I think we know that Bernie is not going to drop out until it is mathematically impossible.
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Democratic Presidential Primaries & Caucuses |March OT| Last Tuesday was 1000 years ago, old news no one cares about (Discussion Guidelines in OP)
- Thread starter Poodlestrike
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I think we know that Bernie is not going to drop out until it is mathematically impossible.
Need my sexual assault to be verified by NYT for it to count, thx
Also anyone saying "the primary is over" unironically when half the states haven't even voted is gaslighting and spreading disinformation. People need to cut it out immediately.
if you can be optimistic after reading the last few years of COP special reports then I truly envy you. I didn't see it.
The primary is over because Bernie needs to win 60% of the remaining delegates and he's behind by 20+ points in polls.
I voted for Sanders. The primary is over. I won't tell Sanders to drop out, but he's not going to win. It would have been nice to see this concern when it was Warren who people were saying couldn't win even though she still could have if she won with the same kind of margins that it will take Sanders winning by to get the nomination.
The primary is not over, as half of the states have not voted. Neither has reached the required delegates. Saying "Biden is leading in the Primary" isn't a lie, but saying it is over when it isn't is the definition of disinformation. It isn't funny.
The primary is not over. If even one person thought the primary was over and didn't vote in their state due to misinformation spread by those who don't want an election to continue, then there is a problem.
I wasn't aware of this until fairly recently, but believe it or not, there are different types of centrism (just like there are different types of leftism and er... rightism? Is that a word?). Well, two types anyway.
If by "centrist" you mean "someone who genuinely believes that the middle-ground/status quo is good in all things, and that we should never veer to the left and the right for that is bad", then that's radical centrism. Centrism out of sheer principle, if you will. I'm not sure why you would mean it in that way, but if that's the case, I would agree with the implied message of your post: you won't find that many of those.
But I gather this is not what most people here mean when they say 'centrist'. They mean something more loose, less ideologically defined. Something that's more akin to either some form of apolitism (i.e. you kinda go with the flow, what seems to be somewhat consensual, and you don't give it too much thought) or a moderate form of liberalism (i.e. you fancy yourself as some sort of progressive, but your progressivism is heavily reigned in by a sense of pragmatism that makes you naturally gravitate towards a quasi-status quo). I don't know if you're from the US (I'm not), but by the metrics of many Western/Global North countries (e.g. Europe, Japan...), that 'moderate liberalism' is exactly the kind of centrism I and many others here refer too. Indeed, by those standards, the type of ideology and policies that most of the Democratic candidates (including Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar...) and a fair number of active* users (more on that in the paragraph below) in these political threads advocate is pretty much centrism. The most obvious example of this is people's opinions on Medicare For All: while it would be thought of as a no-brainer in many countries, even if you're not particularly left-wing, it's somehow the matter of debate here. Sure, people will coat their views with talks of pragmatism - which, again, is a common centrist claim in the first place -, but there's no escaping the sense that, if you're genuinely a progressive, or even simply center-left, you should push for that hard, even knowing that getting that past the Senate will be an uphill battle. That's an example of centrism at play on this forum.
* When I say "active users", I do mean "active users", i.e. people who post. I'll make a broader point, but before everyone dropped out of the race and Biden started winning, there were a number of polls, in this thread and others, where people were asked variations of "who is your favorite candidate". In pretty much all polls, #1 was Sanders by far, followed by Warren, indicating a progressive/left slant of the user base. After all, those are the two left-most candidates (and, if you ask me, as a European, the only two left-wingers, honestly). They weren't small polls either. The number of participants was in the thousands. And sure enough, there was a large sense that posts in the thread talked about unapologetically progressive policies. Yet somehow, the second things started to go sour for Sanders and well for Biden (i.e. between SC and Super Tuesday), the poster composition and nature of the posts in this thread changed wildly. I look at who's been posting for the past few weeks, and the kind of ideas they post, and I'm like "this isn't the same thread anymore". A number of posters, including myself, felt like there was little space for actual progressive/leftist discussion in this thread anymore, which you'd think would be impossible given all the poll data we have. I barely participate in this thread because, overwhelmingly, it seems like what I and others would want to discuss is dismissed as just Bernie Bro-ism and non-pragmatism. Like the new norm in here is to be extremely moderate. A centrist, if you will.
So what's my point, bringing it back to your message? It's this: you cannot possibly look at this thread (and a few other threads, like the one about the rape allegations against Biden) and ask this kind of rhetorical question. "Who here is a centrist?" Er... A ton of people? When you see people getting all up in arms at the mere suggestion that you might not be able to vote for Biden in the GE because he, too, might be a rapist, that's centrism. When people argue that Trump should be out by any means necessary, and that means voting Biden despite the allegations and his dubious record or else you're an asshole, that's centrism. When people go "oh, Bernie was always bad, he was never popular, people just like Biden and they hate Bernie, and you should shut up and vote for Biden or else you're just letting Trump win", that's centrism. No attempt at critiquing what you're being offered, no attempt at moving the needle, everyone should just accept these things because "that's just how it is, be pragmatic; what? He might be a rapist? Bah, who cares, at least he's less of a rapist". That's centrism.
Honestly, a better question would have been: "who here is left-wing/progressive, anyway?" I mean, it should be an absurd question given the deeply progressive roots of the forum and, again, the thread poll data we have at our disposal, but here we are. People who are on the left end of the spectrum feel alienated, like they're not welcome in this thread, and are starting to retreat (or, in my case, have already retreated).
Centrism has long become the norm in most political threads on ERA, including this one. And I mean, maybe you think that's a good thing. But:
a) that's not what the thread polls we've had over the last few months tell us, so why is centrism given such a huge voice?
b) the forum was never sold as a centrist/extremely moderate utopia. So, again, why is centrism given such a huge voice?
c) don't act like there are no centrists in here. Centrism has taken hold so firmly in this thread now that you don't even recognize it, and instead, people like me who support the bare minimum of leftist candidates look like weird outliers by comparison.
At this point we'd be better off spending money in preparation of the results of a 4 C+ world.
Explain to me how Bernie wins. The primary is over because we know with certainty the outcome.
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I meant the first one, because that was the definition I'm more familiar with - calling the latter centrism just seems... incorrect, to me. Maybe the first part, apolitical centrism, but saying "everybody who doesn't push as hard to me is centrist" just feels like it dilutes the term to the point of being meaningless.
How about making an argument instead of ignoring reality and calling me a troll?
Bernie needs to win 60/40 to overcome Biden's lead.
Bernie is down 20+ points in polls.
The primary is over.
Some people just use it like a slur anymore. "I'm not going to take that from a centrist like you." It really is a meaningless term these days.
Wisconsin, Alaska, Wyoming, Puerto Rico, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Georgia, Oregon, Hawaii, Connecticut, Deleware, DC, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Louisiana, Kentucky, and New York have not voted in the Primary yet. The primary is not over, and saying so is directly lying to everyone who lives in those states and is purposeful disinformation. Stop fucking around.
No one is coming into this thread scratching their head wondering if the primaries are still going on. Barely anyone in the US even gives a damn right now, there's a global pandemic going on.
Trying to spin the mathematical reality of Biden being the nominee into spreading disinformation is ridiculous.
Then stop saying "the primary is over" when it literally, factually, is not. It is disinformation and should be treated as such.
"The primary is functionally over because Bernie cannot mathematically over take Biden in delegates in any realistic scenario"
Is that better?
Out of all of these states, which of these are likely to go to Sanders? Because even if Sanders won all of them 55-45, Biden would lock up the nomination. People are just asking for a realistic path for Sanders. I think it's obvious that Sanders has a narrow path if you're including things like Biden dying in the potential scenarios.
I mean I guess that counts as a slur in a somewhat pedantic use of the term but I would hesitate to describe it as such personally given what sort of insults we tend to use the term to describe
"The margins Bernie needs to win the nomination are astronomical so he mathematically has only the slimmest unlikely chance at clinching it. Its not technically over but the delegate math need is not going to happen"
Is this better?
"Once upon a time" is a very good way to begin a scenario where Sanders wins the nomination through primary votes.
To be clear, it was extremely stupid for Hillary to do it as well. I'm not defending her for doing that. I don't think Sanders' supporters should be defending him for being Clinton 2.0.
If you had to choose, who do you think will win the primary?
"Wake the fuck up" to who? All the people on Twitter who already follow you and already agree with you? I don't see that as meaningful in any real way. I feel like people almost forget what activism actually was and even is today in a lot of other contexts, its about actually getting out there and engaging in a way that makes a lot of people angry but also spreads messages to others. It's about trying to reach others and bring to them something new to think about. This tweet isn't that. There will be no reply here or ideological dialogue started. It's someone @ing someone else in order to mostly signal something to their existing followers, which is fine, you're entitled to do that, but don't sell me on the idea that this is any more activism than shouting at your TV in front of all your friends. The US healthcare system is a great injustice, but stop putting tweeting about it on this weird pedestal. I don't even think what Brie said was that bad, certainly not worth any real admonishment from me, however, the idea that if you're speaking for something positive that you can't be called out on your rhetoric is toxic as fuck to me, and that's what you're basically saying when you hyper extend the meaning of activism in this way. Concern trolling progressives for their rhetoric is real and bad, but also a blanket handwaving of any assholish behaviour is also bad.
This is all especially funny given that Harris has already co-sponsored Bernie's Medicare for all bill and ran for president with a plan that was a weird Medicare for all lite system, that was not anyone's favourite plan (including mine), but would have undoubtedly saved millions of lives and revolutionised the American healthcare system. She doesn't seem like a person who wants people to die because they can't pay for cancer treatment.
You won't find many people who'd call themselves centrists in the radical centrism sense. It's not that common, and makes about as much sense as what could arguably be seen as its polar opposite: nazbolism lol. So I'm not sure why you even pose that question in the first place. Of course there aren't many radical centrists. It's a niche. A subset of centrists.
To the rest of your post: if Republicans are the right wing, Democrats are the left wing, and guys like Biden represent the more moderate (if not the most moderate) wing of that party, in a country whose political spectrum is noticeably more right-wing than in many other countries, then guess what? That makes him a centrist, and anyone who's a bit too eager to defend him, vote for him (in the Primary especially) and mock his progressive opponent - oftentimes under the guise of pragmatism - a centrist sympathizer by extension at least. The truth is that there is not that much difference between a centrist and a moderate liberal, and I'd argue most posters in this thread right now fall in that category. If you take a step back, especially if you're not from the US, they're the same thing for all intents and purposes. But of course, you need to take that step back to be able to acknowledge it. Yes, if you don't really push for something like Medicare For All but are completely fine with (let alone push for) some half-way (keyword: "half") measure like a public option or affordable care, in the eyes of most in the Western world, you're a centrist. If you're a bit too eager to call the race and just desperately want the progressive opponent to drop, you're a centrist. Call it 'centrist sympathizer' or 'centrist-adjacent' or 'soft centrist' or 'centrist democrat' or 'moderate liberal' if you'd rather use those words instead, I don't really care. Functionally, they're all more or less the same thing whether you like it or not. They're all very close to the center of the political spectrum. They're all centrism with a dash of progressive identity politics.
And, like, while obviously I don't have much love for centrism, that's not my main issue with your original post; my issue is pretending like centrists are a unicorn on this site and in this thread, whereas they've been a dime a dozen ever since they caught of whiff of coalescing behind Biden, and have been there for much longer in other threads. Centrism is the norm - has become the norm - here. Much to my chagrin, as you've no doubt understood. But whatever, fine; at least acknowledge the fact instead of posting a one-liner with a dismissive rhetorical question.
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If it was meant to be dismissive, I'm afraid I've done a terrible job of it, since I keep engaging with people. I apologize that it came off that way - wasn't my intent. I just see it used more as a way to smack people around and wanted to directly address it.
See, I don't think that those "radical centrists" are actually all that rare, frankly, even if most of them wouldn't self-identify like that. Maybe rare in numbers, but they've got an outsized share of the public mindshare - they're the ones running the consulting firms, the media operations, the sunday shows, etc. They're the ones who masterminded the Third Way Democrats movement. So, yeah, I think calling people that who aren't is... not great, because they're very real, and they suck.
As for the rest, I again sort of have to make an appeal to usefulness here. "X would be conservative in Y" is not a new take and, like, maybe it's true - but it's not apples to apples, and I don't really know that it matters where a hypothetical perfectly preserved transplant of such and such person would align in a European context. Assuming you even could. Party loyalty and identity are powerful forces in shaping policy preference. So like, maybe people are closer to the middle of a hypothetical global political left-right axis (and let's not even get INTO the left-right axis). I don't think that makes 'em centrists, not as I understand the term.
Losing primaries doesn't matter.
By the race continuing he continues to have a larger than normal opportunity to speak to Democrats and Americans in general about the importance of Medicare for All and a strong social safety net at a time when the coronavirus crisis will be throwing millions of people out of work, and resultingly ensuring that millions lose their healthcare coverage at a time when they need it the most. This is also why Sanders still wants to debate Joe Biden, to force Joe to confront these issues and to try to get Democrats on side so that Joe is forced to move in Sanders' direction.
Yeah I like that Bernie is staying in. When Biden pivots to the GE he'll drop talking about the social safety net expansion in his push to win over moderates and current/former Republicans. Bernie staying in gives these issues more coverage. I hope he rides it all the way to the convention and I hope we get more debates. This is just increasing mindshare for M4A/etc. It's a net win for the left regardless of who wins in November.
It's a "wake the fuck up" to Kamala obviously, and those in her persuasion. For supporters, it's a rallying cry. I see that as completely meaningful, something we have been lacking for awhile now as we've let this country slink into fascism and disrepair. Sooner than later there will be a breaking point, so I find an aggressive no-bullshit approach almost necessary because - again - we are far in the hole. Nothing assholish about it. In fact, I consider it a minimum.
I also don't really care about your definitions of activism. Each person finds their own worth and value in something. Hopefully Brie just speaking matter of factly like that inspires others to do so as well.
And speaking about Kamala in general, she backtracks all the time. Whether it's AIPAC or M4A, she has been a constant disappointment. So arguing her "left" credentials here as some sort of attempt to paint those disappointed with her as off-base is not going to work. Kamala is what we call "lukewarm". Types like those are usually spat out.
Biden recent showings continue to reiterate why he is such a weak candidate. He hasn't used the current social emergency stemming from Corona as a pretext to reconsider is uninspiring platform, and continues to come across as frankly out of it. Whatever you want to call it, he doesn't have the mental agility to assume the presidency, nor does he have a policy platform which would prepare the US significantly better for future crises. Stability through times comes about by being well prepared, adaptable and agile. The US is not ready for the coming decades, and unless its shift course it is going to do its damnest to drag the rest of the world with it into a world of extreme climate variability and ecological devastation.
Yeah, remember when Bernie kept saying Ebola instead of coronavirus? Whatever you want to call it, maybe they should both drop out and endorse Warren who has better mental agility.
Did I say that Kamala is a leftist? Or even has any left credentials? I simply talked about the plans she has actually co-sponsored and the policies she has actually run on in regards to healthcare. The actual political positions she has taken, they've been ones which would end or severely curtail the type of health injustice we're talking about. If one actually cares about passing Medicare 4 all, you want the senate (even democratic senators) to move in her direction. That's why the argument that you need to send a "Wake the fuck up" to Kamala makes no sense. Even the policy position you would say she backtracked to during her presidential run, was one that would eventually lead to universal healthcare and stop the injustice we're talking about. The idea that Kamala needs to be woken up to the idea that healthcare injustice is bad is a farce.
This is why I compare it to shouting at your TV screen in front of your friends. If you like what Brie said as a rallying cry, sure, do you, I hope that works for you. I personally think that a lot of progressive "activism" (especially online shit) has gotten way too focused on insular shit that makes us feel good (a really aggressive 'no bullshit' approach being an example) because we've convinced ourselves that the things we like and find aesthetically pleasing are actually the things that will bring us electoral victory and power, so we just need to do it all more. We've gotten real good at mobilization of people who believe the same shit as us and gotten incredibly lazy when it comes to outreach, because there's this belief that deep down just everyone wants the same thing as us. This shit isn't working. And the doubling down on shit like this is so mystifying to me. The idea at the core of any powerful political coalition is that "we may different ideas but we have a shared interest", this just seems completely lost as an idea to so many progressives in a way that's really sad to me. People like Kamala, who you'd consider "lukewarm" are types of people who have votes that we need to rely on. Kamala likely has slightly different ideas but a shared interest with anyone who wants real progressive healthcare change in America.
Huh apparently Wisconsin is going ahead with its primary in a week. Seems like a state Bernie should do well in (beat Hillary). Maybe he's hoping for an upset there? (of course, again, he'd have to beat Biden like 65-35 in every state to actually overtake him)
I haven't seen anything in the last few weeks of course, but before that, any poll that wasn't a university poll had Biden in double digits. We'll see how it pans out though.
Bernie did well in Wisconsin in 2016 largely because of the anti-Hillary vote, in the same way that he did well in Michigan in 2016 but did horribly this year. RCP has Biden winning by 13%, and that seems like a smaller number than I would personally expect living here. In addition to that, the covid situation should have a larger impact on Bernie supporters than Biden's, though it's hard to predict that with any certainty. Bernie will be lucky if he can get past 40% next week.
yea I suspect biden will win. I'm just shocked they are going ahead with it...
The life of being a Bernard Sanders supporter is weird. You don't matter unless the dem loses in November, then you are the only thing that matters.
The issue is that only the legislature, controlled by the Republicans, can change the election date and they have a vested interest in keeping turnout as low as possible in order to secure their seat on the state supreme court. Governor Evers has given up asking them to change the date and has tried to get them to agree to send mail-in ballots to every registered voter, but of course they're not going to agree to that, so we're screwed. Some people are filing lawsuits against the state to try to delay it but the odds that one of them actually delays it is incredibly small.
As we get closer to the election, there are hundreds of precincts saying they don't have enough volunteers to run their polling places, so a good chunk of people won't be able to vote at all. It's made even worse by the fact that you had to request an absentee ballot before yesterday and it has to arrive at the state election commission's office on election day, not postmarked at or before election day, it has to arrive by election day, so your vote could be null and void if you can't get it in the mail by Saturday. It's a complete shitshow as are most things here
Nobody matters until they're needed. Try being a black woman during off election years.
Voted Bernie in my mail in ballot yesterday.
More important is that we have a Supreme Court election, which, if we (liberals) win, will give a 4-3 Conservative majority again. This may be crucial in undoing gerrymandering in our state and becoming a representative democracy again with the 2020 census.
BTW, it's a constitutional issue that has caused us to keep the date. Everyone wants to move it.
tbf, DeWine broke the law by canceling Ohio's. The courts ruled against him and then he had the health director close all the polling places making it impossible to vote, banking on the courts giving in and allowing the deadline, which they did with no legal authority to do so. Damn activist judges!
See this last sentence is insanity to me. If Trump wins in November, all that mindshare is completely irrelevant. You'll end up with a 6-3 or 7-2 Supreme Court, and be locked out of progressive legislation for a generation. That is not a net win for the left. Also not exactly good risk/reward, gotta say.
As another user said on here Trump can pack the courts tomorrow or during the GE before either of them see the results from the first state. We've been fucked since Obama did shit all to fight Republicans on this. The deal was sealed since 2016.
Obama lost the Senate and House two years into his presidency, though. He was kind of handcuffed early on.
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Alright, new month, new thread: https://www.resetera.com/threads/de...its-april-discussion-guidelines-in-op.178483/
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