Trent Steele wrote:While I self-identify as a liberal and a D and a unabashed Trump-hater, my ideology (which I would best describe as Democrat Pragmatist) will, I have no doubt, shortly be referred to as DINO. And that’s a shame. A small tent just cedes the battlefield to the worst in this country. While my vote is guaranteed D, the non-starter policy ideas I hear from those far left of me (bereft of substance and perfect for Twitter) make me want to disengage. I won’t do that now because the stakes are too high.

Anyway, I’m afraid that the Dems are going to fuck up the single most important thing at stake in 2020 - beating Trump. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Virginia are the only states that matter for beating Trump. Catering to issues that don’t resonate there = 4 more years of fuckface. I’m not in this for principle. This is about winning at all costs.

There's an awful lot to like here.

TenuredVulture wrote:There's also this tantalizing idea that somehow a left wing populist could really win back a lot of Trump voters in red states. Consider Arkansas--we're deep red now, but we also passed, through referendum, a pretty big increase in the minimum wage--it's current 9.25 an hour (remember, this is historically a "low wage state") and is slated to go up to $11. This passed by a huge margin--something like 60-40. If a deep red state is willing to do that, why would they not vote for a real economic populist (like say Elizabeth Warren) instead of a phoney one?

The problem of course is our racist, backwards mouth breathing culture, which for a big chunk of our voters seems to outweigh economic self-interest.

Sounds like a job for George Wallace!

JUburton wrote:The overreaction to 2016 is really something. Hillary lost because:

1. She was the extremely wrong candidate for the moment.
1a. She was vilified by the right for years/decades.
1b. She didn't understand the moment or how her and Bill cashing in on their post political life would be taken. And I don't mean CLINTON CASH bullshit but just that they're millionaires because they sell books and appearances and talk to goldman sachs etc.
2. Democrats did not build any other establishment options, so Bernie was the only other real choice. That said, I think she'd still have beaten an elevated Harris/Booker/Gillibrand. She still beat Bernie, not exactly 'fair and square' but I'll never believe the DNC did enough to hurt Bernie's chances as to cost him that many votes.
3. The media completely botched Trump. From the NYT to Matt fucking Lauer.
4. Jim Comey

Despite all this, she lost by 100k votes in 3 states and very well may not have if #4 didn't happen. Anyone with a pulse and a lack of decades of baggage is going to be a favorite to beat Trump once all is said and done.

My only real concern is that the primary drags out forever and there's no consensus by the convention and it gets to the point where the party picks. It will be a horrible look should that come to pass.

I think your analysis is absolutely spot-on, until the part I bolded.

Trump is now the incumbent. What was shocking, inexcusable behavior from someone who would be president, is now presidential.

The one and only thing that will matter is how the economy is doing in the six month running up to the election. If it hits the skids, all of that will come home to roost and Trump will be run out on a rail by whatever Dem is left standing. If it booms as now, he wins.

The rest is just noise.

jamiethekiller wrote:Corey Booker 2020 y'all

The only D I dislike more than Beto the Anointed.

Wolfgang622 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:There's also this tantalizing idea that somehow a left wing populist could really win back a lot of Trump voters in red states. Consider Arkansas--we're deep red now, but we also passed, through referendum, a pretty big increase in the minimum wage--it's current 9.25 an hour (remember, this is historically a "low wage state") and is slated to go up to $11. This passed by a huge margin--something like 60-40. If a deep red state is willing to do that, why would they not vote for a real economic populist (like say Elizabeth Warren) instead of a phoney one?

The problem of course is our racist, backwards mouth breathing culture, which for a big chunk of our voters seems to outweigh economic self-interest.

Sounds like a job for George Wallace!

True Story: Orval Faubus was a socialist. If he were from New York, he'd be called a red diaper baby.

Just to be clear--I don't think a Dem really has a chance at Arkansas in 2020. But there's no real reason to write the state off either. Expand the playing field, and law the foundation for future success. Here's the thing though--I don't think a moderate Dem has a chance in the South at all. But someone who makes a more left wing economic argument might create some interesting shifts in partisan alignment.

I do think the equation of Elizabeth Warren with Hillary Clinton is a creation of the morons in our media. The similarities are superficial. The differences are what matters. Hillary makes speeches to Goldman Sachs, Elizabeth Warren wants to prosecute them for crimes.

I still believe that Obama could have blunted much of the force of the tea party had he directed his DoJ to prosecute the people largely responsible for the financial collapse of 2008.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Wolfgang622 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:There's also this tantalizing idea that somehow a left wing populist could really win back a lot of Trump voters in red states. Consider Arkansas--we're deep red now, but we also passed, through referendum, a pretty big increase in the minimum wage--it's current 9.25 an hour (remember, this is historically a "low wage state") and is slated to go up to $11. This passed by a huge margin--something like 60-40. If a deep red state is willing to do that, why would they not vote for a real economic populist (like say Elizabeth Warren) instead of a phoney one?

The problem of course is our racist, backwards mouth breathing culture, which for a big chunk of our voters seems to outweigh economic self-interest.

Sounds like a job for George Wallace!

True Story: Orval Faubus was a socialist. If he were from New York, he'd be called a red diaper baby.

Just to be clear--I don't think a Dem really has a chance at Arkansas in 2020. But there's no real reason to write the state off either. Expand the playing field, and law the foundation for future success. Here's the thing though--I don't think a moderate Dem has a chance in the South at all. But someone who makes a more left wing economic argument might create some interesting shifts in partisan alignment.

I do think the equation of Elizabeth Warren with Hillary Clinton is a creation of the morons in our media. The similarities are superficial. The differences are what matters. Hillary makes speeches to Goldman Sachs, Elizabeth Warren wants to prosecute them for crimes.

I still believe that Obama could have blunted much of the force of the tea party had he directed his DoJ to prosecute the people largely responsible for the financial collapse of 2008.

Hey, as a labor man myself and an unabashed fan of FDR, I think it is an embarrassment to the Democratic Party that they have lost the heartland of labor and the New Deal - West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas (and in the last election Wisconsin).

The problem is, as you say, the kind of candidate likely to win those places will not drive turnout among the Dems biggest growth demographics: the young, Latinos, immigrants of every kind really, and frankly former blue blood Republicans (not that they are a growing demographic themselves, but I'd wager the scions of the old families are defecting to the Democratic party hard by the bough, meaning Dems are picking up support in sectors they have never had, like Montco and Bucks, which are both BLUE for the first time in memory). All of this results in the current division within the Dems between the Wall Street steady-hand centrists and more traditional hotbeds of progressive economic populism, namely minority and immigrant and young populations).

I think Trump has won the white working class for Republicans for a generation or more; he is the Christ to Nixon's John the Baptist call to the "silent majority." He has delivered on the promise of what people like best: he "tells it like it is": that is, he says the things that THEY think, he behaves the way THEY think they would behave if THEY were president.

He, in the words of the movie Network, has found a way to "express the popular rage." At least the popular rage among white working and middle class people: We're not getting ahead like we used to, the things we knew are falling apart, our children are struggling to find the kinds of jobs our parents had, or even the crummier ones we had, and so they are killing themselves slowly with drugs and alcohol in a slow terrible dance of human misery. And who is to blame? The people who made the world different than it is: the immigrants who came here, the politicians who sold us out so they could, and the policies they enacted. It's NAFTA, it's George Bush, it's Barack Obama, and it's people who don't speak English and who are here for a freebie or who get special treatment we don't get.

It's a message of deep, deep resentment; of bitterness; of rage; it blames victims equally with perpetrators; and, above all else, it works.

so the orange buffoon has voided the MLB deal with Cuba, which was to avoid players having to defect and smuggle themselves into the U.S. I feel safer already!!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... 715420a414

Rep. Eric Swalwell is running for president. What follows are 15 paragraphs on his electability...

jerseyhoya wrote:Rep. Eric Swalwell is running for president. What follows are 15 paragraphs on his electability...

You can't just throw porn names up here and expect the board to think you're serious.

Wolfgang622 wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:Corey Booker 2020 y'all

The only D I dislike more than Beto the Anointed.

No one is going to elect a guy from Jersey.

The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Democratic Electorate in Real Life

Good job by the Upshot laying out some numbers

Yup. My parents are the people who vote and my dad still has an iPhone 2.

Why do so many people, including social democrats themselves, insist on calling themselves democratic socialists, when they really are nothing of the sort? If they were socialists, they'd be calling for nationalization of major industries, and I don't see anyone doing that. Increasing the minimum wage, providing universal health coverage, making college more affordable, taking real steps to minimize the damage done by global warming, these are not socialist projects. (And if the environment really is an important issue, as it should be, then you most assuredly ought to be wary of socialism, as socialist governments have done a terrible job protecting the environment.

Yeah, it's not the best messaging, if you're actually trying to win elections. Methinks that the reason people call themselves that is to signal to other liberals. It's an "in" word that is negatively perceived by moderates and conservatives.

It's why I am very wary of labeling myself politically. Most people understand what people mean when they call themselves a fiscally conservative social liberal, but most political labels have mixed/negative connotations (socialist, libertarian, Trump supporter, etc).

The morons in the media aren't helping either.

jerseyhoya wrote:The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Democratic Electorate in Real Life

Good job by the Upshot laying out some numbers

Excellent article. It supports with data what I feel to be true but can't verify.

TenuredVulture wrote:The morons in the media aren't helping either.

TBF it's not their job.

Werthless wrote:Yeah, it's not the best messaging, if you're actually trying to win elections. Methinks that the reason people call themselves that is to signal to other liberals. It's an "in" word that is negatively perceived by moderates and conservatives.

It's why I am very wary of labeling myself politically. Most people understand what people mean when they call themselves a fiscally conservative social liberal, but most political labels have mixed/negative connotations (socialist, libertarian, Trump supporter, etc).

Excellent quick analysis.

For my NJ friends (also a warning to my non-NJ friends not to move here):

Gov. Phil Murphy last month signed off on a new law letting counties and municipalities charge property owners for the water that runs off their land when it rains. The new law gives local governments permission to establish stormwater utilities, starting in mid-September. Those utilities could collect fees that are intended to fairly approximate stormwater runoff resulting from impervious surfaces, such as parking lots.

JFLNYC wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:The morons in the media aren't helping either.

TBF it's not their job.

They should know what the words they use mean, and use them correctly.