2018 Democrats thread

[greg775]

16 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Woudn’t we have said the same thing about his Republican primary opponents in 2016?

Combating a sitting president like Trump is something the Dems (and no American political party) has ever fully contemplated...someone who has no moral/ethical compass, who panders to his own base and deliberately tries to divide the country (Nixon is the closest modern example, but even that doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny)...who constantly changes positions and who sucks up all the airtime because he draws ratings and makes the media immense profits.

Right now, Biden’s the only one capable of beating him.   None of the early Dem favorites like Gillibrand, Booker, Harris, etc., have yet been able to emerge was as the obvious “hot” choice like Obama already was in 2005/06 (dating back to his Dem.Convention speech).  You can identify as many followers for Kennedy as for Garcetti or even the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.   Plus this current fracture between the progressives/pragmatists, and uncertainty over what Sanders/Warren will do, and who is the “heir apparent” to take up their cause of the younger generation.

Odds are the country will go into a recession (based on 2-3 economic cycles of QE/easy money) due to inflation fears and interest rate rises, higher gas prices, slightly higher wages and then the overhang of numerous Americans paying significantly more for their health care insurance (and Trump’s complete failure to fix it as promised).   Who knows where immigration and gun control are as issues at that point...but I’d still say the odds rest with the Dem’s over Trump winning another election, if for no other reason than so many Hispanic and African-American voters will be motivated to get out to the polls this time out...and so many older Americans are afraid to lose their SS/Medicare/Medicaid due to the GOP Congress.  Finally, the fact that Trump’s been relatively lucky so far with his foreign policy blunders not blowing up the world (YET).

Only the Democrats can have a viable candidate (last election) in Bernie and not let the voting process play out and get him in as the candidate over a controversial Hillary. If the party would have ridden Bernie-mania it would have won. Cause the media would ultimately have shrugged and said, "Damnit we wanted Hillary to fulfill her coronation, but If Bernie has to be the candidate then Bernie it is." They'd have backed him heavily as they did Hillary. We don't need to re-visit the problems of Hillary as a candidate, but we do need to push Bernie cause he is a.) a name. b.) beloved by the youth. c.) willing to get us free stuff unlike the bastards whose only goal seems to force homelessness on the poor and middle class. Nobody cares bout us actively besides Bernie.

Edited May 26, 2018 by greg775

[Reddy]

1 hour ago, greg775 said:

Only the Democrats can have a viable candidate (last election) in Bernie and not let the voting process play out and get him in as the candidate over a controversial Hillary. If the party would have ridden Bernie-mania it would have won. Cause the media would ultimately have shrugged and said, "Damnit we wanted Hillary to fulfill her coronation, but If Bernie has to be the candidate then Bernie it is." They'd have backed him heavily as they did Hillary. We don't need to re-visit the problems of Hillary as a candidate, but we do need to push Bernie cause he is a.) a name. b.) beloved by the youth. c.) willing to get us free stuff unlike the bastards whose only goal seems to force homelessness on the poor and middle class. Nobody cares bout us actively besides Bernie.

Lord. 

[Reddy]

15 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Reddy, just don’t act like this in Iowa, lol...I grew up in the Quad Cities and spent the first 22 years of my life in that state...identity politics simply don’t work there (not unlike GA or rural Western PA).

Just follow everything Cheri Bustos has done and said on the other side of the Mississippi.   Or the South Bend mayor, if an openly gay man can win elections in rural Indiana, he’s doing SOMETHING correctly, yes?

Fwiw, the (old) district I lived in had one of the most popular (and centrist or left-leaning) Republican representatives in Jim Leach that you could ever find in the Heartland.   But remember it’s the state of Grassley, Branstad, Steve King and one of the toughest proposed abortion laws in the country...and one of the biggest states for born-again/evangelical Christians, especially for that region of the country.

Lol. I have a degree in this stuff but thanks for the advice. I already said campaigning is vastly different than internet arguments. Tell me more about how I should approach people in my home state. 

[Reddy]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/if-democrats-are-having-a-civil-war-nobody-told-the-voters 

Good stuff. 

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, Reddy said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/if-democrats-are-having-a-civil-war-nobody-told-the-voters 

Good stuff. 

Already used up my ten free articles this month, lol...

Behind the scenes, (Stephen) Miller is believed to be an important voice in those hardline immigration policies. In an interview with Breitbart published Thursday, Miller said: “The big fight this summer is going to be with the open borders Democratic caucus in Congress.”

Edited May 26, 2018 by caulfield12

[Nokona]

6 hours ago, Reddy said:

Lol. I have a degree in this stuff but thanks for the advice. I already said campaigning is vastly different than internet arguments. Tell me more about how I should approach people in my home state. 

A whole lot of people with degrees decided not to campaign in Wisconsin or Michigan a few years ago.  If I were you I'd be hesitant to throw my lot in with them.  They've become experts in failure.  They prefer candidates who are careerists rather than progressives.  And that's what keeps causing the party to lose.  No, they'd prefer incrementalism to moral courage.  Instead, anyone with an ounce of moral courage is cast off as an idealist and naive.  Politics isn't for the careerists, it's a means of change and emancipation.  And the people you're celebrating Reddy, aren't for any of that.  For them, politics is to be done by the professional, by the "educated" and by seniority.   Give me the Cynthia Nixons any day of the week.  Andrew Cuomo's just the son of a better politican anyway.  

[Reddy]

 

A whole lot of people with degrees decided not to campaign in Wisconsin or Michigan a few years ago.  If I were you I'd be hesitant to throw my lot in with them.  They've become experts in failure.  They prefer candidates who are careerists rather than progressives.  And that's what keeps causing the party to lose.  No, they'd prefer incrementalism to moral courage.  Instead, anyone with an ounce of moral courage is cast off as an idealist and naive.  Politics isn't for the careerists, it's a means of change and emancipation.  And the people you're celebrating Reddy, aren't for any of that.  For them, politics is to be done by the professional, by the "educated" and by seniority.   Give me the Cynthia Nixons any day of the week.  Andrew Cuomo's just the son of a better politican anyway.  

The thing no one ever remembers is that you need incrementalism AND moral courage TOGETHER to actually create real progress. Read Tipping Points. 

Also, how many times do I have to say I don't like Cuomo for y'all to actually believe me? Lol

[Reddy]

Y'all would like to have a professional lawyer representing you in court right? A professional plumber fix your pipes? etc?

[caulfield12]

37 minutes ago, Reddy said:

Y'all would like to have a professional lawyer representing you in court right? A professional plumber fix your pipes? etc?

Trump is closer to Joe the Plumber in mentality...

Fwiw, Cuomo’s dad one of the four best Dem orators since JFK, along w Jesse Jackson, Clinton and Obama.

[caulfield12]

“That Is What Power Looks Like”: As Trump Prepares for 2020, Democrats Are Losing the Only Fight That Matters

Even in an era of historic media fragmentation, Donald Trump dominates our attention universe to the point where he blocks out the sun. Is it any wonder that people don’t have any idea what Democrats stand for?

 

 

Trump has mastered attention capture. As Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu writes in his book The Attention Merchants, Trump “cannot be avoided or ignored and his ideas are never hard to understand. He offers simple slogans, repeated a thousandfold, and he always speaks as a commander rather than a petitioner, satisfying those who dislike nuance. With his continuous access to the minds of the public, the president has made almost all political thought either a reflection, rejection, or at least a reaction to his ideas. That is what power looks like.”

 

“The way to dis-empower Trump is to ignore him, but it’s too hard even for his opponents to do it,” Wu told me over the phone recently. “It has to be a pure attention battle. If you were another network and Trump was I Love Lucy, what do you do? You can’t necessarily spend all your time criticizing I Love Lucy because that will just build it up. You need your own programming and to develop your own characters and celebrities who have to be as interesting and compelling. You need to have your own show. And I don’t think Democrats have their own show other than the ‘I Hate Trump’ show.”

 

 

 

 

[southsider2k5]

Bernie is thinking about running again.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/389698-ex-campaign-manager-sanders-is-considering-running-for-president-in-2020

[BigSqwert]

Reddy meltdown in 3.....2......1......

[Heads22]

1 hour ago, raBBit said:

I know Trump isn't much younger but will be 79 (!!!) on Election night. I know DNC leadership has changed but HRC wasn't even 70 when they considered replacing her due to health considerations. When does age become a disqualifier?

Similar concern with Biden.

[caulfield12]

3 hours ago, raBBit said:

I know Trump isn't much younger but will be 79 (!!!) on Election night. I know DNC leadership has changed but HRC wasn't even 70 when they considered replacing her due to health considerations. When does age become a disqualifier?

When people don't vote for Biden or Sanders because of their age/s...you can say the same thing about Elizabeth Warren to a lesser extent.

[Jack Parkman]

On 5/25/2018 at 6:00 PM, Dam8610 said:

Why do you think that Trump won't be impeached? The special counsel investigation keeps expanding. If Trump actually committed crimes, I don't think even Republicans are dumb enough to not turn on him. If he committed crimes and he's not impeached, we might as well just throw the Constitution away, because it wouldn't mean anything anymore at that point.

I don't think Trump will be impeached because no matter what Mueller finds the GOP won't have the gonads to stand up to him and remove him from office. GOP congresspeople/senators are a bunch of spineless slimeballs with no conscience or soul. They're only in it for the money, and when they lose an election they are given a job as a corporate lobbyist as payback for all of the favors they did while in office. They aren't afraid to lose an election because they have that cushy lobbyist job as a backup. It also makes them very dangerous. They get to push the economic royalist agenda with virtually zero consequences. They win either way. The people of the country lose. 

The GOP has their patron saint-Ronald Reagan. Dems don't have one, but they should. His name was Franklin D. Roosevelt. I feel like they distance themselves from FDR way too much for his decision on the Japanese internment camps. While a stain on his legacy, and absolutely the wrong decision, he did so many other things so damn well. He got re-elected three times. He was super popular, brought the country out of near financial oblivion and presided as commander in chief during the great majority of the most important war in modern human history. Dems should learn from that. 

Edited May 30, 2018 by Jack Parkman

[caulfield12]

You could probably go with JFK, but he's going to be nailed by the #metoo movement, right?

Of course, going by that, FDR and his infamous affair with Lucy Mercer disqualify him.

That leaves either Truman (who dropped a nuclear bomb and was tied at the hip to the Pendergast graft machine in Kansas City)....or the best candidate is probably "socialist/progressive" Henry Wallace, FDR's first VP before he was replaced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace

The problem is that almost nobody knows about him...Carter would be the obvious choice for his life post-presidency, but his actual years in office are too much of a stain on his legacy.

Edited May 30, 2018 by caulfield12

[Jack Parkman]

16 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

You could probably go with JFK, but he's going to be nailed by the #metoo movement, right?

Of course, going by that, FDR and his infamous affair with Lucy Mercer disqualify him.

That leaves either Truman (who dropped a nuclear bomb and was tied at the hip to the Pendergast graft machine in Kansas City)....or the best candidate is probably "socialist/progressive" Henry Wallace, FDR's first VP before he was replaced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace

The problem is that almost nobody knows about him...Carter would be the obvious choice for his life post-presidency, but his actual years in office are too much of a stain on his legacy.

People have to take history in context. You can praise someone for what they did right, and put their bad/terrible decisions in historical context. Those were different times, even if less than a century ago. The country has come a long way in race relations since then, but we still have a looong way to go. Not everyone is 100% bad just because of their worst moments. If we demonize presidents who were womanizers we're batting under .100.

Imagine if your boss saw you at your worst moments? Do you think you'd ever get a job again? Probably not, nobody would. 

Edited May 30, 2018 by Jack Parkman

[caulfield12]

Well, then I think we're okay going JFK and FDR...

Actually, the one you want is RFK...but not the earlier version, but the NY Senator and presidential candidate of 1968.

A legacy unfulfilled, although we'll never know whether they party insiders would have still given the nomination to Hubert Humphrey over a Kennedy.    Probably not after he won the California primary.

[Jack Parkman]

42 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Well, then I think we're okay going JFK and FDR...

Actually, the one you want is RFK...but not the earlier version, but the NY Senator and presidential candidate of 1968.

A legacy unfulfilled, although we'll never know whether they party insiders would have still given the nomination to Hubert Humphrey over a Kennedy.    Probably not after he won the California primary.

I've done a bit of research on him. RFK would have been a hell of a president. Truly in the mold of FDR and socially progressive to boot. It is a real shame that he was murdered. Who knows how that would have changed history.

I personally use the Supreme Court decision Brown v. BOE as the cutoff for when politicians had to take sides, which was 1953. After that point, I don't cut politicians slack for being racist anymore. Not enough people realize the amount of guts and cajones it took LBJ to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He knew it was political suicide for him and he did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. I long for the days when politicians had that kind of integrity, even if it was before my lifetime. 

Edited May 30, 2018 by Jack Parkman

[caulfield12]

8 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

I've done a bit of research on him. RFK would have been a hell of a president. Truly in the mold of FDR and socially progressive to boot. It is a real shame that he was murdered. Who knows how that would have changed history.

I personally use the Supreme Court decision Brown v. BOE as the cutoff for when politicians had to take sides, which was 1953. After that point, I don't cut politicians slack for being racist anymore. Not enough people realize the amount of guts and cajones it took LBJ to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He knew it was political suicide for him and he did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. 

Or he really already knew (way before the rest of the American people) how badly the war in Vietnam was actually going...but that's a huge GUESS to imagine he could anticipate what would happen in 1966-1968 as the tide of public opinion turned (and a number of American cities started to burn as the riots hit.)

Maybe it's better to be positive and assume it really was courage, and that he didn't know in 1964 he was going to decide not to run again in '68.

[Jack Parkman]

3 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Or he really already knew (way before the rest of the American people) how badly the war in Vietnam was actually going...but that's a huge GUESS to imagine he could anticipate what would happen in 1966-1968 as the tide of public opinion turned (and a number of American cities started to burn as the riots hit.)

Maybe it's better to be positive and assume it really was courage, and that he didn't know in 1964 he was going to decide not to run again in '68.

He knew what he was doing. He's often quoted after he signed that bill as saying "We've lost the South for a generation" It turns out that was an understatement. I do think he knew he wasn't going to run in 1968, as soon as he signed that bill in 1964. He had zero chance whether Vietnam went as poorly as it did or not. He wasn't getting re-elected. It still doesn't change that he could have run in 1968 and probably wanted to, but took one for the team so to speak. 

Edited May 30, 2018 by Jack Parkman

[caulfield12]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hunger-hurt-bad-robert-kennedy-learned-poverty-boy-delta-090025735.html

There’s your RFK story...perfect timing

 

8 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

He knew what he was doing. He's often quoted after he signed that bill as saying "We've lost the South for a generation" It turns out that was an understatement. I do think he knew he wasn't going to run in 1968, as soon as he signed that bill in 1964. He had zero chance whether Vietnam went as poorly as it did or not. He wasn't getting re-elected. It still doesn't change that he could have run in 1968 and probably wanted to, but took one for the team so to speak. 

 

Wellstone Follows In RFK's Footsteps

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 24) -- Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) plans to follow in the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's footsteps with a May trip to the Mississippi Delta. Wellstone is positioning himself as the Democrats' liberal conscience, and while some have urged him to run for president in 2000, he denies he is considering it. Wellstone, 52, told The Associated Press he wants to emulate Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968, and focus national attention on the poor. "I am going to travel the length and breadth of this country, as Robert Kennedy did 30 years ago and as Eleanor Roosevelt did during the Depression, to observe the face of American poverty -- not from behind a Senate desk, but in the streets, the villages and neighborhoods of those in distress," Wellstone said in a speech recently. Not everyone is happy about his Mississippi trip, though. Charles Evers, brother of the late civil rights leader Medgar Evers, said Wellstone doesn't have to come to Mississippi to find poor people. "I resent our state always being pointed out as the poorest state in the country," Evers said.

Edited May 30, 2018 by caulfield12

[StrangeSox]

Really good piece from ProPublica/NYT Magazine on Joe Bryan and blood pattern analysis. Like a lot of forensic science, there's not much real scientific basis behind it.

This is part 2, focusing on the blood spatter stuff. Part 1 can be found here.

Quote

 

Joe Bryan has spent the past three decades in prison for the murder of his wife, a crime he claims he didn’t commit.

His conviction rested largely on “bloodstain-pattern analysis” — a technique still in use throughout the criminal-justice system, despite concerns about its reliability.

Should this type of forensic science remain in the courtroom?

 

 

The NYT editorial board has called for Bryan to get paroled and his case to be re-examined

 

 

[The Beast]

On 5/29/2018 at 5:19 PM, raBBit said:

I know Trump isn't much younger but will be 79 (!!!) on Election night. I know DNC leadership has changed but HRC wasn't even 70 when they considered replacing her due to health considerations. When does age become a disqualifier?

I’d still vote for Biden even if he’ll be 78, Trump will be 74. Biden probably has the best chance of the Democrats to win, in my opinion. I feel like he can reach people from both sides that other potential candidates can’t, especially with the working class that Trump got in PA, MI and WI. That is unless the progressive candidates could somehow turn some Trump voters towards voting for them and don’t scare off others. 

After seeing “1968” it would be nice to see Kasich or Flake challenge Trump at the Republican National Convention, but I doubt it would actually work.

[greg775]

2 minutes ago, The Beast said:

I’d still vote for Biden even if he’ll be 78, Trump will be 74. Biden probably has the best chance of the Democrats to win, in my opinion. I feel like he can reach people from both sides that other potential candidates can’t, especially with the working class that Trump got in PA, MI and WI. That is unless the progressive candidates could somehow turn some Trump voters towards voting for them and don’t scare off others. 

After seeing “1968” it would be nice to see Kasich or Flake challenge Trump at the Republican National Convention, but I doubt it would actually work.

Biden/Bernie that's the ticket.