2020 Democratic Primary Thread: Focus on House & Senate races

[Piff Perkins]

Stoller used to be a Congressional staffer, so he has taken part in government. He's currently an academic/writer, so lobbying ideas is how someone in his current capacity would attempt to enact their views of government.



I think simply saying that Trump campaigned on racism and nativism, without speaking to the material conditions that allowed a campaign like his to become viable, is shortsighted and reductive. Trump also spoke to the rot and inequality caused by the globalized economic regime. He spoke about the governmental corruption that caused Washington elites, of which the Clintons are surely a member of, to be unaccountable to the disaffected masses. 13% of Trump voters voted for Obama, so there was obviously some meaningfully sizeable audience for that message as opposed to the starkly racist/nativist stuff. If you fail to recognize this and just reject this analysis out of hand because Trump got to it before the Democrats, then you're setting yourself up for failure. Thankfully, Liz and Bernie understand this dynamic.


How do you define neoliberalism, and how do you find it different from progressivism (if you do)?

Chait makes a fatal mistake here in confusing the voting Democratic population for the population at large. It's actually one of the most telling differentiating fault lines between establishment "neoliberal" Democrats and progressives. The former is only concerned with people in the tight box of consistently Democratic voters while the latter is concerned with expanding the circle of relevant people and voices to include non-Democrats. So whereas Obama having incredibly high popularity rates amongst Democrats signals to establishment politicians that M4A should not be pursued and everything must be framed as an extension of Obama, progressives aren't shackled to the Obama legacy and have the freedom to think outside the establishment box. His relative popularity within the Democratic Party doesn't mean shyt when it comes to accurately assessing the material results of his actions and inactions.

In terms of the actual meat of this article, I don't see Stoller or any other progressive claiming that Obama only did bad things. But taken as a whole, his record on corporatism, environmentalism, taxation and yes, healthcare, were woefully inadequate to handle the critical issues of this era. I call his Presidency a failure because given a historic mandate for change, time and time again he pursued a foolish vision of bipartisanship and moderation that ended up neutering the capacity to actually bring about change. This isn't hypothetical, our current political environment is his aftermath. 1000 lost Democratic seats and President Trump is his political legacy. That Hillary Clinton was his natural Democratic successor and not Bernie Sanders or another progressive is proof positive of this point. Obama-ism didn't groom progressivism, it stifled it.

...and yet Obama's approval rating was 59% at the end of his presidency, according to Gallup. It's so weird watching people create an alternate reality in which Obama is some shamed failure who only democrats liked. A lot of this is the product of the 2016 election in which a lot of stupid people came out of the bushes for Trump or Sanders, and decided they were political experts despite not paying attention to anything before those candidates ran. So these people pop off on twitter and create this alt reality on a variety of political issues.


Even with the lost seats...again it's like nobody was paying attention or following issues when they happened. Nobody seems to remember what happened in 2010, or why democrats lost that year. Hint, it wasn't that they weren't progressive enough lmao.

This election reminds me a lot of 2012. A handful of extremists with no actionable policy ideas have decided that absolute purity to their ideas is the most important aspect of life. A few are running for president. Overall, the candidate list is a clown show of people who have no business on stage, but are being allowed to sabotage real candidates because the media wants to see fireworks. At the end, a normal candidate will almost certainly be selected...but after months of taking extreme positions to defeat his/her opponents, he will be DOA in the general election and drowned by the incumbent president's financial war chest.

Sound familiar? This is exactly what happened to Mitt Romney. Good luck with that shyt...

 

[King Kreole]

Damn. Why does she refuse to answer to the question on if she voted for Reagan or not?

Probably because she's a crypto-Republican Manchurian candidate deployed by GOP bigwigs to destroy America.

 

[King Kreole]

...and yet Obama's approval rating was 59% at the end of his presidency, according to Gallup. It's so weird watching people create an alternate reality in which Obama is some shamed failure who only democrats liked. A lot of this is the product of the 2016 election in which a lot of stupid people came out of the bushes for Trump or Sanders, and decided they were political experts despite not paying attention to anything before those candidates ran. So these people pop off on twitter and create this alt reality on a variety of political issues.


Even with the lost seats...again it's like nobody was paying attention or following issues when they happened. Nobody seems to remember what happened in 2010, or why democrats lost that year. Hint, it wasn't that they weren't progressive enough lmao.

This election reminds me a lot of 2012. A handful of extremists with no actionable policy ideas have decided that absolute purity to their ideas is the most important aspect of life. A few are running for president. Overall, the candidate list is a clown show of people who have no business on stage, but are being allowed to sabotage real candidates because the media wants to see fireworks. At the end, a normal candidate will almost certainly be selected...but after months of taking extreme positions to defeat his/her opponents, he will be DOA in the general election and drowned by the incumbent president's financial war chest.

Sound familiar? This is exactly what happened to Mitt Romney. Good luck with that shyt...

Again, I don't know anyone who is claiming that Obama was/is unpopular. It seems as though your entire frame of analysis is horserace electoralism. My frame of analysis is concrete, material political policy and its effects. Under your frame, Obama being a failure doesn't make sense because his approval ratings are relatively high. Under my frame, he's a failure because he failed to bring about policy changes that meaningfully increased the material wellbeing of the populace and created a space for the current right-wing neo-fascist movement to take hold. It's entirely consistent under my worldview that he can be popular and a failure.

From my perspective, it is you who creates and alt-reality when you refuse to acknowledge his inactions on the prosecution of the Wall Street raiders who destroyed the economy, the Bush administration war criminals who were never brought to justice, his timidity in pushing for truly foundational economic change in the wake of the financial crisis, the rampant market concentration that has strangled the socio-economic life out of most communities across the nation, the expansion of morally derelict and increasingly ungovernable national/border security apparatus, and ultimately, as we're seeing right now, a sizeable cult of personality that stands in opposition to progressive improvements to his administration's work. Your handwaving away of the Democrats being beaten back into their weakest position in 100 years under Obama's tenure is telling.

I have no clue how you watch a minute of this Democratic Primary and come away with the idea that it's the progressives with no actionable policy ideas. And I find it funny that you believe the lesson of the 2012 Republican Primary is that you should nominate milquetoast centrist and attempt to force back the inexorable winds of change instead of leaning into partisan winds, fighting for progressive justice. Good luck with your Mitt.

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

It's okay to say negative things about Obama.

 

[Pressure]

Under my frame, he's a failure because he failed to bring about policy changes that meaningfully increased the material wellbeing of the populace and created a space for the current right-wing neo-fascist movement to take hold. It's entirely consistent under my worldview that he can be popular and a failure.

Pretend the great recession didn't happen brehs.

 

[Pressure]

I can't take you seriously when you say you're advocates for policy that uplifts the entire populace or even just the common man, but voted for Trump - - someone you consider a neofascist.

The most likely answer is that it's not about policy as much as you seem to support candidates who you feel will attack the democratic establishment.

 

[Piff Perkins]

Again, I don't know anyone who is claiming that Obama was/is unpopular. It seems as though your entire frame of analysis is horserace electoralism. My frame of analysis is concrete, material political policy and its effects. Under your frame, Obama being a failure doesn't make sense because his approval ratings are relatively high. Under my frame, he's a failure because he failed to bring about policy changes that meaningfully increased the material wellbeing of the populace and created a space for the current right-wing neo-fascist movement to take hold. It's entirely consistent under my worldview that he can be popular and a failure.

From my perspective, it is you who creates and alt-reality when you refuse to acknowledge his inactions on the prosecution of the Wall Street raiders who destroyed the economy, the Bush administration war criminals who were never brought to justice, his timidity in pushing for truly foundational economic change in the wake of the financial crisis, the rampant market concentration that has strangled the socio-economic life out of most communities across the nation, the expansion of morally derelict and increasingly ungovernable national/border security apparatus, and ultimately, as we're seeing right now, a sizeable cult of personality that stands in opposition to progressive improvements to his administration's work.

I have no clue how you watch a minute of this Democratic Primary and come away with the idea that it's the progressives with no actionable policy ideas. And I find it funny that you believe the lesson of the 2012 Republican Primary is that you should nominate milquetoast centrist and attempt to force back the inexorable winds of change instead of leaning into partisan winds, fighting for progressive justice. Good luck with your Mitt.

The impression I got from your argument is one that I see often from leftists, which is basically "Obama was unpopular and a disaster, and running on a similar platform would be disastrous." Which is alt reality nonsense, as I mentioned. If you want to argue Obama didn't take leftist actions to your desired outcomes, fine. Understandable. To me, the idea that a president is a failure because he alone didn't change the fundamental makeup of our economic system is laughable...but hey, what do I know. I thought Obama's reaction to the financial crisis was a success in some ways, and a failure in others (namely the lack of any consequences for those who tanked the economy). If I can get back to the election aspect...running on a slightly updated Obama platform would not be unpopular or doom a candidate. Candidates live or die by their merits moreso than their policies in America, usually. The failures of Hillary Clinton for instance have more to do with her personal distastefulness than her policies...she ran on arguably the most liberal platform in decades.

I didn't say my lesson for 2012 is to nominate an unlikable semi moderate. My point is that the end game is going to look a lot like 2012, with Trump likely winning. I don't see any candidates who can beat him. I'm not afraid that Biden will win the nom - I think he'll fade - but unfortunately I don't really see anyone next up who can win in my opinion. And as in 2012, the debates have devolved into weird tangents that don't even interest the American people.

My problem with the Sanders wing is that they have endorsed a series of policies that involve magical math and are unrealistic - not to mention illogical. I like Warren to a degree because at least she understands monetary policy, which can't be said of any other candidate (outside of Yang). These debates have done a decent job of exposing how poor some of their arguments are, and how even someone as stupid as Trump could likely best them in a debate. Not that I think winning or losing the debates will be key...I think we can all agree Hillary outright one every debate, and still lost the election.

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

My problem with the Sanders wing is that they have endorsed a series of policies that involve magical math and are unrealistic - not to mention illogical.

Other countries have proven for decades that those policies work in reality.

I know, I know.

"Technically, those countries are not socialist."

Oh good. So we could adopt those policies and we wouldn't be socialists then, right?

 

[King Kreole]

Pretend the great recession didn't happen brehs.

The existence of the Great Recession is foundational to my argument that Obama had a historic mandate to bring about real change and failed to do so. The turmoil of the recession is what gave him the context. Far from being exculpatory, it's actually inculpatory. You should read A Crisis Wasted by Reed Hundt.

 

[King Kreole]

I can't take you seriously when you say you're advocates for policy that uplifts the entire populace or even just the common man, but voted for Trump - - someone you consider a neofascist.

The most likely answer is that it's not about policy as much as you seem to support candidates who you feel will attack the democratic establishment.

I didn't vote for Trump, and that fact you need to pretend I did in order for your argument to stand up is evidence of how empty it is. As is the fact that I've laid out exactly why I dislike the political establishment and the failures of the Obama years, yet you still see the need to ascribe to me some nebulous, unknowable obsession with destroying the Democratic Party. Go off, king.

 

[Dat Migo]

Shooter was a Trump/Yang supporter. Crazy how those two bases have some overlap.

 

[the next guy]

 

[Piff Perkins]

Other countries have proven for decades that those policies work in reality.

I know, I know.

"Technically, those countries are not socialist."

Oh good. So we could adopt those policies and we wouldn't be socialists then, right?

How many people reside in those countries again. And how many people reside in the US, again? Now make that math work for me.

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

Shooter was a Trump/Yang supporter. Crazy how those two bases have some overlap.

jobless 4cac losers who want free cash to buy video games

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

How many people reside in those countries again. And how many people reside in the US, again? Now make that math work for me.

simple. multiply.