[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.

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 "few" people swinging between the Democrats and Republicans are actually the largest voting bloc in America. 38% of Americans identify as independents, compared to 31% who call themselves Democrats and 26% who call themselves Republicans.

They don't really swing between parties, either. 81% of independents "lean" towards one party or the other and are considered "closet partisans." Research has shown that those independents share the partisan political values of the party they lean towards.

As far as "incentivising" non-voters to vote goes the problem is really that people who are non-partisan are much more likely to not vote. True independents--those that didn't lean towards one party or the other (less than 20% of independents)--were significantly less like to say they registered to vote or vote. Only 33% of true independents said they voted in the 2018 midterms, an election that saw turnout of nearly 50%. And the 2018 midterm turnout was so high because voters were partisan af.

And this isn't exactly something new. Over the last century voter turnout has never really cracked the mid-60s.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/EA9yl6x.png)

You could argue that this is because the parties only ran run-of-the-mill candidates, but it's much more likely that a significant portion of Americans simply aren't political and don't really care who runs the country or feel that the system is so rigged that their vote wouldn't matter.

Even candidates in recent history who had a lot of positive buzz about them--Clinton in '92 and Obama in '08--only goosed turnout by a few percentage points (and then turnout slumped the next election cycle). I doubt there's a candidate that could persuade some of that 40% of non-voters to vote for them (or enrage some portion of that 40% to vote against them).

OG_slinger wrote:

You could argue that this is because the parties only ran run-of-the-mill candidates, but it's much more likely that a significant portion of Americans simply aren't political and don't really care who runs the country or feel that the system is so rigged that their vote wouldn't matter.

I think a lot of the reason that so many Americans can get away with being apolitical is down to the Electoral College. The structure of electoral politics in this country dis-incentivizes participation.

To whit, as a Seattlite, there's little point in my personally voting in state or federal elections. This area is overwhelmingly Democratic, and my one vote for (or against) that majority ain't moving the needle.

And that's before we even get to the point where the President swaggers into the Oval Office with a "mandate" granted from 2% fewer votes than his opponent....

But as we've seen, demographics change and every vote can make a difference. But particularly in primaries where you have more power to help decide who will be on the big stage.

Unless you're an independent and your state only allows party members to participate in primaries.

Nevin73 wrote:

But as we've seen, demographics change and every vote can make a difference. But particularly in primaries where you have more power to help decide who will be on the big stage.

Sure, but the big media narrative of US elections revolves around "swing states" and "swing voters". We talk about the horse race, with an unspoken assumption that the candidate who raises the most money will win. Like it's a foregone conclusion before the polls have even opened.

Even if the demographics HAVE changed, the narrative has not. And that narrative pushes voters to stay home in a bunch of tiny ways. Not a swing voter in a swing state? Stay home. Your preferred candidate was vastly outspent? Stay home.

Nevin73 wrote:

Unless you're an independent and your state only allows party members to participate in primaries.

Which would be an artifact of the Electoral College again, right?

Jonman wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Unless you're an independent and your state only allows party members to participate in primaries.

Which would be an artifact of the Electoral College again, right?

No, that one at least is decided on the state level. Some states (I believe) let everyone vote in both primaries. Not mine though.

Nevin73 wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Unless you're an independent and your state only allows party members to participate in primaries.

Which would be an artifact of the Electoral College again, right?

No, that one at least is decided on the state level. Some states (I believe) let everyone vote in both primaries. Not mine though.

No states let people vote in BOTH (or all), but some states do let people choose a primary to vote in year to year regardless of their registered party. You still only get to vote in a single primary per election. A pedantic distinction, but a real one.

OG_slinger wrote:
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 "few" people swinging between the Democrats and Republicans are actually the largest voting bloc in America. 38% of Americans identify as independents, compared to 31% who call themselves Democrats and 26% who call themselves Republicans.

They don't really swing between parties, either. 81% of independents "lean" towards one party or the other and are considered "closet partisans." Research has shown that those independents share the partisan political values of the party they lean towards.

Which means that the few people swinging between the Democrats and Republicans are actually 7.2% of voters.

Bernie Sanders Just Hired His Twitter Attack Dog

The Atlantic wrote:

Shortly before he gave speeches launching his 2020 campaign earlier this month, Bernie Sanders emailed his supporters, urging them to “do our very best to engage respectfully with our Democratic opponents—talking about the issues we are fighting for, not about personalities or past grievances. I want to be clear that I condemn bullying and harassment of any kind and in any space.”

What he didn’t include was that one of the people already advising him and helping him write those launch speeches is one of his most famously aggressive supporters online.

Since December, David Sirota has, on Twitter, on his own website, and in columns in The Guardian, been trashing most of Sanders’s Democratic opponents—all without disclosing his work with Sanders—and has been pushing back on critics by saying that he was criticizing the other Democrats as a journalist. He centered many of his attacks on Beto O’Rourke, but he also bashed Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Joe Biden, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper, Mike Bloomberg, and even Andrew Cuomo.

Sirota’s hiring as a senior adviser and speechwriter was announced by the Sanders campaign on Tuesday morning after The Atlantic contacted the campaign and inquired about the undisclosed role Sirota held while attacking other Democrats.

Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager, confirmed in an interview on Tuesday afternoon that Sirota had been in an advisory role prior to his hiring on March 11. “He was advising beforehand,” Shakir said, explaining that Sirota’s informal work for Sanders goes back months, and was meant to be a trial period to see how the senator, who famously likes to write every word that he says himself, would work with a speechwriter.

...

On Monday night, after being contacted for a second time by The Atlantic with a list of specific questions about his undisclosed work for Sanders, Sirota did not respond to the email but deleted more than 20,000 tweets. He left fewer than 200 online.

On Tuesday morning, minutes after his position was announced by the Sanders campaign in a long list of new hires, Sirota said he hadn’t been able to respond to my initial inquiries because he’d been caring for his sick child. He did post a photo on Twitter of himself bowling on Monday evening, wearing a turkey hat.

Disappointing.

Also from the article:

At another point, he said his critics “are deranged and/or running a deliberate disinfo campaign.” “Positively unhinged,” he wrote about them a separate time.

Read those comments, Shakir paused. “He used those exact words?” he asked. “I’m sure he regrets the tone.”

Hopefully they realize they can do better than this guy. Although the one piece the article mentions is interesting, and defended Elizabeth Warren.

Let's look at some of his greatest hits!

8/10/2016 - Clinton’s Transition Chief Spins The Revolving Door

8/22/2016 - Did Clinton Foundation Sway Arms Policy?

8/24/2016 - Was There ‘Pay To Play’ At The Clinton Foundation?

9/14/2016 - Feds Stall Another Clinton-Related Request Until After The Election

9/19/2016 - Secretive Clinton Allies Want Trump To Be More Transparent

9/21/2016 - Warren Slams Clinton’s Revolving-Door Donors

9/27/2016 - Citigroup Predicts Clinton Election Will Preserve Status Quo

10/07/2016 - Clinton Told Wall Street The Financial Industry Should Regulate Itself \

10/09/2016 - ‘I’ve Promoted Fracking’

10/11/2016 - Clinton Avoided Single-Payer Ballot Measure, Emails Show

10/19/2016 - Will Clinton Let Wall Street Control Retirement Savings?

10/31/2016 - Clinton Exploited Loophole In Anti-Corruption Law

11/02/2016 - Clinton Advisers Planned Secret Meeting With Private Equity Moguls

11/10/2016 - Sanders And Warren To Trump: We’re With You

11/02/2016 - How Donald Trump Bamboozled His Taj Mahal Investors

10/04/2016 - How Pence’s Gambling Bet Paid Off

08/10/2016 - Are The Jobless Numbers Cooked? Donald Trump joins critics from both parties who say the official unemployment rate is deliberately misleading.

… He hired the guy who was writing Anti-Hillary Pro-Trump articles, during the general election?

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/cqF7Px3.gif)

-Edit-

Now that I've fully read the article and sat staring at the screen for a bit... So the Sanders campaign makes a pledge not to attack other candidates in the primary. At the same time they secretly hire this guy, who writes near daily articles attacking everyone else in the primary, while never disclosing that he works for the Sanders campaign, probably creating all sorts of fun conflicts of interest. And might have only disclosed thay hired him because The Atlantic found out about it.

Am I overanalyzing, or is this not a great look? I do believe any other (Democratic) candidate would be suffering hearing loss from the howls of outrage right now.

Zona wrote:

Let's look at some of his greatest hits!

11/02/2016 - How Donald Trump Bamboozled His Taj Mahal Investors

… He hired the guy who was writing Anti-Hillary Pro-Trump articles, during the general election?

Not sure how that one is Pro-Trump. I think this is the article? Found it on IBT, and saw two more from the election season that also don't look Pro-Trump:

Donald Trump Gave Cash To Chris Christie Group Before And After New Jersey Casino Settlement

Donald Trump Adviser Says Trump Would Repeal Fiduciary Rule — And Likens The Rule To Slavery

The case for this person being Anti-Hillary? Sure. Does that Anti-Hillary streak rise to the level of Pro-Trump? Well, for a start, if we're going to use a list of their 'greatest hits' we can't leave off the anti-Trump pieces, and it would be worth checking just what those Anti-Hillary pieces look like. I didn't run the all down, but the Sanders and Warren one is misleadingly titled in that list.

The Jobs report one reads as positive to me, and all the rest seem to have a positive framing. Of course, it's a smaller sample size since 90% of his work from the period seems to exist to attack Hillary.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Hopefully they realize they can do better than this guy. Although the one piece the article mentions is interesting, and defended Elizabeth Warren.

He also wrote the article "Beto O’Rourke frequently voted for Republican legislation, analysis reveals" that was linked off the above article and was circulated heavily on social media back in December.

In it Sirota touted a report by Capital and Main, a "non-profit news organization," that analyzed Beto's voting record and showed that he voted against his Democratic peers nearly 170 times. What Sirota didn't quite mention in his Guardian article was that he wrote the Capital and Main report.

OG_slinger wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Hopefully they realize they can do better than this guy. Although the one piece the article mentions is interesting, and defended Elizabeth Warren.

He also wrote the article "Beto O’Rourke frequently voted for Republican legislation, analysis reveals" that was linked off the above article and was circulated heavily on social media back in December.

In it Sirota touted a report by Capital and Main, a "non-profit news organization," that analyzed Beto's voting record and showed that he voted against his Democratic peers nearly 170 times. What Sirota didn't quite mention in his Guardian article was that he wrote the Capital and Main report.

Sorry, I should have quoted the part of the Atlantic article directly:

Among the few people in the 2020 conversation whom he has said positive things about: Jay Inslee and Bill de Blasio. Both have appeared on his podcast.

The Atlantic article mentioned that piece where Sirota defends Warren, but doesn't mention that defense when listing people he's said positive things about. I know they can't list everyone Sirota has said anything about, but just seemed like a significant oversight considering they talked about that particular piece and Warren's high profile and being closer to Bernie's 'lane' than a lot of the other candidates.

Zona wrote:

The Jobs report one reads as positive to me, and all the rest seem to have a positive framing. Of course, it's a smaller sample size since 90% of his work from the period seems to exist to attack Hillary.

I'd disagree on the positivity. The unemployment one is more like 'even a stopped clock is right twice a day' piece; it reads: "it may have seemed like another unsubstantiated outburst from a famously loose-with-the-facts candidate."

I didn't read all the anti-Hillary ones, but clicked on two of the more hostile headlines (LINK 1; LINK 2) and they don't seem any more negatively framed than the Trump ones.

My reading of him at the time, and after a quick refresher, is that most of his output during the general was articles that negatively framed Hillary, but I concede it could be a case of him eating crackers. However...

I really think that's secondary to him possibly being secretly hired while attacking current opponents and only officially announcing that he was hired after having the Atlantic find out about it. It means it's possible his attacks on Beto for instance where coordinated with the campaign that made a pledge to not go negative. Whos payroll he was on, without disclosure.

Yeah, like I said, disappointing and I think they can do better. Especially like you say, with the "is-he-or-isn't-he" a journalist or part of the campaign.

More Sanders hiring news: Bernie Sanders Is Hiring a Former Hillary Clinton Staffer As Research Chief

Tyson Brody, Clinton’s deputy research director during the last election cycle, will direct Sanders’s research operation, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir confirmed to Intelligencer on Wednesday. Brody, who worked on Clinton’s self-research as well as the Sanders oppo files last cycle, is the first Democrat to go from Clinton’s camp to Sanders’s 2020 campaign after their bitter primary fight.

2020 Dems Keep Their Distance From Pro-Israel AIPAC Conference

Leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates said Thursday that they wouldn’t be involved in a major pro-Israel conference over the weekend — a victory for progressive activists and a fresh sign of the party’s frustration with the U.S. ally’s hard-right drift.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) “has no plans to attend the [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] conference,” Josh Orton, his policy director, told HuffPost in an email.

“He’s concerned about the platform AIPAC is providing for leaders who have expressed bigotry and oppose a two-state solution,” Orton continued, using an acronym for the group, which helps guide millions of dollars in political donations from supporters of Israel and has made its annual gathering a marquee Washington event.

Journalist Peter Beinart had earlier revealed that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would not attend. An aide to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) told Politico she would play no role in the conference, either.

Former Housing Secretary Julián Castro also does not plan to attend, his deputy press secretary Sawyer Hackett said via email.

And Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman, will not be there, his senior adviser Rob Friedlander wrote in an email. Neither aide responded to a follow-up query about the reason for their respective candidates’ decisions.

Representatives for other top Democratic presidential candidates ― including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) ― did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.

Pete Buttigieg, the increasingly prominent mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said last week that he would not attend the conference.

On Wednesday, the advocacy group MoveOn revealed that 74 percent of its millions of members want progressives seeking the Democratic presidential nomination to skip the AIPAC confab.

Jonman wrote:

I think a lot of the reason that so many Americans can get away with being apolitical is down to the Electoral College. The structure of electoral politics in this country dis-incentivizes participation.

To whit, as a Seattlite, there's little point in my personally voting in state or federal elections. This area is overwhelmingly Democratic, and my one vote for (or against) that majority ain't moving the needle.

Completely agree. I live in Georgia, and I might as well throw my ballot in the trashcan, because there is no way my vote is going to make a difference in this ultra-red state. Still, I went and voted last November (it was my first time, and I was very excited, despite knowing it was futile), and will vote again in 2020. But judging by the flags, trucks, and license plates I see here, it won't make a difference. The Electoral College has to go.

Wait, you think the electoral college makes voting in state elections pointless?

We are so f*cked if people that seem to be engaged thinks voting for president is the only vote that matters.

No, I don't, but as far as Georgia goes, it seems to be pretty much all Republicans all the time, regardless of whether it is state or presidential election. But I will continue to vote in both, because it is the only way things can change. That said, the Electoral College has to go.

Jayhawker wrote:

Wait, you think the electoral college makes voting in state elections pointless?

Good catch. That was poor phrasing on my part. I was thinking about my state's Congressional Representatives and only typed the first of those three words.

… You literally just had a gubernatorial election that was decided by 54,723 votes. It was 50.2% to 49.8%, and the D candidate very possibly would have won without the shenanigans of running against the guy in charge of the election. GA is primed to become a swing state, if anything your vote is becoming increasingly important.

Mario_Alba wrote:

No, I don't, but as far as Georgia goes, it seems to be pretty much all Republicans all the time, regardless of whether it is state or presidential election. But I will continue to vote in both, because it is the only way things can change. That said, the Electoral College has to go.

Good reason for that, too! The Republicans steal elections there.

Zona wrote:

… You literally just had a gubernatorial election that was decided by 54,723 votes. It was 50.2% to 49.8%, and the D candidate very possibly would have won without the shenanigans of running against the guy in charge of the election. GA is primed to become a swing state, if anything your vote is becoming increasingly important.

You're right. Even though my point about Georgia in general is still valid, I should have said Fannin County (where I live) instead, which is what I had in mind. Here, Brian "Vote Suppressor" Kemp got 9292 votes, and Stacy Abrams got 1806. All that said, I will continue to vote regardless of the shenanigans of the people in charge, and will continue to hope for a change.

So I’m officially depressed about the 2020 election based on what I’m reading on Facebook. My conservative friends are all in on how the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt and proof that the government hates conservatives. Worse yet, a lot of my independent friends have shifted from “I won’t vote for him if he’s a criminal” to “well looks like he’s just an asshole but the economy is rocking. So I’ll just vote my personal interests.”

I really don’t see a way forward unless the economy crashes or the Democrats run someone with the charisma of a new JFK.

I feel like the economy isn't rocking for most people.

Silver Linings, I guess?

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I feel like the economy isn't rocking for most people.

Silver Linings, I guess?

Good thing the Republicans disenfranchised most of those voters anyway so they won't really matter even more now.. The white folks? Well they have shown time and time again that some scary images on Fox News will keep them voting against their best interests over and over again.

jdzappa wrote:

So I’m officially depressed about ______________ based on what I’m reading on Facebook.

Please, jdzappa -- just.. just don't do this. For your own mental health. It's going to happen every time, about any subject.

TheGameguru wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I feel like the economy isn't rocking for most people.

Silver Linings, I guess?

Good thing the Republicans disenfranchised most of those voters anyway so they won't really matter even more now.. The white folks? Well they have shown time and time again that some scary images on Fox News will keep them voting against their best interests over and over again.

There's a time when I would have dug into the demographics of this, and would have had something to say about the conservative movement since (at least the time of) Reagan actually *was* offering these voters something in their best interest when he offered European Catholics the chance to become white, but...I'm old. Whatever it is, it is, and I don't have much ability to change it, so. Besides, I'm not even sure you're looking for a response from me which is cool, I get it--even just self-expression for its own sake is important.

edit: ya know, I might be able to engage with this without even digging into anything deeper than what I know off the top of my head about the 2016 vs. 2018 elections. Obviously the 2016 elections were terrible. The 2018 elections, though, were incredible. The Senate should have been a disaster for Democrats, the House (with a couple of exceptions) is still gerrymandered from 2010 as are a lot of the state races. Elections have been *really bad* for Democrats since 2010.

Yet the Democrats had major successes in 2018. They did so in spite of everything you're talking (and correct) about--it's not a case where, like, the Republicans forgot to be evil for one election or something and forgot to activate all their suppressive measures. White people didn't forget to vote in 2018 for some strange reason. So as bad as things are, there's still hope.

So while a bad economy won't have the effect it should have in swinging things away from the Republicans, that doesn't me it won't have *any* effect, and elections are clearly not out of reach yet looking at what happened in 2018.

The economy is always a strange thing for me to grapple with. I know for the long term good of the many, the economy taking a small dive on Trump's watch is the best thing. For me...not so much.