The Tearing Apart of the Democratic Party
ml1 said:
drummerboy said:
I don't agree. The use of the word "corruption" was deliberately misleading, especially with the backdrop of the (baseless) accusations of Ukraine corruption.
If you're going to call someone who works within the current system "corrupt", you really have to make clear that what you're doing is calling the system itself corrupt. She did not do that.
then we'll have to agree to disagree. I thought it was clear she thinks that DC business as usual is corrupt.
Then she used the word in a misleading manner. "Corrupt politician" usually refers to one enriching himself. If she's using it to mean "politician working within a system that's corrupt", that's completely different.
drummerboy said:
ml1 said:
I'm still trying to understand why Sanders felt he needed to apologize for the Teachout op-ed. I read it and I didn't see anything untrue in it. And I don't even have an issue with calling it "corruption." Our entire political process is indeed corrupted by the influence of money that pours in with the expectation that favored treatment will follow. It's highly likely that if Biden is the nominee, he's going to be pounded continuously by Trump as a creature of the "corrupt" DC "swamp." Isn't Biden's closeness to the banking industry at the heart of why he and Warren have been at odds in the past?
I didn't see the article as out of bounds in any way during a campaign.
I don't agree. The use of the word "corruption" was deliberately misleading, especially with the backdrop of the (baseless) accusations of Ukraine corruption.
If you're going to call someone who works within the current system "corrupt", you really have to make clear that what you're doing is calling the system itself corrupt. She did not do that.
EXACTLY! Teachout is feeding into the clowns narrative. Glad Sanders is now speaking up.
“It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way. And I’m sorry that that op-ed appeared.”
Sanders told CBS News that he does not approve of his supporters’ aggressive online attacks against the other 2020 Democratic candidates.
“If anyone knows me, what I believe is we need a serious debate in this country on issues. We don’t need to demonize people who may disagree with us,” he said."
Here's an example of nonsense we don't need.
It's January 22, and Rep. Ocasio Cortez is still using the "Biden would pick a Republican running mate" talking point, as an argument against him. It's not substantive, but it gets the Bernie fans psyched. And on considering a Republican running mate: https://t.co/t4MTURAG0t
nohero said:
Here's an example of nonsense we don't need.
It's January 22, and Rep. Ocasio Cortez is still using the "Biden would pick a Republican running mate" talking point, as an argument against him. It's not substantive, but it gets the Bernie fans psyched.
Scanning the reply tweets, I see a lot of pushback, or what Klinker might call whining.
We need to win swing states, not NY, CA, MA, etc. They're already "won."
Bernie, AOC, et. al. are GOP's best friends.
Remember the slog to get ACA done and the toil and luck it involved. Remember McCain's law-saving thumbs down when it was challenged.
Now imagine a Congress, even with a democratic majority in both houses, passing Medicare for All. It's fantasy, like much of Bernie's policy. He and the Bros may well help kill us a second time.
nohero said:
Then she used the word in a misleading manner. "Corrupt politician" usually refers to one enriching himself. If she's using it to mean "politician working within a system that's corrupt", that's completely different.
she literally wrote that:
Whether or not Biden is making choices to please donors, there is no doubt his record represents the transactional, grossly corrupt culture in Washington that long precedes Trump.
I don't expect a lot of people to like what she wrote, but I don't find it unfair, and it certainly isn't untrue. And she's almost certainly correct that Biden's insiderism is going to be an albatross during the campaign. And that isn't something that most of the other candidates will be carrying.
GL2 said:
We need to win swing states, not NY, CA, MA, etc. They're already "won."
Bernie, AOC, et. al. are GOP's best friends.
Remember the slog to get ACA done and the toil and luck it involved. Remember McCain's law-saving thumbs down when it was challenged.
Now imagine a Congress, even with a democratic majority in both houses, passing Medicare for All. It's fantasy, like much of Bernie's policy. He and the Bros may well help kill us a second time.
This.
ml1 said:
drummerboy said:
I don't agree. The use of the word "corruption" was deliberately misleading, especially with the backdrop of the (baseless) accusations of Ukraine corruption.
If you're going to call someone who works within the current system "corrupt", you really have to make clear that what you're doing is calling the system itself corrupt. She did not do that.
then we'll have to agree to disagree. I thought it was clear she thinks that DC business as usual is corrupt.
Well then, the title of the piece should have been "DC has a corruption problem". Not Biden.
drummerboy said:
Well then, the title of the piece should have been "DC has a corruption problem". Not Biden.
that's kind of nit-picky considering that of all the Democratic candidates, this is more Biden's problem than anyone else's. I get how nervous people are about this election, but the path to winning isn't to bury these concerns during the primary. If Biden's past DC insider status is really going to hurt him in the general, better to get it out there now. If these accusations are a problem now, think about what it will mean in November. And conversely, if it's not a problem with voters, than why the hand-wringing over an op-ed?
GL2 said:
He and the Bros may well help kill us a second time.
this claim has been made countless times, but there isn't any hard evidence of it that anyone has been able to produce. (Aside from the fact that when 80K votes ends up tipping the scales, people can point to almost anything as costing Clinton the election, of course).
ml1 said:
GL2 said:
He and the Bros may well help kill us a second time.
this claim has been made countless times, but there isn't any hard evidence of it that anyone has been able to produce. (Aside from the fact that when 80K votes ends up tipping the scales, people can point to almost anything as costing Clinton the election, of course).
There may not be hard evidence, but neither is there hard evidence that a Bernie nomination won't hurt the Democratic ticket.
So it comes down to the question of whether heartland voters will, amid a strong economy, opt to radically change course and pull the lever for a far left candidate, or whether they'll hold their noses and vote Trump.
I'm pretty bullish on the latter proposition.
Smedley said:
There may not be hard evidence, but neither is there hard evidence that a Bernie nomination won't hurt the Democratic ticket.
So it comes down to the question of whether heartland voters will, amid a strong economy, opt to radically change course and pull the lever for a far left candidate, or whether they'll hold their noses and vote Trump.
I'm pretty bullish on the latter proposition.
You're engaging in the pundit's fallacy again. Current polls show Sanders doing almost identically to Biden in head to head with Trump.
And nationally:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
ml1 said:
nohero said:
Then she used the word in a misleading manner. "Corrupt politician" usually refers to one enriching himself. If she's using it to mean "politician working within a system that's corrupt", that's completely different.
she literally wrote that:
Whether or not Biden is making choices to please donors, there is no doubt his record represents the transactional, grossly corrupt culture in Washington that long precedes Trump.I don't expect a lot of people to like what she wrote, but I don't find it unfair, and it certainly isn't untrue. And she's almost certainly correct that Biden's insiderism is going to be an albatross during the campaign. And that isn't something that most of the other candidates will be carrying.
Professor Teachout "literally wrote that" in the antepenultimate* paragraph of her long article, only after writing about the first meaning of the word "corruption", and describing Trump's corruption (the self-dealing kind): "I was on the first lawsuit against him for corrupt constitutional violations and I ran for attorney general in New York on a platform of pointing out just how dangerous he is, and how important unused state laws are to stopping him. My work on corruption was cited in the House judiciary committee’s report on impeachment."
The "corruption" she's accusing Biden of is not that kind. So it's misleading.
*Thank you for the opportunity to use that word, which means "third from the last".
And why might all the Democrats be ahead of Trump at this point? Maybe it's because
Trump May Be Even More Unpopular Than His Approval Rating Shows
ml1 said:
Smedley said:
There may not be hard evidence, but neither is there hard evidence that a Bernie nomination won't hurt the Democratic ticket.
So it comes down to the question of whether heartland voters will, amid a strong economy, opt to radically change course and pull the lever for a far left candidate, or whether they'll hold their noses and vote Trump.
I'm pretty bullish on the latter proposition.
You're engaging in the pundit's fallacy again. Current polls show Sanders doing almost identically to Biden in head to head with Trump.
And nationally:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
Polls are polls. They're a snapshot of how voters feel today -- helpful indicative information but hardly the "hard evidence" that you seem to be making this out to be. IIRC, you yourself have pointed to the HRC-will-beat-Trump polls many times as an example of why one shouldn't buy into polls as predictive of what will happen.
If Bernie wins the nom, the GOP will have a field day portraying him as left of Che Guavara. The only way Trump loses to Bernie H2H is if the economy falls out of bed in the next 9 months, or if Trump beats himself with some kind of egregious unforced error that finally saps his support.
Smedley said:
Polls are polls. They're a snapshot of how voters feel today -- helpful indicative information but hardly the "hard evidence" that you seem to be making this out to be. IIRC, you yourself have pointed to the HRC-will-beat-Trump polls many times as an example of why one shouldn't buy into polls as predictive of what will happen.
If Bernie wins the nom, the GOP will have a field day portraying him as left of Che Guavara. The only way Trump loses to Bernie H2H is if the economy falls out of bed in the next 9 months, or if Trump beats himself with some kind of egregious unforced error that finally saps his support.
actually I haven't criticized the Clinton/Trump polls. On a national basis, the polling average was almost spot-on to the final popular vote result.
And while polls are not perfect, they are a far better indicator of how the electorate will behave than is the gut of some guy posting on a message board.
maybe this is another myth we can put to bed. The national polls in 2016 were actually quite accurate.
drummerboy said:
Well then, the title of the piece should have been "DC has a corruption problem". Not Biden.
Is there a difference between DC and Biden? I thought that was his whole selling point, that he was a creature of the Senate who knows how to collaborate with Republicans.
Interesting, one betting site has Yang as strongest H2H versus the Dotard in Chief (Yang decent favorite), followed by Sanders (even), Biden (Trump decent favorite), and Warren (Trump heavy favorite).
https://www.oddsshark.com/other/2020-usa-presidential-odds-futures
I have no problem going on record stating that Trump will beat Sanders H2H, barring an economic decline or a major unforced error by trump. I'm sure that call represents the pundit's fallacy or lacking evidence or some other fatal flaw as per ml1, but I'll stand by it.
Smedley said:
Interesting, one betting site has Yang as strongest H2H versus the Dotard in Chief (Yang decent favorite), followed by Sanders (even), Biden (Trump decent favorite), and Warren (Trump heavy favorite).
https://www.oddsshark.com/other/2020-usa-presidential-odds-futures
I have no problem going on record stating that Trump will beat Sanders H2H, barring an economic decline or a major unforced error by trump. I'm sure that call represents the pundit's fallacy or lacking evidence or some other fatal flaw as per ml1, but I'll stand by it.
I guess it comes down to whether you want to be right because you pulled the correct answer our of your ***, or whether you want to be right because you followed some kind of reasoning based on the best information at hand. Anyone can be right by making a guess and being lucky enough for it to turn our right. But I'd rather be wrong in a prediction in which I relied on the information I had, than be right by just guessing. Because over the long haul, the person using as much information as can be gathered, and using a well-reasoned process will be right more often than the person making a guess.
ml1 said:
Smedley said:
Interesting, one betting site has Yang as strongest H2H versus the Dotard in Chief (Yang decent favorite), followed by Sanders (even), Biden (Trump decent favorite), and Warren (Trump heavy favorite).
https://www.oddsshark.com/other/2020-usa-presidential-odds-futures
I have no problem going on record stating that Trump will beat Sanders H2H, barring an economic decline or a major unforced error by trump. I'm sure that call represents the pundit's fallacy or lacking evidence or some other fatal flaw as per ml1, but I'll stand by it.
I guess it comes down to whether you want to be right because you pulled the correct answer our of your ***, or whether you want to be right because you followed some kind of reasoning based on the best information at hand. Anyone can be right by making a guess and being lucky enough for it to turn our right. But I'd rather be wrong in a prediction in which I relied on the information I had, than be right by just guessing. Because over the long haul, the person using as much information as can be gathered, and using a well-reasoned process will be right more often than the person making a guess.
I'm going on far left candidates' recent record in primaries and elections, and the history of incumbent presidents running on a strong economy. If you think that basis is "pulling an answer out of my ***", or "making a guess or being lucky", then you are entitled to that opinion.
Smedley said:
I'm going on far left candidates' recent record in primaries and elections, and the history of incumbent presidents running on a strong economy. If you think that basis is "pulling an answer out of my ***", or "making a guess or being lucky", then you are entitled to that opinion.
it's ignoring a whole lot of other pertinent and more recent information in favor of using older information that likely doesn't apply to a Donald Trump incumbency. It's wishful thinking because you don't want a progressive president.
ml1 said:
Smedley said:
I'm going on far left candidates' recent record in primaries and elections, and the history of incumbent presidents running on a strong economy. If you think that basis is "pulling an answer out of my ***", or "making a guess or being lucky", then you are entitled to that opinion.
it's ignoring a whole lot of other pertinent and more recent information in favor of using older information that likely doesn't apply to a Donald Trump incumbency. It's wishful thinking because you don't want a progressive president.
I suspect the big-picture historical record is more predictive of the next election than is the gut of some guy posting on a message board who says this time it's different.
Smedley said:
I suspect the big-picture historical record is more predictive of the next election than is the gut of some guy posting on a message board who says this time it's different.
one of the quickest roads to being wrong is to predict the future by saying "it has always been this way." The past certainly did not predict Donald Trump.
nevertheless, there are people who study these topics who can tell you when the rules of the past are not as likely to hold in the future.
The relationship between the economy and presidential approval is one of the largest and deepest literatures in political science. Scholars have debated between objective and subjective economic indicators, retrospective and prospective evaluations, and what factors moderate the relationship between the two, but their symbiosis has rarely been in doubt. The importance of the economy for assessments of the president are so fundamental that it even has its own catchphrase: “the economy, stupid.”
In a forthcoming article in Political Behavior, my colleagues and I contribute to a growing body of evidence that suggests this bond has weakened over time, another casualty of the rise in polarization. Citizens have always held multiple motivations when forming political opinions, including assessments of the president. Rising polarization, with its concomitant animosity and anger toward out-partisans, has lowered the importance of accuracy relative to partisanship when it comes to the motivations underlying presidential approval. The relative changing importance of these two motivations is abundantly clear given the spate of recent work investigating how to reduce partisan motivations when it comes to factual assessments.
https://politicalbehavior.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/motivated-reasoning-public-opinion-and-presidential-approval/
The ml1 fallacy = his opinion is objectively true, free from bias, and supported by data. The other side of the argument is just talking their book.
Smedley said:
The ml1 fallacy = his opinion is objectively true, free from bias, and supported by data. The other side of the argument is just talking their book.
your fallacy = straw man
I'm very upfront when something is my unsupported opinion. And I know what my biases are, and I try as best I can to keep them from leading me astray. Beyond that, yes I look at a lot of varied information before I come to conclusions. Which is more than a lot of pundits or message board commenters can say. You should try it some time.
ml1 said:
GL2 said:
He and the Bros may well help kill us a second time.
this claim has been made countless times, but there isn't any hard evidence of it that anyone has been able to produce. (Aside from the fact that when 80K votes ends up tipping the scales, people can point to almost anything as costing Clinton the election, of course).
Yes, the claim has been made many times. And there's no way to obtain hard evidence. In the same way Comey's stunts reveal no hard evidence and Bros frat house behavior at the convention reveals no hard evidence.
And free everything doesn't play in swing states or in the real world.
Bernie's a boutique candidate. A Ben & Jerry's delight.
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