Yang could be a strong contender in 2024 (after Trump beats Biden in 2020).
He’s a strong contender now dude. The biggest barrier to him breaking out is the fact that Bloomberg has gotten twice as much media coverage in the last month as he’s gotten all campaign. The guy genuinely appeals to voters across the ideological spectrum. You guys don’t get it: this guy has figured out how to package and sell liberal ideas to the Fox News crowd. He’s exactly what this situation calls for. He’d absolutely waffle crush Trump by running a smart populist campaign.
Look I’m really not fine with the establishment Dems getting another swing here. In my lifetime they’ve managed to lose to Bush twice and Trump once. I definitely think losing to Trump again is a decent chunk of their range, and honestly I’m through with them. They had multiple chances and they blew it. I see Yang’s ‘lack of experience’ as a top party official as a substantial plus.
What we have in this country in 2019 is a political duopoly where both parties are wheezing, bloated, and tired. Neither one has anything resembling a good grip on reality, and neither one has any of our best interests at heart. Yes the GOP is substantially worse, but that’s because they decided to go full sell out instead of 75% sell out… and because the demographics they target for voters are full of fundamentalist religious nuts which drives their social policy.
At this point I don’t believe in the ability of the Democratic Party to fix any of this. I don’t even think they even know how. Yang at least has a firm grip on reality and seems to see reality well. That’s a lot more than I can say for Bernie who bizarrely for American politics is too far left (he’s literally the only one so it’s super weird… but these far left idealists have a truly trash track record globally) and Warren I’m increasingly unsure of. She just seems to make serious tactical errors 2-3 times a year. I’m starting to seriously wonder if she has a firm grasp on risk:reward type thinking, and for someone who is going to be making major decisions for the whole country that’s uncomfortable. (In particular I think she tends to underestimate risk. The Native American ancestry thing and then the Medicare for All with no middle class tax increases + backtrack were both suuuuuuuper risky and I don’t think the reward was close to justifying it.)
Pete is busy selling out, which makes sense given his career history. Biden is way too old and frankly is the kind of party official who has done a little too well in this recently passed era. Harris was a DA for fucks sake, and not one of these new fangled social justice DA’s, but the old school kind that executed what most people will view as atrocities in 30 years. Also she clearly isn’t a good manager because look at how her campaign is being run.
The rest of the field are nobodies who demonstrate the Peter principle pretty well.
I started this primary thinking we had a field of historic strength with multiple Obama level talents running. Since then all but one have found ways to seriously devastatingly disappoint me… although so has Obama. I get that these people are all human, but they’re auditioning for the most powerful person in the world, and I don’t feel like any of them are even all that special… except for Yang.
Yang keeps on gaining ground by always representing reality truthfully and not being afraid to embrace good policy regardless of silly focus groups stuff like optics. He seems to decide on what is needed from a ‘what will work’ perspective and then he goes to the focus groups to decide on how to brand/market that choice… which makes him miles ahead of the other candidates in terms of both policy AND messaging. It turns out when you start with ‘what would be the right thing to do’ and only THEN work on figuring out the absolute best way to sell that idea you get a better result than when you look at a group of messages and pick the one that sounds the best regardless of which one would produce the best outcome.
I know an elite salesman when I see one. I hate Ben Shapiro with the heat of a thousand suns, and the only video of his I’ve been able to watch more than 2-5 minutes of was the one where Yang went on with him. That man ran circles around Shapiro without pissing him off. He disarmed him and then started to assimilate him. He immediately mirrored the mans own language, and then used the (very limited lol) things that they agreed about to build rapport… and then he sold him. And by the end Shapiro wasn’t exactly a convert, but he was getting dunked on sentence by sentence without even realizing it and his entire audience was up for grabs.
I look at the Yang groups and I see an awful lot of Rogan/Shapiro fans… and I also see an awful lot of far left people. I know it isn’t remotely fashionable to talk about bipartisanship on this forum, which is fair, and I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about reaching the old white men in power in the GOP. I’m talking about reaching their voters. Yang plays well with nearly everyone who isn’t a politics nut like us. We LIKE political speeches by normal politicians (at least I used to… now honestly they give me flashbacks and a deep sense of dread… thanks Hillary!) Normal people want to hear about how their lives can get better. Yang is absolutely incredible at that.
One of the things I don’t want to hear anymore is ‘Yang can’t win’. There’s absolutely no reason why that’s true other than people think he can’t win. And the media (especially MSNBC, but the rest are guilty as well) doesn’t seem to want to cover him. Right now America needs someone like this very badly. We need a great leader to take us through a very difficult period in our history. We have a very narrow window to hit right now and if we miss it the results will be catastrophic, global, and very likely mean the end of the entire system with really serious political violence to follow. No one on this board is drawing dead to getting killed. We’re intellectuals, and intellectuals are usually the first on the train to the death camp. I’ve already figured out my exit plans and the rest of you should as well. There’s no honor in getting murdered by fascists.
We aren’t all fucked… but we’re in the twilight before WAAF. We’ve twiddled our thumbs for 40 years as a civilization and now the cracks are really starting to show. If this thing breaks up it’s going to be super super ugly. I’m for absolutely anyone who has a shot at fixing this. We’re in a situation where our range of outcomes is super polarized between ‘we’ll be ok’ and ‘we won’t be ok… at all’. In a lot of ways the difference between Biden and Trump is basically nothing because both hands lose at showdown.
At this point if I had to choose between Steyer and any of the establishment Dems I’d pick Steyer. He at least is a good manager and can almost single handedly outspend the competition. If you have to go establishment I’d rather go with one of the owners of the establishment than one of their shitty employees.
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That should have been your first red flag.
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Bernie is a new deal democrat and Boredsocial is close to getting a “What do you mean ‘our best interests’?”
Re: Bloomberg
https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1201516422964355074?s=20
It’s sickening how he is literally going to buy his way into being a contender.
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That post made go back and reread the most amazing post ever:
I’m somewhat inclined towards the argument that he has some ulterior motive for running, like he gets to be on the debate stage, or he’s allowed to buy ads, or whatever being a candidate gets you; idk. I don’t think he’s actually trying to win, I think he’s trying to influence the race by other means. Probably he wants to try to sabotage the leftist candidates somehow.
I just think some of you are so wrong on this. The people who are drawn to candidates aren’t your red flags. They are looking for new blood and ideas because they are sick to death of status quo corrupt government that works for corporate interests and the wealthy, instead of the working people. The red flags are those who want to run a centrist because if Trump is the more radical candidate on stage and is still the most likely to throw a hand grenade into the system as we know it, he will beat us again
No. Those are people and they vote. Getting one of them is like turning your ass out to the polls twice.
Military bro literally says like “the problem is that a LOT of the people coming from Mexico are these MS-13 types”. Zero pushback from Gabbard.
She’s disgraceful.
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And the solution is obv to elect some unqualified businessbro. Worked so well in 2016!
I think this is a subject for another thread. The thing is, there shouldn’t be any rigid lines where if you cross over on one issue it makes your a blasphemer of your own party. There are many on the left who while they are for ending children in cages tomorrow, allowing DACA children to stay, are all for helping asylum seekers, etc., who STILL want some type of sensible border enforcement. Half the MAGAts who want to build their stupid wall to keep Mexicans out, couldn’t become a Canadian citizen because Canada requires you show you’ll be a productive citizen
Again, if there isn’t already, there should be an immigration thread. It’s complicated and I don’t know the statistics. I would think most Mexicans trying to get into this country are poor and trying to flee cartels and MS-13 types. But I don’t think anyone would reasonably argue that keeping out MS-13 is probably a good idea. There’s a lot to unpack and discuss when it comes to immigration and reasonable people can disagree
I think this is a great topic. What should we consider qualified? HRC was probably the most qualified candidate to ever run for the presidency. Do you think she’d have made a good president?
I think if 2016 has proven anything, it’s that the president doesn’t need to be “qualified”. The president’s main role is to set the tone and agenda for the country. Taking care of details and seeing that things run efficiently is what your cabinet and generals are for. I think a businessbro would be pretty good at hiring “the best” people for the job. Unfortunately, Trump was never very good at business. Also, there are very few businessmen who wouldn’t be just as corrupt as Trump is. So the question more do you trust Yang, rather than is he qualified
She’d be a lot fucking better than the reality TV businessbro we have now. Like, where are you even going with this?
We as a nation really need to get over our collective need to glorify these business dudes. Like, what does a guy who ran an SAT prep business know about appointing a good secretary of defense? His Rolodex is full of business associates and he’s going to pick a bunch of his business friends to run the country because that’s how these people operate.
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His rolodex is full of the same elite people that went to elite private schools as everyone else. He went the Phillips Exeter Academy, Brown, and then Columbia Law school and has spent a good chunk of the time since he exited that test prep business (which was targeted more at people looking to take the post bachelors grad school tests actually) recruiting people at the elite schools for both fundraising and as VFA candidates.
Look you still think means testing is great so I don’t know why I take you seriously at all. You haven’t done any research on Yang because you have a visceral negative reaction to anyone who has had any kind of success in capitalism. You still think the politicians are going to save you from the businesspeople. I don’t know why that is honestly. Our most talented people stopped being politicians over a generation ago. Who on earth would want to spend 5-6 hours a day making calls to beg for money and not get anything done?
The guys entire family are academics. If anything he’s going to pull most of his staff from elite academic institutions just like Liz will. The political system has sucked really really hard for the last 30-40 years, which means anyone who thrived in it also sucks. Logic. What do they teach them in these schools?
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If the criticism of Tulsi was based on her being bad on one issue then you might have a point. She sucks on a lot of things, and the fact that she is good on some other things doesn’t change that.
Also the fact that she continuously spouts right wing talking points and appears on Fox News makes me doubt her sincerity on stuff like M4A. When someone tries to tell you who they are, listen to them.
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Yes we need to elect the checks notes BUSINESSPEOPLE to protect us from the businesspeople.
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So that’s a lie.
so I don’t know why I take you seriously at all. You haven’t done any research on Yang
Nope
because you have a visceral negative reaction to anyone who has had any kind of success in capitalism
.
Another lie and I’m pretty much done here.
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No we need to elect capable people who have demonstrated that they aren’t corrupt pieces of shit. If you weren’t a corrupt piece of shit you didn’t last long in Washington this last 30-40 years. Bernie is one of the few exceptions, but he’s survived to a large extent because he’s the most hard headed person I’ve ever seen lol. I say that with a great deal of affection.
You’re not the one who keeps arguing that we shouldn’t send UBI checks to rich people? I may have confused you with someone else but I don’t think so. Fair enough about being done here. I’m done too. Your takes on Yang ITT have been disingenuous and more than a little silly. Eventually someone had to call you out on it.
That last one about calling up his rolodex full of business people was straight from your ass and you know it. You keep generalizing him into that businessperson category even though he’s spent a sizable chunk of his career (the most recent part too) running for office quite well and running a nonprofit which you’ve repeatedly denigrated with absolutely nothing to back it up. Like you’re completely full of shit about claiming you’ve looked at him with any kind of open mind. You hated the very look of him from the get go and then looked for data to match that view. It’s super super obvious from the outside looking in.