Serious 2020 Democratic Primary Thread

Who are your favorite candidates?

  • Kamala Harris

    Votes: 43 8.0%
  • Elizabeth Warren

    Votes: 99 18.4%
  • Julián Castro

    Votes: 16 3.0%
  • Pete Buttigieg

    Votes: 51 9.5%
  • Kirsten Gillibrand

    Votes: 7 1.3%
  • John Delaney

    Votes: 9 1.7%
  • Tulsi Gabbard

    Votes: 63 11.7%
  • Bernie Sanders

    Votes: 338 62.9%
  • Amy Klobuchar

    Votes: 12 2.2%
  • Joe Biden

    Votes: 45 8.4%
  • Andrew Yang

    Votes: 112 20.9%
  • Cory Booker

    Votes: 7 1.3%
  • Marianne Williamson

    Votes: 19 3.5%
  • Mike Bloomberg

    Votes: 12 2.2%

  • Total voters
    537

SergioRules

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"Buddy," I don't deny Trump's been a sleezebag to women. You don't need to remind me of something everyone knows. Never once have I ever said I would look to Donald Trump as a moral compass, I've spoken about quite the opposite actually. I'm just saying are you gonna hold to your own standard and believe all women? Y'all certainly did during the entire Brett Kanavaugh debacle. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Are you gonna believe Biden's accuser, or like the media and most of Biden's endorsers, are you gonna throw that under the rug because it's on your side? She has people who have corroborated her story unlike Blassey Ford, and she's spoken about this as far back as 1993 on Larry King's show.
I don't think anyone is denying that Biden likely sexually assaulted Tara Reade, and yes I will hold Biden to the same standard as Trump and Kavanaugh. They're all extremely shitty to women, but this election cycle has quickly turned into a "lesser of two evils" vote. You can believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford while also believing Tara Reade, think that both of their abusers are terrible scum, but also realize that unfortunately there are other issues at hand.
 
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I don't think anyone is denying that Biden likely sexually assaulted Tara Reade, and yes I will hold Biden to the same standard as Trump. They're both extremely shitty to women, but this election cycle has quickly turned into a "lesser of two evils" vote. You can believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford while also believing Tara Reade, think that both of their abusers are terrible scum, but also realize that unfortunately there are other issues at hand.
Hey, at least your honest. It's sad that the media and many of his donors are not though. It's also sad that the same people were wishing to tear down the life of Kavanaugh, yet Biden, even though admitted by you he's also a scum, is pretty much untouched.
 
There's a part of me that wishes candidates weren't defined by their actions 30 years ago.

I'm more concerned about how they've acted recently, and how they reflect on their actions from long ago.

In this sense, it's plainly obvious how Trump sexual assault history is still relevant, and should still be discussed.
As for Biden, uh, it's still not great. There were concerns about his public behavior even before this Tara Reade stuff came out.

I'm still in denial that democrats think Biden is going to carry them to victory, and half of me still believes Biden won't be the candidate come November.
 
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There's a part of me that wishes candidates weren't defined by their actions 30 years ago.
I mean that is not what everyone said back in September/October of 2018. No offense, but that's incredibly hypocritical. If you personally felt that same way about Kavanaugh though on a personal level, more power to you.
 
I think it may be more optimal for progressives to wait out another four years of Trump and hopefor a progressive backlash in 2022 and 2024 than to attempt to elect a neolib who will lull the populace back to sleep for another 4-8 years after which another Trump-type Republican will likely take the reigns again. :blobshrug:
 
If the policies are likely to be the same, I would at least like for the backlash to be directed in the right direction.
 
I mean that is not what everyone said back in September/October of 2018. No offense, but that's incredibly hypocritical. If you personally felt that same way about Kavanaugh though on a personal level, more power to you.
I mean I'm sure I said it.
There's definitely a lot of subjectivity on how I apply it to each case though (which imo, there should be).

In Kavanaugh's case, I think it was pretty clear from his testimony that he was not appropriate for the supreme court. Any of a number of other republicans would have been a better fit.
 

ManOfMany

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I think it may be more optimal for progressives to wait out another four years of Trump and hopefor a progressive backlash in 2022 and 2024 than to attempt to elect a neolib who will lull the populace back to sleep for another 4-8 years after which another Trump-type Republican will likely take the reigns again. :blobshrug:
I strongly dislike this take. Vote for what's in our best interests now, and work to keep fighting for progressive values in the meantime. There are endless number of scenarios one could make for how the political climate of 2024 is going to look like. The world can change so much in 4 years and it's silly to hope for a repeat of the previous election to save you.
 

Shrug

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joe biden has promised to name an "ideologically simpatico" woman to be his vice president. we here at Shrug News Network have gotten the scoop and are proud to report that second on the ticket will be the reanimated corpse of margaret thatcher. yes, the iron lady will be back and steelier than ever, guiding joe to strong positions on unions, marketization and the deployment of paramilitary groups among certain restive populations. We have reached out for comment from the other names on the short list and will let you know when each of these girlbosses responds: Elizabeth Bathory, aileen wuornos, and lurleen wallace, who joe described as the "wife of a... wife of a... magnificent friend of mine, and a terrific guy"
 
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I’m pretty sure that all of this talk of Joe Biden provoking the second coming of Trump-but-Machiavellian is just a rhetorical jump that isn’t based on any sound justification, and I’m ready to call it out because it is getting pretty old. Is a doomsday republican inevitable or not? Is Trump an outlier or not? What change can you tell me that Biden will make that isn’t as credible as fortune telling? You guys are clearly setting yourselves up to say “I told you so” - and if things pan out as you say they will, I’ll take notes - but I hope that you’ll acknowledge that this was merely a convenient claim to make if things turn out otherwise.

“Siri, remind me in 4-12 years to check if I get to say, ‘I told you so’.”
 

Ace Emerald

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You are just gonna get a more savvy trump in 4 or 8 years if you elect Joe Biden
If we're making baseless claims that sound true, I'll counter by saying that with 4 more years, Trump could completely erode democracy in this country. He has already survived impeachable offenses, gotten away with public threats towards political rivals, and showed many times that he doesnt intend to give his power up peacefully. So maybe we will get a smarter facisist in the next decade. But if we dont vote against facisim now, what's the point?
 

VKCA

(Virtual Circus Kareoky Act)
You are just gonna get a more savvy trump in 4 or 8 years if you elect Joe Biden
Why are you acting like an actual competent ecofacist is a bad thing, maybe you losers would stopped getting cucked by China so hard. We could defo get yang 2024 with a Biden presidency.
If we're making baseless claims that sound true...
Honestly makes me lol you think you're getting an election in November.



Oh also I know that "imagine if you went back to 2012 and told them xyz" is super played out but imagi e if you went back to 2012 and told the Democrats that Mitt Romney was looking like the more electable candidate than joey
 
I think it may be more optimal for progressives to wait out another four years of Trump and hopefor a progressive backlash in 2022 and 2024 than to attempt to elect a neolib who will lull the populace back to sleep for another 4-8 years after which another Trump-type Republican will likely take the reigns again. :blobshrug:
I never thought that literally a single place online would have another like-minded person. I was amazed that out of the two candidates I supported, Bernie and Yang both of them were voted highest here. I agree with you and add that I feel that there is no choice anymore for who to pick and Trump is almost preferable so that Biden doesn't further turn the party into what it was when Bill Clinton was in office and so we don't have more Republican Lite Candidates(Most Moderates) in the future. A lot of Joe Biden supporters have their arguments characterized by the "Lesser of Two Evils" thing.

On a completely different side note Joe Biden is horrible in so many ways if we elect him it will set the worst standard than if any other candidate had been elected for the Democratic Party. He said something along the lines of "we'll make medicare work, we won't make it good however" or some stuff like that. With the Coronavirus spreading it is all too apparent how countries with actually good healthcare that isn't job supported are doing way better than we are because of that. Then there was the time where Joe Biden said "Poor kids are just as bright as white kids", he isn't explicitly racist but he is still racist regardless. I even looked at a list that a guy compiled about the problems of Biden(Nickola on Twitter) and like 80% of the tweets that Joe Biden wrote that were on that list were deleted by him after public feedback against Biden for those tweets.

Sorry if I sounded like I was ranting, I would love to hear a difference of opinions but I can still give a huge list of his problems. Please don't bring up the "Lesser of Two Evils" argument as that's a pretty poor argument for the person that's going to be elected to one of the most powerful countries in the world. Seriously I've listed about three of the problems out of maybe one thousand, so I will shut down any climate change, biden isn't racist, etc arguments(Please research if Biden actually did good for the argument that you are suggesting if you do come up with an argument.)
Finally thx you for reading this.
 
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I never thought that literally a single place online would have another like-minded person. I was amazed that out of the two candidates I supported, Bernie and Yang both of them were voted highest here. I agree with you and add that I feel that there is no choice anymore for who to pick and Trump is almost preferable so that Biden doesn't further turn the party into what it was when Bill Clinton was in office and so we don't have more Republican Lite Candidates(Most Moderates) in the future. A lot of Joe Biden supporters have their arguments characterized by the "Lesser of Two Evils" thing.
"Trump is almost preferable to Biden."

I said pages back that Bernie or Bust diehards are just closet Trump supporters. Just another reminder.

On a completely different side note Joe Biden is horrible in so many ways if we elect him it will set the worst standard than if any other candidate had been elected for the Democratic Party. He said something along the lines of "we'll make medicare work, we won't make it good however" or some stuff like that. With the Coronavirus spreading it is all too apparent how countries with actually good healthcare that isn't job supported are doing way better than we are because of that. Then there was the time where Joe Biden said "Poor kids are just as bright as white kids", he isn't explicitly racist but he is still racist regardless. I even looked at a list that a guy compiled about the problems of Biden(Nickola on Twitter) and like 80% of the tweets that Joe Biden wrote that were on that list were deleted by him after public feedback against Biden for those tweets.

Sorry if I sounded like I was ranting, I would love to hear a difference of opinions but I can still give a huge list of his problems. Please don't bring up the "Lesser of Two Evils" argument as that's a pretty poor argument for the person that's going to be elected to one of the most powerful countries in the world. Seriously I've listed about three of the problems out of maybe one thousand, so I will shut down any climate change, biden isn't racist, etc arguments(Please research if Biden actually did good for the argument that you are suggesting if you do come up with an argument.)
Finally thx you for reading this.
Elections are about governing power; not rhetorical arguments. You can list all 1,000 reasons why Biden is bad yet he still will be a better option than Trump. Whether one likes Biden or not is irrelevant. November's election is a binary choice; Trump or Biden will be president. That is one indisputable fact.

I respect your sentiment and much of what you said is indeed true. Unfortunately, it's not seeing the forest from the trees.

EDIT: Just to update regarding the state of the general election. Biden appears to have a slight statistical advantage so far in the battleground states. That of course could change in the next six months. However, given the generic ballot has now ballooned to a solid 8%, as wide as election day polling in 2018, it is unlikely the already daunting fundamentals could get any better for Trump.
 
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"Trump is almost preferable to Biden."

I said pages back that Bernie or Bust diehards are just closet Trump supporters. Just another reminder.



Elections are about governing power; not rhetorical arguments. You can list all 1,000 reasons why Biden is bad yet he still will be a better option than Trump. Whether one likes Biden or not is irrelevant. November's election is a binary choice; Trump or Biden will be president. That is one indisputable fact.

I respect your sentiment and much of what you said is indeed true. Unfortunately, it's not seeing the forest from the trees.

EDIT: Just to update regarding the state of the general election. Biden appears to have a slight statistical advantage so far in the battleground states. That of course could change in the next six months. However, given the generic ballot has now ballooned to a solid 8%, as wide as election day polling in 2018, it is unlikely the already daunting fundamentals could get any better for Trump.
I can see you obviously cherry-picked, I specifically said it was the lesser of two evils argument meaning while Biden may be better he he is almost less preferable because of another reason you obviously didn't read. Many people don't want to see our party becoming a Bill Clinton Party all over again. I could state that in different terms of course if you didn't understand the first time. Despite what you think hardcore Bernie supporters actually aren't trump supporters they're just too "Extreme to be called democrats" which is nonsense. Want a higher minimum wage like every other country in the world, too bad we say, just continue to get profited off of your boss at McDonald's. The Main Reason why Biden is less preferable is simply so our party doesn't become more moderate in a time where tougher measures need to be taken. Like the guy that I quoted was saying it is better to wait to make a final last push against big things like climate change and racism instead of making a flimsy push that will be replaced with a Republican when we most need a reliable Democrat.
:psyduck:

I understand the argument- Biden is better than Trump, My couch would even be a better president than Trump. But voting Biden could do considerable damage to our party which most people just look straight over. And considering his horrible voting numbers on this page most people don't have any enthusiasm for him whatsoever(No one that would be good for president just gets lower than Tulsi Gabbard(I can say however that Pete Buttigeg probably would've been 100x worse ))
 
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Biden's probably not going to do that much damage to the democratic party.

His reasons for running have been clear from the start: he thinks he's the most suited to beat Trump. I'm not convinced he has long term plans for the democratic party. Even in the event that he wins, I'm not convinced he'd be setting the democratic strategy going forward. His potential VP pick would have a lot of sway, and his advisors would have a lot of control over DNC operators, but I don't see him defining the democratic party for the next decade, like Obama did, and like Hillary Clinton probably would have.

A Biden victory leaves the democratic party pretty open actually, and doesn't virtually guarantee republican victories for the near future either.

If you think Trump is the worst option on the ballot, there's really no reason not to vote Biden this election. He really does seem like a empty consensus option between anyone who doesn't like Trump for whatever reason. Honestly the problem with Biden being so empty is that you can more or less project whatever you feel like onto his platform. But whatever you're going to get, it'll be bland and it won't last too long, which is frankly hard to complain about at this point.

EDIT: I completely agree that Buttigieg would have been 100% worse for the democrats long term. Making the democratic party into republican-lite, pandering only to WASPs was probably the worst option out of this primary.
 
Biden's victory in the primaries is just a demonstration that you could literally make zero concessions to progressives despite a huge grassroots excited progressive energy and big support among democrats for progressive policies. You could literally say "fuck you" to what is not only popular but drastically necessary (M4A, fixing climate problems, etc). You could not make any effort to campaign and reach out compared to your competitors but be carried by the democratic party and their investment in preserving the status quo.

I don't really see a Biden win making democrats more open if anything it cements the business-as-usual politics that led to the problems of today.

If Biden wins neolibs will be happy that drumph/voldemort/whatever they wanna call Trump is defeated and return to ignoring the needs of the working class while putting on woke performance politics to try and appear progressive. meanwhile republicans and conservatives will continue to draw in working class and rural people by trying to pin capitalist problems (which their politics fully support) on the wokeness of neolibs/minorities rather than their bigger economic structures.
 
Biden's victory in the primaries is just a demonstration that you could literally make zero concessions to progressives despite a huge grassroots excited progressive energy and big support among democrats for progressive policies. You could literally say "fuck you" to what is not only popular but drastically necessary (M4A, fixing climate problems, etc). You could not make any effort to campaign and reach out compared to your competitors but be carried by the democratic party and their investment in preserving the status quo.

I don't really see a Biden win making democrats more open if anything it cements the business-as-usual politics that led to the problems of today.

If Biden wins neolibs will be happy that drumph/voldemort/whatever they wanna call Trump is defeated and return to ignoring the needs of the working class while putting on woke performance politics to try and appear progressive. meanwhile republicans and conservatives will continue to draw in working class and rural people by trying to pin capitalist problems (which their politics fully support) on the wokeness of neolibs/minorities rather than their bigger economic structures.
What I think is the biggest "fuck you" to progressives is not Biden. Imo it's Bernie dropping y'all to concede when he signaled the opposite. He threw many of his staffers under the bus in the process of doing so.
 

ManOfMany

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If Biden wins neolibs will be happy that drumph/voldemort/whatever they wanna call Trump is defeated and return to ignoring the needs of the working class while putting on woke performance politics to try and appear progressive.
This may be true, but neolibs are not the only democrats. I am assuming (and I may be wrong) that progressive democrats have a far greater chance of working with the Biden administration to get concessions on issues like Climate Change and Medicare for All than with the Trump administration.
The movement does not live or die with the presidency and the fact that Bernie endorsed Biden seemed to signal that to me. Remember that we elected many young and progressive Democrats to the House of Representatives in 2018 midterm elections.

I don't see why the neolibs who influenced the Democratic party to prop up Clinton and Biden will try to change tactics and go for a non-establishment candidate next time if they lose. It didnt happen in 2016, and it probably won't happen this time.
 
This may be true, but neolibs are not the only democrats. I am assuming (and I may be wrong) that progressive democrats have a far greater chance of working with the Biden administration to get concessions on issues like Climate Change and Medicare for All than with the Trump administration.
The movement does not live or die with the presidency and the fact that Bernie endorsed Biden seemed to signal that to me. Remember that we elected many young and progressive Democrats to the House of Representatives in 2018 midterm elections.

I don't see why the neolibs who influenced the Democratic party to prop up Clinton and Biden will try to change tactics and go for a non-establishment candidate next time if they lose. It didnt happen in 2016, and it probably won't happen this time.
I am far happier and less concerned to see that unlike someone who commented earlier, people are approaching problems with different solutions and not just approaching this with one argument. I respect your argument and I think it has a certain chance of working in a way. It depends on who he picks VP but it could very well turn out to be like the Dick Cheney-George W Bush situation. That doesn't have a high chance but it could bring huge rewards. Of course it all depends on who he makes VP.


What I think is the biggest "fuck you" to progressives is not Biden. Imo it's Bernie dropping y'all to concede when he signaled the opposite. He threw many of his staffers under the bus in the process of doing so.
I'm not quite so sure, Bernie didn't run really any attack ads on anyone during the campaign even though many of the candidates attacked him, he just simply couldn't win. It just feels like, welp Bernie is too old to run again, hope that some other progressive can try and become president. Bernie still doesn't seem a sellout to me I guess.

Biden's victory in the primaries is just a demonstration that you could literally make zero concessions to progressives despite a huge grassroots excited progressive energy and big support among democrats for progressive policies. You could literally say "fuck you" to what is not only popular but drastically necessary (M4A, fixing climate problems, etc). You could not make any effort to campaign and reach out compared to your competitors but be carried by the democratic party and their investment in preserving the status quo.

I don't really see a Biden win making democrats more open if anything it cements the business-as-usual politics that led to the problems of today.

If Biden wins neolibs will be happy that drumph/voldemort/whatever they wanna call Trump is defeated and return to ignoring the needs of the working class while putting on woke performance politics to try and appear progressive. meanwhile republicans and conservatives will continue to draw in working class and rural people by trying to pin capitalist problems (which their politics fully support) on the wokeness of neolibs/minorities rather than their bigger economic structures.
Exactly, his whole platform is I can beat Trump, once he does that he might have plans for climate change and other problems, but those plans probably aren't going to do shit. He clearly doesn't have a plan for anything else, as he still hasn't stated what he is going to do about such major problems. He just says that he has the plans. Following a recent thing I talked about is if he picks a young progressive to be his VP that person could be like the actual brain of the presidency and Joe Biden is still the face of it, which is still bad but progressive things could actually get done. As I said, in the Dick Cheney-George W Bush presidency, George W Bush was like Biden, not in touch with the world, and Dick Cheney was like the hidden brain of the presidency doing many horrible things that are all attributed to George W Bush. If we could form a progressive form of this it would still satisfy the Biden supporters while all the progressive things that needed to get done are still done. The downside of this is all the good things get attributed to Biden further increasing the moderate voter-base which would suck quite a lot. What do you guys think?
 
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