Now Klobuchar is out. My mother will be disappointed — she was planning to vote for Amy. I’m just disappointed because she endorses Biden on the way out the door.
So now there are just five left: Sanders, Biden, Warren, Bloomberg, and…Tulsi Gabbard? Gabbard is still campaigning?
I liked her the most, from the choices we had last week.
Not for policy, which is all the pundits seem to care about, but for basic sanity. The federal government — especially the State Department, the EPA, the DOJ, the … damn, everything — needs rebuilding after Trump, and that’s what I thought she’d be the best at.
And we’d still have Senators Warren and Sanders on the job.
Wow, two absolute garbage candidates out in a single two-day period? Neat. Biden, Bloomberg, and Warren next, please.
Warren is a garbage candidate to you?
So, I know I’m being a bit lazy here, but I couldn’t really find the answer with a bit of light googling. What happens to the delegates that the ones who have dropped out won the fealty of in previous events? Do they get reassigned based on second choices?
@3
Absolutely. I don’t support “capitalist to their bones” ineffectual policy wonks whose best policies boil down to watered-down Obama-era policies. Bernie Sanders is my compromise candidate.
Second choices aren’t recorded. The first round in the convention will just consist of counting delegates to find a majority. These are “pledged” delegates, in the sense that they are meant to stick with the popular vote choice assigned to them by voters. (Technically, they’re calculated from those votes in an undemocratic way, but this is how the concept is sold to people, as if it were “proportional” representation, when they really mean “roughly proportional in a way that is distorted by the political geography, even worse than the electoral college itself.”)
If there’s no majority, there’s a second round which will definitely choose the nominee. Those delegates are now “free” (not “pledged”) to select any candidate, even ones not on any ballots. But “free” is generally code for doing what the party wants. Along with those delegates, there are also superdelegates who have nothing whatsoever to do with the vote; they are simply party insiders.
So, for example, Klobuchar’s delegates will vote for Klobuchar in round 1. They will certainly lose, because they are not a majority. Then, in round 2, all hell breaks loose. In round 3, profit, and finally step 4 is that someone is declared to have a “majority.”
Those delegates are now “free” (not “pledged”) to select any candidate, even ones not on any ballots.
So Forest Gump could become the candidate?
Why do I keep getting the feeling that US elections (or whatever the leadup is) are mad?
To be clear, it could conceivably be Klobuchar anyway, since she is after all “someone.” She couldn’t get a majority in the first round and will certainly lose then, but she could be given the win in the second, if that’s what the party wants.
Tom Hanks could absolutely be the Democratic nominee.
There’d be a backlash for Hanks’ character in Volunteers.
@consciousness razor (#6)
OK, I’m getting tired of this bullshit and so I really have to call it out. Let’s be honest, here: You’re defining “democracy” very narrowly. In fact, it’s not entirely clear how people like you (you’re not by far the only one calling all of this undemocratic) are even defining the term. If we, for example, define it as “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives,” which is what I got from a Google search, that’s what we have. Eligible members are electing representatives, also known as “delegates.” I see nothing with that definition to then prevent those delegates to elect someone to represent them. I see nothing with that definition to suggest the allocation of delegates must be proportional. Do you? These points, then, may be where your definition (again, whatever it may actually be) differs.
I’m fine with taking objection to the process. I want that to be made clear. What I’m getting sick and tired of are the Richard Dawkins types that have “facts” where the rest of us have “ideology.” Or, in this case, people who think and/or imply there is just one objective form of democracy and everything else is not. No, you have an idea of what you think democracy should be, but that does not mean systems that don’t match your idea are therefore “undemocratic.”
So it would really be helpful if you and others, when you go about calling something “undemocratic,” to actually define what you mean by that. Sadly, the cynic in me suspects you and others don’t really have much intention of defining your terms because I suspect you’re trying to take a shortcut to “win” an argument. I suspect you’re relying on the premise that your audience views democracy as good and things that are undemocratic as bad. To “win” the argument, you then simply declare what you’re arguing against to be bad (undemocratic) so that you don’t have to bother explaining why it’s actually bad. That laziness really bothers me. (And it does nothing to raise my consciousness!)
As an aside, I understand that not all delegates may free up for the second ballot. Different states apparently have different rules as to how many ballots it takes before a delegate frees up. That’s got to be obnoxious to keep track of.
Yeah, I can see that. Too much communism, not enough racism. But he was good in Saving Private Ryan.
Tom Hanks!? What happened to Forest Gump? Only a fictional character could defeat the fictional character currently in the office. Plus, Gump doesn’t come with the baggage that the other candidates drag around. So let’s have Forest Gump, a real fictional character in the White Man’s House.
I wasn’t defining a word. I was using a word. I used lots of words that I didn’t define, and you didn’t complain about them.
By the way, the word I used was an adjective, not a noun.
Then, in fact, it’s not entirely clear that I’m defining it very narrowly.
I think I have a very broad concept of democracy, It should extend into all parts of the political sphere, not just the voting booth, into our workplaces, homes, domestically and internationally … everywhere really. Along with secularism, humanism and socialism, democracy is a fundamental feature of how we should think about political issues in general.
Now you tell me what your understanding of it is like, while explaining how mine is very narrow in comparison.
I didn’t google the term and ask the result whether it suggests a proportional allocation of delegates.
In fact, what I think is that we shouldn’t be using delegates at all. One person, one vote. You count people, because people matter (a moral/political claim), and that is how it should work in a country which honestly presents itself as being ruled by its people (a different moral/political claim).
I don’t ask for dictionaries or google searches to make my moral or political claims for me. Do you?
Then when I object to the process, as I do, what you shouldn’t do is cite your google search results. You should have a coherent argument to offer about your own moral/political position, but I take it that you haven’t elaborated upon that at all, unless your view is actually supposed to be pitiful and incoherent.
I’m not sure about that. Even in the general election, it’s not clear that this is really a matter of law, but more a matter of tradition or custom. (The social pressure to do anything else is huge, so it’s not a practical concern, but to say that they can’t <>legally<> do it is suspicious to me.)
“Gabbard is still campaigning?”
Putin has some big donors lined up for her.
Susan Montgomery wrote:
Unlikely. She seems to be operating a skeleton campaign at this point. She’s holding on just to keep up the Fox News approved anti-Democratic party victim story that she’s been cruising on for the past few months. When the primary is finally done, I expect her to take a position with the network, and this is basically her audition for that.
@ #5
Such bullshit.
The more pressing issue is that she’s trying to Nader Bernie, by staffer’s own admission, and has literally no hope of the nom outside of bullshit games, which she may be trying.
Gee, sounds like a lot of folks have been getting their talking points either from Darth Cheeto or from Russia Today. Same talking points–ones even Bernie doesn’t support–it’s just Darth Cheeto is a little slower than RT.
https://twitter.com/aishaismad/status/1233899739906813952
Unless Putins CNN, stop doing his work for him in creating chaos, idiot.
Gabbard is only in the race to forward her political message. Like a lot of candidates who run, like Mike Gravel was. Though Gabbard has stuck it out much longer than he did. So she’s in because it’s beneficial to future aspirations, I’ll leave up to you all to ponder what those are because it’s not pertinent.
Well then get ready for more disappointment.
As for Warren. When her campaign went into a nosedive after Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, any illusions that she was a serious contender went out the window. There is no reason to stay in after her 5th place in SC. On Tuesday she’s not likely to take any states, it’s not even likely she’s going to win her own. So why is she still in, is she a believer in miracles? No, despite the fact that she was quoting Matthew in the last debate, that’s not it. She’s in because she can peel off some of Sanders vote. CNN reported that an insider to Warren’s campaign leaked that she is only in the race to “blunt” Sanders campaign.
Which makes sense. She is after all the only candidate in the same lane as Sanders, so would be the only one who could peel off some of that vote. So why would she stay in just to “blunt” Sanders?
I’m going to separate this with a new paragraph because all that before is not so much speculation, but this is completely.
Warren’s certainly not doing any horse trading with Sanders and Bloomberg, so it’s Biden. If she’s done well for herself Warren has wrangled a VP position in the Biden admin in return for “blunting” Sanders. If she hasn’t done so well she’s been promised a cabinet position at least. Maybe something in finance.
Even then Biden doesn’t have a chance against Sanders. That’s not the point. They can’t stop Sanders from getting a plurality, the point is to keep Sanders from getting that majority, to make it a contested convention. That way the superdelages will decide in the second round. Which means it’s Biden, with a very outside chance Bloomberg has bought a hail mary. There are few superdelegates that don’t own some measure of fealty to Bloomberg’s “philanthropy”. Talk about Tammany hall on steroids. So we’ll see on that.
If it all goes that way, it will have numerous consequences. First will be the demonstrations, who knows what those will lead to. 1968 again perhaps? Second, the Democratic party will be decimated electorally for the next ten years or so. So expect many more Republican wins in that time. Why decimated? Well, the left, as represented by the Sanders movement, will be split between many factions. There will be those who will give up on the Democratic party, there will be those who insist that getting rid of superdelegates is the answer and will work toward that end… and so on. They will be factionalized and that will effectively eliminate any further challenge to the Democratic leadership for a time. But at the same time the voter base of the party will drop through the floor and won’t recover any time soon either.
@Leo Buzalsky:
In that quote, cr doesn’t use “democracy”. CR used “undemocratic”.
Note that undemocratic does not mean “failing to live up to a specific definition of ‘democracy'”. If it violates even one democratic “principle”, then it may be fairly described as “undemocratic”. One person, one vote is fairly described as a “democratic principle” and a subsidiary principle is fair division of representation. Violating one or both of these would seem to me to be a failure to act according to democratic principles.
I really don’t think you have a good case here that CR is using the word unfairly.
@Mrdead Inmypocket:
It’s a good thing you told us this. I’m not a political expert, so I wasn’t aware that it is completely impossible that Warren might have decided that it’s important that democrats have a woman in the race – just on principle – or that she promised herself or someone else that she’d stay in until SuperTuesday or that she might otherwise have thoughts in her head other than the ones you’ve announced to the world.
But I suppose this is all justified by one report by CNN who has never engaged in sexist minimization of women’s candidacies that the “only” reason for her run was to blunt Sanders. Now that we have that report, I realize it’s impossible that Warren could have ever gotten into the race because she believed in herself and her ideas.
Thank you, Mrdead Inmypocket. Without your media and campaign expertise, I might have made the grievous error of failing to assume that the only woman in the race is a deceptive, conniving wench who is constantly hiding her real motives, the truth of which is that Warren never cared about actually accomplishing anything other than wounding a deserving man.
@17
Nah. I’m sorry that you have hitched your wagon to an ineffectual capitalist. On the plus side, short of the DNC handing her the nomination, she has no path to the white house. I’m very glad to cast my vote tomorrow in order to make that path just a little more difficult for her.
CNN is fully in the “4 more years of Trump” camp. They’re desperate to sink to Warren and Sanders, the two people with the best chance of winning and making their lives harder, and they managed to torpedo Warren’s campaign successfully during the last debate they hosted.
They went after her for something one of her campaign staffers said about something Sanders supposedly said* and, even when it was plain that she didn’t want talk about it, they wouldn’t let it drop. Then they made sure to catch the argument she had with Sanders after the debate was over by “accidentally” leaving the microphone nearest to them on. You’ll notice that the media made sure NOT to do the same to Klobuchar and Buttigieg in the next debate, when they had their little dustup.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Warren were staying in the race because she can’t believe that something so stupid and sleazy could sink her campaign. Far too many otherwise sensible people don’t treat the US mainstream media like what it actually is- a right-wing propaganda organ. If I were advising the high-profile campaign of any candidate leaning the slightest bit left, I would advise them to treat the MSM as the enemy.
I rather wish Warren would call them out on their bullshit; I think it would have helped her campaign. Unfortunately, I think she’s too kind to treat the enemy with the contempt they’ve so richly earned.
*For what it’s worth, I believe both Warren and Sanders on the matter. It’s possible that Sanders said something that Warren honestly interpreted as “a woman can’t be president” without actually meaning what Warren took it to mean. I don’t think it was some nefarious plot on the part of Warren, and I don’t believe Sanders believes that a woman can’t be president. Misunderstandings happen.
@23 Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden.
That and horse trading are mutually exclusive? They can’t all be true?
Yes that report is a reason to think that Warren is staying in the race to “blunt” Sanders. Well, that and the other tactical reasons I stated, and more that we won’t ever get into on here.
Describing one of Warren’s possible motivations does not imply the non-occurence of all her motivations. For obvious reasons it’s not tenable to list Warren’s motivational itinerary every time we talk about such things. So one would tend to limit commentary to whatever information has been forthcoming recently. It doesn’t seem like a reasonable expectation that anyone would include a list of motivations but the most pertinent in everyday conversation as the election is ongoing. (I get it, you’re attempting to build a case that I brought up Warren’s blunting Sanders and didn’t list all her other motivations because I’m sexist. Pish posh.)
As for CNN engaging in sexist minimization of women’s candidacies. That would be my impression broad brush on any mainstream media platform. As for that particular instance, in complete context, I have to say I can’t interpret it that way. If you can I’d be happy to read what you have to say about it. Don’t hurry yourself because I only get by here once a week or so.
No trouble at all. (Same level of sarcasm.)
Sarcasm aside. Is horse trading like that deceptive? Is it conniving? Has she hidden her motives? I wouldn’t see it that way. Don’t see where you got that impression I’m implying Warren is any of those things, even sarcastically. That’s how politics do.
Sanders is certainly deserving. Though not because he’s a man.
I get what you’re going for there, the moral high ground. Taking umbrage is a good strategy. If the perception is that Sanders supporters have the moral high ground because Warren’s being “deceptive”, He has a long consistent career of fighting for women, people of color like myself, the working class etc and you somehow felt that you have to take that moral high ground back to defend Warren. Then you should naturally try make it look like I am being misogynistic.
Though you profess up and down every thread on this blog that you’re not against Sanders, as such. And not exactly all in for Warren either. So then why would you, if you’ll forgive me, very disingenuously try and make me look misogynistic. Maybe because you hold your feminist principles dear of course. And you think that defending Warren is a good way to fight for those. It might work. Though I have to say that guile doesn’t often win people over. I don’t mean win me over, there is no need. So you’re reacting to defend your principles and you chose me because you think I am a stereotypical Bernie bro perhaps. I approve of your motivations, and to me personally the attack is meaningless. So I’ll just play the part and bow out. (Oh Christ how I despise that character. But anything for a last laugh)
@Mrdead Inmypocket
bwuh?
Describing one motivation does not imply non-occurrence of other motivations.
Saying that something is the ONLY motivation definitely implies the non-occurrence of other motivations. Or, well, it doesn’t imply so much as shout to the world.
Because you said she only had one motivation, when she’s been clearly articulating for months that she had other motivations. If she in fact, as you have written in this thread, had only one motivation, only the blunting Sanders motivation, then all those other statements about why she wanted to be in the race were of necessity lies.
I’m not looking to take umbrage. I’m reading what you actually wrote. If you are now saying that you don’t believe that she only had one motive and that what you wrote was wrong – either intentionally or unintentionally – then my interpretation of what you said would be incorrect. Because I was operating not under the assumption that you’re a big ol’ misogynist, but rather under the assumption that you actually mean what you say. I find that a rather reasonable assumption to make because without it conversation would be impossible. I mean, would you like me to assume that none of what you say is actually what you mean? I could. I just don’t think it would lead to anything productive.
What? You don’t believe that I can like Sanders and dislike one or more arguments / comments made by Sanders followers? That would be weird. I mean, surely you’ve encountered a Sanders supporter that’s said something wrong or even (gasp) bad. Are you saying you’ve never encountered a Sanders supporter making a bad argument and that if you did encounter a bad argument made by a Sanders supporter that you would immediately renounce your support for Sanders? That’s how you judge candidates? By the people who comment on the internet? I gotta say that’s pretty weird.
Or maybe you are saying that you think that I’ve actually been rebutting Mr. Sanders himself at some point in these threads? Because to my knowledge, none of the commenters’ handles – not even yours – is a secret sock puppet of Bernie himself. Given that, I don’t see how you can possibly believe that opposing some rando’s internet comment is the same as opposing Sanders.
But, y’know, good job for implying that I, too, am lying and flat out asserting that I’m “disingenuously” trying anything in these threads.
I’m ingenuously taking you at your word (and others at their words) that what you’re saying is what you intend to say. I am ingenuously proposing to fight bad arguments and encourage people to make better ones. If I’m more often annoyed at people making bad arguments in favor of Sanders, that doesn’t say anything about Warren or Sanders. Maybe it says something about me, but to prove that you’d have to prove that I’m giving a free pass to the same sorts of errors or bad arguments when made by supporters of other candidates. I don’t think you’ll find evidence of that, but feel free to look.
Mrdead Inmypocket @26, when you wrote this, it was sufficiently informative for me to know the tenor of your response:
Look: that was a direct response to your #21 (“She’s in because [X]”), and that purportedly non-exclusive stuff is not X. You see how it comes off as evasive?
(Or, you could have noted you intended ‘in part because [X]’ rather than what you actually wrote. Still could!)
Crip Dyke:
A strawman. Mrdead Inmypocket wrote of the factual, not the merely possible.
Dishonest. Her intentions now are widely reported. The evidence comes even from Warren herself and her campaign staff.
Ad hominem. Also irrelevant for the reason above that CNN is not the only one offering the evidence (and not “sexist minimization”) at issue.
Another strawman, with more talk of the “impossible” but also with the word “ever.” The question was about why in fact she is still in the race, not why she “ever” was.
No it doesn’t imply that. It’s the ONLY motivation we can draw from that revelation. I was speaking in reference to that CNN report and what conclusions we can draw from it to bolster later speculation, not about Warren’s motivations whole cloth. The context matters. I’m not in any way saying it was Warren’s only motivation for entering the election and does not preclude any other motivation for staying in. To strawman that into anything else was disingenuous.
Why you’d try to do that is unclear. But it seems like, from here anyway, that you have some issue over the optics of what Warren is doing and that I brought it up. You decided to try and make it look like I’m saying something I’m clearly not in an attempt to counterpoint. The rest is quibbling and honestly dialoging with someone not arguing in good faith doesn’t interest me just now. So I’ll bow out altogether, I have to go vote.
No, it actually looked like something else, at least to me and probably to some others. I have no problem with you withdrawing your over-broad language, and not a large problem with you blaming the misunderstanding on context (rather than simply taking responsibility for writing something less-than-clearly.
But if you were asserting that was Warren’s only motivation – which it sure looked like you were doing from the plain language of your comment – then my comment naturally follows. I’m happy to look at things from your point of view, if you bother to clarify that point of view. The fact that you’re constantly turning to the assumption that I’m being dishonest and “not arguing in good faith” is something I’m not prepared to simply accept.
I’ve done nothing dishonest in this thread, and if you don’t like people interpreting “only” to mean “only”, then maybe you could take some responsibility for your own phrasing, eh?
@consciousness razor:
Mrdead Inmypocket asserted plainly that there was “only” that one reason to be in the race. If there’s only one reason, then there aren’t other reasons. It is, literally, impossible for one reason to be the “only” reason while other reasons simultaneously exist.
As for ad homs, I’ll gladly cop to not taking the word of a biased source (after years of proving their bias) on a subject matter directly related to their known bias(es). There may have been other sources, but Mrdead Inmypocket didn’t present them. It’s not up to me to comb the internet in search of facts that might support someone else’s argument.
And let’s note that to the extent that this is an ad hominem, it’s not at all dismissing Mrdead Inmypocket without examining the evidence presented. It is, in fact, an evaluation of the credibility of the evidence Mrdead Inmypocket brought to bear. The usual failing of someone engaging in ad homs, then, isn’t mine. I’m not unwilling to engage with evidence. I’m simply judging a single report, as paraphrased by Mrdead Inmypocket, without accompanying link but attributed to CNN, as insufficiently credible for me to consider the assertion established.
If I told you, with no link, that Sanders is unelectable because MSNBC said so, would you consider that proposition established? Would you just take my word for it because I’ve included the vaguest of references to a corporate media outlet? Or would you want far more specifics to consider it established and would you consider MSNBC’s established hostility to Sanders when you evaluated the claim? Evaluating the credibility of the source is an important and completely valid part of evaluating the evidence put forward. I honestly doubt that you’d do differently by completely ignoring MSNBC’s history of bias in the hypothetical Sanders case above. And that would be a good thing. That would be the right thing. Media literacy requires us to recognize the biases of sources when evaluating their work.
While it would be fallacious to assume that what Mrdead Inmypocket said was not true, it’s not at all fallacious, indeed it’s good practice, to examine the evidence put forward by Mrdead Inmypocket thoughtfully, not credulously.
In any case, this:
is a fair criticism, and I’ll take my lumps for my mistake in not using context to interpret Mrdead Inmypocket in the most favorable way available, which would be that this was about Warren’s “only” motivation after whatever date that unlinked CNN report was published, but I don’t know when that was. Whatever limitations on time frame would be implied, they certainly aren’t made specific here. So, yes. Give me my lumps on that one, but they don’t seem big lumps and I don’t feel particularly sheepish for having made that particular mistake.
Err…. uh…. That’s fake news. It definitely is up to you.
Also, the CNN politics section is nowhere near the whole internet.
It also requires doing some of the homework yourself, not just passively waiting for someone else to spoon-feed it to you.
Never mind CNN and their wacky hijinks. I’ve been trying to imagine how you could be paying close enough attention to the last week or more of election coverage – enough that it’s appropriate to weigh on the matter as you have – and not come away with a similar conclusion about what Warren is currently attempting to do in the race. I know that you haven’t been totally neglecting these things, since our little “consolidate before it’s too late” spat recently. So what gives?
It doesn’t seem like you appreciate that this is an entirely different type of question. You can’t give the same answers, like “she entered the race to be the first woman president” or whatever. Of course she did and she still does want that, and of course many of us would like that. (Even lots of people like me, and I’m not supporting her.) The trouble is that this sort of misinterpretation completely changes the subject, to make it about sexism … or presumably anything you’d prefer to talk about, instead of why she’s still running given the state of the race now.
To state it directly again, the pressing issue in this context is whether she is hurting the progressive cause, by remaining in the race now, making a Biden nomination significantly more likely.
If she is doing that deliberately, you should be rethinking a whole lot of things you probably believed about her and her campaign. She really doesn’t look like the sort of progressive that you thought she was. To me, it always seemed like a much milder sort of progressivism, even on her best days. But I hadn’t assumed that lurking underneath it all was full-bore pro-establishment, protect-the-system-at-all-costs, never-Bernie “centrism.”
I’m trying to maintain my patience here, and I have to keep reminding myself that this is basically just theoretical for you. (For me, that means a mix of contempt and some sympathy, so don’t think it’s all bad.) What I mean is that you don’t have a real horse in this race, because you’re not going to be voting in the primaries. You don’t really need to be in a frame of mind where you’re thinking hard or clearly about this stuff, because the election for you is off in the distance and out of your hands at the moment. It will make no practical difference for you. But for those who are voting in the primaries, I don’t think this sort of confusion and/or misdirection can be taken so lightly.
This election is really interesting because of the way it’s tearing the mask off certain forms of hypocrisy.
Democrats for 4 years: Hillary Clinton should be President because she got the most votes! The President shouldn’t be chosen by an arcane, non-representative process!
Democrats now: It doesn’t matter if Bernie Sanders ends up being the candidate with the most votes, the party should be able to make a backroom deal to give the nomination to a less-popular candidate, or even somebody who isn’t explicitly in the running.
Democrats for 4 years: Oh my god, Trump is so terrible we all need to unite against him!
Democrats now: The most important thing is to not nominate Sanders, even if he turns out to be the most popular candidate we’ve got.
Democrats for 4 years: The Republicans are destroying our country through terrible policy, aimed at benefitting the rich at the expense of everybody else!
Democrats now: We can’t possibly nominate the person who actually wants to change the terrible policies that are in place! We need to nominate the guy who literally says he won’t make any substantial changes, and also that he loves Republicans “too much”. Or maybe the one who is an actual billionaire who backed Trump, backed several of the Republicans who narrowly won seats in Congress, and was actually literally a Republican until just a minute ago!
Democrats for 4 years: We need to get out the youth vote and the minority vote, they’re the keys to getting rid of Trump!
Democrats now: We need to make sure not to nominate the candidate who has the strongest support with young people and minorities.
Democrats for 4 years: The Republicans are so awful we need a complete change!
Democrats now: We need a candidate who will push for bipartisanship and work with Republicans!
Well, I would agree except that Mrdead Inmypocket specified that this is the ONLY reason. Mistaking the time frame may make sexism relevant in a way that it wouldn’t have been otherwise, but Mrdead’s insistence that this was the ONLY reason leads to the exact same place. So the mistake over timeframe doesn’t change anything. It only theoretically would have changed things if only Mrdead hadn’t said exactly the words that Mrdead said.
Even if Warren has Machiavellian anti-Sanders motives now, it’s impossible for a reasonable person to believe that she ONLY has Machiavellian anti-Sanders motives now. In fact, even you don’t believe that:
My emphasis of course.
So if CNN reported that Warren is ONLY in the race for that reason, you would apparently have a difficult time believing that, and probably for many of the same reasons that I do.
I am sick of the overgeneralizations and over-the-top rhetoric that portray Warren as EEEEEvillllllle, whether accidentally as Mrdead seems to have done or intentionally. When people use the language of absolutism to portray Warren as motivated by nothing but evil, I’m going to speak up.
I believe I’ve also spoken up when people took what I considered to be unfair shots at Sanders.
The absolutist (though apparently accidental) language of Mrdead also furthered sexist stereotypes of women in politics – as did the CNN report, assuming that Mrdead accurately paraphrased it. Portray Trump as thoroughly evil and I won’t say a word, but honestly I would probably speak up against people demonizing Buttigieg and Klobuchar even though I was never remotely tempted to support them in any way at all.
Feel free to say you love Sanders and I won’t say a peep. I’ve trashed Matthews for calling the Sanders campaign Nazis for – gasp! – winning actual votes in Nevada. Make an argument against any candidate and I won’t say a damn thing unless I think you’ve crept onto the demonizing spectrum or unless someone says something that I believe is false.
Mrdead Inmypocket can protest otherwise, but ONLY means ONLY means “AND NO OTHERS”. Mrdead Inmypocket – carelessly, not intentionally – portrayed Warren as having literally no motives other than hurting Sanders for some unspecified, but contrary to my original interpretation relatively short, period of time.
OF COURSE I’m going to speak up against that bullshit. I don’t need or want to demonize Mrdead, but the argument that Mrdead actually wrote (as opposed to the one in Mrdead’s head that never quite made it to the keyboard) includes an assertion that Warren only has a single motive, which happens to be hurting a man. My snark at this obvious bullshit isn’t demonization of Mrdead’s self.
You’re obviously more informed about the Dem primary candidates. I don’t challenge that. You’re in a great place to educate people. But what the fuck do you get out of tolerating overgeneralizing, demonizing rhetoric?
Let’s say that Sanders is elected president. You and I and Mrdead all celebrate, the mood in the US is optimistic, and then January 20 comes, Sanders is inaugurated, and to get anything done he has to work with …. congressional democrats. Which just happen to include Senator Elizabeth Warren. How does portraying Warren as evil now help you get Sanders’ agenda passed next year? What good does demonizing democrats actually do for you? Why do you want it to persist unchallenged?
What if – and I know this is crazy talk – you and I both challenged demonization and promoted people making decisions on actual facts, not wild-ass generalizations, exaggerations, or unsupported extrapolations (like the “Warren opposes M4A” that happened this weekend, but which was fortunately and productively retracted). Then I wouldn’t seem like the bad guy in every fucking thread about the primaries and I would have more energy to pop up and support you when you make good points about Sanders’ positive attributes and rather than furthering the splintering of the left wing, we might actually forward a “we’re all in this together” attitude that brings everyone to the polls to vote against Trump this November instead of depressing turnout among those folks who feel upset that their candidate(s) was/were unfairly demonized.
I’d fucking love it if you would challenge bullshit instead of letting it stand because it targets someone you don’t support. You could even be good cop, gently nudging people toward better comments and arguments so that people wouldn’t only face the bad cop of a Crip Dyke who is sick and tired of seeing this shit all over the internet.
Utopian I know, but I am fucking sick of the bullshit and the sexism. I don’t see too many nasty, unjustified attacks on Bernie here, but yes, I’ve also talked to friends in the US on the phone and defended Bernie against the bullshit demonization thrown at him by people who aren’t on Pharyngula. You don’t see it, but it is happening. Because I’m sick of the hateful shit. I’m not sick of Bernie. I’m not sick of Mrdead. I’m just sick of the bullshit and I’d really like you, with all the time you’ve invested in this conversation, to at least acknowledge – not as often or as significantly as I have done for Bernie – that Warren is subject to unjustified, unwarranted, demonizing, and – yes – fucking sexist attacks.
I would love to believe, just for a fucking minute, that you care as much about people opposing Warren only for non-sexist, actually true reasons as I do. Make me believe it, CR. Make me believe.
You are just derailing this even more, CD. Maybe an Ilhan Omar tweet from last night will wake you up:
And don’t even start on the “black voters mostly went with Biden” talking point the media is selling now. White and older voters (who also tend to be wealthier) make up a larger percentage of the electorate in every one of these states, except Alabama (52 delegates) where it’s split more evenly but has a very small Hispanic/Latino population. And those in the South tend to be more conservative, terrified of whatever they think “socialism” is. What they are doing is falling in line with the establishment, ignoring all of Biden’s gigantic flaws as a candidate.
Also, except Virginia, none of those southern states are going to swing to Dems in the general election anyway. It is so patently absurd that some establishment Dems and media personalities seem to think we should be running a southern strategy, with Ronald fucking Reagan as the nominee. They are not just living in a stupid fantasy world; they are liars.
But back to the point…. Warren got 3rd in her home state, which was her best result of the night. She even got 4th, behind fucking Bloomberg, in 9 out of 14 states.
(I think it’s fair to just leave aside her 5th place result in American Samoa, which had 351 total votes yet gets 7 delegates, even though it can’t vote in the general election. One delegate there represents about 50 people, while one represents thousands of people in other states…. Over 8,000 in states like TX and CA. All it tells you is that Gabbard is from there and Bloomberg is loaded.)
Those types of results are exactly what I’ve been talking about for the last week or two, CD, not Warren’s gender, which has nothing to do with it. You explain to me how this is good, solid, progressive politics.
And it’s not just that she was falling a little behind….
– Warren got a “strong third” in MA, about 5% lower than Sanders, but at least over 20%.
– She’s barely over the 15% threshold in CO, ME, MN, UT.
– She’s under 15% in AL, AR, CA, NC, OK, TN, TX, VA, VT, AS.
Now look at how many delegates are at stake in each of these places.
– 91 in MA
– 195 in CO, ME, MN, UT
– 1,058 in AL, AR, CA, NC, OK, TN, TX, VA, VT, AS
If this was supposed to be a smart plan, to play games at the convention for a split progressive vote, then it (very predictably) backfired yesterday. You and many voters might be ignorant about these things, but Warren and her staff are certainly not.
@consciousness razor:
Can you possibly be serious? I haven’t said one thing about what I thought the results would be on Super Tuesday. You’re refuting no one, talking to nobody. You’re not quoting and responding to literally anything I actually wrote.
In a thread called, “Bye-bye, Amy!” I’ve done nothing but respond to others, quoting them and reacting to what they themselves had actually written in a manner I saw fit. I could not possibly be “derailing” since I only went down the tracks laid by others.
And yet here you are, neither responding to me, nor responding to others in this thread (from what I can tell), and you’re certainly not responding to the OP, yet the first sentence out of your keyboard is, “You are just derailing this even more, CD.”
I’ve got a couple of sentences for you.
You’re gaslighting.
You’re acting like an asshole.
Fuck off forever.