# South Carolina Democratic Debate tonight. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 25, 2020, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-carolina-democratic-debate-tonight/848516 "2020-02-25T21:43:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 143
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-carolina-democratic-debate-tonight/848516/143 "2020-02-27T00:14:17Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > It has nothing to do with being young or idealistic. I’m almost 40 Which makes you a Millennial. > [@Velocity](#): > > Considering that Bernie is going to great lengths to point out that “Democratic socialism is\*\*\* not at all \*\*\*the same as what happened in Cuba or Venezuela,” why is he then even mentioning Cuba at all? This would be like a Republican claiming that he doesn’t support fascism, yet trying to point out how Hitler improved Germany’s economy. GREAT way to crystallize it. The impression given is “Castro and the Sandinistas had the right idea, but made some mistakes, so I will fine-tune their approach, avoid making some of the same mistakes they did.” And in fact this is exactly what his most hardcore supporters want! But it’s not what the majority of Americans want, to put it mildly. > [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > My point was about a hypothetical reaction by a hypothetical **Slacker** -analog to a hypothetical Buttigieg who said this particular thing. Looks like you need to work on your analogies. This is what I wrote about Buttigieg last March, and I never became more favorable toward him: > [@Who is Pete Buttigieg?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/92): > > He’s very smart and articulate, but he also looks very young, even for 37 (which is young in presidential politics even if you don’t look young for your age), and has a weak chin. Seems like the kind of guy who ought to aim for a career as an appointed official in Democratic administrations, something like that. Note that I didn’t say he was a bad candidate because his position on this or that was wrong. I think that’s a naive way to look at politics, beyond the broad scope of choosing one party or the other based on which one has policies you like better. Once you do that, you look for the ones you can most easily market to the low-information chumps who swing back and forth from election to election based on anything but a deep, sober, evaluation of the issues. > [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > It is my belief that if a time-travelling wizard took the statements “In politics, truth isn’t truth” and “I appreciate his integrity of sticking to his opinions, but they do not serve him one iota. Never have. Never will.” back in time 6 months to when Democrats expected this primary season to go very differently, center-left Democrats would consider these overwhelmingly distasteful, Republicany and post-truth things to say. If the wizard added the additional context that these were statements made about the “truth” and the “opinion” that helping kids learn to read is good, even if a socialist is doing it, I’m pretty sure I would have to give you more than a few guesses before you said “oh! Those will be our opinions!” You’re just wrong. You can go all the way back to the Nineties, when I adored Bill Clinton because he was so good at snowing the rubes. You could see that Republicans knew he was full of shit, but they couldn’t convince swing voters of it, and it drove the GOP up the wall with frustration. I loved it! To sum up: you are vastly underestimating my cynicism about politics. But it’s not a bitter cynicism, at least not when the Democrats are being smart politically: it’s a gleeful, opportunistic cynicism. (When they give in to idealistic naivete, it does shift to frustration and bitterness.) --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-carolina-democratic-debate-tonight/848516)._