SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[Darth Yan]

Democracy for America has also endorsed Bernie Sanders. This could easily help him

[FireNexus]

Klobuchar out and endorsing Biden. Moderate lane is finally lining up behind Biden. I’m getting very excited for the next debate.

[Darth Yan]

Edit: Beat me to it.

This is getting interesting. Looks like people are pooling around Biden. Super Tuesday is going to be a lot more interesting. I think that in spite of Klobacher's endorsing Biden Bernie will come out on top, which will help his chances.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Klobuchar out and endorsing Biden. Moderate lane is finally lining up behind Biden. I’m getting very excited for the next debate.

I imagine Klobuchar had to have realized it was time for her to go when she had to cancel a rally in her home state because of Black Lives Matter protests.

If you're Joe Biden, you have to be really happy right now, especially with Warren hanging on as an albatross to Sanders helping to offset your own albatross named Bloomberg. As Biden, all you have to do is run the table on everything south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and you're likely to come into the convention with the clear plurality and able to make the case that you're the one with the most votes, and not Sanders.

But ... yeah, the next debate (in Phoenix, AZ) will be hot, and not just because it's located in literal Hell.

[Gandalf]

If that's what it takes to end a republic, then best to get to work on the next one.

I'm sure the thought of the American republic falling is appealing to many who do not live there, do not care what happens to three hundred million Americans, and have the luxury of pretending that it won't harm them in a globalized world.

You mentioned that this election has the potential to end the republic. Which indicates that apparently one angry populist campaign is enough to break it and that the hallowed checks and balances aren't worth shit.

There won't be a "next one" if we lose this election.

The "next one" to which I referred was another run at a republic, maybe with actual safeguards. Something closet to a parliamentary system as opposed to the US' shambolic system.

Gandalf thinks America is evil. This isn't news to anyone.

[Gandalf]

Klobuchar out and endorsing Biden. Moderate lane is finally lining up behind Biden. I’m getting very excited for the next debate.

So they're clearing out the other candidates for handsy invasion of Iraq enthusiast Joe Biden. Way to go for that youth vote I guess?

[Coop D'etat]

Klobuchar out and endorsing Biden. Moderate lane is finally lining up behind Biden. I’m getting very excited for the next debate.

So they're clearing out the other candidates for handsy invasion of Iraq enthusiast Joe Biden. Way to go for that youth vote I guess?

The smart play in American politics is usually to bet against the youth vote in favour of people who actually show up.

[Darth Yan]

I like Warren but at this point she has no chance and if we do get a contested convention we're fucked. At this point it's pride and I'm pretty sure that quite a few supporters of her are turned off. If she loses Mass by a big amount she might finally withdraw

[Coop D'etat]

Don't be too confident Warren dropping out benefits Sanders the most. Way to many people are making the mistake of thinking ideological affinity is the primary motivation of primary voters when it looks like that's not really the case at all. There's a pretty good chance Biden benefits more from Warren being out for a bunch of reasons.

Sanders had a lot of strengths in a 4-6 candidate race built around having a large passionate plurality of support that might not translate well to a 2-3 candidate contest.

For one thing, Bernie land deciding that Buttigieg was a rat and Warren a snake might have been strategically unwise for the part of the race that's about consolidating supporters.

[Darth Yan]

Maybe but he still polls high as a second choice and Warren's shifting to the center hasn't done her any favors.

[FireNexus]

Don't be too confident Warren dropping out benefits Sanders the most. Way to many people are making the mistake of thinking ideological affinity is the primary motivation of primary voters when it looks like that's not really the case at all. There's a pretty good chance Biden benefits more from Warren being out for a bunch of reasons.

Sanders had a lot of strengths in a 4-6 candidate race built around having a large passionate plurality of support that might not translate well to a 2-3 candidate contest.

For one thing, Bernie land deciding that Buttigieg was a rat and Warren a snake might have been strategically unwise for the part of the race that's about consolidating supporters.

If Warren drops I’m going to vote for Biden in April. It will be a relatively unenthusiastic vote, but it will happen.

[Darth Yan]

Biden sucks. He's overly centrist, refuses to change the status quo and thinks Rethuglicans can be trusted despite having no reason to believe so.

Sanders is at least trying to change things rather than sticking to the old and outdated methods currently in use.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Don't be too confident Warren dropping out benefits Sanders the most. Way to many people are making the mistake of thinking ideological affinity is the primary motivation of primary voters when it looks like that's not really the case at all. There's a pretty good chance Biden benefits more from Warren being out for a bunch of reasons.

This, I feel, is very true. Biden always benefits the most whenever a Not-Sanders drops out. The Sanders movement has always struck me as something of a cult of personality ... his supporters are invested in Bernie Sanders sticking it to the Establishment, Bernie Sanders winning the nomination, Bernie Sanders taking on Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders being elected President. Whenever they say "Vote Blue, no Matter Who," it always seems to be implicitly directed at those who are not part of the Sandersistas. Whenever someone on the left is seen as slighting Sanders, a screaming horde of poo-flinging monkeys eagerly descends to brand the offender as a "snake", a "rat," a Putin-bot, or a Trump-enabler.

Elizabeth Warren represents the left wing of the Democratic Party. I could easily believe that many of her supporters would be wary of someone like Sanders; whose explicit appeal is his status as an outsider. I've had the lingering suspicion that her poor voting performance is suggestive that the ideologues and pragmatists have already abandoned her ... leaving her with her core of well-educated, well-to-do, white liberals. Those are the sorts of people who, while they broadly agree with Sanders' platform, find his legions of wild-eyed supporters doing lines of Kool-Aid on Bernie posters to be a bit off-putting.

[Elfdart]

It's quite a dick move to quit the day before Super Tuesday and after absentee votes have already been cast.

[FireNexus]

I do love the Bernie left blowing a gasket over the moderates getting behind Biden. Apparently non-viable candidates dropping out and politicians endorsing a guy is “The DNC pulling out all the stops” for Biden. Seems to me that this is just politics. Their anger is mostly due to the fact that Bernie Sanders has always been pretty bad at politics, but they thought the fractured field would let him win regardless.

All of a sudden the field stopped being fractured enough to outweigh Bernie’s clear weakness at making people want him to be President, and they’re pouting.

[FireNexus]

Still doesn’t matter. They’re all on ventilators by Memorial Day.

[Knife]

"Bernie Bros" are blowing gaskets at people like you FireNexus. Blue no matter who unless your Sanders seems very disingenuous to a lot of people.

Anyway, tomorrow answers a lot of questions. Does Sanders actually have the LatinX vote like Nevada implied? Does Biden have the Black vote like SC implies. God help the Democratic party if both of those questions are a Yes.

[Coop D'etat]

I do love the Bernie left blowing a gasket over the moderates getting behind Biden. Apparently non-viable candidates dropping out and politicians endorsing a guy is “The DNC pulling out all the stops” for Biden. Seems to me that this is just politics. Their anger is mostly due to the fact that Bernie Sanders has always been pretty bad at politics, but they thought the fractured field would let him win regardless.

All of a sudden the field stopped being fractured enough to outweigh Bernie’s clear weakness at making people want him to be President, and they’re pouting.

The consolidation in response to Biden's unexpected resurgence in South Carolina was strategically sound and well executed.

By that alone you know the DNC had nothing to do with it.

[FireNexus]

The consolidation in response to Biden's unexpected resurgence in South Carolina was strategically sound and well executed.

By that alone you know the DNC had nothing to do with it.

Coop, I think you just won the election cycle. I endorse you for President on the strength of that one. Coop D’etat 2020!

[FireNexus]

"Bernie Bros" are blowing gaskets at people like you FireNexus. Blue no matter who unless your Sanders seems very disingenuous to a lot of people.

Anyway, tomorrow answers a lot of questions. Does Sanders actually have the LatinX vote like Nevada implied? Does Biden have the Black vote like SC implies. God help the Democratic party if both of those questions are a Yes.

I’d vote for Bernie. If the other option was Donald Trump, or a similar fascist. It’s “Blue No Matter Who, Including Bernie, and Also Bernie Sanders Is An Asshole Who Really Shouldn’t Be President”.

Also, I didn’t say “Bernie Bros”. I try (though not 100% successfully) to avoid the term. You’ll note I said “the Bernie left” which I think is a fair description of the group of people I’m talking about which doesn’t make an active attempt to belittle them.

[FireNexus]

Another sign of the blowing gaskets: Knife is like the third person from various places to derisively sneer at my reference fo “Bernie Bros” when I specifically avoided using the term in favor of the more neutral “Bernie left” or “Bernie stans”.

[Jub]

Another sign of the blowing gaskets: Knife is like the third person from various places to derisively sneer at my reference fo “Bernie Bros” when I specifically avoided using the term in favor of the more neutral “Bernie left” or “Bernie stans”.

That has more to do with the tone of your posts than the content methinks.

[Coop D'etat]

There's a good distinction to be made between Sanders supporters generally, his hard core fans and the small but very vocal and very online jackasses running around.

I don't think you can tar Sanders personally that much with their behaviour, except that fair number of his staffers from the top (e.g. Sirota) to the bottom are of a similar mindset and tacitly encourage that kind of behaviour. I think there's a lot to the idea that his movement has a great deal of attraction for a certain kind of prick that you don't see aligning themselves with the other candidates.

I'd would be useful to have some descriptive terminology to indicate that your talking about these people and not the candidate's supporters generally. But if you're going to extend that kind of charity, it should be expected that similar charity be extended to other political movements and that's been notably lacking. Biden supporters aren't generally dupes for name recognition, Buttigieg had a lot of support that wasn't corporate shilling, not every Warren supporter has a post-graduate degree etc.

[The Romulan Republic]

He has somewhat of a lead in both but yeah it’ll be a tough contest. I’m pretty confident about Texas though. If he wins it’ll create a public impression hard to top

I'm skeptical about Texas- Buttigieg and Klobuchar are both scheduled to endorse Biden in a rally there tonight, which has to have some effect when it was already so close. The Centrist plot to push out Sanders is in full force, and Biden's been getting a wave of endorsements from high-profile figures. Fivethirtyeight also has both Biden and Sanders tied (well, they put Biden marginally ahead) at 17% chance of getting a majority, with contested convention holding steady at 66. Sanders' odds have been more than halved since post-Nevada.

But the good news is that every drop out, even if its to Biden, helps consolidate the field. I want Bernie, but I don't fear a one-on-one contest against Biden. I do fear a contested convention. So I'm actually quite happy with Klobuchar getting out, even though it helps Biden.

Fingers crossed that Bloomberg and Warren underperform tomorrow, and the odds of contested convention start dropping off.

Edit: One bit of good news for Bernie out of Klobuchar dropping out, besides the fact that the odds of a contested convention look to have stopped rising: He's now an easy favorite to win Minnesota tomorrow (though they still give Klobuchar just under 1 in 4 odds despite not being in the race- that's some impressive home state loyalty/early voting).

[The Romulan Republic]

It's quite a dick move to quit the day before Super Tuesday and after absentee votes have already been cast.

Eh, risks of early voting in a race where not everyone will be in to the end.

I'm rather glad some of her's have already voted- it means they can't all follow her lead to Biden now.