2020 US General Election Thread V: Pandemic Postpones Polls

[Rojava Free State]

New VA and CO polls.

VA:
Sanders 28%
Biden 19%
Warren 17%
Bloomberg 17%
Buttigieg 12%
Klobuchar 5%

CO:
Sanders 34%
Warren 20%
Buttigieg 14%
Bloomberg 14%
Biden 10%
Buttigieg 6%

Biden is literally failing in colorado. He's in like fifth place

[Ethel mermania]

If he wanted the job he would have run in 2016 instead of supporting hillary. He said in 2016 that if Sanders won the nomination he was going to run as a third party candidate. I dont think he wants the job, he rightly or wrongly thinks without him it's either bernie or trump, and he doesnt like those alternatives.

Full disclosure: I have installed his terminals, I have dealt with his people, both tech support and engineering staff, in both the public and private sector. I know people who worked directly for him and have sat at the negotiaton table against him. He is a tough asshole. But as I said before I dont think he is running because he wants too, he feels that he has too.

Lmao bloomberg saving us from trump? He basically is trump, he doesn't even try to seem less racist. We're better off with a socialist everyday of the week than we are with an oligarch like him. You think I wanna get thrown against a wall by police all the time? Hell no

Again, if you think Bloomberg and trump are the same, there is no point in our having a conversation about it.

If the democrats run sanders I am voting for trump.
If the democrats run Bloomberg, I have to think about it.

the democratic party needs to decide if in the general election whether my vote (and others who think like me), is important or not

[Ngelmish]

Ehhh... I dunno about attacking Bernie on wars he's voted for. The Balkan Intervention is a better hill to die on then, say, voting for the Second Iraq War when public perception is heavily against it. Honestly, I don't think people can attack Bernie Sanders since his primary opponents have already voted for much worse bills then he has. Not to mention the mere act of fundraising outside of individual donors is an easy attack for the Sand-man to make. I think he's pretty much locked into the nomination at this point.

Going after Sanders on not being antiwar enough would be a dumb tack (and who the hell is going to do that? Gabbard, I guess), but you're actually demonstrating the point. Sanders loses when he's arguing about how he voted for less bad bills, or voted for some of the same bills that are now deemed bad. He loses when he has to talk about what he's done rather than what he's said.

[Kruiven]

Ehhh... I dunno about attacking Bernie on wars he's voted for. The Balkan Intervention is a better hill to die on then, say, voting for the Second Iraq War when public perception is heavily against it. Honestly, I don't think people can attack Bernie Sanders since his primary opponents have already voted for much worse bills then he has. Not to mention the mere act of fundraising outside of individual donors is an easy attack for the Sand-man to make. I think he's pretty much locked into the nomination at this point.

Going after Sanders on not being antiwar enough would be a dumb tack (and who the hell is going to do that? Gabbard, I guess), but you're actually demonstrating the point. Sanders loses when he's arguing about how he voted for less bad bills, or voted for some of the same bills that are now deemed bad. He loses when he has to talk about what he's done rather than what he's said.

I don't think so. It's not hard to say DC is filled with bought politicians so of course none of my plans are gonna get through.

[Post War America]

Lmao bloomberg saving us from trump? He basically is trump, he doesn't even try to seem less racist. We're better off with a socialist everyday of the week than we are with an oligarch like him. You think I wanna get thrown against a wall by police all the time? Hell no

Again, if you think Bloomberg and trump are the same, there is no point in our having a conversation about it.

If the democrats run sanders I am voting for trump.
If the democrats run Bloomberg, I have to think about it.

the democratic party needs to decide if in the general election whether my vote (and others who think like me), is important or not

Seems the Dems are fucked either way then because

If they run Sanders I vote for Sanders
If they run Bloomberg I'm voting third party, and encouraging other people not to vote for Bloomberg.

I'm not alone either.

[Bear Stearns]

"just join the Peace Corps or go to war"

literally the most stereotypically boomer answer ever

That one went right over your head, didn't it?

Don't join the Peace Corps or sign up for military service, then. Find a local church group that does volunteer work overseas and offer to help out for a few weeks in some other country. I knew of a Pentecostalist church in Southeastern Michigan that used to send parishioners to Africa for a week (or even just a long weekend) to dig wells, build schools and clinics, etc. Or engage in a little "activist tourism", in which you travel somewhere for a few months to work with local populations in various ways, whether that involves construction, distributing medicines, monitoring environmental degradation, or whatever. My point is that if you never get out of the States (or Europe), you'll never see how many of the things you take for granted are actually not things that should be taken for granted at all.

But, hey: If you don't want to do that, and instead want to go ahead and pretend that life as a young person here in America, where you may not have the best job prospects or a steady stream of raises to pay off that student loan of yours is the worst possible arrangement a human being could ever have, go ahead. Just don't get pissed off when those of us who know better mock you or laugh at you for your idiotic attitude, because you will have so very richly deserved it.

holy fuck I'm rich for people my age (I've been making six figures since I was 22) and even this made me cringe

"just go travel and do some voluntourism, millennial. you're a lazy brat if you don't!"


This is why the phrase "ok boomer" exists you and if it wasn't against the rules, you'd deserve to have it it directed at you.

[Ethel mermania]

Again, if you think Bloomberg and trump are the same, there is no point in our having a conversation about it.

If the democrats run sanders I am voting for trump.
If the democrats run Bloomberg, I have to think about it.

the democratic party needs to decide if in the general election whether my vote (and others who think like me), is important or not

Seems the Dems are fucked either way then because

If they run Sanders I vote for Sanders
If they run Bloomberg I'm voting third party, and encouraging other people not to vote for Bloomberg.

I'm not alone either.

That's what makes it interesting.

If sanders wins your happy, the party shifts to the left and life is good. What happens with the "blue dog" democrats becomes the question?
Now

What happens if trump wins bigger than 2016? What does the democratic party do then? Where does its soul go?

[An Infinity Gauntlet]

holy fuck I'm rich for people my age (I've been making six figures since I was 22) and even this made me cringe

"just go travel and do some voluntourism, millennial. you're a lazy brat if you don't!"


This is why the phrase "ok boomer" exists you and if it wasn't against the rules, you'd deserve to have it it directed at you.

tbh, ditto with the above point.

Poor Millennials bro, everyone dunks on them. Even Zoomers are becoming cooler then them. The true "lost" generation

[San Lumen]

New VA and CO polls.

VA:
Sanders 28%
Biden 19%
Warren 17%
Bloomberg 17%
Buttigieg 12%
Klobuchar 5%

CO:
Sanders 34%
Warren 20%
Buttigieg 14%
Bloomberg 14%
Biden 10%
Buttigieg 6%

Biden is literally failing in colorado. He's in like fifth place

Sigh. I don’t see how he’s not the nominee at this point.

[Telconi]

Biden is literally failing in colorado. He's in like fifth place

Sigh. I don’t see how he’s not the nominee at this point.

People don't like him.

[Stylan]

I'm starting to think I should put my support behind Bernie. Trump has really fucking gone downhill since 2016. And at least Bernie seems, ironically, to be less of a Zionist that Trump.
I cant vote yet because of my age so it doesnt matter anyway tho

[Stylan]

Biden is literally failing in colorado. He's in like fifth place

Sigh. I don’t see how he’s not the nominee at this point.

Because he wont win he's the exact same ticket as Clinton except now he doesn't even have the support of feminists who liked Clinton because "muh vagina"

[San Lumen]

Sigh. I don’t see how he’s not the nominee at this point.

People don't like him.

A lot of people don’t but he is going to win with a plurality

[Stylan]

People don't like him.

A lot of people don’t but he is going to win with a plurality

nope, he won't. Are you talking overall or just SC?

[Kruiven]

Biden wins SC then gets crushed a few days later. Very satisfying.

[San Lumen]

A lot of people don’t but he is going to win with a plurality

nope, he won't. Are you talking overall or just SC?

Overall

Biden wins SC then gets crushed a few days later. Very satisfying.

Hopefully sanders is the one who is

[Stylan]

nope, he won't. Are you talking overall or just SC?

Overall

not in a million years

[San Lumen]

Overall

not in a million years

He is going to get a plurality of delegates and get the nomination unless it’s overturned at the convention or a deal is made beforehand that someone else has more

[Necroghastia]

nope, he won't. Are you talking overall or just SC?

Overall

Biden wins SC then gets crushed a few days later. Very satisfying.

Hopefully sanders is the one who is the winner of SC and the one crushing Biden on Tuesday.

Finished your sentence for you.

[Kruiven]

Bloomberg called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" as NYC mayor. Love this guy.

[Ghost Land]

That one went right over your head, didn't it?

Don't join the Peace Corps or sign up for military service, then. Find a local church group that does volunteer work overseas and offer to help out for a few weeks in some other country. I knew of a Pentecostalist church in Southeastern Michigan that used to send parishioners to Africa for a week (or even just a long weekend) to dig wells, build schools and clinics, etc. Or engage in a little "activist tourism", in which you travel somewhere for a few months to work with local populations in various ways, whether that involves construction, distributing medicines, monitoring environmental degradation, or whatever. My point is that if you never get out of the States (or Europe), you'll never see how many of the things you take for granted are actually not things that should be taken for granted at all.

But, hey: If you don't want to do that, and instead want to go ahead and pretend that life as a young person here in America, where you may not have the best job prospects or a steady stream of raises to pay off that student loan of yours is the worst possible arrangement a human being could ever have, go ahead. Just don't get pissed off when those of us who know better mock you or laugh at you for your idiotic attitude, because you will have so very richly deserved it.

holy fuck I'm rich for people my age (I've been making six figures since I was 22) and even this made me cringe

"just go travel and do some voluntourism, millennial. you're a lazy brat if you don't!"


This is why the phrase "ok boomer" exists you and if it wasn't against the rules, you'd deserve to have it it directed at you.

While I don't condone the "okay, boomer" meme, there are some serious problems with the voluntourism trend, namely that it is done primarily for the purpose of ego-stroking and actually serves mostly as a money maker for the organization putting the program on, in addition to the fact that it is often not as much a cultural exchange as it is one of Western cultures still trying to impose themselves on these people in other, poorer countries, often based on stereotypes or misconceptions we have of these other locations around the world. I'm not saying no good is accomplished; a lot of good things do happen on a smaller scale, though it is not as transcendental of an experience as it's made out to be, and not much changes in the long term or on the wider scale relative to the inherent ego stroking involved.

Some great reading about it:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/little-white-girls-voluntourism_b_4834574
https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-reality-of-voluntourism-and-the-conversations-were-not-having
http://theconversation.com/volunteer-tourism-whats-wrong-with-it-and-how-it-can-be-changed-86701

Some of the above links are posted on websites I generally disagree with or by people whose stances I may disagree with the minutiae of, but either way the message seems to be that there are better ways to make a difference in the world than by spending just a few days/weeks trying to "help" people who don't have the same culture or speak the same language as you.

holy fuck I'm rich for people my age (I've been making six figures since I was 22) and even this made me cringe

"just go travel and do some voluntourism, millennial. you're a lazy brat if you don't!"


This is why the phrase "ok boomer" exists you and if it wasn't against the rules, you'd deserve to have it it directed at you.

tbh, ditto with the above point.

Poor Millennials bro, everyone dunks on them. Even Zoomers are becoming cooler then them. The true "lost" generation

Honestly, as a millennial myself I'm just sick of having my generation name having become a pretty accepted slur for "nasty young person". Never mind the wide range of definitions as to when each generation begins or ends, or the fact that different people can have very different experiences even despite growing up at the same time; it's all just meaningless garbage at this point.

As for the election itself, for every millennial* who sees nothing wrong with socialism and unironically advocates in favour of it, there is a Baby Boomer or older who grew up during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was our biggest enemy, of whom we spent many a year in great fear, and for whom the words "socialism" or "communism" have very negative associations. I think this is going to hurt Sanders in this election.

As the definitions of who is a "millennial" can span up to 30 years with little overlap, I have defined the generation as those born from the mid-1980s through the early 2000s, following the 19-20 year range established by the formal definition of Baby Boomers. This Harvard article also supports this view of that generation's range.

[San Lumen]

Overall



Hopefully sanders is the one who is the winner of SC and the one crushing Biden on Tuesday.

Finished your sentence for you.

And I hope it’s otherwise

[Stylan]

Bloomberg called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" as NYC mayor. Love this guy.

He's like the definition of a neoliberal

[Alien Space Bats]

Combined with a smattering of stereotypical centrism too.

Sentiments like ASB’s, even put nicely, are offensive to politically engaged young people. It labels their opinions lesser without actually engaging with the opinion itself. Being told “how silly are you for thinking things are bad” is invalidating and only fuels the stigma of older generations as fearful of change and opposition rather than worldly and experienced.

It doesn’t take much to realise that the US is in a steep downward spiral or is going to be in one by the end of the decade. It may not be awful right now (though it is bad), it’s only going to get worse if nothing happens or the government takes lukewarm steps to mitigate it.

The bar for developed nations is way higher than Afghanistan.

If you think I believe that everything here in America is hunky-dory, then you haven't been around here long enough to know how I really feel.

The thing I have with "politically engaged young people" is the way in which you think that these problems are new and that no one has ever thought about them before you and your generation came along, let alone tried to actually address them. Most of this I attribute to the poor quality of modern education in America, wherein students are never schooled adequately in either history or civics.

Of course, young people have always exhibited a certain degree of political myopia; my generation was probably as bad as any other when we were young, and many of us haven't ever gotten any better. It's a matter of patience and perspective, understanding that history is longer and life is more complex than most of us imagine when we are young.

So let's take the long view, shall we? In the same 50-60 years that our economy has stagnated and opportunity has dried up, we've made tremendous social progress. On last night's debate stage, there were two women and an openly gay man; back when I was young, the idea of a woman running for President would have been a novelty and the idea of an openly gay man doing so unthinkable. And if there were no person of color on that stage, well, we're less than four years past the first African-American President having served two full terms in office and the first woman nominee coming just 78,000 votes short of becoming our first female President.

But it's more than that: When I was young women were routinely steered into careers as schoolteachers ― and that's assuming they were allowed to contemplate having a "career" at all. Husbands had the right to force their wives to have sex with them whether they wanted it or not, and someone like Harvey Weinstein could have never been convicted of rape for any of the awful things he did. Interracial marriage was illegal in many States, and when William Shatner kissed Nichelle Nichols on an episode of Star Trek, local television stations refused to carry in across broad swaths of the country. We had cars that burned leaded gasoline even though there was evidence that lead-laced fumes were poisoning urban populations, energy conservation was considered a sign of weakness, and both wind farms and solar farms were nothing more than the pipe dreams of a handful of futurists. No nation had ever dismantled a nuclear weapon, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were caught up in a seemingly endless arms race, and we were all certain that humanity would end in a nuclear holocaust someday, whatever we might do to try and stop it.

So in complaining about all we've lost, I want you to consider also all that we have gained. That's not to say that I want you to write off the things we've lost as gone forever or stop dreaming; rather, I want you to realize that all of the progress we've made in areas like women's rights, gay rights, civil rights for persons of color, environmentalism, nuclear disarmament, and a host of other areas ― and then I want you to realize that none of these things were achieved through revolution: Rather each and every one of them was achieved through protests aimed at raising public awareness, public discourse and debate, and legislative incrementalism.

Indeed, even when we look at socialism itself, there's a lesson to be learned above change: Bolshevik's like Lenin, leaning on statements by Marx himself on the topic, asserted that a meaningful improvement in the fortunes of the working classes could only be achieved through violent revolution ― after all, the capitalists would never yield to anything but armed action. But against the Bolsheviks, the Fabian movement argued for political engagement and peaceful reform through traditional political mass mobilization.

So what did the Bolsheviks get for their effort? A failed revolution and a legacy of violence, oppression, and authoritarianism, whose ultimate product was ― was for it ― the authoritarian kleptocracy that is today's Russian Republic, which is actively working worldwide, not to advance the interests of the working class, but to advance ultranationalism on behalf of a small oligarchic elite In contrast, Fabianism gave us Western Europe and its strong socialist institutions, which still endure even in the face of today's current "neoliberal" counterrevolution.

My point is that everything we have gained to date ― whether here in America or in Europe ― we have obtained through the very incrementalism that the young find so utterly frustrating. The way forward is thus shown to be not through huge mass movements that sweep new leaders to power overnight, but through steady pressure all across the board, in which those who want a better world push everywhere to get what they want ― and eventually get it.

So it is, and so it will be with the current system. What we need here in America is not so much a "revolution" as a revival in unionism, in consumer protection, and in the need for sound regulation to limit the excesses of unbridled capitalism. We should push to make it easier for workers to organize, and organize them in the new industries that need it, including software engineering, information technology, retail sales, and in-office services. We need to push to make businesses more accountable for the safety and quality of the products we sell. We need to fight to defend hard-won environmental protections and try to restore banking regulations that were unwisely removed back in the 1990s. We need to work harder to protect retirement pensions, protect small investors, and encourage the growth of pension funds as a means of "socializing" businesses through the back door of mass stock ownership. These are all small things that can make a world of difference and can change the current tide against labor in the endless struggle over sharing the returns from economic activity. We should fight for restore sensible tax rates, but not push those rates up beyond the revenue-maximizing level ― because we need the money that a vital business sector produces to pay for the things we need to do, whether than by improving education and healthcare, fighting global warming, or expanding opportunity.

And we need to understand that the real enemy isn't capitalism (which can ultimately be harnessed for the good of society), but rather authoritarian nativism, which would mobilize us against each other in an attempt to drag the world back into the fear, hatred, and violence of the Middle Ages. That's why we need to engage the center in an effort to build a grand center-left coalition: If we refuse to accommodate the center, then the Medievalists will seek to draw that center into an alliance with the right to undo all the progress we have made across these last several decades. To be sure, engaging the center means accommodating its inherent conservatism, which in turn means that we may need to wait decades to make gains we'd rather see implemented yesterday; but there is simply no other way to get there and then keep what we have won.

I understand that this really sucks if you're young and that it means you might have to wait a lifetime to see something you think you shouldn't have to wait for at all. But that's what we know works, so all I can say is: Deal with it.

[Necroghastia]

Finished your sentence for you.

And I hope it’s otherwise

I still have no idea why you think the candidate who has exhibited the greatest amount of popular support is the worst one. Worse than trump but nominally blue Bloomberg, even.