I used to want a liberal president, now I just want a competent president.
What good is a pure liberal if they can’t accomplish anything?
I want someone who can get shit done. But realistically the democrats in congress aren’t going to pass anything truly progressive or meaningful. So it doesn’t matter who is president, as long as its a democrat.
I get the feeling that if Alexandria Ocasio Cortez were 35 years old, instead of 29, she would get the nomination, and she would probably kick Trump’s ass all over the place in a general. Ocasio-Cortez is the Bernie of 2020, except that she’s unfortunately not in the running and won’t be even in 2024.
I know that Kamala Harris is all the rage right now, and I think she’s a clear early favorite in the Democratic party. But the campaign is long and brutal. We shall see.
LOL. Thanks for this dispatch from the fantasy world of Trump.
I doubt it. I don’t think the left would accept AOC as president with so little experience. Maybe after she had 10+ years in the house, but not right now.
Obama got ragged for lacking experience but he had 20 years as a community organizer, state senator and senator before becoming president.
An issue with Harris is some people feel she is just saying the right things to win the progressive vote but doesn’t actually believe any of them.
The debate over charter schools and voucher schools gets complicated because there’s so much variation in details. Framing the question as Are Vouchers Good or Bad? demonstrates ignorance on the topic. For example, Betsy DeVos especially promotes her fraudster friends — I think both she and her brother should be locked up in prison. Assuming that a progressive who likes voucher/charter would like DeVos is absurd.
And indeed, Senator Booker voted No on confirming that criminal. UIAM every Democrat along with Collins and Murkowski voted to reject this preposterous woman, who was then confirmed from the dais by Mike Pence after a vote of 50-50 . (I think Jeff Sessions, who was himself a nominee and recused himself for most of the confirmation votes, unrecused himself long enough to vote for DeVos.)
Another poster mentions Basis schools in Arizona.
Asian Amerind Black Latino White Mixed
Arizona 3% 5% 5% 45% 39% 3%
BASIS 32% 0% 3% 10% 51% 2%
Google “cherrypicking.”
T-Bone is apparently a composite or a metaphor, akin to Joe the Plumber or Archie Bunker. Abraham Lincoln is among famous orators to employ such devices, IIRC.
True, the tactic is dangerous in post-rational America.
First time I heard about Booker was reading an Economist article which mentioned he might be gay. I watched one of his speeches and I can see how he might come off as not strictly straight. We may discover yet one more level of crassness the Republicans are capable off.
So the fabulism about T-Bone is a minor sin akin to (but less worse than) our president’s constant, fictional encounters with weeping tough guys, but it does rub people the wrong way for good reasons.
First, using fictional(ized) people in your political speeches could just be rhetoric, but if you don’t make it clear that these characters and their words/actions are being used rhetorically, it sure looks like you’re using them as evidence, or at least anecdata. Innocent enough, I guess, when you’re just doing platitudes like Reagan invoking the turret gunner; less so when you’re using these stories to hype your past accomplishments or justify policy proposals (Reagan again).
But then it gets even shadier when you’re presenting a fictional(ish) black man who’s, well, playing to stereotype – see Clement Price’s comments here:
It bothers some black people, and has for years – that quote’s from 2008.
So it’s a problem, and he’ll probably have to deal with it – and we’ll learn something by watching him do so. (Shodan will doubtless keep calling him “Spartacus,” too; it’s just one of those things.)
When I hear T-Bone, I imagine a short, stocky, slow-witted bald man from Queens.
Heh! By the way, the Jerk Store called …
Have you ever tried to develop a statistic like that? If you did, I think you’d want clear objective criteria, perhaps a computer program that could spit out numbers thoughtlessly. Otherwise, what will you do? Exercise your own judgment about whether a bill is “progressive” or not? Details and chicanery often mean that research is required just to understand the relationship between a bill’s title and its purpose. (Upthread, for example, some Doper thought pro-charter school Booker would be a hypocrite not to vote for pro-charter DeVos. :smack: )
I knew zero about Booker until I caught his "Spartacus" comment on YouTube. I found the comment a tad too vainglorious ... especially since, in the same sentence, he implicated some other progressives in the "martyrdom."Another difficulty with scores of this nature is that Congressfolk can only vote on what they can vote on. If single-payer health care were put to a vote, for instance, that vote count would nicely illuminate the distinction between progressive and moderate Democrats. But as long as the Republicans control the Senate, that vote will never happen. So these scores are a pretty blunt instrument when it comes to evaluating ideological distinctions between members of the out-party.