Jeff Merkley, Barbara Lee, and Mark Pocan are boomers. I’ll look for some genxers in a bit. Mid-50s is pretty young to have enough experience though. Merkley is a young boomer.
Ro Khanna is 43
Cuse’s post. Ban yourself troll
I recently watched Lincoln on Netflix and thought of this place for half the movie. I say watched and not rewatched because I did watch it once but I was on the elliptical and that’s not an exercise movie. Sorry for the quality but this scene is this thread atm. And I’m not implying that Lincoln is clearly right in his counterfactual about losing the war if he had granted emancipation at the start, but I do like how the scene ends.
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Sorry, cuse said Obama putting kids in cages was fine because the dotard did it a lot more? Where? He didn’t say that, so I assume you inferred it from:
So I’m asking how you inferred that because I can’t see any logical connection between that post and your assertion.
True North aka moral certitude is not a given and up for debate.
Everything boomerangs back. When a concept like altruism isn’t beyond reproach.
I mean, Ayn Rand wrote convincingly for many that departure-point altruism leads to destination communism/fascism.
They just don’t have the gall of GOPete.
I’ve quoted Hunter Thompson before, but it applies to Pete and pretty much every other politician in the race, I think - MAYBE not Bernie
“The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It’s come to the point where you almost can’t run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip on each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.”
If you haven’t read “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail”, I think it’s the best book about the nuts and bolts of running a political campaign ever written, and has the added benefit of being one of the funniest books ever written.
MM MD
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Pramila Jayapal just makes the cut for Gen X.
I agree with a lot of this.
For the first time in my lifetime we have a chance to elect a president that doesn’t take corporate money and could actually fight for real change.
To many of us are just wanting to get back to “normal”.
Then we act flabbergasted that people are picking Biden when they are using the same logic many in this thread are.
That’s my biggest disconnect with most of you. You don’t realize how fucked up it is for the majority of Americans because you were blessed with better genetics or life circumstances.
I don’t want to see it burn down. I don’t want to see people die.
I do want to rewrite or change the rules and redistribute the wealth as quickly as possible.
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Glad you’ll vote for Pete (or hopefully whoever the nominee is). Pete over Trump would unfuck the country in many ways, even if not entirely. The truth of the matter is that we’re decades of liberal presidents away from being truly “unfucked” and any progress from 2020-2024 is at least a small win. Pete could truly be the one to lay the groundwork if he prioritizes democracy reform, and there’s at least a chance he would (he’s talked about it).
But bottom line, if a Democrat wins the Dreamers are unfucked, most of the kids in cages (if not all) are unfucked, foreigners with student visas are unfucked, white supremacists go back to being properly investigated by the FBI, and a thousand other “small” but really important things.
It’s not defending it to point out that Obama did his best to avoid detaining minors, and it was essentially only done when it was the least bad option. Trump is doing it as much as possible. Obama also did not separate families, while Trump is doing it as much as possible.
I don’t know if you’re uninformed or just arguing in bad faith, but knock it off either way.
It’s better to have a Dem and it’s not even close. It would give a fascistic president a chance to consolidate a great deal of power, and Trump would do it even if only through sheer instinct.
You do it in the primaries.
Key word: relatively. I wouldn’t call it desirous, but if we’re comparing it to Trump’s 2017-2020, then you’re damn right it’s desirous.
People fear monger too much about the socialist tag. My center-right father who I bring up from time to time on here, who mostly voted Republican throughout his life, sat out 2016 cause he hated Trump but thought Hillary was unacceptable too, who isn’t totally convinced on the Ukraine thing… He’d vote for Bernie in a heartbeat. He would have in '16, too. He genuinely likes him.
Family separation will disappear overnight. Family detention and child detention will not. Some of that is unavoidable, but extended detention of families and children should be ended. It’s unavoidable when a minor is caught coming in unaccompanied and you have to attempt to find family to put them with in the US. I guess some of the “true progressives” here would just immediately turn adolescents lose in the US and wish them the best of luck and consider that morally superior to trying to reunite them with family/guardians and holding them in the mean time. Obviously they should be held in humane, comfortable, non-prison-like circumstances.
Thanks.
Get the fuck out of here with this bullshit.
This.
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Maybe. As I’ve noted, I think both of the things, health and the socialism tag, are an issue, but I don’t pretend to know how much of one. You have a sample size of one (your dad), although I freely admit it’s probably a fairly common situation - I was one click away from your dad, as I reluctantly pulled the handle for HRC, even though I really didn’t want her to be president for a lot of reasons.
I think Bernie has the “I’d have a beer with him” edge on pretty much all of them, tho…
MM MD
I don’t want to just get back to normal. But the general election will be a binary choice. If that choice is between significant progress and Trump, I’ll be thrilled to vote for significant progress. If it’s between “back to normal” and Trump, I’ll still urgently vote for “back to normal.”
This is an emergency.
There’s a 0% chance I vote for Biden in the primary and a 100% chance I vote for him in the general if he wins. Anyone who sits out Biden vs. Trump is a terrible person, too.
So do I, even though a lot of it does not impact me directly. But I don’t see any reason not to at least ease some of the suffering for four years while continuing to fight. Some people think this election may as well be the last stand. If they don’t get Bernie as the nominee, fuck it, let Trump burn it all allllll the way down. Fuck it. Right?
No, fuck that. I don’t want to spend the rest of my live under President Trumps (Donald, then Don Jr, then Ivanka, etc)… Fuck. That.
Like, if we preserve a system of democracy here, we’re a near lock to get a chance to vote for President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2028 at the latest. If it’s gotta be eight years of “back to normal” to get to that opportunity, it’s better than not having it at all.
Maybe some people underestimate the chances that if Trump wins in 2020 it’s our last “free and fair” election. In many ways we’re lucky 2020 is going to be at least somewhat free and fair - and obviously there will be tons of suppression, gerrymandering, and legal scamming (like not delivering power cords for voting machines in majority-minority areas of some red states). But we’ve still got a shot. Four more years of complete and total immunity? We’re drawing live to totally rigged elections, if we have any at all. We’re drawing live to mass slaughter. We’re drawing live to people being imprisoned (or worse) simply for being liberal. We’re drawing live to media outlets being shut down.
Basically, if Trump wins re-election we’re a favorite to look more like Putin’s Russia than any version of America we’ve all lived in.
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A lot of it’s just about general feel listening to the candidate, authenticity, is he/she going to “fight for people like me” and so on… Bernie crushes it in those departments.
And, yeah, sample of one and all… But I think the fact that any number of people exist who would be like Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney, no vote, Bernie voters is evidence that the socialist label may not scare off as many people as we think. Like this is someone who certainly hears, identifies with and connects with conservative messaging. He sees the current GOP as a clown show, but he’s more conservative than liberal. So if he’s enthusiastic about Bernie, I think we may underestimate how many working and middle class Republicans are really just buying into their hawkish foreign policy, patriotic messaging, small government/tax cut messaging, etc…
When sold on WHY the government can be an instrument of good, WHO it can help, and WHAT is being done to them by the 1% screwing us all over… They are winnable.
I mean your whole post is good, but man it really comes down to this. We should all be protesting in the streets right now that Moscow Mitch isn’t allowing an election security bill to come to a vote, because he thinks the bill would favor Democrats.
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Back to normal = people still being fucked.
They were being fucked before Trump.
Thanks to Trump we have a chance to make real change,
We are going to fuck it up.
To be clear I’m pulling the lever for any dem.
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forgive me and my utubes, but we’re still far too complaisant. When the indignation of our beloved JT passes as this forum’s idea of political activism, it’s seen for the toothless screed that it is by the powerful.
I still can’t get over this Keith Olbermann rant nearly 10 years ago after Citizens United. But fuck if he didn’t nail it at least so far. We are at the last stand
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The chance to make real change is in the primary, though. I don’t think most people here are going to mess it up. As a party overall? Yeah, quite possible.
But there will be fewer people getting fucked and less severely so with Pete versus Trump. It’s a start. If we don’t get Bernie as the nominee, there will be a few cycles in a row where we could get AOC. Surviving until that point is a small win in and of itself.
And to be clear, to all the people who are even more outraged than me about what’s going on in this country, showing up to pull the lever for Bernie (or Warren) isn’t nearly enough. If you think Pete is that bad, and I know we all agree that Biden sucks, then I hope I won’t be the only one knocking on doors next year, urging friends to get registered, urging independents and Republicans who like Bernie to register and vote in the primary, etc…
It’s the least we can do. And a friendly reminder to all that so far, the net impact of this forum on the Democratic primary in the real world so far has to increase Pete’s chances.
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I can’t bring myself to watch this again. I watched it a few years ago and found it depressing how accurate he was and what else he foretold. I don’t think I can take it right now to go back and watch again.
I would suggest that the best chances to make real change are outside of voting, but as far as voting goes you’re right.
I guess you’re just adding up the contributions of forum members? May or may not be accurate, but it’s not like the forum is responsible for skydiver8.