Tendo City

Turnout was way up in some of the strongest pro-Biden states Tuesday. People want Trump gone...

Paul said Biden, despite his recent string of victories, has revealed himself to be an unsteady public speaker and weak debater.Biden at a Monday rally in Dallas struggled to remember the opening of the Declaration of Independence and almost urged his voters to turn out on “Super Thursday” before quickly correcting himself.“Have you ever seen a national candidate or nominee stumble over so many words and putting sentences together? I think he’s really struggling. I think Trump will make mincemeat of him in a debate,” Paul said.

(6th March 2020, 9:53 AM)A Black Falcon Wrote: [ -> ]https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4860...as-setback

There's no getting around it, Sanders is almost certainly going to lose this.  That hail mary with the entire establishment backing Biden after the South Carolina win really turned it around for him in a big way.  It's almost certainly that and that alone that did it too, because poll after poll is now showing that all the people that voted for Biden prefer Sander's policies.  That is extremely confusing to people like you and me who know more about the two, but there it is.  As near as I can tell, they must think that Sander's policies are the party's policies and the only purpose behind picking a candidate is who is going to be the face of those policies.  They're in for a rude awakening.

Meanwhile, two more things are happening.  Firstly, Sanders posted a point by point proposal for what needs to happen to help us during this pandemic, while Biden is, frankly, hiding.  Trump, for his part, seems to be doing all the things on that proposal, with undeserved bonuses added for big businesses.  That's disgusting- but frankly the imporatant thing right now are the benefits to the working class.  Right now, my family is in major trouble and it's only getting worse.  We NEED this, right now, and so that's why I am furious at the democratic leadership for actually opposing the whitehouse's plan.  Look, the impossible happened, the republicans have gone socialist.  However, right now the democrats are RIGHT of the republicans on this issue.  They're the regressive ones right now, they're the ones in the way of what needs to happen.  It's revolting, but Trump is the broken clock right now, and this is one of the rare times he's right.  Is he actually doing it because he's compassionate?  HA! Of course not, this is desperation pure and simple, but as I've always said, it's the policies that matter.

And right now, Trump is winning on policy.  Here's the thing.  If the democrats keep standing in the way of proposals (ripped straight from Sanders) that are actually going to help people right now, Biden won't just lose, it'll be a landslide.  They're setting themselves up to lose the election.

The kind of money Trump's people are talking about -- a few thousand dollars per person total, yes? -- won't save many people if this disaster drags on like it is likely to. What people need are regular payments that keep coming in for as long as they aren't getting paid, so that they can pay their rent/mortgage, buy food, etc. Two $1200 payments would be nice, but again won't save people for long; this disaster, the likely thousands of dead to come, and the economic chaos that follows, will be a long-term issue. Trump has no plan to deal with that because he has no plans, and whatever he comes up with will be wildly inadaquate for lower or middle class Americans, because Trump doesn't care about them.

And nobody should be allowed to forget that this disaster is largely of Trump's making as he has ensured that over the next week or two things will get very bad here in a way they did not in any way need to -- compare South Korea to where we will be soon. We could have prepared, done the things needed to have a much better outcome, etc... but we didn't. Some governors did, thankfully, but the federal response has been the disastrous failure expected from this most horribly incompetent of "President"s.

I agree that the Democrats are not doing great on messaging right now though, that is true. I hope that they improve significantly, soon, both with details of a plan, and with criticism of Trump's corporate giveaways and such which are central to his plan. (No, the Republicans are not socialists now!) People certainly need money, I quite agree on that. A lot of people are suffering and badly need help all of a sudden. We (the Democrats, and the American people who are not the very rich) need to get the best deal we can, and I'm sure Pelosi will do a good job of that like usual.

As for Biden, he has said that he needs to come up with a way to communicate with America, and that he should have a tech solution for that soon. I hope he does, he needs to be providing leadership in this time when the "President" is a complete fool, a man unable to understand his job and only barely capable of pretending to be the president he is not, while causing chaos and mass suffering through his indifference and lies. What Trump did not realize in January and February was that lying about this virus won't make it go away, it will make the oncoming disaster worse. Oh, Biden's last few speeches have been quite good, he's sounding Presidential and hasn't had the gaffes he did earlier. We need more of that.


As for Bernie, post-mortems of his campaign really show how his "you're with me or against me" and "I hate the Democratic Party!" attitudes doomed him; you don't with by not trying to get people to support you and by treating everyone who doesn't just come to your side as your enemy. As you say, Bernie has some popular policies, but such a "my way or the highway" messenger, so unwilling to go put the work in to get support from people who aren't his natural supporters and so distrustful of the party he wants to represent, thankfully melted down before he became a disastrously bad nominee and not after.

Because seriously, "I will win by hoping that the rest of the party never unifies behind one person while not giving an inch on anything, 30% of the vote is all I need!" was never a very good electoral strategy.


(By the way, when Maine voted on Super Tuesday only a few weeks ago but what feels like a thousand years ago, I stuck with it and voted for Warren. I like Biden well enough and think he'll be the better general election candidate, but I decided to vote for the best candidate anyway, because it was the right thing to do. She got some delegates in this state, so I wasn't the only one.)

What can I say except that Trump did the selfish thing in the end and changed his mind.  Now he wants to kill the poor to save wallstreet.  Take lives, which actually exist, to protect money, which is imaginary, useful but imaginary.

Horrible, and frankly Biden seems to have been shifting towards NOT blaming Trump for this and talking about how we need to protect the economy, taking on recent republican talking points.  His veering to the right has begun, and it's disgusting.  Meanwhile, support for universal healthcare has jumped up to 55%, probably because of record breaking joblessness.  The current system is immoral and unsustainable.  It MUST change.  Now.  Right now.  There is no alternative at all.

There are some very good ads from Biden's team taking Trump to task for his failure to act. Powerful stuff. Biden himself isn't attacking Trump for it much so far, that is true, but he has no political power right now, he's not in office. Waiting to see what happens as we get closer to the election seems reasonable, what can he really do?

As for the health care system it certainly needs a whole lot of change, and I hope that change comes, but I doubt that this will lead to a majority of the American people turning against for-profit healthcare... though we'll see, who knows I guess it's vaguely possible. Biden would surely sign whatever liberal health care bill the House and Senate passed, after all. A lot depends on if we can win back the Senate...

I guess I'm voting for the guy who raped the least people.  The guy who supported segregation.  The guy who has said even if universal healthcare PASSED congress, he'd veto it.

How exciting...

We're all going to die.

Well, there is one set of strange poll results. For some reason, it seems the vast majority of Biden votes think that Biden holds all of Bernie's platform positions. Seriously, they think he's FOR universal healthcare. It appears they are low-information voters who came to believe that whatever the democrats as a whole were talking about on the debate stage are positions held by th entire party.

This explains why so many voted for Biden but support universal healthcare. They didn't know. Biden needs to fundamentally change his positions. We need what we need. Political expedience be damned.

On the Biden story, as I said in its thread, while it could be true it also could not be; there's no proof either way, she has not proven her case like Kavanaugh's accuser, Weinstein's accuser, and others have done. Instead, it has gone like this:

1) refuse legal help, she only wants pr (Me Too will help with pr, but only for people also interested in some kind of legal case, if I have that right)
2) refuse vetting attempts from most of the press, so many don't report on it apart from the left fringe (this includes things like refusing to tell other press the name of the friend she says she told back in the early '90s, etc.)
3) complain that they aren't repeating your story unconfirmed (while this is merely good journalism, certainly report the story if you can confirm it, but not otherwise...)
4) the story festers
5) regardless of intent, the end result is it helps Trump in November by depressing some on the farther left

Even so, I certainly wish that we could have a younger and less troubling candidate (since Biden has issues with his actions around women, obviously, regardless of this claim; again this is part of why I didn't vote for him in the primary), but he is consistently the one who gives us the best chance to win in polling and that's the most important thing, so if things continue in the direction they are I'm quite looking forward to November.

Biden also can be a moving speaker when he wants to be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWn1CkIU_rc
(this is from this year)

This pandemic puts us in an interesting situation.  There's a strong possibility that at this point, Biden could actually win against Trump.  Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying Biden's uniquelly qualified to do so, just that right now there's a good chance literally any candidate the dems put up could win.  That's good, but I'm still in the bad position of being forced to explain why I'm actually voting for him, and frankly be glad I'm NOT calling people because I can't in all honesty actually explain what makes Biden good, only what makes Trump worse.

How about this then: The way Biden works so well with other politicians, skills he learned from his decades as a Senator, may be incredibly frustrating to us, but it also means that he could potentially get a whole lot done when in office. There is a lot to do, and if anyone's going to get things through congress, someone with so much skill and experience at working with them is the one to do it.

That said, winning back the Senate is pretty much required for that to happen, so we REALLY need to win those Senate races...

He works "well" does he?  That's... not exactly what I've seen.  He rolls over for the right and big business, that's what I've seen.  No, I can't honestly say I believe that.

And then whatever political ad group put together this latest ad for Biden is sickening.  They're stirring up racist sentiment towards the Chinese (and as an extension all Asian Americans) in an effort to slam Trump.  Yes, Trump's response has been... well he hasn't really DONE anything at all, but hearing "China" over and over again like that, blaming China in the same breath as Trump, they're HURTING people with that ad.  They need to take it down.

Also here's a brutal truth. There's a good reason everyone's so concerned about Biden's VP pick. At some point, he's just no longer going to be mentally capable of doing anything in office. He's already effectively a rubber stamp for the DNC's agenda, and he's only going to get worse.

I wish this mythical all-powerful DNC that the leftist/Sanders wing thinks exists actually did exist, that might be nice. But it doesn't. Democrats rarely fall in line like Republicans do, and while this certainly has a good side to it, it means that there is no "DNC agenda" for him to just rubber-stamp; yes, the party agreed he was the best candidate, but that was because the VOTERS (in South Carolina) picked him. Biden was not elected by the DNC, I don't know if they would actually have picked him. He was chosen by the voters. And his platform reflects how the party has changed since the Obama-Biden presidency, as his platform is, again, far to the left of the one Obama ran on back then. Sure, it's not as liberal as I would like, but it's a good start and surely will move more to the left in some regards as we go forward. How we do in the Senate races is, again, going to be absolutely key for how much we can accomplish, of course.

But anyway, Biden works well with others, understands how Congress works better than most anyone, and is well liked by most people there. We saw this, for example, in Sanders' choice to leave the race so "soon" compared to 2016. Why did Bernie leave in April this time, but take it all the way to the convention last time? Well, COVID is one part of the answer, he cant have his big rallies. That he did far worse than last time is part of the answer, he wasn't winning states and was losing or getting blown out in places he won before. That his opponent was male and not female is maybe part of the answer, I doubt it's a coincidence that the two people Bernie and his people seem to most not get along with are women, Hillary and Warren. But number one on the list is probably that Biden and Sanders get along and like eachother. So, Bernie's got less incentive to push this, since this time he likes his opponent. Biden is very good at building teams and building support within the Democratic Party. Yes, when he thinks he can get Republicans on his side and starts to give up too much, like Obama did repeatedly, it'll be incredibly frustrating and I will complain about it for certain, but still there is a lot more positive here than negative.

Oh yeah, and the tagline on that Warren endorsement video? That should sell every non-Trump-cultist person in this country on the Biden administration. Watch that video if you haven't, her endorsement video is really good. "Joe Biden will lead a government", it says on the screen before you click to start it playing. That sure would be great right about now. How about we try having a government, instead of a criminal gang? The tens of thousands of people Trump is killing would have liked that, I think, whether they know it or not.

Quote: Also here's a brutal truth. There's a good reason everyone's so concerned about Biden's VP pick. At some point, he's just no longer going to be mentally capable of doing anything in office. He's already effectively a rubber stamp for the DNC's agenda, and he's only going to get worse.

That's not a truth for the reason you are suggesting. There is no actual reason to believe that Biden has "mental decline". He's just old and has a stutter that seems to be acting up worse than when he was younger. But he IS old, that's for sure, quite old. So sure, the choice of VP is quite important -- maybe he won't make it through a term, you never know. And even if he does, will he run for re-election, at age 82? There is certainly no guarantee of that, and there are hints from the campaign that he may not. And his VP would be in prime position to run instead, if that happened. So yes, his choice of VP matters and I hope it's a good one. I'm not sure who the best one would be as far as electoral strategy does, but if he does pick Harris like the rumors have been for like a year now, that's a good choice, I wanted her to be President last year after all.

No, that doesn't sell me at all.  You don't believe the DNC are in the pocket of big business?  You're deluding yourself.  Both parties are.  The DNC is not exempt from corruption.  Heck, not even the leftists are apparently.  Literally the only possible reason in the multiverse to object to universal heathcare is if you are trying to make health insurance companies more money.  That's the only one.

No, Warren's video is just empty words.  It does nothing to convince me that Biden has any sort of concrete plan.  Lead us where?  To do WHAT?  Even your own words ring hollow without a concrete plan.  I'll say that about Sander's endorsement as well.  Neither one is very satisfactory.

I'm voting for him purely because he's less bad than Trump, but I'm under no illusion that he's going to bring about hope and change.  Heck, has he even promised that on day one he's going to shut down those concentration camps?  Is that on Biden's agenda, or is it going to be like when Obama failed to shut down Guantanamo?  Obama was a fake progressive, and Biden's not even that.

Oh and Biden picked the worst possible candidate for his economic adviser and needs to immediately reverse course on that decision.  Right now.

I'd like Biden to drop Larry Summers too, the guy is horribly racist and sexist and should not be given such a prominent voice anymore, but I don't know that calling him "Biden's economic advisor" is accurate; he is AN economic advisor, one of several. He's taking economic advice from Warren as well, among others.

Quote: No, that doesn't sell me at all. You don't believe the DNC are in the pocket of big business? You're deluding yourself. Both parties are. The DNC is not exempt from corruption. Heck, not even the leftists are apparently. Literally the only possible reason in the multiverse to object to universal heathcare is if you are trying to make health insurance companies more money. That's the only one.

The other one is that while universal health care is a good goal, we can't go there in one step. And a good, achievable next step that gets us closer to that goal is adding a public option to the ACA.

I know that Trump and his Republican Party are despicably awful, but seeing the depths of it now, that they are literally calling for, and doing their best to cause, tens of thousands of Americans more to die for no reason just because they want slightly better economic numbers, is honestly kind of shocking. It is shining a very, very bright light on just how horrible an idea "electing" this man as President was. We need an actual President now, not in next January! That is a long time away... but at least that hope is better than nothing, and Biden's chances of winning go up every time Trump says some new delusional and/or uncaringly cruel statement.

What is the Republican Party now, some death cult? They're just insane. "Die for the economy! Reopen now! Better dead than wearing Democrat face masks!" Etc. I know other countries have protests, and we've had them before, but seeing the nation's top leadership LEAD that kind of delusionally suicidal protest is different from anything before, I think...

I am voting for Biden all the way. I hate Trump.

If we can get enough Republican defectors, or simply stop participating, we can make it happen. Trump is having a shit week, and just deployed military troops to rioting zones, but he always manages to weasel his way out of whatever crisis he's in. His strategy will be to depress the Democrat turn-out enough to get re-elected. And honestly, that's how he managed to squeak by a victory in 2016. His slavish, slobbering, spineless base will follow him to hell and back. He's covered there, just needs to focus on smearing Biden.

Is it November yet? This year feels like thirty years long already...

(2nd June 2020, 5:28 AM)Sacred Jellybean Wrote: [ -> ]If we can get enough Republican defectors, or simply stop participating, we can make it happen. Trump is having a shit week, and just deployed military troops to rioting zones, but he always manages to weasel his way out of whatever crisis he's in. His strategy will be to depress the Democrat turn-out enough to get re-elected. And honestly, that's how he managed to squeak by a victory in 2016. His slavish, slobbering, spineless base will follow him to hell and back. He's covered there, just needs to focus on smearing Biden.

Fortunately, if you look at polling, Biden is way ahead of where Hillary was at this same point in 2016. It's not even close. Now, I'm sure things will narrow at some point later this year, but right now things are very good for Biden in the polls. I just hope people can remember this feeling in November when they vote, nothing of note will change unless we win.

To be clear, friends, I would still support a GOP presidency if it were, say, someone sane, competent and experienced... Like say Romney, the late and great McCain... I voted for the 3rd party candidate in 16 and I am very glad I did so. I am 100% behind Biden now let ne tell you. We desperately need a return to normalcy by someone who knows what they are doing, and who does not suck off Putin behind closed doors. Trump has been by FAAAR the worst president of my lifetime, and perhaps even in US history. He's a mean, bitter and highly partisan oaf who lacks any grace, tact or decorum.

If the election happened right now, Biden would blow Trump out. The problem is that independent voters have a short-term memory (or are quick to forgive Trump; every time his approval rating drops to the lower 40s, it eventually rises back up to the upper 40s arbitrarily). We still have around five months until the election, and it's going to be a long five months. Biden's lead right now is not insignificant, but in the swing states, which are what really matter, he leads by a razor thin margin (and is even trailing Trump in Pennsylvania). He is leading ever so slightly in Florida, which is significant, but again, anything and everything can change in the next five months. I feel like if the 2016 October surprise, the Access Hollywood video, had been released in the first week of November instead, it might have ended all hope for Trump. Instead, time passed, people who were once enraged stopped caring, and Comey reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton, which may have cost her in terms of voter enthusiasm and by extension turnout, particularly in the swing states.

I hate that the electoral college could very well cost us another election. Trump's base is very empowered, unswayed by reason, evidence, logic, or decency, and they have great influence in the rust belt.

Also, hi, haven't posted here in almost eight years.

Our only hope is that people now realize how terrible Trump is, liberals don't turn their noses up at the Dem candidate, and those in the swing states don't irrationally hate Biden the same way they did Hillary. Obama was a popular president, and if Biden can drum up enthusiasm from that time, I think he'll be able to get by.

That's hugely disappointing to hear about Pennsylvania. Goddamn Pennsytucky is like the middle-america of our state.

It's sad because I feel like Biden would have won in 2016, but he was mourning the loss of his son at the time and couldn't handle the emotional burden of a presidential campaign. Biden memes were all the rage in 2016, and as sad as it is to say that memes have such a profound impact on our political discourse, I really think he was becoming quite popular during this time. Recently, though, more people on the left have turned on him, similar to what happened to Hillary Clinton four years ago. This is largely because of the Bernie Bros, and I say this as somebody who voted for Sanders in the primaries in both 2016 and 2020. We also can't afford low turnout again. Republicans thrive when voter morale, and by extension turnout, is low.

If enough centrists wake up and vote, we will see Biden prevail.

I fear though---seriously---that whoever wins, the other side will protest/rally/riot... if Trump does prevail, you KNOW you will see rioting just like we see today... if Biden prevails, I fear Trump will say it's a conspiracy and file legal challenges, Tweet every day, undermining our already crumbling democracy...

I think people realize that Trump doesn't go away until people actually vote.
As for Pennsylvania, one recent poll did show Trump ahead there, but I doubt it will hold up, Biden was ahead in all the polls before that. Biden is from Pennsylvania and I don't think he will lose it.

The U.S is almost in a cold war with itself along political lines, American conservatives and liberals hate each other to such a massive degree that it’s threatening the integrity of your democracy.  Canada has five parties, Israel has 12-15 parties, America has a solid unbreakable duopoly ?

If Trump loses in 2020, the party of Lincoln needs to be taken back from the far right and reformed, otherwise every election you have a 50/50 chance of electing another Bush or Trump, you’ll continually be trapped in a cycle of voting for candidates you dislike just for the sake of denying victory to a greater evil.

There are times I sometimes think that the left-right binary only exists within the Democratic Party. Outside of that, you have the politically un-engaged and you have the Republican Party, which has completed its transformation from one of America's two rational parties to a neo-Confederate cabal which is, and has always been, the enemy of liberal, democratic values, going all the way back to the southern Founding Fathers, many of who participated in the Revolution for the sole purpose of establishing for themselves the 'freedom' to turn the southern colonies into a totalitarian slave federation comprised of semi-independent fiefdoms which would only ever extend democracy to a handful of like-minded wealthy planter aristocrats. All the conservatives are Democrats now. Republicans only tolerate ideological reactionary politics now.

Trump is the worst thing that has happened to this county in a century.

I'd really like ranked choice voting in this country. I've always hated political parties in general, and I especially hate being limited to two choices, wherein one choice is terrible but has a very loyal base of idiots and the other choice is mediocre and whose greatest appeal is not being the other guy. I genuinely want this country to move forward economically, scientifically, and socially. We need real reform in healthcare, justice, education, and sustainable energy, but our choices are the status quo or regression.

And that's another thing: we don't even really have a progressive party. (For all the talk about Obama being a socialist that we heard for eight years, let's be real: Obama was capitalist af. How exactly was he a socialist? Because he subsidized our purchase of private sector, for-profit health insurance?) The commonly held misconception is that Democrats are progressives who want to change everything and Republicans are conservatives who want to keep everything the way it is. In actuality, Democrats are conservatives who want to keep everything the way it is and Republicans (the modern variety, anyway--Trump and his ilk) are regressives who just want to make everything worse ("lolol take that libtard snowflakes!").

With ranked choice voting and the abolition of the electoral college, independents and third party candidates would have a real chance of winning elections, and ideally, we could vote for the best candidate every four years instead of the less awful one. But now I'm living in an alternate reality...

100% with you on ranked choice voting. Our democracy has become dysfunctional, in dire need of reform. We can't afford to stay in a binary choice. More political parties means more need to compromise. It cannot be one party vs the other in a zero-sum game. That's what allows a scumbag like Mitch McConnell to exploit the system to further the agenda of one party. In times of egregious division of a binary choice, you have Republicans having to accept alt-right nut jobs, and far leftists having to settle for a corporatist, war mongering party.

We cannot get rid of electoral college without having something to replace it. Frustrating as it is, eliminating it would ensure power and representation to be confined to populous cities. If we were to throw it out, it would only be fair to scale back the role of federal government and empower states to mostly govern themselves. Otherwise, flyover states are at the mercy of LA, New York City, Chicago, etc. Is that fair? Rural areas are much different, and setting rules for them based on big cities seems like an awful idea. I'm not well-versed in history, but I feel like there must be some precedent for poor, rural areas being oppressed by rich, big cities.

I know that right now, we're all at the mercy of swing states. That's obviously problematic, but it just seems like getting rid of electoral college would, on the whole, make things worse.

If the president is elected by a straight national popular vote, then every single vote counts equally. It means that right wingers in LA get a voice they don't have, and both left wingers in Louisiana get a voice they don't have. Candidates won't be able to appeal just to big cities, because even if cities lean one way politically, they are no longer absolute blocs that will deliver whole states to them by default. This would empower minority voices in both environments (by which I mean country libs and city cons), and they will be more willing to vote, knowing that their vote actually counts for something. 

Rural areas still get a voice through Congress, in fact, an outsized voice as things stand. The executive is only one branch of government. 

Right now, 35-40 states get absolutely no say at all in presidential elections, which means that a relatively tiny minority of voters can ever cast a meaningful vote for president. It's hard to imagine any alternative not being a substantial improvement over this nonsense. 

It's also worth noting that there were more than 30 parties in 1932 Germany, which let one of those parties gain control with 30 percent of the vote. In 1934 Germany, there was only one party.

I'd like to see mutiple political parties. I think the only way ti could ever come to pass would be for a complete meltdown of society. We're almost there now. Neither party, of the binary two, speaks for me anymore. I think so many people are disenfranchised at this point that a centrist, moderate middle party, borrowing of sensible people from both sides (McCains and Romneys for example) might have a chance to claim the entire middle of the country, people like me who hate Trump but also hate in-your-face liberals who are trying to rebrand the country from what it's always been.

What has this country always been?

(10th June 2020, 6:32 AM)Sacred Jellybean Wrote: [ -> ]100% with you on ranked choice voting. Our democracy has become dysfunctional, in dire need of reform. We can't afford to stay in a binary choice. More political parties means more need to compromise. It cannot be one party vs the other in a zero-sum game. That's what allows a scumbag like Mitch McConnell to exploit the system to further the agenda of one party. In times of egregious division of a binary choice, you have Republicans having to accept alt-right nut jobs, and far leftists having to settle for a corporatist, war mongering party.

We cannot get rid of electoral college without having something to replace it. Frustrating as it is, eliminating it would ensure power and representation to be confined to populous cities. If we were to throw it out, it would only be fair to scale back the role of federal government and empower states to mostly govern themselves. Otherwise, flyover states are at the mercy of LA, New York City, Chicago, etc. Is that fair? Rural areas are much different, and setting rules for them based on big cities seems like an awful idea. I'm not well-versed in history, but I feel like there must be some precedent for poor, rural areas being oppressed by rich, big cities.

I know that right now, we're all at the mercy of swing states. That's obviously problematic, but it just seems like getting rid of electoral college would, on the whole, make things worse.

I'd be fine with downplaying the role of the federal government in some avenues of life in favor of more state and local governing to an extent so long as human rights are not infringed upon. Growing up in the south, I've heard all my life that the Civil War was fought over states' rights, but a quick look at primary sources will show you that the presevation of slavery did, in fact, have everything to do with the southern states seceding, with the argument of states' rights being an excuse to infringe upon human rights. That is where I think having a federal government that supercedes state and local governments can be useful. Slavery isn't okay anywhere. Likewise, LGBTQ+ discrimination is wrong in every county and every jurisdiction regardless of what the local populace thinks about civil rights for certain demographics.

That said, while I don't think the metropolises should necessarily dictate the everyday way of life for rural Wyoming (redundant, I know), I find it even more unfair that a state mostly comprised of tumbleweeds should have more sway in deciding who the next president is than a state such as California whose population is greater than all of Canada's. I don't think someone's vote should have any more or less of an impact on the outcome of an election just because of how big their yard is, how many (or how few) neighbors they have, and what side of an arbitrarily drawn border from the eighteenth or nineteenth century they live on.

One of the problems with the electoral college is that a candidate only needs to win a tiny majority of a state to get all of its electoral votes. You win 51% of Ohio, you get all of its electoral votes. The other 49% thus gets ignored in the grand scheme of things, even if that 49% contributes to a larger popular vote victory for the losing candidate (as we saw in 2016). I think Maine and Nebraska are the only states that split electoral votes.

(10th June 2020, 3:18 PM)Weltall Wrote: [ -> ]If the president is elected by a straight national popular vote, then every single vote counts equally. It means that right wingers in LA get a voice they don't have, and both left wingers in Louisiana get a voice they don't have. Candidates won't be able to appeal just to big cities, because even if cities lean one way politically, they are no longer absolute blocs that will deliver whole states to them by default. This would empower minority voices in both environments (by which I mean country libs and city cons), and they will be more willing to vote, knowing that their vote actually counts for something. 

Rural areas still get a voice through Congress, in fact, an outsized voice as things stand. The executive is only one branch of government. 

Right now, 35-40 states get absolutely no say at all in presidential elections, which means that a relatively tiny minority of voters can ever cast a meaningful vote for president. It's hard to imagine any alternative not being a substantial improvement over this nonsense. 

It's also worth noting that there were more than 30 parties in 1932 Germany, which let one of those parties gain control with 30 percent of the vote. In 1934 Germany, there was only one party.

‌Precisely. A lot of people who don't live in swing states are demotivated by the fact that their votes don't count for anything at all (and though I vote regularly, I am one such person whose vote doesn't have any power to influence a presidential election).

And yes, having too many parties poses the problem that a less than desirable party (like the Nazi party) can win an election with a plurality of the vote, but not a majority, on account of the majority being split between other, more rational choices. That's why I support ranked choice voting. We've seen elections even in our own history in which the least popular candidate won because there was a legitimate third party challenge (most notably in 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt challenged incumbent William Taft, allowing Woodrow Wilson to squeak into the White House). That's why I support ranked choice voting if we go the "more than two choices" route. That way, candidates who have the most broad appeal have the best chance of winning even when they aren't everyone's first choice.

But that's not the system we have, and in the system we do have, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of voting in primary elections. Anyone who doesn't vote in the primaries relinquishes the right to complain that our final two choices are both bad.

Things are proceeding apace.  The good news is the "bottom up" strategy of replacing democrat representatives with progressives is working in a slow but steady way.  Good.  Biden is hiding from the public while Trump self destructs.  That's literally the best strategy he has to employ since there's nothing interesting he's actually promising as a candidate, but Trump is such a terrible president that it's working and well.  The vote really does seem to be comng down to "not trump".  Of course you know which candidate I prefer, the one that actually promises some real change instead of the entirely unsatisfactory "the way things were before Trump" and the disgusting "I will veto a universal healthcare" (paraphrasing) commitment he's made.

Hillary gets to live with the embarrassment of losing to Trump of all people, but Trump is going to have to live with the embarrasement of losing to Biden!  I think that's the worse shame, and I can't wait for it.

Biden is promising a lot as a president, actually -- the most liberal agenda since the New Deal, if it actually becomes law, and with less of the racism that included. That said so far the race definitely is defined by "Trump or Not Trump", but Biden being who he is helps with that tremendously -- someone like Bernie or Warren, who would be so easy to negatively stereotype, would not be in quite as good a position as Biden is. Somehow all negative attacks just slide right off Biden, while that is not true for Trump anymore like it was in 2016. The horrendous disaster that is this year has made it terribly clear to many just how badly we need a President again. It's awful that things had to get this bad for good things to hopefully happen again, but if polling is in any way accurate we will win by a lot in November. I hope it's by even more than that by then, too much for their malfeasance, voter suppression, fake news, Russian interference, etc. to overcome. Trumpism must be crushed thoroughly.

(Yes, I find the assistance of the neocons of the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump somewhat disturbing, because they strongly supported so many horrendous things that Reagan and the Bushes did, and continue to mythologize Reagan particularly in their advertising while he was a horrible President who took major steps towards their party ending up in the Trumpist pit it is in now, and killed a whole lot of people in foreign countries with things such as the Central American death squads he supported, but if their "wasn't Reagan great compared to Trump" advertising can turn some Republicans to actually vote against him I'll take it. Their ads are very well made too, I'm glad to have them on our side. And so far, their support has come with absolutely no policy changes from the Democrats -- they are helping because they hate Trump and what he has done to America, with no demands for the Dems they are supporting. I don't really want the neocons in OUR party in the future any more than most any other Democrat, but for now, at least, they are useful and I won't complain about the support. I definitely won't be giving them any money, though, as much as I like some of their ads.)

The hopeful view of the near future of America is that, as a result the searing experience of 2020, the American people might turn against their 50-year-long "Government is the problem" obsession, and turn back towards wanting this nation to have good governance. It can happen and might.

I am really very suspicious about the disgruntled neocons who want to help. Yes, Trump has to go, and the enemy of our enemy, etc. etc., but what happens after? Do they go back to the Republicans and try to re-assert their power? Or, do they remain allied with the Democrats and, in return for their 'help', start to assert influence over the party platform? The latter is a serious concern, given that centrist Democrats really aren't far from neoconservatives on foreign policy and trade. 

It bears repeating that Donald Trump is not the illness, he's a visible symptom of an illness, which is always going to come back stronger in a few years if Democrats win this election and do not run like hell with the mandate America gives them. The Democrats have the clout and power to start normalizing left-wing politics (which are much closer to centrism than communism by any rational measure). Democrats must take steps to ideologically oppose right wing reactionism and that opposition must be loud, aggressive, and backed by serious action. If we treat 2020 like 2008, and reject fundamental change in favor of continuing the decades-long strategy of letting the right dictate the terms of politics in this country, we will end up with much worse than Donald Trump.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/white-house-se...d=71745265

This is so unbelievably reckless. I'm accustomed to this admin failing and shifting the blame, but now smearing the pandemic expert? While we're still in the middle of the fucking pandemic? Amid the president and governors pushing to re-open, against Fauci's advice, which has already resulted in a spike of cases? That this admin is totally ignoring??

This is literally the most corrupt administration this country has ever seen. We're ruled by thugs, and if we don't eject them from the highest office in the country and leader of the free world, we are completely and totally fucked.

I have to give credit to Biden's team for agreeing to alter their platform and develop plans with progressives.  I didn't expect that Biden was going to even try to appeal to the left, so this is a pleasent surprise.

Now, the healthcare stuff is rather token and underwhelming, but the "save the planet" stuff is very nice.  I hate that apparently behind the scenes Bernie's team has been unable to budge Biden on certain realities about what needs to be done to change policing in this country, but ONE solid platform means I can actually get (cautiously) excited about Biden rather than JUST voting "not Trump".

I'll concede this point.  Biden at long last has a policy I can really get excited about.  It's not the full green new deal, but it's definitely progressive.  Now we just need to see if Biden will keep his word.  (For once...)

If Biden's plan is the most progressive since FDR, it's an indictment of American politics going back for decades, that's for sure.

Another good plan pops up.  Good not great, but hey I'll take it.  I still want universal healthcare of course, but right now in this moment I'm more interested in an aggressive police reform bill.  From the guy who spearheaded the overpolicing of the US...

Anyway, Hillary Clinton's endorsement of Bowman's rival in that New York race led to scores of donations... for Bowman.  Trump is also trying to tie Hillary to Biden in his ads.  (He's also, as I predicted, trying to label Biden a socialist.)  The message is clear.  Clinton needs to shut up and bunker down for the next six months.  DO NOT ENDORSE BIDEN HILLARY!  All that will do is hurt him.

Prediction: Biden will die in first term, whover his vice is will be sworn in before 2024.

Darunia, Trump's goons just teargassed a line of pregnant mothers AND the mayor of the city.

This isn't hyperbole any more.  He just literally became a dictator.

Can't it be January already after a big Democratic win in November? Between COVID and Trump being even more of a fascist than he was before as he faces possible defeat, this has been the most "I want it over" ever...

But it was good to see that even most of the Republican Party and their supporters strongly rebuked Trump for his very openly fascistic "we should delay [or cancel] the election" talk. I guess that some of them still believe in some vague shreds of democracy; it's hard to believe given everything they have supported for the past three and a half years, but if it takes him saying "I want to cancel the election unless I will win it" for a few more of them to get that he is a dictator-wannabe I'll take it.

Of course most of them will vote for him anyway in November and he will win a distressingly large number of states and electoral votes even if he loses overall, but every vote we peel away from him is one strike against Trumpist hate and that is a good thing.

It was my birthday today, and while for the most part I didn't do much special, seeing Joe Biden just give a fantastic speech accepting the nomination for President was a pretty nice birthday present, I think. Good job Joe, you did great. Now we just need to resist the fascists trying to destroy America and the postal system and win this. It will be very difficult but we've got to succeed.

Personally I found his speech vapid and lacking substance like most "centrist" speeches, but he nailed the mood of the times pretty well.  Now, lock him in a closet so he doesn't blow it from here to election day.  The only one who can make Trump win at this point is Joe himself.

It was pretty maddening seeing them invite so many disgusting republicans to speak at that thing. I know why they did it, standard "reach across the isle" strategy. Pointless and disingenuous, but hey I do get it, I just hated it. No progressives save the one Bernie invited to speak for the standard nomination thing that happens every convention, but at least a few important things were said. Anyway, as I said before I'm fully focused on toppling incombent neoliberals in favor of replacing them with progressives, and so far that strategy's working. Primary away folks! Heck even Pelosi got in on the action primary supporting a challenger um... Kennedy?! Damn it all, I hate dynasties in US politics. Oh speaking of, don't think I didn't notice a preview of the candidate the dems are going to heavily promote 4 years from now. It looks like Michelle Obama's goign to get her turn. I'll give her this, she'll be a LOT more charismatic than Biden, but if her politics are the same as Obama (and they seem to be) then we're dealing with another centrist for whatever Progressive we try to promote around then. It won't be Bernie, his time's up.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020...ritic-book?

Ah yes, our descent into fascism continues. Now we have the ATTORNEY GENERAL, highest lawyer in the country, pressuring a media outlet to not give unfavorable coverage to the president.

It is IMPERATIVE that we get this guy out of office. I don't think our democracy can last another 4 years. It will only embolden Emperor Trump to keep chipping away at us until we may no longer have elections. I'm so furious and disheartened that no one outside my liberal circle cares about this. Fucking loonie, corrupt, foolish, blind, hateful, cynical, sleazy, lying, cheating, unprincipled, power grabbing Republicans are too far gone to care (and in many cases are even delighted by keeping Trump in office as long as possible), and that's to be expected. But centrists? The (normally) politically apathetic? 3rd party supporters?

They have no excuse. Middle class ignorant folk are sedated by having every comfort a wealthy, 1st world country can provide. They're asleep, and are too lazy and confused by hyper-partisan bickering and media that keeps them stupid to put in any effort to stay informed and politically aware. They've taken freedom and democracy for granted and once they wake up,  once it actually starts impacting their lives and directly inconveniencing them, it'll be too late.

So, the Republican Party just passed their platform for the 2020 campaign.

Essentially, in barely any more words than this, it says "We support Donald Trump and his efforts". There is no platform. Literally none other than that. There is only absolute obedience to their fascist master.

And that is why I am fine with the Democrats inviting so many Republicans to speak at our convention -- their party is not what it was. It is now a Trump cult, and America vs. Trump is a message Biden and the Dems absolutely should be, and are, sending. Any person we can peel away from their cult and get to vote for continuing democracy in this nation is a great and important one.

So I strongly disagree with most of John Kasich's policy positions, for example, but the Dems absolutely did the right thing in allowing him to speak at our convention. It's not just about reaching across the aisle this time like it would be in a normal year. It is about convincing as many people as possible that Trump is an existential thread to democracy in this nation and MUST be defeated if we ant our democracy to continue. Biden and Obama understand this threat, that they both made clear in their convention speeches. And an increasing number of the American people do as well.

Quote:Oh speaking of, don't think I didn't notice a preview of the candidate the dems are going to heavily promote 4 years from now. It looks like Michelle Obama's goign to get her turn. I'll give her this, she'll be a LOT more charismatic than Biden, but if her politics are the same as Obama (and they seem to be) then we're dealing with another centrist for whatever Progressive we try to promote around then. It won't be Bernie, his time's up.

Good question. One answer for this would be Harris. As for Michelle though, I just don't think she wants to run...