the US such that it can't be a good contest between honest and caring people?

Well one of those people will probably be either Donald Trump or Mike Pence... so no? Neither of them are capable of honesty or empathy.

I’ll need more booze.

I keep telling myself I need to stop keeping track of US politics, because it's bad for my mental health, but good grief, Cthulhu help me, I can't stop watching...

Just a little message from the rest of the world:
IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/3oKHWikxKFJhjArSXm/giphy.gif)
No pressure.

Warren will be 70-71 when the next President is sworn in. I'm not saying she, or any other older candidate, isn't capable, but I do worry about the toll the office takes on people (when they, you know, actually do the work). I hope we get some good younger candidates as well.

I feel like anyone motivated enough to seriously aim for the Presidency and get there is one of those people who have energy reserves that most of us can't even imagine. Their 70 is like 40 for the rest of us.

I won't complain if Warren is elected. Well, not more than I complained about Obama. The Democratic party would have to dig deep to get a worse candidate than Trump.

That said, this is early days and the landscape is going to look very, very different in 23 months.

I'm confused by the negativity. Democrats have won control of the house after a historic midterm win and Trump is imploding (even worse than usual). The shutdown is hurting people, but Trump is taking the blame for this and it's either going to end with Trump giving up on the wall, Democrats giving some money for border security (not the wall) in exchange for some big policy wins, or Republicans overriding his veto. Either way it's going to be a big loss for him.

On the Democratic side we have a bunch of awesome prospective candidates (Warren, Sanders, Beto, Biden, Harris, Klobuchar, etc.) for the primary and the winner will go on to kick Trump's ass in 2020. Trump won the 2016 election by the skin of his teeth against a ridiculously unpopular candidate, so I can't imagine a scenario where Trump wins reelection regardless of which democratic candidate wins the primary. Have some faith people. The long night is coming to an end.

The negativity on my part is mostly because Democratic powerbrokers backed Clinton last time and could very well back Biden this time, which would be a grave mistake. I hope we're all a little more willing to acknowledge that the country has a few problems, but I'm not sure the Democratic party is on board with that idea yet.

That said, there's a wide slate of people who, while not perfect, I'd be perfectly happy voting for.

As is usual, my actual political positions aren't really aligned with either party, since actually funding the IRS and defunding the military seems to be off the table. I'll settle for a government that isn't actively trying to kill my friends, but I'd prefer one that also has some plan for dealing with catastrophic climate change and maybe better healthcare and a social safety net.

Of course, the party platforms aren't set in stone yet, so maybe there's some hope for the future.

Meanwhile, 2019 is going to be called a year of gridlock: though Congress will pass more laws than the cynics on the street think, I'm guessing that there won't be much chance for either side to pass sweeping legislation for obvious reasons.

My son will be voting in 2020. I have some hopes that his generation will do better.
At least I hope they will.

I’m pessimistic because I look around and Christians (particularly the evangelical types) still seem to dominate the political and cultural landscape. Hopefully that won’t be the case forever but I’m still concerned that will continue to be the case in 2020.

I really hope I’m wrong.

If we get out of 2020 without a Civil War or successful coup I will call it a major win.

I mostly like Warren, but seriously, someone younger would seem great.

Also what Eleima said.

Kinda feels like this is the last chance before we set on an irreversible course toward 'sh*thole earth'.

I think three things are driving the negativity expressed here, Djinn. The first is what Gremlin pointed out: the DNC seems hell bent on pretending this is half a century ago and they can just pick a candidate, voters be damned.

The second is, no one can chew up a Democrat better than another Democrat. The fractures caused by the 2016 democratic primary are part of how we got Trump. As the GOP's tent shrinks to just christian evangelical racists, the DNC's grows to include many disparate groups, not least of which are neoliberals and socialists. These groups will weaken each other for the Big Event, because as we learned in 2016, democrats really dislike "coming together to vote for someone no one loves but everyone tolerates."

Finally, 2020 could be the first year where millenial voters outnumber baby boomers (someone can check my math on that, I'd gladly revise this). This is totally anecdotal, but the enmity between boomers and millenials strikes me as far more bitter than any other generational divide in my memory. As the Uncle Joe Bidens are replaced with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortezes, expect for the Tea Tarty / establishment Republican fights of yore to pale in comparison.

...and the Tea Party won those fights without a shadow of a doubt.

Eleima wrote:

I keep telling myself I need to stop keeping track of US politics, because it's bad for my mental health, but good grief, Cthulhu help me, I can't stop watching...

Just a little message from the rest of the world:
IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/3oKHWikxKFJhjArSXm/giphy.gif)
No pressure.

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/3oKHWikxKFJhjArSXm/giphy.gif)

Djinn wrote:

I'm confused by the negativity.

Trump's president because a sizable chunk of Democratic voters got mad that their candidate didn't win the 2016 Democratic primary after temporarily joining the party for expediency's sake so they either voted for Trump in revenge or simply stayed home on election day.

Other voters felt they had to vote their conscious and threw their vote away on a 3rd-party candidate (some of which we're finding were supported/helped by Russia's interference). This explicitly ignored the political reality of our two-party system, the first rule of which is that you f*cking have to actually be in power to get anything accomplished. So instead of their vote for Jill Stein "waking up" the Democratic Party and getting it to change, we now have to deal with a $1.5 trillion tax cut, trade wars crashing our economy, and the EPA saying it's totes cool for coal-powered electric plants to pollute again because was costing them too much money to be clean.

And then there were the folks who bought into the dedicated, multi-decade public relations attack on Hillary that began when her husband was elected president and conservatives here lost their minds because Hillary, a lawyer who'd been politically active her entire life, said she was going to help her husband on policy instead of doing what First Ladies typically did, which was things like pick out a china pattern. Now we have a handbag designer and her failing real estate mogul husband helping the President with policy.

Conservative media had a raging hate boner for Hillary and, over the years, it bled into mainstream media. And that was helped along by good, old fashioned sexism--people who'd rather see a incompetent man hold the highest office in our country than a tremendously qualified and capable woman.

So, yeah, that's the reason for the negativity. Lots of unresolved issues from 2016.

And all of that is made worse by the revelations coming out about the extent of Russia's interference, which seems to have explicitly and expertly targeted all of the fracture points and prejudices in both the Democratic Party and our country.

Seth wrote:

Finally, 2020 could be the first year where millenial voters outnumber baby boomers (someone can check my math on that, I'd gladly revise this). This is totally anecdotal, but the enmity between boomers and millenials strikes me as far more bitter than any other generational divide in my memory. As the Uncle Joe Bidens are replaced with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortezes, expect for the Tea Tarty / establishment Republican fights of yore to pale in comparison.

Millenials are set to pass Boomers next year population wise.

The problem, though, is that there's a massive difference in voter turnout between the groups. 71% of Boomers turned out to vote in 2016 compared to 45ish% of Millenials. That's not a dig on Millenials, though. Young Americans have historically voted *way* less than older Americans.

I have already seen posts in my FB feed about how Warren is the worst democratic choice they could have made, they might as well have picked a republican and/or given Trump a second term.

In other words, pretty much par for the course by (some) people on the left expecting any candidate presented to them to match their wants, needs and desires 100%, to have had those ideas and feelings since they started existing, and to never have changed their mind about anything.

She's great on consumer protection; lousy on trans issues and SESTA/FOSTA; I'd put her in a second tier of candidates by my preference, behind Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Sherrod Brown, but I'd vote for her without having to hold my nose if she won the primary. If Biden or Bernie won, I'd be holding my nose.

I'd love to see an actual administrator run instead of a legislator. Someone who actually has experience running a government like a big city mayor or governor. Even President Schwarzenegger has a nice ring to it.

I'm just here for the free coffee

Hobear wrote:

I'm just here for the free coffee

We need to get a handle on these entitlements.

oilypenguin wrote:
Hobear wrote:

I'm just here for the free coffee

We need to get a handle on these entitlements.

I got Mexico to pay for it....

Mixolyde wrote:

I'd love to see an actual administrator run instead of a legislator. Someone who actually has experience running a government like a big city mayor or governor. Even President Schwarzenegger has a nice ring to it.

My sense is that the times are not conducive to that. The current political regime (conservative, "free" market, late stage capitalism) is coming to an end and something has to take its place, either a leftist vision for the future OR a retrenchment of the Right.

Demographics are destiny in a democracy and unless the Right really can suppress votes to the extent necessary to forestall the coming demographic wave (they can't - read up on how worried center-righters are that they will be crushed as Rush Limbaugh listeners die off), it will be the Left that will push the next 4 decades.

To do that, folks will want vision and mission, not a competent exec who will manage through.

I found this piece about Bernie Sanders challenging one of the preconceived notions I had about him, which was his unpopularity among progressive voters of color:

Carl Beijer wrote:

There may be significant opposition to a Sanders run — but it overwhelmingly comes from white voters. Black voters, in contrast, generally want Sanders to run again.

Seth wrote:

I found this piece about Bernie Sanders challenging one of the preconceived notions I had about him, which was his unpopularity among progressive voters of color:

Carl Beijer wrote:

There may be significant opposition to a Sanders run — but it overwhelmingly comes from white voters. Black voters, in contrast, generally want Sanders to run again.

Although I'd have to see who is also running to make a fully informed choice, I'd have no problem whatsoever voting for him again if he were to run again. Despite that he is progressive, he is able to reach people on both sides of the divide, and that's something you really can't say about most potential candidates in general. I think one of the reasons for it is that people can very easily see what he's supported in his voting record over a very long-term and that he doesn't tend to waver back and forth depending on the mood of the day. If he has a great choice in VP, then any concerns about age wouldn't be a factor because I'd be voting for the VP as well in case the VP needed to step in.

I'm pretty open, and would like to seethe candidates start to campaign and engage with each other and the press before getting a feel for who I think should come out of the process.

I will say I'm most intrigued by Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar. I definitely favor a woman, and both of these women have experience and the ability to motivate voters. But, I was not impressed with how Harris politicized the Kavanaugh hearings, but otherwise, she comes off as exactly what I want in a candidate, a hard worker that knows how to get stuff done. Klobuchar might be the perfect presidential candidate for me. But part of that is that she is much more reserved, but she is a strong voice that I can't imagine backing down from nothing. Bu her reserved nature might hurt her ability to build a large coalition of support.

But really, with the impending Trump investigations and the potential Mueller report hitting in February, it's pretty hard to get a feel for where we are gong to be in a year. Watching how all of these potential candidates shake out during the upcoming news bombs will tell us a lot.

Beto 2020

Edit: Joe Biden is not a viable CA didate, especially if you think age is a factor against Warren.

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