SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[Soontir C'boath]

Hey Soontir, don’t let me put words into your mouth. Do you support Donald Trump winning a second term as president?

No, I don't, but I saw the Democratic Party decide they rather lose to Trump in 2016 and it looks like I'm observing them doing it again in 2020.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hey Soontir, don’t let me put words into your mouth. Do you support Donald Trump winning a second term as president?

No, I don't, but I saw the Democratic Party decide they rather lose to Trump in 2016 and it looks like I'm observing them doing it again in 2020.

I'll remind you, again, that 2016 was not a foregone conclusion. Clinton came very, very close- despite the fact that Donald Trump had illegal Kremlin aid tipping the scales in his favor and the fact that he got, frankly, incredibly lucky with the Wiener investigation just happening to lead to the Clinton email investigation being reopened in late October. Change that one variable, and he probably would have lost. And Democrats have shown strong turnout and flipped Trump friendly seats in pretty much every election held since then. I will also point out that in no election in modern history has an incumbent President with negative approval ratings at the time of the election won reelection. Trump's approval ratings have been almost always in the negative throughout his Presidency.

That said, anybody who thinks they can predict the outcome in November is kidding themselves- whichever side they're on and whatever outcome they predict. The wildcard of COVID-19 alone would make an of the usual election predictions (as uncertain as they inherently are) highly suspect.

Bottom line is, Biden will win if enough people vote for him. He won't if they don't. Justifying not voting for him by saying that he's going to lose anyway is therefore highly disingenuous.

Whether enough people will vote for him will likely hinge primarily on the severity of the pandemic and the subsequent recession, how effective Trump is at dodging blame, and how effective the Democrats are at switching to mail ballots in close states (it is some reassurance to Democrats that all six of the states considered the likely swing states in this election allow unlimited mail-in voting already).

Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida, in case anyone's wondering.

[Soontir C'boath]

Just read the first sentence by the way. Remind me of what? As soon as Hillary won the primary instead of Bernie and even beforehand anyway, I knew in my fucking bones Trump was gonna win. 'Cause in the end, people weren't in the mood for another establishment candidate. When Republicans told Jeb, Cruz, Rubio, and whoever the other chucklefucks were told go fuck themselves by the voters who went for Trump that should've sounded the damn alarm.

[The Romulan Republic]

Just read the first sentence by the way. Remind me of what? As soon as Hillary won the primary instead of Bernie and even beforehand anyway, I knew in my fucking bones Trump was gonna win. 'Cause in the end, people weren't in the mood for another establishment candidate. When Republicans told Jeb, Cruz, Rubio, and whoever the other chucklefucks were told go fuck themselves by the voters who went for Trump that should've sounded the damn alarm.

It should have, but the fact remains that Hillary's defeat was not inevitable if you look at the math, and that no, Joe Biden is not just Hillary 2.0 and 2020 is not 2016. I'll also note that whatever his failures as a human being, Biden as a candidate has been doing better than Hillary, in terms of reaching out to Bernie and his supporters.

[bilateralrope]

Just read the first sentence by the way. Remind me of what? As soon as Hillary won the primary instead of Bernie and even beforehand anyway, I knew in my fucking bones Trump was gonna win. 'Cause in the end, people weren't in the mood for another establishment candidate. When Republicans told Jeb, Cruz, Rubio, and whoever the other chucklefucks were told go fuck themselves by the voters who went for Trump that should've sounded the damn alarm.

Since when does the feeling in your bones count as evidence ?

I'm also curious if you could prove that you felt that way after she won the primary.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The ad mocks Trump for making that statement back in January. It's at the 35 second mark. Not sure how to make that clearer

Yes, I am aware of that. But I fail to see how pointing that out answers any of my questions?

I don't think it's a strawman at all.

You really don't see how immigration policy and pandemic response strategies might be two different things?

You really don't see how criticizing a particular pandemic response strategy as being ineffective isn't tantamount to somehow adopting different immigration policies?

[Soontir C'boath]

Just read the first sentence by the way. Remind me of what? As soon as Hillary won the primary instead of Bernie and even beforehand anyway, I knew in my fucking bones Trump was gonna win. 'Cause in the end, people weren't in the mood for another establishment candidate. When Republicans told Jeb, Cruz, Rubio, and whoever the other chucklefucks were told go fuck themselves by the voters who went for Trump that should've sounded the damn alarm.

Since when does the feeling in your bones count as evidence ?

I'm also curious if you could prove that you felt that way after she won the primary.

I explained myself after that, but ok. Sure focus on that. It's not like there's a couple sentences after that. In the end, Trump did win, so what the hell you blathering about?

[Straha]

Shockingly, the only people responsible for electing Donald Trump are the people who voted for him. Blaming other people for not voting for a shitty candidate is both grade-A blame deferral but completely misunderstands how democracy works both conceptually and in practice.

There is, to be clear, a legitimate argument that Trump is a proto-fascist who the left has to unite against at all costs because of what happens when people don't unite against them.

There seems to be a contradiction between these two paragraphs.

Not really. Whatever the strategy of the broader Left is, the blame for electing Trump in a democracy can only rest on the voters who voted for him, the institutions that supported him, and both of the above that spent money on his behalf. Blaming the Left for Trump is wrong on every level.

And, to be blunt, the practice of blaming groups for not 'joining up' to defeat evil in electoral politics historically has two motives.

The first is self-excusing blame deflection, see most recently the littany of Hillary folk who have pointed the finger at Bernie as the direct cause of her 2016 loss.

The second is ideological warfare by other means, to pick a direct example there are dozens (hundreds?) of papers and monographs that blame Ernst Thälmann for not being willing to align the German Communist Party behind other moderate parties to block the rise of Hitler. The number of papers who blame the Democratic Socialists for not getting behind the Communists is remarkably few and almost all from committed Marxists. Conservative parties will be castigated for not getting behind moderates or centrists, but almost never for being unwilling (in the face of Fascism, no less) to get behind committed Socialists or Communists. The implicit message here is always that the status quo is legitimate and that people who move too far from it are all on the same spectrum of suspicion.

In theory, people can vote for whoever they want and they don't have responsibility for any other candidate. In practice, either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be the next President, and attacking ones' candidacy, refusing to vote for them, and urging other people not to vote for them (by, say, accusing anyone who supports them of being pro-rape) has the effect of helping to elect the other.

I'm not talking about any political theory here. I am talking about the facts of how elections work.

Your stance is an incredible oversimplification.

If not voting for someone helps "the other one" get elected then surely a vote for a third party is, in fact, a vote against _both of them_. Ditto not voting.

The idea that my vote has any sort of power over electing Donald Trump only makes sense in the context of a large plurality, even majority, of people voting for Donald Trump. Which is the ultimate point here: The people to be blamed for electing Donald Trump are purely those who voted for Donald Trump.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I am not arguing that people should just "Shut up and get in line". If I was, you'd be absolutely right to condemn it, and you are right to condemn Biden supporters who take that position. Tara Reade's story, and the stories of other women mistreated by Biden, should not be ignored, silenced, surpressed, or attacked, and I have consistently argued that they should not.

You are accusing Soontir and others who don't want to get in line to vote for Biden of being Trumpists. Explicitly.

The one thing I will not do is take the position that holding Biden accountable outweighs the safety of the entire planet. That's all. You yourself acknowledged above that an argument can be made "that Trump is a proto-fascist who the left has to unite against at all costs..." Which is really the crux of what I'm saying here.

Right, in the context of Tara Reade and the sexual politics of the last four years that translates to "Some rapists are more acceptable than other rapists." and if you have a less apocalyptic view of modern party politics than yours then the more important question than "Who sits in the white house" may be something like gender and racial politics, in which case a no-vote to both carries a lot more cultural sway especially if the Democratic party reads it as a rebuke of its attempted message of "lets return to normal".


[quoteRegarding A) Kavanaugh is not an accurate comparison, because in selecting a Supreme Court judge, its not a binary pick between two candidates, either in theory or in practice. The Republicans could have nominated someone else was a conservative Republican but not accused of rape.[/quote]

The Democrats could have nominated someone who wasn't accused of sexual assault. They didn't. The Republican stance on why they shouldn't withdraw Kavanaugh was because he was the option who most people could get behind with the least downsides. This is the exact same messaging.

And, to be blunt, I think the argument that the Democrats couldn't pick another candidate is flatly false. A. The convention hasn't happened. There is no candidate. B. If leaders of the Democratic party (Warren, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, etc.) came out and said that Biden was an unacceptable pick and demanded a complete check on his behavior before being willing to endorse him he would be forced to withdraw. That they haven't speaks volumes.

First, it implies that both sides are equally bad- that viewing Trump as a threat that must be stopped at all costs is as reasonable a position as viewing Hillary as a threat that must be stopped at all costs. This is just more "Both Sides"-ism.

When both sides are willing to ignore sexual violence to achieve broader political goals then, yes, both sides are bad on sexual violence. This isn't a question of both sides being the same writ large, but a more pointed one. The question for the uncommitted voter is their own political priorities, and if a voter's priorities are taking a blanket stance against rapists this is something that is deeply deeply troubling.

Regarding B) I do not see how reelecting Trump would cost us less ground on sexual assault in the public sphere than electing Biden. Not only is Trump a serial rapist and probable pedophile who has openly boasted about being able to get away with molesting women, but he also supports a wide range of policies that will actively harm survivors of sexual abuse.

The nomination of Biden makes clear that the Democratic stance of "No sexual assaulters, not one, not ever." taken in the context of Al Franken and Kavanaugh was one purely for political gains and not an ideological stance. And silence in the face of a serious accusation like Tara Reade's has a chilling effect on other victims coming forward about their own experiences, a core part of the #metoo movement.

When a party takes a stance that it is willing to be led by someone who has crossed multiple sexual lines (on camera no less), refused to apologize (while saying he will change his ways in the future), and refuses to hold itself to the standard that it claims to want to hold others to, that's bad.

Regarding C) This is the question that weighs most heavily on me. It is certainly not my intention to disregard the feelings of those who have suffered a sexual assault. It is for that reason that I will not judge or criticize survivors of sexual assault who choose not to support Biden. I will also not judge the many who will choose to vote for him. My attacks are not meant to be directed at them, and I sincerely apologize if they ever appeared to be. They are, rather, directed at the disingenuous Bernie or Bust/Never Biden crowd who are in many cases cynically seizing on Ms. Reade's story as a justification for what they wanted to do all along, and to guilt/bully others into doing likewise. And against those who hypocritically demand that Biden supporters own responsibility for rape culture while refusing to accept any responsibility for their own actions.

Sure, then treat this as a genuine issue:

If I view stopping sexual assault as a sine qua non of politics and believe that people who commit sexual assault should be ostracized from society, what message does it send to tell me to vote for Biden because he's comparatively better than Trump? The only reading of it that's cogent is "Some assaulters are better than others."

To ignore this isn't just heartless but terrible politics, and to shout down people who raise legitimate issues is to replay the exact same errors of 2016 that doomed the Democratic candidacy at the time.

He is insisting that everyone should refuse to vote for Biden no matter what, and portraying me (and by extension anyone who disagrees with him on this issue) as a rape apologist, while pretending that there are no consequences for doing so and that he has no responsibility for his actions. He, and others like him, have also made it clear that they will not support Biden under any conditions, so what is the point in trying to reach out to them?

Because party politics means that they're the ones who need to be won. And the Democrats have made a very strong play to court people who care about sexual assault and women as being a cornerstone of the coalition necessary to beat Trump, and have made "Trump is a rapist, sexual predator, etc." an integral part of their message. If the people who are supposed to be on-side for this are the ones screaming and jumping up and down, then that's a real issue, and one that needs to be addressed with something more than "You're a bad faith actor."

[The Romulan Republic]

My position is not based on either blame-shifting or absolute ideological warfare, despite your reductionist attempt to say that it must be one or the other. It is, rather, based on two simple facts which you have neither acknowledged nor refuted:

1. Due to the nature of democracy, especially in a two-party system, and assuming Biden is the nominee, the only remotely realistic outcome is that either he or Trump will be the next President.

2. Trump supports policies and engages in actions which post a direct threat to the security of the entire planet.

Stating that Trump is only the responsibility of the people who voted for him may be your ideology, your interpretation of democracy, but it does not change the facts that because of #1, not supporting Biden will increase the chances of a Trump victory. And that because of #2, a Trump victory will endanger everyone on this planet.

Personally, my beliefs include the idea that willful inaction also carries responsibility, if less responsibility than direct action.

You say we need to reach out to people who refuse to vote for Biden under any condition, but you're unclear to me what this means to you. You also say that the only cogent reading of supporting Biden is that some assaulters are better than others, and that supporting him means Democrats are no better than Republicans on the issue of sexual assault, and so on.

So it seems to me that what you are saying is, indeed, that I and others have an obligation to adopt Never Biden, and that if we don't, we are no different from Republicans on sexual assault. That the only meaningful form of outreach to Never Bidens is to oppose Biden no matter what, even if it means Trump wins. If that's your view, that's your right, but state it honestly and own responsibility for the consequences.

It is also highly disingenuous to say that we need to reach out to Never Bidens to win in November, when the only way to do so is to throw the election in November.

If you mean simply that the Democrats could/should pick someone else as nominee- I agree. Has everyone on this board forgotten in two weeks that I supported Bernie Sanders? But my arguments are premised on the assumption (the realistic one) that Biden will be the nominee. At which point, saying "well they could have picked someone else in the primaries" is irrelevant. Because the primaries are over and it is, in fact, practically a binary choice between him and Trump.

If you want to argue that supporting Biden means I am okay with rape under some circumstances, then I can also argue that not supporting him means you are okay with letting the World burn under some circumstances. That holding Biden to account means more than the safety of every single human being on this planet, and the entire planetary ecosystem. If that's your view, fine, let's debate that- is having a man accused of rape in the Presidency so intolerable that it justifies essentially hitting the self-destruct button on planet Earth?

[The Romulan Republic]

Biden campaign refunds donation from noted exhibitionist Louis CK:

https://time.com/5825872/joe-biden-donation-louis-ck/

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden’s presidential campaign said Wednesday that it has refunded a $2,800 donation from Louis C.K., a comedian and writer whose career was derailed after five women accused him of sexual misconduct.

The comedian, whose real name is Louis Szekely, donated to Biden on March 4, according to Federal Election Commission records. The donation was made the day after the former vice president’s commanding win in more than a dozen Super Tuesday contests put him on the path to becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee to take on President Donald Trump.

A Biden campaign spokesman said the contribution has since been refunded, which will be reflected in his next report filed in May. The spokesman declined to comment further.

Szekely did not immediately respond to an email on Wednesday requesting comment, and a publicist who once represented him also did not immediately respond to a message.

The New York Times in 2017 published an investigation in which five women, four of whom spoke on the record, detailed misconduct by the comedian in the late 1990s and in the 2000s. Some of the women said he abruptly began masturbating in front of them. One said he requested to do so, but she refused his request. Another said she could tell he was masturbating while speaking on the phone with her.

For giving voice to open secrets, for moving whisper networks onto social networks, for pushing all of us to stop accepting the unacceptable, the Silence Breakers are the 2017 Person of the Year.

Szekely later said that their stories were true and that he was “remorseful” of his actions, but the fallout was swift. FX Networks quickly dumped him from shows he was part of, Netflix scrapped plans for a stand-up special and the release of his feature film “I Love You, Daddy” was shelved. HBO also removed his work from its on-demand video streaming service.

[aerius]

If you want to argue that supporting Biden means I am okay with rape under some circumstances, then I can also argue that not supporting him means you are okay with letting the World burn under some circumstances. That holding Biden to account means more than the safety of every single human being on this planet, and the entire planetary ecosystem. If that's your view, fine, let's debate that- is having a man accused of rape in the Presidency so intolerable that it justifies essentially hitting the self-destruct button on planet Earth?

It's funny that you say that. Let me get the relevant excerpt for the audience.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... u#p4097633

Its also worth noting that asylum seekers wouldn't have to enter Canada secretively and illegally, risking breaches of quarantine, if the government did not have a policy of treating the US as a "safe third country" and sending them back when they come lawfully.

When you think about the treatment these people could face in the US, the ICE camps, where they crowd large numbers of people into cages together, where people were already dying from lack of food, hygene, and medical care and general inhumane treatment, and where I fully expect to see hundreds if not thousands of coronavirus deaths*, this is pretty fucking disgusting.

People are going to look back on Canada's actions here the exact same way we look today at politicians who sent boatloads of Jews back to Germany in the 30s. I honestly don't think I could vote for Trudeau in good conscience after this, not even to keep the Conservatives out.

So you're not going to vote for Trudeau even to keep the Conservatives out, knowing full well that the Cons will be far more strict on immigration policies among other things, and generally speaking, their policies will ruin the shit out of Canada as we know it. But you won't vote against them because you find Trudeau's actions distasteful.

But despite all that you're totally happy to yell, abuse, and throw tantrums at people who refuse to vote for Biden.

[The Romulan Republic]

If you want to argue that supporting Biden means I am okay with rape under some circumstances, then I can also argue that not supporting him means you are okay with letting the World burn under some circumstances. That holding Biden to account means more than the safety of every single human being on this planet, and the entire planetary ecosystem. If that's your view, fine, let's debate that- is having a man accused of rape in the Presidency so intolerable that it justifies essentially hitting the self-destruct button on planet Earth?

It's funny that you say that. Let me get the relevant excerpt for the audience.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... u#p4097633

Its also worth noting that asylum seekers wouldn't have to enter Canada secretively and illegally, risking breaches of quarantine, if the government did not have a policy of treating the US as a "safe third country" and sending them back when they come lawfully.

When you think about the treatment these people could face in the US, the ICE camps, where they crowd large numbers of people into cages together, where people were already dying from lack of food, hygene, and medical care and general inhumane treatment, and where I fully expect to see hundreds if not thousands of coronavirus deaths*, this is pretty fucking disgusting.

People are going to look back on Canada's actions here the exact same way we look today at politicians who sent boatloads of Jews back to Germany in the 30s. I honestly don't think I could vote for Trudeau in good conscience after this, not even to keep the Conservatives out.

So you're not going to vote for Trudeau even to keep the Conservatives out, knowing full well that the Cons will be far more strict on immigration policies among other things, and generally speaking, their policies will ruin the shit out of Canada as we know it. But you won't vote against them because you find Trudeau's actions distasteful.

But despite all that you're totally happy to yell, abuse, and throw tantrums at people who refuse to vote for Biden.

That's a bullshit comparison, and you know it.

My justification for opposing Trump at all costs is that he represents an existential threat to both America and the world. A Con victory, as awful as it would be, would be far less impactful. The Cons wish they had the power to do a tenth the damage a rogue PotUS can do. Its also bullshit because it is actually possible in Canada for a third party to, if not win, hold the balance of power. It isn't in the US.

When Scheer has the power to destroy the entire planet, and the NDP no longer exist, get back to me.

[Straha]

My position is not based on either blame-shifting or absolute ideological warfare, despite your reductionist attempt to say that it must be one or the other. It is, rather, based on two simple facts which you have neither acknowledged nor refuted:

1. Due to the nature of democracy, especially in a two-party system, and assuming Biden is the nominee, the only remotely realistic outcome is that either he or Trump will be the next President.

2. Trump supports policies and engages in actions which post a direct threat to the security of the entire planet.

Stating that Trump is only the responsibility of the people who voted for him may be your ideology, your interpretation of democracy, but it does not change the facts that because of #1, not supporting Biden will increase the chances of a Trump victory. And that because of #2, a Trump victory will endanger everyone on this planet.

Personally, my beliefs include the idea that willful inaction also carries responsibility, if less responsibility than direct action.

Neither of those facts conclude with "People who don't vote for Biden are responsible for Trump." The argument here is as cartoonish as going to a Giants-Mets game and declaring that because only one of those two teams can win, and because the Mets are assholes, you're an asshole if you don't cheer on the Giants.

This also leads to absurd levels of manichean dualism coupled with blame shifting. If someone is sick in the hospital with COVID-19 there is one of two realistic outcomes: they will die, they will live. If you don't do anything to actively support them living are you supporting them dying? How about for famine in locust riven Africa? etc. etc. etc.

And deployed here it absolutely comes off as blame-shifting. In a democracy centered around party politics, the candidate of a party is required to, by design, build a coalition of people who want to support them. If a candidate cannot assemble that coalition it is, definitionally, their fault that they haven't been able to broaden their appeal to do that.

If someone doesn't like the candidate or coalition, especially for legitimate political and personal reasons ("I don't like sexual assaulters and refuse to support one"), that is A. not a fault but a feature and B. not their requirement to justify.


Finally, and I want to stress this, this is exactly the same message that the Republicans sent to their base in November 2016: Yes, Trump may be a lout, a bully, an empty vessel, and a sexual predator but Hillary is a threat to the global order and must be stopped. If you don't vote for him you're destroying the fabric of America and letting the liberals win.

You will, I have no doubt, be ready to scream "BOTH SIDES-ISM!" but, again, when both sides use the rhetoric both sides are, in fact, guilty of the charge in this context regardless of other distinctions between them.

You say we need to reach out to people who refuse to vote for Biden under any condition, but you're unclear to me what this means to you. You also say that the only cogent reading of supporting Biden is that some assaulters are better than others, and that supporting him means Democrats are no better than Republicans on the issue of sexual assault, and so on.

So it seems to me that what you are saying is, indeed, that I and others have an obligation to adopt Never Biden, and that if we don't, we are no different from Republicans on sexual assault. That the only meaningful form of outreach to Never Bidens is to oppose Biden no matter what, even if it means Trump wins. If that's your view, that's your right, but state it honestly and own responsibility for the consequences.

It is also highly disingenuous to say that we need to reach out to Never Bidens to win in November, when the only way to do so is to throw the election in November.

I'm not a Never Biden-er. My deeply conflicted personal choice here is not a discussion that's highly germane to what's being discussed here except in the context that the sexual assault weighs deeply on my mind.

You basically ping-pong between two issues. The first is the question of justification of the candidate, the second of reaching out to supporters.

To the first, if Biden is a sexual assaulter and the call is still to vote for him because he's better than Trump, then the message is blunt. Supporting some sexual assaulters, like Biden, is acceptable when it is a goal towards a broader political purpose. Period. We can hem and haw about this, but that's the line that you have to own and deal with the consequences of. As a friend of mine put it "It's okay to say that every President is a rapist and sometimes we have to pick the least bad rapist." but it's insulting to everyone's intelligence to try and duck the issue.

The second is the supporters one.

If the "Never Bidens" are an irrelevancy then why are you yelling at people who won't vote for Biden? If his coalition can win the white house without their support and, in fact, has made the calculated decision to forgo their support for other broader bases then someone like Soontir refusing to vote for Biden should be fine. You need his vote no more than you need the right-wing libertarian base, and demanding that they justify why they won't vote for your candidate is an insult to everyone in the process.

If, however, you think that the "Left" (and I use the term generally here) is a necessary part of the coalition to win Biden the White House and you're troubled by the fact that they won't get on board. (As your agitation here seems to indicate) then you absolutely need to offer something beyond haranguing them and calling them Trumpists.

If you mean simply that the Democrats could/should pick someone else as nominee- I agree. Has everyone on this board forgotten in two weeks that I supported Bernie Sanders? But my arguments are premised on the assumption (the realistic one) that Biden will be the nominee. At which point, saying "well they could have picked someone else in the primaries" is irrelevant. Because the primaries are over and it is, in fact, practically a binary choice between him and Trump.

A. It's not a binary choice, B. you are again deflecting blame from both Biden's weaknesses and Trump's supporters to those who would pick neither, and C. supporting the Democratic party after picking Biden comes with a whole lot of baggage that people object to. I don't care what your stances were weeks ago I care about your stance now, and it's asinine.

If you want to argue that supporting Biden means I am okay with rape under some circumstances, then I can also argue that not supporting him means you are okay with letting the World burn under some circumstances. That holding Biden to account means more than the safety of every single human being on this planet, and the entire planetary ecosystem. If that's your view, fine, let's debate that- is having a man accused of rape in the Presidency so intolerable that it justifies essentially hitting the self-destruct button on planet Earth?

Look, before this continues, I want to make clear that you're explicitly saying "Yes, I am okay with a rapist in the White House under certain circumstances."

My justification for opposing Trump at all costs is that he represents an existential threat to both America and the world. A Con victory, as awful as it would be, would be far less impactful. The Cons wish they had the power to do a tenth the damage a rogue PotUS can do. Its also bullshit because it is actually possible in Canada for a third party to, if not win, hold the balance of power. It isn't in the US.

When Scheer has the power to destroy the entire planet, and the NDP no longer exist, get back to me.

This comes across as straight up saying that your moral purity outweighs the potential victims of the Conservatives but not the potential victims of the Democrats. It also shows that you recognize that context is important sometimes, which begs the question why you're not making that argument with Soontir et al. instead of calling them Trumpistas and accusing them of being complicit in his policies.

(As, I will note, your refusal to vote Con makes you complicit in Trudeau's corruption under your framework.)

[Gandalf]

The Democrats could have nominated someone who wasn't accused of sexual assault. They didn't. The Republican stance on why they shouldn't withdraw Kavanaugh was because he was the option who most people could get behind with the least downsides. This is the exact same messaging.

And, to be blunt, I think the argument that the Democrats couldn't pick another candidate is flatly false. A. The convention hasn't happened. There is no candidate. B. If leaders of the Democratic party (Warren, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, etc.) came out and said that Biden was an unacceptable pick and demanded a complete check on his behavior before being willing to endorse him he would be forced to withdraw. That they haven't speaks volumes.

It's a sad commentary that protecting Biden seems to have unified the Democratic party more than anything I've seen in a long time.

Each day there's no visible movement on this issue from them just makes it worse, and more work they have to do to regain trust.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Democrats could have nominated someone who wasn't accused of sexual assault. They didn't. The Republican stance on why they shouldn't withdraw Kavanaugh was because he was the option who most people could get behind with the least downsides. This is the exact same messaging.

And, to be blunt, I think the argument that the Democrats couldn't pick another candidate is flatly false. A. The convention hasn't happened. There is no candidate. B. If leaders of the Democratic party (Warren, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, etc.) came out and said that Biden was an unacceptable pick and demanded a complete check on his behavior before being willing to endorse him he would be forced to withdraw. That they haven't speaks volumes.

It's a sad commentary that protecting Biden seems to have unified the Democratic party more than anything I've seen in a long time.

Each day there's no visible movement on this issue from them just makes it worse, and more work they have to do to regain trust.

Less "protecting Biden" than "stopping Trump at any cost", which has been keeping Democrats together and motivated in every race since 2016. I'm pretty sure we'd have seen similar unity behind any nominee except possibly Bernie, and I'm willing to bet Obama would have pressured people to get behind him too.

Of course you can frame it as "Democrats unite to protect rapist!" Or you can frame it as "Democrats unite to stop Trump". Both have an element of truth, but the latter is certainly closer to how most Democrats view their actions and motivations.

[Gandalf]

If it's "stopping Trump at any cost," then wouldn't they be far better served by dumping Biden for a generally less gropey candidate? You know, someone who can attack Trump's horrific sexism (and such) with greater ease?

[Ralin]

And, to be blunt, I think the argument that the Democrats couldn't pick another candidate is flatly false. A. The convention hasn't happened. There is no candidate. B. If leaders of the Democratic party (Warren, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, etc.) came out and said that Biden was an unacceptable pick and demanded a complete check on his behavior before being willing to endorse him he would be forced to withdraw. That they haven't speaks volumes.

Like I said before, trying to force the Democratic Party to nominate someone else at this point is playing with fire and likely to end in disaster. But if we're not going to take that risk now (within a couple years of the #MeToo movement taking off) then we're never going to.

The Democrats could have nominated someone who wasn't accused of sexual assault. They didn't. The Republican stance on why they shouldn't withdraw Kavanaugh was because he was the option who most people could get behind with the least downsides. This is the exact same messaging.

Wasn't there also a heavy element of them having to do that because Trump made it clear that Kavanaugh (a noted believer in the president can't be charged with crimes theory of jurisprudence) was who he wanted and Republicans knew they risked him tossing a tantrum if he didn't get his way? Kavanaugh was in many ways not the ideal candidate from a Republican standpoint. There were any number of pro-lifer ghouls with impeccable right-wing credentials they could have gone with who would have been less polarizing.

Which hey, actually seems like a pretty good comparison to Biden.

[The Romulan Republic]

If it's "stopping Trump at any cost," then wouldn't they be far better served by dumping Biden for a generally less gropey candidate? You know, someone who can attack Trump's horrific sexism (and such) with greater ease?

Again, of course they should have, but why are you telling me this?

As I've said again and again, Biden is a poor choice of nominee.

As I've said again and again, I supported Bernie Sanders, which everyone on this board seems to have conveniently forgotten in the span of two weeks.

As I've said again and again, my argument is premised on the (realistic) assumption that Biden will be the nominee, that it will be him or Trump. At which point, saying "They should have picked someone else" is irrelevant, as far as the question of stopping Trump is concerned.

Given that I've been very clear about all of this, I can only assume that your intention in "asking" this obviously rhetorical question is to imply that I support the decision to pick Biden as the nominee, so you can dodge my actual point (that Biden is going to be the nominee and if its between him and Trump then Biden is the better option) and once again imply that I support rape/rapists.

For which, again, fuck you.

I'm also going to point out that other people in this thread have defended Biden with blatantly misogynistic, victim-blaming, rape-apologist rhetoric, and they haven't been constantly harassed with page after page about how they're "okay with rape" by half a dozen different posters. In fact, so far as I can recall, I was the main poster calling them out. But my history of personal conflicts with others on this board, as well as the systematic attacks on my reputation over the last several years, make me a uniquely acceptable target for any kind of personal harassment and defamation whatsoever on this board, and an effective tool for derailing any topic.

So forgive me if I find all your moral outrage rather insincere.

I would also like to point out that half-dozen pages or so of various board members calling me a rape-apologist, and often engaging in broken-record debating or putting words in my mouth, constitute violations of board rules against both dishonest debating and dog-piling. Not that those rules are actually enforced, especially when I am the target. I am well aware that this board's unofficial policy is that I am acceptable target for any form of attack whatsoever.

[The Romulan Republic]

And, to be blunt, I think the argument that the Democrats couldn't pick another candidate is flatly false. A. The convention hasn't happened. There is no candidate. B. If leaders of the Democratic party (Warren, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, etc.) came out and said that Biden was an unacceptable pick and demanded a complete check on his behavior before being willing to endorse him he would be forced to withdraw. That they haven't speaks volumes.

Like I said before, trying to force the Democratic Party to nominate someone else at this point is playing with fire and likely to end in disaster. But if we're not going to take that risk now (within a couple years of the #MeToo movement taking off) then we're never going to.

Its not going to happen without something more than what we have now, and you and I both know that. It should, but it won't.

If someone does somehow manage to force him out, more power to them, but if not, then we'll have to deal with the reality of Biden as the nominee, and saying "it should have been someone else", however true, won't change that.

Please remember that you are talking to a Sanders supporter, here. Biden wasn't my first, second, third, or probably fourth or fifth choice for the nominee. In fact, he was below pretty much everybody but Gabbard (a xenophobic war crimes apologist) and Bloomberg (an even bigger sex abusing racist than Biden).

Wasn't there also a heavy element of them having to do that because Trump made it clear that Kavanaugh (a noted believer in the president can't be charged with crimes theory of jurisprudence) was who he wanted and Republicans knew they risked him tossing a tantrum if he didn't get his way? Kavanaugh was in many ways not the ideal candidate from a Republican standpoint. There were any number of pro-lifer ghouls with impeccable right-wing credentials they could have gone with who would have been less polarizing.

Which hey, actually seems like a pretty good comparison to Biden.

At no point, however, was it a binary choice, Kavanaugh or they lose everything. Right up to the end, they could have voted in a different conservative. If Biden is the nominee, however, it is effectively a binary choice. A reality which you again evade, as part of your strategy of ignoring all inconvenient realities and personal responsibility while loudly demanding that I own my non-existent support for rape.

[The Romulan Republic]

This isn't going anywhere.

I'm tired of being told I'm "okay with rape" because I don't consider reelecting Trump a victory for MeToo, or because I don't consider the entire planet acceptable collateral damage. I'm tired of people making a big show of "calling me out" and demanding I "own the consequences" of my positions when others are engaging in blatant dishonesty and misogyny and receiving far less push back. I'm tired of being used to derail topics so that others don't have to back up their positions. I'm tired of a very serious issue being turned into yet another miserable shit-flinging contest about my personal character, and I'm sorry for allowing myself to be provoked into engaging with that.

I've tried fighting back. I've tried reasonably explaining my positions and addressing others concerns. I've tried getting the mods to do something. It doesn't do any good. You all just keep repeating the same old lines, and its just going in circles. I realize that some of that is my fault, though that does not excuse the conduct of others. So I'm going to try to clarify things:

Here is my position, in brief:




1. Biden is probably a rapist, and regardless of any other issues, almost any Democrat would have been a better nominee.

2. If Biden is somehow pressured out of the race and replaced with someone who doesn't have a history of groping, I will support that whole-heartedly.

3. Realistically, though, Biden is going to be the nominee.

4. At that point, due to the nature of the US political system, it will effectively be a choice between either Biden or Trump.

5. Therefore, whether you believe that non-voters or protest voters have any responsibility for a Trump victory or not, the actual, practical consequence of opposing Biden will be to help Trump win. This is especially true if you live in a swing state, but given the unpredictable nature of this election, is somewhat true even for those in typically "safe" states.

6. Trump winning is a worse outcome than Biden winning in almost every way, both on the issues of sexual violence and racism specifically, and for the entire world.

7. I will therefore be supporting Biden, despite my deep regrets for the necessity of that action, and a considerable amount of disgust. Once this election is over, I will be changing my registration to Independent until Biden is out of office, and I will support a primary challenge against him should he seek reelection in four years. I will also continue to argue that his victims deserved to be heard and believed, and demand accountability and action from him on the issues of misogyny and sexual abuse.

8. Regardless of my views, I recognize that it is not my place to tell any survivor of sexual abuse what to do in this situation. And I am sickened that the Democratic Party has given them this choice.




This represents my final statement on this subject. I can't control anyone else's actions, but I will not get drawn into further argument on this subject, as experience has shown that it will likely be pointless, counter-productive, and only make a shameful spectacle out of a very serious issue.

[Straha]

The Democrats could have nominated someone who wasn't accused of sexual assault. They didn't. The Republican stance on why they shouldn't withdraw Kavanaugh was because he was the option who most people could get behind with the least downsides. This is the exact same messaging.

And, to be blunt, I think the argument that the Democrats couldn't pick another candidate is flatly false. A. The convention hasn't happened. There is no candidate. B. If leaders of the Democratic party (Warren, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, etc.) came out and said that Biden was an unacceptable pick and demanded a complete check on his behavior before being willing to endorse him he would be forced to withdraw. That they haven't speaks volumes.

It's a sad commentary that protecting Biden seems to have unified the Democratic party more than anything I've seen in a long time.

Each day there's no visible movement on this issue from them just makes it worse, and more work they have to do to regain trust.

Less "protecting Biden" than "stopping Trump at any cost", which has been keeping Democrats together and motivated in every race since 2016. I'm pretty sure we'd have seen similar unity behind any nominee except possibly Bernie, and I'm willing to bet Obama would have pressured people to get behind him too.

Of course you can frame it as "Democrats unite to protect rapist!" Or you can frame it as "Democrats unite to stop Trump". Both have an element of truth, but the latter is certainly closer to how most Democrats view their actions and motivations.

This sort of instrumentalizing the protection of someone for a greater purpose is exactly how every predator has been protected.

"Yes, Bill Cosby may rape folks but he does so much good for the black community and bringing people together. Best to let sleeping dogs lie."
"Don't get on Harvey Weinstein's boat, but if you need to make a good movie there's really no better producer to call."
"Larry Nassar may make the girls uncomfortable but they get gold medals!"
"Brock Turner may have raped an unconscious woman in the bushes, but he got into Stanford so he can't be all bad."
etc. etc. etc

One of the broader points of the MeToo movement has been that this instrumentalization is a trope that is deployed regardless of its accuracy, people will always come up with an excuse to look past the accusation and the victims and come up with a way to defend inaction. (Even when there is nothing intrinsic to the person to defend, e.g. "Think about what this will do to his family.")

Saying that Democrats aren't thinking about it as protecting a sexual assaulter is, indeed, entirely the point and the problem that needs to be fixed. Added to this is that this was the argument that Democrats mobilized around when they attacked Trump and Kavanaugh, and when they threw Al Franken out of the Senate. Backing Biden doesn't just mean that the former cannot happen without it looking like a cheap ploy, but means that the latter is effectively recognized as a tacit mistake: if the voters speak and the dude is an assaulter that the voters' opinion shoulder supersede fact. If you prioritize stopping sexual violence then from every level this is a bad hand and the best move is not to play it.

[The Romulan Republic]

An addendum to my last post, because I forgot to include it and its too late to edit:

No other situation (Kavanaugh, etc.) can be considered equivalent to this one, unless the stakes were on the same global and existential scale, and the choice was a similarly binary one.

[Straha]

"No, but this time we really do need the sexual assaulter to be able to do the job."

[The Romulan Republic]

Never Trump group the Lincoln Project endorses Joe Biden:

https://axios.com/lincoln-project-joe-b ... c4355.html

The Lincoln Project — which includes former and "Never Trump" Republicans George Conway, Reed Galen, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, Rick Wilson and more — is up with its first TV ad endorsing Joe Biden.

The big picture: The spot, which shows Biden with Republican former Speaker John Boehner, debuts in Milwaukee and Grand Rapids, Mich., two presumed battleground states in the upcoming election.

"How Progressives Can Get Behind Joe Biden Without Losing Their Credibility"

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... -2020.html

Joe Biden racked up the endorsements from his former nemeses last week. Bernie Sanders gave Biden the nod in a highly scripted two-hander on April 13, just a few days after suspending his own campaign. (Yes, that happened just last week.) Elizabeth Warren chimed in on April 15 with a video endorsement that praised Biden’s leadership in times of tragedy and economic uncertainty. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a devoted Sanders surrogate who got her start in politics on his 2016 campaign, came just short of endorsing Biden in an interview with Politico that same day. “I would love to see the vice president clarify and deepen his policy stances on certain issues,” she said. “But aside from that, you know, I think it’s incredibly important that we support the Democratic nominee in November.” As my colleague Jim Newell pointed out, the Democrats, for once, are in array.

It’s a strange phenomenon to watch. To give their party the best chance of ousting Donald Trump in November, progressive political leaders are throwing their support behind one of the most conservative, least inspiring, most out-of-touch, least values-driven candidates from what was initially an uncommonly diverse and left-leaning primary slate. That task would have been delicate even in simpler times. Today, with an ongoing pandemic, a once-in-a-generation economic crisis afoot, and a recent sexual assault allegation against the presumptive Democratic nominee, it has the potential to be a minefield. But it hasn’t been, really. Perhaps that’s because, at its core, this outpouring of accolades from the party’s nuclei of ideas and energy for an establishment candidate in visible cognitive decline is the picture of political normalcy. In a two-party system, the pride swallowing and the strained flattery arrive in the wake of every primary. For elected officials in either party, this is the cost of membership.

Plus, we’re living in strange times, pandemic aside. The Democrats currently face an opponent, Donald Trump, who has activated the GOP’s base in new and fearsome ways. In a recent piece in the Nation, former leaders of the left-wing Students for a Democratic Society wrote critically of the Democratic Socialists of America’s decision to refrain from endorsing Biden after Sanders withdrew from the race. “Some of us are DSA members, but do not believe their position is consistent with a long-range vision of democracy, justice, and human survival,” the group wrote. By failing to direct its members toward Biden, the country’s current best chance for leftward movement in the White House, the SDS leaders wrote, the DSA has communicated that Biden and Trump are equally undeserving of the presidency, a premise the group that authored the Nation piece strenuously disputed.

Still, it might be difficult for some left-leaning people to really get energetic about campaigning for the former vice president. The challenges of endorsing Biden are particularly acute for progressive women and feminists, for example, especially those who’ve been supportive of the #MeToo movement and other efforts to unveil and eradicate sexual harassment and assault. Several women have accused Biden of foisting demeaning, unwanted kisses and touches upon them in professional settings, and Tara Reade, who worked in Biden’s Senate office in the ’90s, has accused him of sexual assault. When the New York Times reported on Reade’s allegation, its piece pointed out that the sexual assault allegations against Trump were far more extensive than the one against Biden. Some left-leaning pundits have made similar comparisons between Biden’s policies and Trump’s, expressing their halfhearted support for Biden by calling him (as they called Hillary Clinton four years ago) the “lesser of two evils,” an attempt at falling in line without abandoning their principles.

I’d argue that, for anyone truly invested in progressive social change, this is the wrong way to approach an election. A resigned acceptance of an elected official’s shortcomings won’t help turnout or organizing efforts. And assessing sexual assault allegations by their relative severity only serves to minimize them. But there’s a better way to think about how the far left can support Biden. It just requires some refocusing.

Here is the mindset of a political organizer: No one candidate will ever be a perfect leader in any movement’s eyes. Activists accept they’ll have to put political pressure on—and occasionally argue with—whoever wins the election. The question, for them, is which elected official they’d rather be up against, considering the respective communities the candidates are beholden to and their respective abilities to be swayed. Would Ocasio-Cortez rather push Trump to halt deportations, or Biden? Would #MeToo activists rather mobilize for sexual harassment legislation under a Trump administration, or a Biden one? It’s not about accepting a lesser of two evils. It’s about choosing an opponent.

It’s not about accepting a lesser of two evils. It’s about choosing an opponent.
Over the course of her campaign, Warren proved to be a clear communicator on gender issues, and her attempts to hold men accused of sexual harassment and assault accountable got results. Her February skewering of Mike Bloomberg on his history of sexist remarks and the sexual harassment claims he racked up at Bloomberg LP was one of the most memorable moments of the entire campaign cycle. Later that same night, she skillfully dismantled the Bloomberg apologia of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, leading to a broader reckoning with the anchor’s history of sexism and incompetence, shunting him into early retirement. Her success on these matters explains why it was a little surreal to hear the same candidate who made mincemeat of two sexist jerks in one night and made visible hundreds of stories of pregnancy discrimination last fall narrate a video in support of a man whose understanding of gender issues hasn’t much advanced past his 1981 op-ed that faulted child care tax credits with “subsidizing the deterioration of the family.” But Warren knows what she’s doing.

The broader grounds of Warren’s endorsement demonstrate that Biden has cleared the bar for political praise set by a coalition of “Any Functioning Adult 2020” bumper stickers. Biden has served in government for a very long time, Warren says in her endorsement video. Obama assigned him tasks, and he completed those tasks, she notes. Biden is “committed to getting something good done for this country.” Not anything specific, just “something.” Not something great or transformative, just something “good.”

Ocasio-Cortez offers a slightly different framework for coming to terms with a candidate like Biden. In response to a question about Reade’s allegation from a participant in an online conversation convened by the Wing, the congresswoman assured the audience that “it’s legitimate to talk about these things” if Democrats “want to have integrity.” She’s also been calling for Biden to adopt more progressive policies on immigration, climate change, and health care—all while affirming that people who agree with her should commit to voting for the Democratic nominee in November. In other words, Ocasio-Cortez plans to use her support for Biden to move him closer to her favored policy ends, without waving away Reade’s allegation. Biden doesn’t have to be anywhere close to perfect to be a useful potential ally for Ocasio-Cortez’s political cohort.

Likewise, in her endorsement, Warren did credit Biden with one actually great thing: doing what other people want him to do. “When you come up with new facts or a good argument, he’s not too afraid or too proud to be persuaded,” she said in the video. It’s a slightly inaccurate line of approval, considering that at several turns in his campaign, when given the chance to own up to sexist views he held in the past or his previous policy positions, Biden has lied or gotten defensive.

But early in his presidential campaign, Biden did change his position on the Hyde Amendment: Like the vast majority of his former rivals in the race for the Democratic nomination, he now opposes the controversial policy, which prevents low-income women from receiving federal Medicaid coverage for abortion care. The likely reason for his shift was simple: Democratic voters and elected officials have moved left on several issues, including health care and abortion rights, so it made sense for Biden to follow them. Even Barack Obama said in his Biden endorsement that his 2008 platform would be insufficiently far-reaching for 2020. Biden may not be leading his party into a bold, radically equitable future, but at least he’s on the bandwagon.

Smart activists will take note of the way Biden has slowly but surely followed his party to the left. As advocates have pressured Democratic Party leaders to adopt more progressive policies, Biden has been forced to modify his own. Like any other elected official who wants to retain the support of his party and voter base—and much more so than his ideologically purer peers to the left—Biden is susceptible to carrots and sticks. A Biden presidency isn’t a death knell to fairer policies on health care, housing, and wealth redistribution. It’s an opportunity for activists to gain some ground. At least, that’s how the left should imagine it. To maintain some movement cohesion and dispel the nihilism that’s setting in, the left should think of a hypothetical Biden White House not as the least disastrous outcome out of two possible disastrous outcomes, but as a more favorable setting for a set of ongoing fights.

This distinction might seem merely rhetorical, but it makes a big difference when you’re talking about a candidate who’s been accused of sexual assault. The choosing-an-opponent framework doesn’t require any moral concessions or wavering on values, because there’s no wholesale acceptance involved. And yet, it still leaves room for the sort of fired-up enthusiasm the begrudging lesser-of-two-evils narrative smothers. In her Biden endorsement video, Warren fondly recalls what Biden told her as he swore her into the Senate in 2013: “You gave me hell, and you’re gonna do a great job,” he said. Therein lies the key to keeping progressives motivated for the 2020 election: Get them excited to give Joe Biden hell.

[Gandalf]

Again, of course they should have, but why are you telling me this?

You said that prominent Democrats lining up behind Biden could be described as uniting to defeat Trump at all costs. Why are you treating this like it's in the past? The party can still affect change with plenty of time to adjust before the election. It's a risk, but so is running Biden. Here's a fun exercise; the incident with Reade happened in the early nineties, when Biden was about fifty. If a man does such a thing at fifty, is it likely to be the sole time he has done it?

So forgive me if I find all your moral outrage rather insincere.

Insincere moral outrage? Wha?