A better question to ask is whether black voters would have turned out more for Bernie Sanders, as opposed to Hillary Clinton?
And what’s with that last sentence? One could be forgiven for wondering whether or not that was a dig at black voters.
Maybe because people sometimes show that they’ve changed.
Re: Crime Bill, I’d just point out (again) that Bernie Sanders voted for that bill, too. And the rest of the field was probably too young to have an opinion at the time.
Why shouldn’t it be acceptable to “slap” at black voters? After all, it is true that, if they had turned out in 2016 like they did in 2012 or 2008, Clinton would have won. Why shouldn’t we all be furious at them?
Because it would be completely stupid and counterproductive to scapegoat a group of voters who are overwhelmingly on your side.
My actual point is that I’m sick of the double standard on this board, exemplified by Carnal’s post which I was replying to, where black voters (among other moderate Democratic voting blocs) are regarded as paragons of sensible pragmatism. But it’s considered perfectly OK to bully and insult young people and progressives and blame them for the 2016 loss, even though the data shows the exact opposite.
Why, here’s a great example from just a few days ago:
Would anyone here think it was a wise strategy to invite black voters to “stay home, sit down, and shut up” in the 2020 election?
I mean, I get that that small group of black voters who didn’t bother to turn out for Clinton, unlike their leftist counterparts, were probably, like, off living their lives and not trolling you on Facebook bragging about their stupid decision. Still, that doesn’t mean you get to demonize a large segment of your party’s base.
Not sure what that has to do with what I said but your cite sys the opposite of your link text. It shows black voter turnout at 59.6% & millenial turnout at 50.8%. Oh, but it was an increase for the millennials? Let’s break out the participation trophies.
I don’t think people are blaming all progressives, just the stereotypical “Bernie Bros.” How many of those are in existence? I have no idea. But the ones who scream “Rigged” at the tops of their lungs, throw chairs at political caucuses, and then go out and vote for Jill Stein, or worse, Trump out of spite because they didn’t get their way, yeah, they can stay home and note vote.
To your point, yes, I agree that black voters or any voters who stay home during elections is frustrating. And I agree it’s a double-standard to hold one group accountable and not others. Also worth pointing out that staying home and not voting was just as destructive in 2014 and 2010 as it was in 2016, and in some ways more so because it set the stage for Republican obstructionism, which is what hobbled the Obama presidency and prevented the presidency of Hillary Clinton.
I was responding to someone who said:
So I wasn’t using some double standard, I was addressing what I read.
I think Biden is not a good candidate too but consider the alternative.
Any democrat is better than trump, but I really hope it isn’t Biden.
Biden recently said after Trump leaves office that the GOP will want to engage in bipartisanship. Not only is this statement hopelessly and inexcusably naive from someone who has no excuse to not know better, its the same false pablum he said in 2012.
I hope to fucking god that someone this oblivious and naive isn’t our next democratic president. He makes Obama look like a political sage if he believes this stuff.
What % of progressives are ‘bernie bros’. I spent some time volunteering for Bernies campaign, and even among them most of them said they’d vote for Hillary if Bernie lost (some did not).
I’d wager its 5-10% of Bernie’s supporters in 2016 who are bernie bros. And the whole ‘bros’ thing implies they are only motivated by misogyny. That may be part of it, but several of the Bernie bros I met were women.
So what’s your ideal plan, do you think? That the Dem nominee should go around and proclaim “every Republican politician in Congress is a malign, corrupt shitbag; they’re hopeless, just give them up, I am never going to work with them because they’re fucked. And the voters too, those assholes who voted for Trump in '16 even though they went Obama in '12. We don’t want their rednecked, sister-fucking, mouth-drooling kind in our party. Fuck 'em, we can’t trust them. No, my friends–and by friends, I mean everyone who has always only voted Democratic–trust me, we’re going to be at war with the Republican Congresspeople in 2020 when I get into power. In fact, thanks to my magic crystal ball, I can tell you right now–a year-and-a-half before the election–that the Senate is gonna buck the odds and turn almost completely blue. So fuck Mitch McConnell right in his turtle-esque maw, because we don’t need him or indeed any Republican votes. Y’know what, I’m not even gonna accept any of their votes. With the 65 Democrats in the Senate we’re sure to get because of my MagicFairyDust, no one can stop us from doing ANYTHING! So who needs to listen to a single thing anyone who isn’t One Of Us has to say? It’s a year-and-a-half away from election! We can absolutely ignore 50% of the country! SCORCHED EARTH STARTING NOW.”
Yeah. Super. This will totally NOT prove every alt.right deep-state-believing freak correct, and they totally won’t use this as a specific talking point to rally every single Republican, right-leaning Independent, and not a few conservative Obama/Trump Democrats into shoving and mauling their way into the voting booths next year to pull the lever for Trump.
Give a thought beyond the (admittedly justified) contempt that these quisling Republicans have earned under Obama and Trump. Think beyond revenge and punishment and everything we’d love to revel in.
Biden is not a stupid or naïve man, however you want to think him. Consider that maaaaybe the idea is to give the not-invisible number of Republicans or anti-Hillary Dems who voted Trump and are capable of shame a teensy lane into which they can cross back and justify their changeover to their other red state pals? A hint of grace so they don’t worry that they’ll be the enemy of Mr. or Ms. Blue President 2020?
We can do SCORCHED EARTH when we actually have a chance in hell of regaining the Senate with a considerable majority, which–unless I’m greatly mistaken (and I would love to be)–is nigh impossible given the Republican seats that are up for grabs. It’s only nine or so Republicans, isn’t it? And most are in blood-red states?
Psychologically speaking, these people have egos. Even for sane people (unlike Trump), it is often very very difficult to admit we’re wrong. And these voters and politicians were so, so drastically wrong, in thinking Trump wouldn’t be a catastrophe and a disgrace. Instead, they double-down instead of acknowledging they should’ve fought harder against Trump, against McConnell, against the psychos in the alt.right and Trump’s racist base. The Anyone-But-Clinton people still refuse to admit they should’ve held their nose and compromised. That’s the tragic flaw of human nature.
Biden and, I hope, other smart candidates, will preach left-of-center and progressive ideas while also carving out a “I’m reasonable” path to allow every possible vote we can get from the non-true-blue side exit the side of psychosis and authoritarianism and walk cautiously through the gateway back to a semblance of being willing to listen and, maybe even cooperate.
Without that gateway WE. ARE. FUCKED.
And just to be clear, I don’t think the ruby-red alt-right racist wall-building freaks are gettable by Biden or anyone else saying “We’re willing to talk across the aisle. People will want to return to normalcy.” Those ruby-red alt-right racist wall-building freaks are GONE. We will never get them back to “sanity,” because I don’t think they were ever on very close speaking terms to “sanity” in the first place.
But the middle? The wafflers? They exist. They screwed up big time in 2016 and have tried to pretend they didn’t, but deep down they absolutely know they did. We wouldn’t be getting so many leaks that embarrass Trump and Barr and other Republicans if there weren’t conservatives who regret what they did. They’re afraid to show their faces because they’re afraid, many utter cowards. But they exist and I think they want a sort of social amnesty.
As long as they’re gettable, I want them, and as long as they didn’t personally kill anyone, if they’re wiling to vote to get Trump out of office, I’m willing to grant them that social amnesty. The smart Democrats want them. We need them. We brush them aside at our peril. The world’s peril.
Yeah, basically this.
The fact that the Democratic Party would experience 4 years of President Trump and respond with ho-hum kumbaya politics-supporter Joe Biden is…very, very bad and disconcerting. Every time the man says stuff like that I just want to tear my hair out.
Absolutely correct. You’re talking about my Uncle G and Cousin D. They are who I’m gauging my vote on in 2020. I’ve mentioned them in other threads, but I’ll introduce them again: one’s a retired railworker/union member, the other is currently a utility worker/union member. Both live in metro Detroit, one sat out 2016 because he hated both candidates, the other voted for Trump. Both voted for Obama. One’s a young Boomer, one’s a Millennial.
Biden, with his “I’m reasonable” messaging, has the most-likely path of winning their (and by extension, other blue collar, union, Industrial Midwest, white, non-college-educated) votes.
These people-- and make no mistake, these are the households that we need to win back in 2020-- sit in their union halls and man caves and tree blinds and local watering holes and make fun of candidates that are scorching the earth and focusing on guns and free college and poo-pooing Fox News. Uncle G and Cousin D are looking for a candidate to actually get some shit done. Which is why Biden’s message of “I’m reasonable, and so are many Republicans” is so effective with a shit-ton of voters right now.
Biden might not be saying the things that the hard-core left wants to hear from a Dem candidate, but he’s saying the things voters like Uncle G and Cousin D want to hear, and that’s why he’s very quickly becoming my guy in this horse race. Winning over these voters is more important than picking a candidate that has the most progressive environmental plan or health plan or gun plan or abortion plan or immigration plan.
It seems to me that everyone who says Biden sucks a fat donkey sack is already planning on crawling over hot glass to vote for a Democrat in November 2020. But Biden’s really speaking to the people Hillary took for granted in 2016, and that’s what matters to me, even if he’s not the most exciting or hip or ideologically-perfect candidate.
…is this seriously the best you can imagine?
How about something like this?
A firm rejection of Fox Propaganda without having to resort to the sort of stuff you invented. Said by Elizabeth Warren of course. Do you disagree with anything she said? Do you think the way she worded it was a mistake? Do you think she might drive away “the middle” or “the wafflers” with that statement?
Here’s Warrens statement on how to protect the right to abortion. What’s Biden’s plan?
I’m not stumping for Warren. I have no skin in the game. And a year ago I was all-in for Biden. But now that nearly everyone has thrown their hat into the table we can see what each candidate brings to the table. And I hate to say it but Biden’s an empty suit. No policy. Promises of bipartisanship with a party that has pledged to block them at very opportunity. He’s the front runner because substance really doesn’t matter any more. If he gets the nomination I would hope that everybody supports him and he gets Trump kicked out of office. But he really isn’t the best of the candidates.
It’s possible to both reject FoxNews and embrace the idea of bipartisan political action----yes, even with Republicans.
Biden is not my favorite but job one is to GET RID OF TRUMP. It’s faster to get rid of him at the ballot box than with impeachment.*
If some other Democrat looks more likely to beat Trump, then I will support that Democrat, regardless of whether I feel personal adoration for that person or find that person’s views to be identical to my own in every respect. Because personal adoration and 100% fidelity to my own views is not the point.
Beating the thing in the Oval Office is the point.
*(And at the moment, an impeachment vote would be an extremely valuable gift to him.)
I agree - I think that there won’t be bipartisanship until one side has been completely and utterly discredited by 60%+ of the country. The GOP’s problem (and our problem) is that they are the party of the rich and the corrupt; therefore there is no incentive to do anything other than to disrupt. The people have to send a clear message that they’re onto what the GOP is doing.
I will vote for Biden or any Democratic nominee because it’s my civic duty to do so. But even if Biden wins a presidential election by a relatively healthy margin, like Obama did, he won’t get much done if the Senate is still in GOP hands. At least he’ll be able to write executive orders to undo all of Trump’s EO’s, but we won’t have a functional legislature.
It’s really up to people to ‘get it’. Until they discredit the Republicans and make it clear that they’re not going to tolerate their propaganda and their plutocratic policies, then Republicans will simply wage procedural warfare and wear Biden (or someone else) through obstruction. I think that’s the only way out of here.
Biden not getting stuff done, as compared with Trump remaining free to loot, pillage, and destroy the country?
Not ideal, but I’ll take it.