I'm sorry you didn't realize she was being played. Or maybe you were just behaving irrationally

3/11/2020 4:08:51 PM

We'll both get over it and move on. Sorry you don't seem to want to

3/11/2020 4:14:34 PM

I honestly don't have that big of a bone to pick with Warren supporters. A lot of them at least thought they were doing the right thing. It would have helped if she endorsed, but nothing in her history or her current campaign suggested that she would. And I'm trying to keep my focus on criticising existing power structures (capital) that were organized against a workers movement, she was just a small part of that organized effort, and her internal motives are mostly irrelevant.

3/11/2020 4:15:27 PM

Alright, so then you can address the points I made in earnest, instead of dismissing them without addressing them because it requires mental effort.

3/11/2020 4:16:51 PM

Anyone who thinks Trump is scared to face Biden is a fucking idiot, though

3/11/2020 4:17:05 PM

I'm not so sure. Can you explain why?

3/11/2020 4:17:50 PM

"Like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know..."

[Edited on March 11, 2020 at 4:21 PM. Reason : I already have]

3/11/2020 4:21:30 PM

So even though Trump tried to do the exact same thing he did to beat Hillary (i.e digging up dirt and trying to smear her), it means that he thinks Biden was his weakest opponent? Logic makes sense

3/11/2020 4:23:09 PM

You think there is a candidate sufficiently weak that Trump wouldn't dig up dirt or try to smear?

Trump started smearing Biden because it looked like Biden would be the candidate, thats it

[Edited on March 11, 2020 at 4:33 PM. Reason : .]

3/11/2020 4:33:06 PM

Well, it's super weird that's how it all worked out...

Either Trump is really smart, or just plain lucky. I'm unaware of any other smear attempts that involved abusing his presidential powers and using the WH to do his bidding (leading to impeachment, no less), but maybe you could post links from trustworthy sources to show he took the others as seriously. I'm working from home, so take your time.

3/11/2020 4:36:36 PM

Trump is an idiot and a troll. That's it. He's no Machiavellian mastermind carefully setting up the chess board for the final kill. He trolls because he's a reality TV star who will say anything to boost his ratings, and he doesn't care for our demand any internal logical consistency.

You're staring into the mind of drooling simpleton searching for wisdom.

3/11/2020 4:42:46 PM

You're overthinking, while ignoring the obvious: people hated Hillary and Trump did what he could to spread the hate in a few key swing districts so he could win the EC. He had help from Cambridge Analytica, so it's not like he did it totally on his own. As for the Biden thing? Look who his mater helper was: Rudy fucking washed up Giulliani.

I admit that I was stupid enough to think she would win based on her policies alone, but based on what we're seeing right now, policies don't seem to matter that much right now, either. All Biden needs to do to beat Trump is enthuse people with a return to the "Glory Days" of Obama, which weren't perfect, but at least only about 25-35% of America was insanely angry, instead of about 50% right now.

I've always been a huge critic of the EC, but it's not just that. The primary process in 2020 is so fucking outdated and useless. Maybe it was necessary a hundred years ago for candidates to travel from state to state, but today? Just hold all of the primaries on the same damn day, and make it a fucking Saturday.

The enduring legacy of our Founders is that the election laws in this country make it as difficult as possible for the poor/working class to vote. I wish people spent more time talking about it, but not enough people seem to care.




[Edited on March 11, 2020 at 4:54 PM. Reason : .]

3/11/2020 4:48:50 PM

And why did Rudy go after Biden? Because it pooked like he would be the next candidate

3/11/2020 4:53:00 PM

So he wasn't scared, but decided to smear him for fun or because someone told him he had to. Solid analysis.

[Edited on March 11, 2020 at 4:55 PM. Reason : .]

3/11/2020 4:55:02 PM

Quote :

"but decided to smear him for fun "

Yes, actually. He's a catty little drama queen who spends his time making fun of the apprentice ratings. He's not an evil genius.


And the fact that we'll be talking about this instead of expanding social safety net programs for the next 6 months fucking sucks.

[Edited on March 11, 2020 at 5:15 PM. Reason : ]

3/11/2020 5:14:32 PM

Not for fun, because he was likely the next candidate

(3rd times a charm?)

3/11/2020 5:17:14 PM

OK, well good thing he tried and was only semi-successful, and did a lot of damage to himself getting caught up in a visibly corrupt process/impeachment scandal. I guess since Biden was going to be the nom anyway, it's probably better that the Burisma shit came out pretty early. Maybe? I still would love to see anything remotely comparable he did to other candidate a solid year or so before the primaries were really going...

3/11/2020 5:21:20 PM

Quote :

"rump is an idiot and a troll. That's it. He's no Machiavellian mastermind carefully setting up the chess board for the final kill. He trolls because he's a reality TV star who will say anything to boost his ratings, and he doesn't care for our demand any internal logical consistency. You're staring into the mind of drooling simpleton searching for wisdom."

Even if true he has lots and lots and lots of people working for him. Clearly those people established and executed a plan in 2016 that worked. Pretty short sighted not recognize that.

3/11/2020 5:27:23 PM

^ I tend to agree. I underestimated how many intelligent/conniving cronies Trump would bring into his orbit. I also underestimated how willing they would be to sell their souls to defend him, and that their constituents would back them up. Either way, Dems were woefully underprepared.

3/11/2020 5:32:06 PM

^^
The plan only worked because of shenanigans though. If the fbi hadnt have announced a 2nd Hillary investigation days before the election Hillary would have won.

Trump’s actual campaigning and messaging otherwise were failures.

Trumps win was a fluke. GOP is trying to gin up a Biden investigation but I don’t think this will stick. Trump has incumbent advantage but every other factor is against him, this is going to be just as hard for trump to win as it was in 2016, except Democrats have an extra insight this time.

3/11/2020 6:38:51 PM

I think a lot of people last time didn't have any clue how bad Trump was going to be, but now there aren't any surprises about what kind of person he is.

3/11/2020 6:43:36 PM

His favorability is higher now though?

3/11/2020 6:52:54 PM

^^ Combined with the hatred Republicans, Democrats, and independents had of Hillary Clinton from her 24-year-long career in the political consciousness, I think that's a fair comment.

3/11/2020 7:39:14 PM

Quote :

"I tend to agree. I underestimated how many intelligent/conniving cronies Trump would bring into his orbi"

Steve Bannon being central to said planning and execution of you read up on it.

Quote :

"The plan only worked because of shenanigans though. If the fbi hadnt have announced a 2nd Hillary investigation days before the election Hillary would have won."

Or because Russia or because of the DNC being stupid or because Hillary sucked or because Facebook yada yada yada.

Also the plans had to be a success in order for him to be positioned benefit from Comey's fuck up.

Quote :

"Trump’s actual campaigning and messaging otherwise were failures"

Completely false. Someone could spend hours pointing out how many specific strategies employed by his campaign were a great success but I ain't gonna waste the time.


[Edited on March 11, 2020 at 7:59 PM. Reason : ]

3/11/2020 7:56:36 PM

Quote :

"bernie is killing it with young people, who turned out in similar numbers to obama in 2008, who won the general in large part because of young voters the nymag conclusions are premature (we can only just barely start investigating motivations to primary voters), but their conclusion that hillary just wasn't that popular is true but also not a newly discovered truth"

It's kind of my take. He horribly underperformed his 2016 numbers. Yeah, it was a multiple candidate race, but:

1.) I agree with 538's take last night of Sanders' inner circle were counting on doing the Trump strategy of win a multi-candidate race with 35%, at least until late into March. You can see how much oxygen they spent on the "if Sanders enters the convention with a plurality, he should be the nominee" point, which reads bizarre today.
2.) Even when the race was down to 2 candidates, he's way behind 2016. Let's look at 2 large states from yesterday:

Michigan 2016 - Sanders 599k votes, Clinton 582k, Uncommitted/Other 25k
Michigan 2020 - Biden 838k, Sanders 577k, Uncommitted/Other 158k

Biden +256k from Clinton
Sanders -22k
Uncommitted/Other +133k

So the electorate increased by 367k and Sanders lost 22k votes.

Missouri 2016 - Clinton 312k votes, Sanders 311k, Uncommitted/Other 6k
Missouri 2020 - Biden 397k, Sanders 228k, Uncommitted/Other 42k

Biden +85k from Clinton
Sanders -83k
Other +36k

So the electorate increased by 38k and Sanders lost 83k votes

If you take those numbers at face value, what it tells you is one of two things:

1.) The Democratic Party electorates of Michigan and Missouri in 2020 have moved to the right from 2016, which I don't think is that true although Trump's presidency might have conditioned people to "maybe electing a candidate that wants to burn everything down is not the best plan moving forward".
2.) A significant number of Sanders' support in 2016 was more anti-Hillary than they were pro-Bernie, and therefore were not necessarily progressive.

3/11/2020 7:58:12 PM

I like the analysis.

3/11/2020 8:01:05 PM

Trump literally could have run against any other candidate, and he would have lost.

I know if Hillary Clinton died of a heartattack or by other means in October 2016, I would have voted for Tim Kaine for president.

3/11/2020 8:23:59 PM

Naw guys. 65% of the country was totally ready for free everything and the DNC had to go and ruin everything for Bernie. Or something.

3/11/2020 8:41:54 PM

^^ maybe maybe not

3/11/2020 8:49:48 PM

There was a ton of uncertainty about Trump from both sides in 2016. A lot of people were worried his presidency might end the world or be too liberal. Thats gone now and we now know he's delivering on the conservative agenda. He's more popular than RR amongst conservatives. 94% approval rating amongst republicans.

3/11/2020 9:15:43 PM

buy a shotgun
https://twitter.com/adrielhampton/status/1237917419550564353

3/12/2020 9:38:06 AM

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/12/us/elections/delegates-bernie-sanders-joe-biden.html

3/12/2020 10:07:52 AM

a gun company in SC has already made an "angry Joe AR-14"

3/12/2020 10:09:19 AM

So sanders has to magically be seen as electible and Joe be seen unelectible after the debate. It has to be a really major knockout on that stage.

3/12/2020 10:45:43 AM

Just my opinion, but I think Bernie is no longer running to win. He's resigned to being the Eugene Debbs of his generation. At this point, he's just trying to win the battle of ideas. Listening to his presser yesterday, he rhetorically phrased his speech with multiple incantations of, "Joe, what are you gonna do?" while rattling off a slew of economic and social injustices.

Pretty sure he just wants to stay in the race long enough to get the DNC on the record for adopting as many of his policies and/or surrogates as he can, and he'll probably shift his energy to supporting movements outside of the electoral arena that will put pressure on establishment Dems.

3/12/2020 1:06:01 PM

I’m pretty confident he’s still running to win, based on talking points volunteers are using.

But depending how the next week goes, maybe that could change.

3/12/2020 2:31:29 PM

We'll see. I think he's trying to keep his eye on the (ideological) prize. If he doesn't go negative on Biden then I don't think he's running to win. And quite honestly, I don't think he has that killer instinct to put Joe in the ground.

3/12/2020 3:21:36 PM

Agreed, he should be telling the world that he can win the general and Biden can't. The other side sure is.

3/12/2020 3:25:20 PM

Quote :

"Joe in the ground"

Ha how about "on the ground"

3/12/2020 3:30:17 PM

It would be ironic if Benie ends up laying Biden's coffin in the ground.

3/12/2020 3:40:52 PM

Quote :

"Hearing Clyburn and James Carville (who is a bayou lizard-man who has become unraveled at the thought of a progressive insurgency) both use the same talking point phrase of "shut it down" in reference to the primary leads me to believe that we won't even get a debate between Sanders and Biden, which is badly needed. Oh man, I'm just imagining the DNC using the corona virus scare as some sort of disaster capitalist method of calling off the game at halftime. Not looking good."

Yeah....I'm feeling pretty confident that this is going to happen, now. DNC will use this to wrap up the primary and keep Joe hidden....may even cancel the convention at this rate.

Everyone needs to read Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" right now. A biblical plague is the perfect cover to push through some terrible reactionary policy.

A few things that concern me in addition to the vulnerability of the elderly and infirm:

-Migrant concentration camps: these have always been a disaster waiting to happen. A viral pandemic going through these is a genocide in the making.

-Prison population: See above

-Recession: I highly doubt these stocks are dipping only because of this pandemic, because none of the structural issues from 2008 were ever addressed. The infusion of liquidity of 1.5Trillion was obviously designed to give capital a window to recoup their losses before pulling back out of the market before it dropped again, thereby pushing the majority of the losses onto the backs of labor. The prolonged absence of commerce will obviously hurt workers and trigger evictions and foreclosures when workers can't make rent. Seeing a spike in homelessness during a deadly pandemic is just an abhorrent thought with obvious ramifications. A lot of people are financialy precarious and it wouldn't take much to thrust them into poverty. Prolonged quarantine is infeasible for working people without an emergency source of income, which means they'll go to work sick.

-Homelessness: Keep an eye out on the language that is used to describe homeless people during this outbreak. Will it be humanizing and empathetic about treating them? Or will they be described as a pestilence who need to be removed in order to maintain cleanliness?

-Emergency laws being drafted to reduce crowd sizes: My city has already instituted this. These could easily be weaponized and used as a precursor to crack down on dissent or political protest in the name of public health. This is a recipe for authoritarian repression and.....can't say I trust our government not to consider this power.

This is bleak.


[Edited on March 13, 2020 at 8:55 PM. Reason : ]

3/13/2020 8:51:16 PM

When you say that stocks losses are going to be pushed into the backs of labor, could you please expound? Isn’t a stock investor by definition ‘capital’? Haven’t advocated of labor been suggesting that labor lives practically paycheck to paycheck with little opportunity for personal savings, let alone retirement, and less so investing in general?

I’m not certain how stock losses can be put onto the backs of labor, given the above.

3/14/2020 7:14:29 AM

[Edited on March 14, 2020 at 11:22 AM. Reason : E]

3/14/2020 11:21:21 AM

^^ Your 401k is tied to the stock market. You are also restricted on trading on that 401k based on your employers plan. So when the market dives, the unrealized profits are extracted by those who can pull their money out without penalty and your retirement nest egg is deflated. This basically extends the timeline of your working career, because you now have to work longer to build that back up. Young people are consistently told to ride it out, but people nearing retirement don't have that luxury. They can either work longer and remain in the workforce (which deprives younger workers a seat) or settle for less. It was their labor that built up that value, but when they go to cash out, it's not there.

Yes, advocates of labor usually stress the precarious nature of blue collar workers living paycheck up paycheck, but even middle class Americans have what little wealth they have tied to the market, which is basically just an inflationary mechanism driven by speculation that comes crashing down once the jig is up, leaving middle class Americans with deflated wealth along with less liquidity options

Just for giggles, you can see this in real-time if you use software like Personal Capital. Just go to your planning forecast section and watch the percentage possibility of your retirement plan go down when the market "corrects"



[Edited on March 14, 2020 at 12:09 PM. Reason : ]

3/14/2020 11:48:19 AM

What do you define as capital? For me, based on what I have assumed your definition is, that would include anyone who is part of an investing class. A 401(k) by its very definition is an investment. Who is and who is not included in capital? Again, I ask because people within several threads here have been labeled as part of the capital, when they could arguably just be middle class with a 401(k). It is not clear to me how one could be both.


I agree the older people are more at risk when there is a market correction and that is something that is very scary. My parents fit in that category. However, I would also suggest that anyone with a 41K and is nearing retirement should be in bonds and bills. The stable investments protect them against the swings in the market that younger people can wait out. So I do not entirely see how Capital is taking gains and shuffling the losses onto labor in this scenario.

I would also say that the market is more than just an inflationary hedge. If you account for inflation, and subtract dividends, then the average market return over almost any 20 year period is still between four and 6% more.

3/14/2020 12:15:27 PM

If you must sell your labor to live, you aren't a capitalist. This includes most people with 401ks. This isn't the only definition, though, and the lines have blurred further than when Marx wrote Capital.

3/14/2020 12:24:37 PM

^^,^


Having a 401k doesn't make you a capitalist. You're a wage slave. A worker. The 401k gimmick has deluded many middle class Americans to think they have skin in the game when they clearly don't. If your wealth is tied to the output of your labor, then you're not a capitalist.



Jeff Foxworthy voice:

If your main source of income come from the productive output of other people, then you might be a capitalist.

If your main source of income comes from rent collection, then you might be a capitalist.


Anyway, a good read:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-195229/

[Edited on March 14, 2020 at 12:45 PM. Reason : ]

3/14/2020 12:32:19 PM

https://youtu.be/Lad5bc6Gpb4

3/14/2020 12:46:50 PM

At one point is someone’s wealth stop being tied to the output of their labor?

If you’re a really high income earner but need to keep working to pay your bills, are you a laborer (investment banker, executive at a company, etc)? What about presidents and CEOs of a small company that generates income off their workers but less income than people working in other roles laboring for others?

3/14/2020 8:33:27 PM

CNN is saying they will come out with a different tone united against Trump tonight and won't go after each other. I'll be pissed if he still hasn't learned his lesson and doesn't go straight after biden for being against M4A. He needs to be talking about how Biden is almost as bad as Trump on this issue. Bernie's last chance.

Also, COVID-19 ship has sailed. These guys won't be president during that time. The question should not be who can talk best during a crisis but who can prevent future, similar crises. This is hwere you highlight the fact that Joe has been on the wrong side of every issue until after it has happened.

[Edited on March 15, 2020 at 7:57 PM. Reason : public health policy vs what you say about covid-19 right now]

3/15/2020 7:29:10 PM