DUMP TRUMP (previously 2020 candidates)

Good.  Happy to see that he is well-liked by Wall Street.

I am going to send Mayor Pete some money.  

Wall Street sucks.

Where do companies go for financing or M&A services or issuing corporate debt or IPOs?   Main Street?  Bank of Drummerboy?  At least Mayor Pete is for taxing high frequency trading, which adds zero value.

Wall Street isn’t paying him to do anything good. 

dave said:
Where do companies go for financing or M&A services or issuing corporate debt or IPOs?   Main Street?  Bank of Drummerboy?  At least Mayor Pete is for taxing high frequency trading, which adds zero value.

such a quaint view of how wall street makes their money.

Most of what they do adds zero value these days. HFT should be outlawed, not taxed.

Outlawing AI is about as useful a position as Trump wanting to wish us back to the '50s or Biden to the '90s.  

dave said:
Outlawing AI is about as useful a position as Trump wanting to wish us back to the '50s or Biden to the '90s.  

Don't know how you get to "outlawing AI" from my comment. That's a bit of a leap.

The fact that you can't imagine banning a wall street activity shows you how much we're in the bag for them.

STANV said:
 There are 24 candidates. Some are very different and unexpected. The Dems were pretty united behind Hillary and she looked strong until the votes were counted, that is, the Electoral votes. She won the popular vote pretty strongly.
Trump said he could shoot someone in public and his supporters would still support him. Those who haven't strayed by now won't.
Are you just a "glass is half empty" kind of person?

 "Pretty" united is a fair statement. We should have been "fervently" united. I'm not sure it would have made the difference in 2016 if so many Sanders supporters hadn't turned the convention into their own protest of Clinton. And I know many other factors contributed to the Trumpocracy we live in now. But man, I hope we learned our lesson for 2020. 

But then I read this thread and figure that's a pipe dream. The destructive rhetoric from both wings of the party is disheartening. "Bernie Bots", "Great Uncle Grabby" and "Warren Mongers"? That's some middle school venomous ******** right there.

So I agree with conandrob: I'm worried we're going to hand Trump 4 more years if we can't stop pissing on each other's candidates and have a civil debate about the candidates and ultimately coalesce behind the nominee and support her unreservedly.

That’s a funny way to look at the convention mess. Seems to me that HRC and the DNC could have avoided most of that by simply neglecting to play dirty pool. But, by all means, blame the Bernie folks for being outraged while you absolve the Clinton’s for behaving outrageously. 

As for Great Uncle Grabby, I will stop calling him that when he stops touching people without their permission. It would also help if the dim witted old git would stop telling little girls that their brothers are responsible for their sexuality. 

The simple truth of the matter is that Joe Biden is just too stupid to be President. It’s not that he won’t learn, it’s that he can’t. 

Superfluous apostrophe! I condemn you and all Sanders supporters to irrelevance.   

I realize I stepped on a landmine there with a simplistic interpretation of what happened. But I think you're missing my larger point. 

it doesn't even pass the sniff test to blame Bernie and his supporters for the voters in PA, MI, and WI who came out for Obama but stayed home in '16. We've been through this countless times. And unless one thinks the party should just abandon the primary process and have the party bigwigs choose the candidate, this is how the process is going to play out. 

If anything the process laid bare the reasons why Clinton lost and why Trump may win again in '20. The failure of neoliberalism is on display, and the contempt its practitioners have for progressives couldn't be more obvious. And their contempt just goes to show  their arrogant refusal to accept that they have failed a lot of Democratic constituencies who are fed up with the status quo.  And those voters are already being told to suck it up and support Joe Biden, a man who has supported the worst of those neoliberal failures. 

Is it any wonder progressives are angry?

I think it will all shake out in the end. The clearly unsuitable candidates like Biden and Hickenlooper will fade into irrelevance and voters will unite behind one of the tremendous candidates in our large pool. 

As long as candidates don’t follow HRC’s example and go out of their way to piss off progressives they too will unite behind the eventual nominee. Obviously they are hoping for someone more in line with the Party’s traditional focus on social justice but most of them are like me with a long history of choking down whatever moldy ham sandwich the Party serves up (as long as the sandwich’s name isn’t Biden). 

So you won't vote for Biden if he's the nominee?

Would you actively push for a Progressive third party candidate?

mrincredible said:
So you won't vote for Biden if he's the nominee?
Would you actively push for a Progressive third party candidate?

 Nope. I’d probably just accept the Party’s decision to commit suicide and give up. He can’t win. 

mrincredible said:
 "Pretty" united is a fair statement. We should have been "fervently" united. I'm not sure it would have made the difference in 2016 if so many Sanders supporters hadn't turned the convention into their own protest of Clinton. And I know many other factors contributed to the Trumpocracy we live in now. But man, I hope we learned our lesson for 2020. 

Klinker said:
That’s a funny way to look at the convention mess. Seems to me that HRC and the DNC could have avoided most of that by simply neglecting to play dirty pool. But, by all means, blame the Bernie folks for being outraged while you absolve the Clinton’s for behaving outrageously. 

By the time of the convention, Bernie had a full opportunity to compete in the primaries, and in the end received fewer votes and fewer elected delegates.

However one views the ultimate impact of how the Bernie people acted at the convention, their behavior was still childish, vindictive, and calculated to inflict harm on the Democratic nominee.  None of them appeared to give any thought to who the alternative would be, who could be helped by their antics.

Well, to be fair Bernie supporters were pretty upset about the revelations regarding Wasserman Schultz. If you want people to be cheery at the Convention, don’t kick them in the crotch on the way in. 

And yes, I know the release of those emails were part of a plot on the part of The Dumpster and Putin but the underlying behavior was on the Clintons. 

Klinker said:
Well, to be fair Bernie supporters were pretty upset about the revelations regarding Wasserman Schultz. If you want people to be cheery at the Convention, don’t kick them in the crotch on the way in. 

 To be fair, they should have been satisfied with evicting Wasserman Schultz from her spot instead of proceeding to torch the whole damn house.

mrincredible said:
So you won't vote for Biden if he's the nominee?
Would you actively push for a Progressive third party candidate?

I'd vote for him.  But I have no confidence that he would defeat Trump in the Electoral College.

Who I vote for isn't really the question.  I vote in EVERY election.  The 2020 result will be determined by how many disaffected Democratic leaning voters come out compared to the number who stayed home in 2016. I don't see Uncle Joe bringing too many of those to the polls in '20.  I could be wrong, and Trump's horribleness might motivate enough of them.  But do we want to bet on that by promising them absolutely nothing aside from an end to Trump's clown horror show?

nohero said:
 To be fair, they should have been satisfied with evicting Wasserman Schultz from her spot instead of proceeding to torch the whole damn house.

 Well, that certainly is one opinion. 

Fortunately, there is an easy way to avoid this going forward.  

I’ve votes in every election I have been eligible for but Biden is a bridge too far. The man creeps me out. 

So, my position isn't really staked out yet.  There are two things I can say definitively.

1. I would not be terribly excited about either Biden or Sanders getting the nomination.  That said I would support, contribute to and vote for either candidate.
2. I'd super like to see a woman get the Democratic nomination and beat Trump.

I'm a pragmatist politically, at least for this election cycle.  So I have a couple of trains of thought.

First is this: the chance of the Senate flipping looks pretty low, in my humble estimation.  So although I might like some of the ideas of the leftier side of my party like Medicare For All, I don't see any legislative path to making them happen.  So on the days when that thought process dominates my mind, I tend to replay the 2016 election in my head.  In that case the key to victory is flipping three states back to blue while not losing any (I'm looking at you, Minnesota). In my opinion someone like Joe Biden probably has the best chance of making that happen.  

My second train of thought is that there's a different path to electoral victory which involves promoting a more Progressive candidate who's going to fire up support and bring a bunch of new voters to the table.  If such a person can hold on to all (or most of) the Clinton voters and add a pile of new ones in some key states they could also win.

In either case we take back control of Federal judicial appointments at all levels, control of the Justice department (hello unredacted Mueller report), and the EPA (hello redacted climate science).  Those are probably my top three priorities in this election. 

I understand the argument about what sets up the party for long-term success from both sides.  You need a candidate to get 270 electoral votes for sure, but they also need to help Democrats in down-ballot elections even in states they won't likely win.  

The one example I keep coming back to is the special election for Senator from Arizona.  Martha McSally got appointed when McCain died, and has to be re-elected in 2020.  She lost to a Centrist Democrat (Kyrsten Sinema) and might lose again to another - Mark Kelly.  But that election was won by a slim margin of less than 57,000 votes.  Will Tulsi Gabbard at the top of the ballot help Mark Kelly beat an incumbent?  And yes you can argue about how Sinema and Kelly are neoliberals. But what the hell difference does that make if Mitch McConnell continues to be the troll living under the Senate bridge who kills and eats every Progressive goat policy that comes along?

Long post, sorry.  I shouldn't get on MOL from my desktop.  I write shorter posts on my phone!

ml1 said:
I'd vote for him.  But I have no confidence that he would defeat Trump in the Electoral College.
Who I vote for isn't really the question.  I vote in EVERY election.  The 2020 result will be determined by how many disaffected Democratic leaning voters come out compared to the number who stayed home in 2016. I don't see Uncle Joe bringing too many of those to the polls in '20.  I could be wrong, and Trump's horribleness might motivate enough of them.  But do we want to bet on that by promising them absolutely nothing aside from an end to Trump's clown horror show?

Yeah, you make a valid point about Biden. I wish I knew what the key was to winning 2020, like I said in my earlier magnum postus.

If I look at the post-2020 buffet, "No Donald Trump" is the equivalent of the carving station with the perfectly-cooked prime rib roast.  M4A is like the unlimited shrimp cocktail.  Both are delicious but I know which one I'm going back to.

(Yes, I would like prime rib and shrimp,  But if I have to choose?)

mrincredible said:
Will Tulsi Gabbard at the top of the ballot help Mark Kelly beat an incumbent?  And yes you can argue about how Sinema and Kelly are neoliberals

This isn’t in anyway an answer to your question but it strikes me that all three of the people you mentioned is that they are all veterans. 

basil said:

Smedley said:

basil said:

Smedley said:
Our current economic system ain’t perfect, but it’s the best one out there. Calling for a “revolution” or some other nonsense is pie in the sky, bye and bye. 

By most standards, the Chinese economy is kicking our butt. And they also will be the biggest economy in the world shortly. Oh, and by the way, they are communists. 

 So just to clarify, you think the U.S. should emulate China economically? 

No, I am just countering your argument that the US economy is the best one out there and we should therefore not introduce socialist ideas. Whereas in fact we are getting our butt kicked by a communist economy (if you can call it that).
There are many things about the Chinese system I very much dislike (for example the lack of free speech and rampant corruption). But there are also things I do like, like the fact that they stick to a more centralized long-term strategy, and have the patience and the will to invest in long term goals. We desperately need that in this country, because every time anyone wants to invest in say, clean energy, infrastructure, education, all these crazy republicans start to yell about tax & spend liberals. We could do much better without them. 

 The Chinese great leap forward was an instance of long range planning at its finest.  I have attached two pictures of the great leap forward.  The first being the propaganda version and the second is the actual consequences of this policy.

Klinker said:

mrincredible said:
Will Tulsi Gabbard at the top of the ballot help Mark Kelly beat an incumbent?  And yes you can argue about how Sinema and Kelly are neoliberals

This isn’t in anyway an answer to your question but it strikes me that all three of the people you mentioned is that they are all veterans. 

Were you referring to Martha McSally?  Kyrsten Sinema is not a veteran.

It's an interesting point.  I don't know how important the veteran aspect is to winning that race.  Might be.

Klinker said:
I’ve votes in every election I have been eligible for but Biden is a bridge too far. The man creeps me out. 

I assume that you'll be relying on your fellow New Jerseyans to make sure that Trump doesn't get our electoral votes.  You're welcome.

mrincredible said:

Klinker said:

mrincredible said:
Will Tulsi Gabbard at the top of the ballot help Mark Kelly beat an incumbent?  And yes you can argue about how Sinema and Kelly are neoliberals

This isn’t in anyway an answer to your question but it strikes me that all three of the people you mentioned is that they are all veterans. 

Were you referring to Martha McSally?  Kyrsten Sinema is not a veteran.
It's an interesting point.  I don't know how important the veteran aspect is to winning that race.  Might be.

 Gabbard, McSally and Kelly. 

Klinker said:

mrincredible said:

Klinker said:

mrincredible said:
Will Tulsi Gabbard at the top of the ballot help Mark Kelly beat an incumbent?  And yes you can argue about how Sinema and Kelly are neoliberals

This isn’t in anyway an answer to your question but it strikes me that all three of the people you mentioned is that they are all veterans. 

Were you referring to Martha McSally?  Kyrsten Sinema is not a veteran.
It's an interesting point.  I don't know how important the veteran aspect is to winning that race.  Might be.

 Gabbard, McSally and Kelly. 

 k.

In the part of my post you quoted I only referred to her obliquely, whereas I did mention Sinema.  I had to go on Wikipedia to see if I had missed something about Sinema's career!