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2020 Democratic Nominee


used2b

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A centrist will lose to Trump.

There is hard data that shows that a centrist Democrat would be a losing candidate
Economist Thomas Piketty wrote a paper about this in 2018, though the Democrats paid no attention

To translate from academese: An "egalitarian-internationalist platform" means the kind of political platform that articulates a shared, global struggle among all of the poor and working-class people around the world — in other words, a class-conscience platform that recognizes that rich people are not on the same side as the rest of us, and have different interests and are eager to exploit us. And egalitarian means the opposite of nationalistic or xenophobic — united in a common class struggle, you might say, towards a mutual goal of universal civil rights.

Democratic presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren, Mike Gravel and Bernie Sanders fulfill this kind of platform to some degree. When Sanders uses terms like "99%" and "1%", or talks of universalizing abortion rights or healthcare or housing rights, he is articulating that "egalitarian-internationalist platform." Warren is interesting, in that she advocates for heavy regulation and taxation of the rich, though she is hesitant to disparage their right to actually be rich — and she is quick to identify as a capitalist. Still, her policies infuriate rich centrists like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, so one could definitely count her as among the egalitarian-internationalists, or at least adjacent. Gravel, who has been under-covered by the press, is running on a crowdsourced platform that, in the words of Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic, "reads like a left-wing policy wish list."

Yet the Democratic Party and their mouthpieces at major newspapers are clearly not heeding Piketty's prophecy. Rather, TV pundits and op-ed writers of every major newspaper epitomize how the Democratic establishment has already reached a consensus: the 2020 nominee must be a centrist, a Joe Biden, Cory Booker or Kamala Harris–type, preferably. They say that Joe Biden should "run because [his] populist image fits the Democrats’ most successful political strategy of the past generation" (David Leonhardt, New York Times), and though Biden "would be far from an ideal president," he "looks most like the person who could beat Trump" (David Ignatius, Washington Post). Likewise, the same elite pundit class is working overtime to torpedo left-Democratic candidates like Sanders.

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9 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

The emergence of Pete, Warren, and Bernie really highlight how weak the establishment (centrist) democrats are.  Joe fucking Biden is the best they have to offer.  It’s not Jeb bad but it’s close. 

yep.  all biden has is name recognition and fear on his side.  if not for obama and 8 years of awkward photo ops, he'd be a total joke of a candidate.

seems a little silly to lump booker and kamala into that mess, but i don't disagree with the overall premise.

i think the majority of voters want change, but most of them are so shit scared of it, that they think a centrist is some sort of rationalized compromise.

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The emergence of Pete, Warren, and Bernie really highlight how weak the establishment (centrist) democrats are.  Joe fucking Biden is the best they have to offer.  It’s not Jeb bad but it’s close. 


I mean, I like Pete but I’m not ready to put him in league with progressive voices like Sanders and Warren.
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On 5/31/2019 at 9:57 AM, BradInATX said:

Good. Get these jokers who know they have no shot but just want branding and bargaining chips to go away. I like the current line that drops everyone under Booker. That's the perfect group.

 

Sorry Yang, Castro and the rest of the chaff. If you want to build your brand, do something productive.

 

Gravel should get an exception because him train wrecking everything would be riveting television

Do you even know anything about Yang? I'm not going to go back and find your next post about finding an issue... But Yang is literally running because of the issue of the coming wave of automation.

His main focus is to meet the new economy that is coming head-on. 

And get a job? I'm pretty sure that his company, venture for America, is what led him to the conclusions about the coming changes that no one else is talking about.

We're about 8 years away from a drastic change and no one is even talking about it except him.

Please educate yourself about him

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On 6/1/2019 at 8:48 PM, Message Board User said:

California.

 

Saving the environment and the remaining species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

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8 hours ago, SKJ said:

Do you even know anything about Yang? I'm not going to go back and find your next post about finding an issue... But Yang is literally running because of the issue of the coming wave of automation.

His main focus is to meet the new economy that is coming head-on. 

And get a job? I'm pretty sure that his company, venture for America, is what led him to the conclusions about the coming changes that no one else is talking about.

We're about 8 years away from a drastic change and no one is even talking about it except him.

Please educate yourself about him

I know plenty about Yang. I think he's talking about a lot of the right things and bringing UBI into the discussion is a good thing.

But he has a literal zero percent chance of winning. He needs to find another avenue to make inroads with his policies. 

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6 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I thing Yang using his campaign to educate the public on his policy ideas is the best way to make those ideas a reality.  He is not going to be president in 2021 but he’s planting the right seeds now for the future.  I’m glad he’s running. 

He and his 1% aren't doing anything to educate anyone about anything.

Anybody who knows who Yang is already knows what UBI is.

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38 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

He and his 1% aren't doing anything to educate anyone about anything.

Anybody who knows who Yang is already knows what UBI is.

That's not as true as you may think, especially considering why we need it to happen (automation), its feasibility, and the projected outcomes that have been hidden.

What are you even worried about if it's just 1%, as you say? What candidate would that even effect?

It's more than just UBI, and having been a leader in the field, I'm pretty sure he understands the coming dangers.

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Yang's UBI also comes at the expensive of you forgoing getting on SNAP and other benefits if I understand correctly, which is why libertarians and the Kochs love this kind of shit. Color me skeptical that will not have an enormous downside when people mishandle their funds and suddenly can't depend on any other social support nets.

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44 minutes ago, SKJ said:

That's not as true as you may think, especially considering why we need it to happen (automation), its feasibility, and the projected outcomes that have been hidden.

What are you even worried about if it's just 1%, as you say? What candidate would that even effect?

It's more than just UBI, and having been a leader in the field, I'm pretty sure he understands the coming dangers.

It's going to suck up air in the debates and the headlines. And he's drumming up a rabble-y group of supporters who might get pissy and abstain or vote 3rd party/Trump if they don't feel like the party is capitulating to some of the things that are so attractive to them about Yang. Like Berniebros but on an obviously tiny scale. But any scale is too much with the margins being what they were in 2106.

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37 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

It's going to suck up air in the debates and the headlines. And he's drumming up a rabble-y group of supporters who might get pissy and abstain or vote 3rd party/Trump if they don't feel like the party is capitulating to some of the things that are so attractive to them about Yang. Like Berniebros but on an obviously tiny scale. But any scale is too much with the margins being what they were in 2106.

So, what you're saying is, maybe someone should speak on the idea that we are about to be proper fucked by automation soon, and maybe have a plan to fix it?

According to Yang, the reason Trump got elected in the first place is because around 3 million jobs were automated away in the rust belt states that went to Trump.

Maybe someone should listen?

Naaah... Let's just silence that voice, right?

Seems a little contrary to your first post where he needs to find an issue, etc

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42 minutes ago, SKJ said:

So, what you're saying is, maybe someone should speak on the idea that we are about to be proper fucked by automation soon, and maybe have a plan to fix it?

According to Yang, the reason Trump got elected in the first place is because around 3 million jobs were automated away in the rust belt states that went to Trump.

Maybe someone should listen?

Naaah... Let's just silence that voice, right?

Seems a little contrary to your first post where he needs to find an issue, etc

Don't believe I said "he needs to find an issue" or anything close to it at any point.

I'm saying that I appreciate what he's doing and I appreciate his views, but grandstanding in very important presidential election in which he has a zero percent chance to win is not productive.

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On 5/31/2019 at 10:21 AM, BradInATX said:

Exactly. That's what I mean by doing something productive. Go get a job and/or pass some legislation or become the champion of a cause or two that will build your brand. 

This is what I'm referring to.

 

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1 hour ago, 6th Street said:

How are these clowns not running out of $?

Doesn't take much money to do this right now.  Mostly in-person campaigning and some digital buys.  Very few staff and probably no real offices or presence on the ground outside of Bernie, Biden, Beto, Warren and Harris. 

When you staff up in the first 4 states and start to go on TV, that's when you separate who has money and who is a fraud.  Paying field offices + buying TV time is the real money suck. 

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31 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

UBI could only ever work in ethnically homogenous countries like Denmark and could never work here until those selfish black people stop being all black and stuff and making white people not want to share with them.

lol

It's funny to watch these white nationalists freeze up when you ask them to explain why our "diversity" makes basic common sense social programs impossible.

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On 6/2/2019 at 6:31 PM, bad_teammate said:

this fucking nobody getting owned by AOC

 

Delaney would actually be a good choice for those of us moderates that despise Trump.   Socially liberal but actually competent fiscally.   Of course he's not getting a fair shake with Bat Shit Crazy Bernie and AOC leading the party.   Biden isn't a good choice but he really is the only hope to avoid 4 more years of Trump.  

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23 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

A centrist will lose to Trump.

There is hard data that shows that a centrist Democrat would be a losing candidate
Economist Thomas Piketty wrote a paper about this in 2018, though the Democrats paid no attention

To translate from academese: An "egalitarian-internationalist platform" means the kind of political platform that articulates a shared, global struggle among all of the poor and working-class people around the world — in other words, a class-conscience platform that recognizes that rich people are not on the same side as the rest of us, and have different interests and are eager to exploit us. And egalitarian means the opposite of nationalistic or xenophobic — united in a common class struggle, you might say, towards a mutual goal of universal civil rights.

Democratic presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren, Mike Gravel and Bernie Sanders fulfill this kind of platform to some degree. When Sanders uses terms like "99%" and "1%", or talks of universalizing abortion rights or healthcare or housing rights, he is articulating that "egalitarian-internationalist platform." Warren is interesting, in that she advocates for heavy regulation and taxation of the rich, though she is hesitant to disparage their right to actually be rich — and she is quick to identify as a capitalist. Still, her policies infuriate rich centrists like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, so one could definitely count her as among the egalitarian-internationalists, or at least adjacent. Gravel, who has been under-covered by the press, is running on a crowdsourced platform that, in the words of Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic, "reads like a left-wing policy wish list."

Yet the Democratic Party and their mouthpieces at major newspapers are clearly not heeding Piketty's prophecy. Rather, TV pundits and op-ed writers of every major newspaper epitomize how the Democratic establishment has already reached a consensus: the 2020 nominee must be a centrist, a Joe Biden, Cory Booker or Kamala Harris–type, preferably. They say that Joe Biden should "run because [his] populist image fits the Democrats’ most successful political strategy of the past generation" (David Leonhardt, New York Times), and though Biden "would be far from an ideal president," he "looks most like the person who could beat Trump" (David Ignatius, Washington Post). Likewise, the same elite pundit class is working overtime to torpedo left-Democratic candidates like Sanders.

If you want to nominate someone who can beat Trump your best call would be to nominate Trump.   If Biden can't beat him no one else in your party is going to.  The only one left who could beat Trump is Trump by being Trump and saying or doing something ridiculously Trumpian at the worst possible time.

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9 hours ago, bernorange said:

Saving the environment and the remaining species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

If he wants to save endangered species he should start with old school liberals who are still registered Democrats.

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1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

If Joe Biden is the only candidate that can beat Dotard, I’m moving to Costa Rica or Thailand.  

if his numbers stay where they are, there are probably 5-6 different candidates who can/would beat him.

when i say biden's only "pro" is that he can beat trump, that doesn't mean i think he's the only candidate who can.

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13 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I thing Yang using his campaign to educate the public on his policy ideas is the best way to make those ideas a reality.  He is not going to be president in 2021 but he’s planting the right seeds now for the future.  I’m glad he’s running. 

Me too.  The UBI is one area of debate, but the far bigger issue that should be discussed is the future of automation/technology and what impact that may have on our working population down the road.  Social stratification between the top 1% and bottom say 50% of Americans could even more severe than they are now if people/industries do not adapt to the reality of a changing world.  On a very minor anecdotal scale, I just saw about 20 employees at a very well known tourist site famous worldwide pared down to 3 FT, a few more part-time because there are now electronic ticket distributors, check outs, etc.  If any corporation anywhere can save any amount of money eliminating human capital without the PR/optics blowback killing their long-term outlook/branding/metrics (especially the threats of legal exposure, harassment, insurance, etc which are often far scarier than just the labor cost) they are probably going to consider it.  I personally can say flat out that I would feel like I am not serving a fiduciary duty to shareholders if I would not be considering this option if automated costs were even slightly higher than human labor costs just because of the elimination of these corollary issues alone.  (Just one sexual harassment lawsuit, just one work comp case, just one equal opportunity suit, just one age discrimination suit can destroy so much efficiency and it can literally cripple weaker and/or smaller companies) Some positions require human thinking and innovation or other specific skills, but the automation positions don't need these skills (why they are considered in the first place) Humans are far more trouble beyond cost than machines in other areas, and people ignore the realities of future automation at their peril.  They probably need to learn to adapt to this -- not right now -- but I would predict for damn sure your kids and beyond.

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Biden's just gonna lie has ass off about everything that makes him look bad and most dems will give him a pass.  Hell, twitter centrists and the #resistance crew will probably censure those who point out his bald faced lies.  

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