2020 US Elections | Biden certified as President | Dems control Congress

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Red Dreams said:
its archaic.
The argument for it though is that a lot of states become flyover country otherwise.
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Which is a good point but there has to be a way to ensure that isn't the case without being balanced so far in the opposite direction that the votes of around 150k people in Kentucky get to determine how the entire country is governed.
 
Pexbo said:
Which is a good point but there has to be a way to ensure that isn't the case without being balanced so far in the opposite direction that the votes of around 150k people in Kentucky get to determine how the entire country is governed.
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you are right.
Also look at how the Senate is made up.
2 Senators from Wyoming being equal to 2 from States like California and New York.
 
Sweet Square said:





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Well, worth discussing

Moderate Democrats worry that nominating Mr Sanders would cost them the election. This newspaper worries that forcing Americans to decide between him and Mr Trump would result in an appalling choice with no good outcome. It will surprise nobody that we disagree with a self-described democratic socialist over economics, but that is just the start. Because Mr Sanders is so convinced that he is morally right, he has a dangerous tendency to put ends before means. And, in a country where Mr Trump has whipped up politics into a frenzy of loathing, Mr Sanders’s election would feed the hatred.

On economics Mr Sanders is misunderstood. He is not a cuddly Scandinavian social democrat who would let companies do their thing and then tax them to build a better world. Instead, he believes American capitalism is rapacious and needs to be radically weakened. He puts Jeremy Corbyn to shame, proposing to take 20% of the equity of companies and hand it over to workers, to introduce a federal jobs-guarantee and to require companies to qualify for a federal charter obliging them to act for all stakeholders in ways that he could define. On trade, Mr Sanders is at least as hostile to open markets as Mr Trump is. He seeks to double government spending, without being able to show how he would pay for it. When unemployment is at a record low and nominal wages in the bottom quarter of the jobs market are growing by 4.6%, his call for a revolution in the economy is an epically poor prescription for what ails America.

In putting ends before means, Mr Sanders displays the intolerance of a Righteous Man. He embraces perfectly reasonable causes like reducing poverty, universal health care and decarbonising the economy, and then insists on the most unreasonable extremes in the policies he sets out to achieve them (see article). He would ban private health insurance (not even Britain, devoted to its National Health Service, goes that far). He wants to cut billionaires’ wealth in half over 15 years. A sensible ecologist would tax fracking for the greenhouse gases it produces. To Mr Sanders that smacks of a dirty compromise: he would ban it outright.
Sometimes even the ends are sacrificed to Mr Sanders’s need to be righteous. Making university cost-free for students is a self-defeating way to alleviate poverty, because most of the subsidy would go to people who are, or will be, relatively wealthy. Decriminalising border-crossing and breaking up Immigration and Customs Enforcement would abdicate one of the state’s first duties. Banning nuclear energy would stand in the way of his goal to create a zero-carbon economy.

So keenly does Mr Sanders fight his wicked rivals at home, that he often sympathises with their enemies abroad. He has shown a habit of indulging autocrats in Cuba and Nicaragua, so long as the regime in question claims to be pursuing socialism. He is sceptical about America wielding power overseas, partly from an honourable conviction that military adventures do more harm than good. But it also reflects his contempt for the power-wielders in the Washington establishment.
Last is the effect of a President Sanders on America’s political culture. The country’s political divisions helped make Mr Trump’s candidacy possible. They are now enabling Mr Sanders’s rise. The party’s leftist activists find his revolution thrilling. They have always believed that their man would triumph if only the neoliberal Democratic Party elite would stop keeping him down. His supporters seem to reserve almost as much hatred for his Democratic opponents as they do for Republicans.

This speaks to Mr Sanders’s political style. When faced with someone who disagrees with him, his instinct is to spot an establishment conspiracy, or to declare that his opponent is confused and will be put straight by one of his political sermons. When asked how he would persuade Congress to eliminate private health insurance (something which 60% of Americans oppose), Mr Sanders replies that he would hold rallies in the states of recalcitrant senators until they relented.
A presidency in which Mr Sanders travelled around the country holding rallies for a far-left programme that he could not get through Congress would widen America’s divisions. It would frustrate his supporters, because the president’s policies would be stymied by Congress or the courts. On the right, which has long been fed a diet of socialist bogeymen, the spectacle of an actual socialist in the White House would generate even greater fury. Mr Sanders would test the proposition that partisanship cannot get any more bitter.

The mainstream three-quarters of Democrats have begun to tell themselves that Mr Sanders would not be so bad. Some point out that he would not be able to do many of the things he promises. This excuse-making, with its implication that Mr Sanders should be taken seriously but not literally, sounds worryingly familiar. Mr Trump has shown that control of the regulatory state, plus presidential powers over trade and over foreign policy, give a president plenty of room for manoeuvre. His first term suggests that it is unwise to dismiss what a man seeking power says he wants to do with it.
Enter Sandersman
If Mr Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee, America will have to choose in November between a corrupt, divisive, right-wing populist, who scorns the rule of law and the constitution, and a sanctimonious, divisive, left-wing populist, who blames a cabal of billionaires and businesses for everything that is wrong with the world. All this when the country is as peaceful and prosperous as at any time in its history. It is hard to think of a worse choice. Wake up, America!
 
Suedesi said:
Well, worth discussing

Moderate Democrats worry that nominating Mr Sanders would cost them the election. This newspaper worries that forcing Americans to decide between him and Mr Trump would result in an appalling choice with no good outcome. It will surprise nobody that we disagree with a self-described democratic socialist over economics, but that is just the start. Because Mr Sanders is so convinced that he is morally right, he has a dangerous tendency to put ends before means. And, in a country where Mr Trump has whipped up politics into a frenzy of loathing, Mr Sanders’s election would feed the hatred.

On economics Mr Sanders is misunderstood. He is not a cuddly Scandinavian social democrat who would let companies do their thing and then tax them to build a better world. Instead, he believes American capitalism is rapacious and needs to be radically weakened. He puts Jeremy Corbyn to shame, proposing to take 20% of the equity of companies and hand it over to workers, to introduce a federal jobs-guarantee and to require companies to qualify for a federal charter obliging them to act for all stakeholders in ways that he could define. On trade, Mr Sanders is at least as hostile to open markets as Mr Trump is. He seeks to double government spending, without being able to show how he would pay for it. When unemployment is at a record low and nominal wages in the bottom quarter of the jobs market are growing by 4.6%, his call for a revolution in the economy is an epically poor prescription for what ails America.

In putting ends before means, Mr Sanders displays the intolerance of a Righteous Man. He embraces perfectly reasonable causes like reducing poverty, universal health care and decarbonising the economy, and then insists on the most unreasonable extremes in the policies he sets out to achieve them (see article). He would ban private health insurance (not even Britain, devoted to its National Health Service, goes that far). He wants to cut billionaires’ wealth in half over 15 years. A sensible ecologist would tax fracking for the greenhouse gases it produces. To Mr Sanders that smacks of a dirty compromise: he would ban it outright.
Sometimes even the ends are sacrificed to Mr Sanders’s need to be righteous. Making university cost-free for students is a self-defeating way to alleviate poverty, because most of the subsidy would go to people who are, or will be, relatively wealthy. Decriminalising border-crossing and breaking up Immigration and Customs Enforcement would abdicate one of the state’s first duties. Banning nuclear energy would stand in the way of his goal to create a zero-carbon economy.

So keenly does Mr Sanders fight his wicked rivals at home, that he often sympathises with their enemies abroad. He has shown a habit of indulging autocrats in Cuba and Nicaragua, so long as the regime in question claims to be pursuing socialism. He is sceptical about America wielding power overseas, partly from an honourable conviction that military adventures do more harm than good. But it also reflects his contempt for the power-wielders in the Washington establishment.
Last is the effect of a President Sanders on America’s political culture. The country’s political divisions helped make Mr Trump’s candidacy possible. They are now enabling Mr Sanders’s rise. The party’s leftist activists find his revolution thrilling. They have always believed that their man would triumph if only the neoliberal Democratic Party elite would stop keeping him down. His supporters seem to reserve almost as much hatred for his Democratic opponents as they do for Republicans.

This speaks to Mr Sanders’s political style. When faced with someone who disagrees with him, his instinct is to spot an establishment conspiracy, or to declare that his opponent is confused and will be put straight by one of his political sermons. When asked how he would persuade Congress to eliminate private health insurance (something which 60% of Americans oppose), Mr Sanders replies that he would hold rallies in the states of recalcitrant senators until they relented.
A presidency in which Mr Sanders travelled around the country holding rallies for a far-left programme that he could not get through Congress would widen America’s divisions. It would frustrate his supporters, because the president’s policies would be stymied by Congress or the courts. On the right, which has long been fed a diet of socialist bogeymen, the spectacle of an actual socialist in the White House would generate even greater fury. Mr Sanders would test the proposition that partisanship cannot get any more bitter.

The mainstream three-quarters of Democrats have begun to tell themselves that Mr Sanders would not be so bad. Some point out that he would not be able to do many of the things he promises. This excuse-making, with its implication that Mr Sanders should be taken seriously but not literally, sounds worryingly familiar. Mr Trump has shown that control of the regulatory state, plus presidential powers over trade and over foreign policy, give a president plenty of room for manoeuvre. His first term suggests that it is unwise to dismiss what a man seeking power says he wants to do with it.
Enter Sandersman
If Mr Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee, America will have to choose in November between a corrupt, divisive, right-wing populist, who scorns the rule of law and the constitution, and a sanctimonious, divisive, left-wing populist, who blames a cabal of billionaires and businesses for everything that is wrong with the world. All this when the country is as peaceful and prosperous as at any time in its history. It is hard to think of a worse choice. Wake up, America!
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They've yet to prove Lenin wrong. Hysterical analysis at best.
 
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Raoul said:
Trump's idiocy aside, he definitely believes Sanders is the easiest option for him to face and win, otherwise he would've attacked him more as he has Bloomberg and Biden.
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but weirdly a Trump attack in the democratic primary feels more of a positive than a negative for a candidate.
 
Suedesi said:
Well, worth discussing

Moderate Democrats worry that nominating Mr Sanders would cost them the election. This newspaper worries that forcing Americans to decide between him and Mr Trump would result in an appalling choice with no good outcome. It will surprise nobody that we disagree with a self-described democratic socialist over economics, but that is just the start. Because Mr Sanders is so convinced that he is morally right, he has a dangerous tendency to put ends before means. And, in a country where Mr Trump has whipped up politics into a frenzy of loathing, Mr Sanders’s election would feed the hatred.

On economics Mr Sanders is misunderstood. He is not a cuddly Scandinavian social democrat who would let companies do their thing and then tax them to build a better world. Instead, he believes American capitalism is rapacious and needs to be radically weakened. He puts Jeremy Corbyn to shame, proposing to take 20% of the equity of companies and hand it over to workers, to introduce a federal jobs-guarantee and to require companies to qualify for a federal charter obliging them to act for all stakeholders in ways that he could define. On trade, Mr Sanders is at least as hostile to open markets as Mr Trump is. He seeks to double government spending, without being able to show how he would pay for it. When unemployment is at a record low and nominal wages in the bottom quarter of the jobs market are growing by 4.6%, his call for a revolution in the economy is an epically poor prescription for what ails America.

In putting ends before means, Mr Sanders displays the intolerance of a Righteous Man. He embraces perfectly reasonable causes like reducing poverty, universal health care and decarbonising the economy, and then insists on the most unreasonable extremes in the policies he sets out to achieve them (see article). He would ban private health insurance (not even Britain, devoted to its National Health Service, goes that far). He wants to cut billionaires’ wealth in half over 15 years. A sensible ecologist would tax fracking for the greenhouse gases it produces. To Mr Sanders that smacks of a dirty compromise: he would ban it outright.
Sometimes even the ends are sacrificed to Mr Sanders’s need to be righteous. Making university cost-free for students is a self-defeating way to alleviate poverty, because most of the subsidy would go to people who are, or will be, relatively wealthy. Decriminalising border-crossing and breaking up Immigration and Customs Enforcement would abdicate one of the state’s first duties. Banning nuclear energy would stand in the way of his goal to create a zero-carbon economy.

So keenly does Mr Sanders fight his wicked rivals at home, that he often sympathises with their enemies abroad. He has shown a habit of indulging autocrats in Cuba and Nicaragua, so long as the regime in question claims to be pursuing socialism. He is sceptical about America wielding power overseas, partly from an honourable conviction that military adventures do more harm than good. But it also reflects his contempt for the power-wielders in the Washington establishment.
Last is the effect of a President Sanders on America’s political culture. The country’s political divisions helped make Mr Trump’s candidacy possible. They are now enabling Mr Sanders’s rise. The party’s leftist activists find his revolution thrilling. They have always believed that their man would triumph if only the neoliberal Democratic Party elite would stop keeping him down. His supporters seem to reserve almost as much hatred for his Democratic opponents as they do for Republicans.

This speaks to Mr Sanders’s political style. When faced with someone who disagrees with him, his instinct is to spot an establishment conspiracy, or to declare that his opponent is confused and will be put straight by one of his political sermons. When asked how he would persuade Congress to eliminate private health insurance (something which 60% of Americans oppose), Mr Sanders replies that he would hold rallies in the states of recalcitrant senators until they relented.
A presidency in which Mr Sanders travelled around the country holding rallies for a far-left programme that he could not get through Congress would widen America’s divisions. It would frustrate his supporters, because the president’s policies would be stymied by Congress or the courts. On the right, which has long been fed a diet of socialist bogeymen, the spectacle of an actual socialist in the White House would generate even greater fury. Mr Sanders would test the proposition that partisanship cannot get any more bitter.

The mainstream three-quarters of Democrats have begun to tell themselves that Mr Sanders would not be so bad. Some point out that he would not be able to do many of the things he promises. This excuse-making, with its implication that Mr Sanders should be taken seriously but not literally, sounds worryingly familiar. Mr Trump has shown that control of the regulatory state, plus presidential powers over trade and over foreign policy, give a president plenty of room for manoeuvre. His first term suggests that it is unwise to dismiss what a man seeking power says he wants to do with it.
Enter Sandersman
If Mr Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee, America will have to choose in November between a corrupt, divisive, right-wing populist, who scorns the rule of law and the constitution, and a sanctimonious, divisive, left-wing populist, who blames a cabal of billionaires and businesses for everything that is wrong with the world. All this when the country is as peaceful and prosperous as at any time in its history. It is hard to think of a worse choice. Wake up, America!
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To think that I used to respect The Economist as a quality publication. I feel so dirty and used.
 
Carolina Red said:
Not really. Mainstream SC Democrats are a fairly centrist bunch.
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You missed all the overreaction after Biden got pummelled in NH. Many people were speculating that he would be dropping out of the race shortly and he had no chance whatsoever of getting the nomination.
 
VP89 said:
To be fair who believes what he says
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True. He seems to attack those who he fears the most to weaken them. He’s been remarkably light on attacking Sanders, and it’s no secret the GOP (whether correctly or not) view framing the election as a referendum between capitalism and socialism as a winning proposition.
 
entropy said:
Didn't he say something about not wanting to run against Bernie in the recently leaked audio?
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Yeah. That is what i was referring to . He was happier not running against what he saw another populist.
 
Pexbo said:
Which is a good point but there has to be a way to ensure that isn't the case without being balanced so far in the opposite direction that the votes of around 150k people in Kentucky get to determine how the entire country is governed.
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That's not just true though. California and Texas matter much more than Kentucky, just that we take them for granted to be won from Democrats respectively Republicans.

The only 'Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida decide the elections' is like that because those are some of the less partisan states when it comes to the elections, while the other states go almost always the same direction.

I think that a better system might be a proportional electoral college. If Republicans (or Democrats) win a state with 60% and the state gives 10 delegates, they should get 6 electoral votes, not 10. In that way, it makes the system fairer, while also keeping the electoral college and the perceived power of states.
 
Raoul said:
Trump's idiocy aside, he definitely believes Sanders is the easiest option for him to face and win, otherwise he would've attacked him more as he has Bloomberg and Biden.
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On the other hand, Fox seem to have gone in full attack mode against Sanders now that he looks to be winning.

I don't get this Bernie will be easier to defeat than Biden. Sure, some moderates/independents who would have voted him Biden won't vote Bernie, but Bernie is able to energize more people than any other candidate.
 
Revan said:
On the other hand, Fox seem to have gone in full attack mode against Sanders now that he looks to be winning.

I don't get this Bernie will be easier to defeat than Biden. Sure, some moderates/independents who would have voted him Biden won't vote Bernie, but Bernie is able to energize more people than any other candidate.
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I think that’s a calculated gamble the GOP are prepared to make. Their entire platform will be to vilify the commie, which would obviously involve being nice to him now until the nomination then going full on oppo dump for the rest of the year.
 
Revan said:
On the other hand, Fox seem to have gone in full attack mode against Sanders now that he looks to be winning.

I don't get this Bernie will be easier to defeat than Biden. Sure, some moderates/independents who would have voted him Biden won't vote Bernie, but Bernie is able to energize more people than any other candidate.
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The guy is just bluffing. A bad attempt of reverse psychology.
 
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Drifter said:
Yeah. That is what i was referring to . He was happier not running against what he saw another populist.
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TBH I really don't care what he says. Most of it is a distraction and a waste of time. I just find it fascinating to read posters who are still at it, trying to decode him and analyze everything he says.
 
No doubt to Trump, Bernie represents an absence of policy and more importantly success. Bernie's whole thing is working people, social policy, activism, compassion. To a sociopath born and bred on money this stuff is probably seen as little more than the quirky interests of a niche audience, if it registers to him at all. I'm pretty sure that Trump hasn't got some special voting foresight over the rest of us. It's more likely that he sees the reason why people are drawn to Bernie as human weakness. Sure he fancies his chances over him.

Trump is a highly functioning idiot. He can bluster his way to victories but he can't name you a single book in the Bible. He'll out-bullshit any of the dem candidates, the only way to beat him is on policy.
 
If Bernie keeps Biden within 10% in SC i think Super Tuesday is basically the end for the moderates. The narrative for the moderates in SC has to be "Biden is back with a 15-20% crushing victory". He needs that for the polls to bounce back. Recent California poll has Bernie up by 20+.

If biden wins by 5-6% today and Sanders is a clear second, there's no path for Biden to be "the clear moderate alternative" and is then likely to be crushed on ST.
 
WPMUFC said:
If Bernie keeps Biden within 10% in SC i think Super Tuesday is basically the end for the moderates. The narrative for the moderates in SC has to be "Biden is back with a 15-20% crushing victory". He needs that for the polls to bounce back. Recent California poll has Bernie up by 20+.

If biden wins by 5-6% today and Sanders is a clear second, there's no path for Biden to be "the clear moderate alternative" and is then likely to be crushed on ST.
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The trouble for Biden is Steyer may take some of his votes.
 
Can a socialist beat an incumbent president who has the economy on his side in America?!

Sanders motivate people and can take Trump in a debate. But I thinkTrump motivates people as well....to vote against him.

So do we need a motivator or a moderate?
 
Red Dreams said:
Steyer has spent the most in SC. But Biden should still do very well.
Though it seems Biden has not spent all that much in Super Tuesday States.
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Biden's strategy is basically one huge gamble today. He's hoping a 15% - 20% or even high win. He can then turn this into a fundraising moment and is also gambling that the mainstream narrative is that a decisive win makes him "the only credible moderate in the field". He's then hoping a crushing win closes ST poll gaps without having to spend money.

The whole focus now is not stopping Bernie getting to a plurality of delegates, it's all about taking the nomination away from him at the convention via Super Delegates on the second round. It's undeniable at this point.
 
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