5649

Oh jeez, someone more than microscopically left of center and all we hear about is ‘are they too far left’. The mythical middle. God forbid the notion of an actual liberal policy platform, rather than the weak shit peddled for decades.

And christ, Joe has terrible instincts. His notion of working with Republicans and camaraderie is completely out of sync and utterly disqualifying for me. Yeah, versus Trump? No brainer. But it is the wrong tone and thoughts for the day. We need someone who will fight back, not put up with bullshit, is smart and well thought and spoken, and will help pull the Overton window back away from normalizing Nazis.

I hardly think ‘Joe is too centrist and old fashioned in his thinking’ is a purity test. More like we think he is a bad candidate and the wrong person for this political moment.

5650

Legislative policy is still constrained by the median senator, so I think managing the more progressive voters expectations is going to be pretty tough. Warren can set a progressive agenda but I suspect it’s going to end up pretty watered down.

5651

Sure. But there is value in someone out there willing and able to articulate the case for more. A president who can help push those ideas can help whip up support.

Preemptively shooting for the center and weak compromise to start is a proven failure. It also does fuck all to actually garner Republican support, see ACA passage. So treating centrist executives as some magical ideal is pure fantasy, and obnoxiously so.

I can be realistic about the chance of meaningful progressive legislation while also stridently opposing throwing hands up and aiming for the center.

5652

Ahahaha, I see you’ve all met David Brooks. Congratulations?

Of course it fuckin’ did.

5653

I think Warren will be able to play up some populist appeal, play down the parts people might not like, and play up going after billionaires and megacorporations like Comcast.

Ultimately, what the centrists want is what their billionaire backers tell them to want. The billionaires are scared of Warren, and I think Warren can run on that.

What we really need is a leftist firebreather who is competent and not corrupt.

5654

Hear hear!

Seriously, nominating Joe is (short of nominating Tulsi) the worst fucking thing dems can do, long term.

5655

Warren is somewhat more than “microscopically left of center”.

You can support that, but you should also acknowledge that she is likely further left than most of the country.

Maybe this is when you want to run that, banking on the idea that Trump is so bad, you can beat him with anyone.

5656

She is only espousing crazy ideas that most of the developed world has already done.

But hey, the rest of the world is wrong, according to our corporate overlords.

5657

This annoys me so damn much that I’m going to stop now. Before I say something…

5658

Remember, only Democrats are subject to hand wringing about electability for being left of center. Never mind the fact that the Republican platform is abolishing abortion rights, constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, mandatory guns ownership for children (not really, but soon), and other crazy shit that is totally out of touch with the electorate.

Right now our “center” is more like what Republicans were a dozen years ago. Time to shift that leftwards a bit.

5659

Warren or Biden could be fine, and neither is an extreme leftst. That’s just crazy Republican talk, you know, the so called Republicans that lost their party to the racists, sexists, gun toting, religious nutcases while they were trying to figure out how to give billionaires more money group.

5660

Sure, but be honest, anyone to the left of Reagan would be accused of being too far left by a sizable portion of the mediasphere, and you know it. Joe is centrist, and anyone slightly left of him is accused of being a rabid commie socialist.

5661

Actually Reagan would be drummed out of the Republican party today. He didn’t hate immigrants enough.

5662

I’m not sure Franco hated immigrants enough to pass muster with the current naked goddamned fascists.

5663

What annoys you, genuine question. That I consider Joe a bad candidate for a host of reasons both policy and temperament?

Or do you really strongly feel Joe should be the nominee, and why?

I’m not spoiling for a fight or anything, but I would like to know what about my distaste for Joe annoys you? If your concern is that I wouldn’t vote for him in the general, I assure you nothing could be further from the truth.

5664

Seriously this. To steal an analogy from Obama, you Republicans have crashed this car into the ditch and are trying to blow it up. Why don’t you let us try to pull it back onto the road and get back on track and stop micromanaging the people trying to save everyone?

Enough already. Just because you lost control of your party doesn’t give you the right to tell us who is or isn’t electable.

5665

I hope you are right, dude.

5666

Not even close to being true. A small number (<2% of the world’s population) of countries used to have a wealth tax. As Andrew Yang pointed out they abandon them because they were hard to administer and didn’t raise nearly the revenue projected. No country offers free college for all much less debt forgiveness. You are on better grounds regarding health care. But tens of millions of poor Americans receive free health care each year. Lots of medical care isn’t free in many developed countries. and Sanders/Warren’s state objectives to make sure that “no American goes bankrupt because of medical expenses”, is not achieved by any country. I personally know two Canadian who declared bankruptcy for medical reason, one even wrote book about it.

Outside of Scandinavian most of the things Warren advocates don’t exist. With a combined population of 21 million, is roughly 1/2 the size of California and represents .3% of the world’s population.

5667

Well, Joe will also lose if he is the nominee, because by Nov 2020 the media, facebook, twitter, and Russia will have convinced everyone that he is guilty of nepotism and corruption in the Ukraine, because Don Jr will have told them so. I mean, he’s under investigation by the DOJ! Must be guilty!

So I don’t want to hear any crap in 2020 about how Warren lost because she’s a loony leftist. She’s gonna lose because our system is broken and a lot of Americans are, well… deplorable. Oh, and because people like David Brooks moaned in the op-ed pages of the NYT that her policies are going to destroy America. Y’know, her policies of, like, not letting oil companies destroy the Earth. What a moonbat!

5668

Last I look this was internet forum, that’s kinda of what we do here.

What makes it your party? I imagine I’ve donated more money to Democrats the last 2 cycles than many here, and if somebody like Cory, Amy, or Mayor Pete gets the nomination, I imagine I’ll spend more time volunteering than many here. I’m member of the Democrat party until something better comes along.