I don't really thinks so. If anything, Bloomberge is siphoning off of Biden, considering both are centrists, and are not considered anti-establishment, compared to Bernie.

And in my state it's Tom Steyer ads. I rarely see Bloomberg ones.

He's explained it pretty clearly over the last few debates: raise taxes in a progressive manner on the Medicare tax (including, yes, on the middle class) in order to cover the increase in government spending that it would amount to. Because this is offset by the removal of private care premiums and over the counter costs, this will ultimately mean more money will be in the pockets of the American people.

I'm not sure why people act confused by this; it's really simple math, actually. It's estimated to cost about $32T per decade, whereas our current system costs the American people anywhere from $35-50T over a decade. He keeps explaining it in every debate, so I don't know why people are so insistent he keep repeating himself.

Yes, because you think it'll rile up the Republicans and prevent swing voters. Good thing your opinion is probably wrong, here.

TL;DR, swing votes don't matter, turnout does. As far as I see it, Republicans will turn out because Trump is an energizing figure. Left wing populists energize their base & non-voters with their left wing propositions, so they're the ones to root for if you want to increase left wing turnout in the general to beat Trump.

Are you actually unaware of "Manufactured Consent", the academic concept of private media apparatuses operate in order to generate profits and access and so therefore will report in a way that best increases their own revenue and ability to gain access to important figures? It's not new, and it's been discussed since the 1980's - long before Bernie got his media blackouts.

Man, this centrist argument is particularly vapid: yes, the Republicans like to bitch about how the media is treating them unfairly when Mr. 45 is getting criticism for his actions, but that doesn't defacto mean Progressive complaints that the media is treating them disproportionately poorly are unjustified. The only reason Republican complains in this vain are invalid is because they're lying about it; if the argument is verifiably true then the argument is valid.

You're being intellectually lazy by assuming Progressives are wrong here because similar Republican arguments tend to be; that'd be like saying Algebra is wrong since Jimmy is bad at it. That's asinine. Look up the argument being made before dismissing it next time.

They tend to win at reasonable rates in rural areas when they run in them. The issue Progressives have is that they tend to be poor, so they often get drown out by DNC spending against them in the primaries (rarely overcoming the 5-to-1 or more spending gap). Until recently, there had been no financial ability for Progressives to run in a wide number of states, either, so it's not that their message can't win in working class areas, but rather that there just haven't been Progressives able to run in those areas.

And that "consistent" crowd has no idea who it wants to vote for. Will the consolidate around Biden, Warren, Pete, Klobuchar, Steyer, or Bloomberg come Super Tuesday?

That's a lot of candidates, and time is running out before they mathematically can't beat Bernie. The same thing happened with the Republicans in 2016, too, so don't write that off.

Bernie Sanders is considered one of the strongest candidates to beat Trump, so I would think that would be another point in his favor...? I don't know how this is a counterpoint to Bernie's primary chances.

No Steyer ads here (yet). Bloomberg seems to be building a fanbase in Philly, but this half of the state has been pretty resistant. I guess Steyer can't compete with the saturation, since Bloomberg has a media company behind him? I dunno.

His candidacy is where I'm really seeing the centrists vs. leftists fight come into play. The centrists are swooning over him, but the leftists aren't too happy about someone trying to buy the nomination. If somehow he got it, it would destroy the party because of this.

At 2/10/20 05:29 PM, Gario wrote:

The media is against trump and bernie equally. The media is against trump because of how deconstructive he actually is.

Think about the role of the president should be. The president is seen as this guy who should be catering to both sides, be respectful, be experienced at political candidacy. Trump comes in and actually turns it all hilariously backwards.

I love how progressives think they're still relevant and drone on about nationalizing things and regulating things when historically their policies and institutions have failed.

We have been down this road before. I told you he hasn't explained it well to the public, at least how to pay for it. Yes, he keeps talking about increasing taxes on everyone, especially the wealthy. But the math still doesn't add up, given the rising cost of health care in the country (with rising health premiums reflecting that), unless he wants to be an actual socialist and take over the medical and pharmaceutical industry to control prices. And this is no guarantee that it will be any better than Obamacare currently is. Not to mention the growth of government to oversee all of this. So, his numbers err on optimism more than reality.

Sure, we saw how well Obamacare did, which helped to turn both chambers of Congress red. Changing health care dramatically is traditionally unpopular, and still is. So, you can throw out opinion pieces, and ignore the polling, to continue arguing that most people support progressive ideas over "medicare for all", when it's nothing more than frustration over inaction over things people care about. Most people don't want huge change, they want things to be much the same, while being better.

But things have become more polarized in the country over the last 40 years as each side plays off of each other. It's why 50% to 60% of likely Democrat voters just want any candidate to beat Trump, while still all over the place on who to select, because no majority is largely excited about any one of the Democrat candidates. And Trump supporters will loyally vote for him because he panders strictly to them. We will see what side will excites people the most to turn out to vote.

And I think Charlemagne tha god said it the best about how divided the country is and the reasons why.

I think Progressives live in their own echo chamber, along with Trump Supporters, because they ignore certain realities to blindly argue that most people support them and their positions, always blindly selling things to create a false image of the country that doesn't exist.

Again, no. You are in your own echo chamber, only wanting to hear positive stuff about your political ideology, and getting angry at any criticism from the media and magnifying it.

I saw two articles that weren't positive towards Biden, or Buttigieg over the last couple of days. Nothing negative about Sanders in that time frame. I'm sure you have no problem with that shit as long as you think it helps sanders out.

You can argue over political commentators, and extremely partisan sites, but that is not what I am talking about.

I'm sure there are a few rural districts that are open to more progressive candidates, but it doesn't change the fact that most of them support Trump and conservative Republicans. Trump's trade wars may have cooled some of their enthusiasm, but they are still largely backing him.

We will see how things turn out.

Literally no one explains exactly how something's going to be paid for outside of broad proclamations, because until a bill is finalized no one could possibly know. That's a bit of a double standard you tend not to apply to moderate candidates, ain't it?

He gave us where the money will come from, and other organizations have given us estimates of how much his program will cost over our existing program. What more would you be looking for, a spreadsheet of how taxes will be distributed, how much will be saved when redundancies are cut, etc.? We sure didn't get that with the ACA, nor did we get that for Space Force, our military budget, etc.

Obamacare did not turn both chambers red. Correlation ain't causation, Edy.

Oi, I'm not the one ignoring polling. Jesus, man, are you even caught up with the discussion?

You keep putting out this line of thinking out without evidence, as if it's self evident. Put up or shut up; you're being dogmatic if you ain't got the data on your side.

And yet here I am, discussing this with you and other conservatives & moderates. That's literally the opposite of an echo chamber, last I checked.

And I am discussing it; believe it or not, I'm not dismissing you offhand. You're just not that good at presenting non-cyclic arguments. Give me evidence to your points rather than just assuming that Americans are moderate and I'd consider it fairly.

How about reading the scholastic discussions on the topic rather than assuming it's some crazy leftist jack-off session?

I'm really trying to approach this in good faith, for you. Don't brush it off, please.

No, that... has almost nothing to do with what I was talking about. Again, I don't think you know what Manufacturing Consent is. If you'd like, I could make a topic on it discussing it for you.

Otherwise, how about you read material on the topic? I linked a few sources to get you started.

That's something we can agree on.

Let's do that.

This is a problem I see with a lot of progressive groups (and a lot of activist groups that have subjects that are social rather than political). They demand the whole hog or nothing; not realizing that change is a gradual thing. I call it Veruca Salt activism: "I DON'T CARE HOW, I WANT IT NOW! NOW!!!"

Except a lot of people aren't comfortable with that. They might be OK with one or two things on the platform, but look at the rest of it and be like "wait," then reject it entirely. Then these folks get all pissy that they didn't get everything they wanted right this minute and take their ball and go home. Meanwhile, if one of them says/does something incredibly stupid, their opponents will seize on that, like @EdyKel says. Then they wonder why they have no success.

Look how long it took this country to come around on gay marriage, for example.

How the hell did Klobuchar do so well all of a sudden? Did the last debate have that much of an impact?

I mean, not surprised that Bernie won, but surprised about her.

2 down, how many to go? By the end is when you’ll have your answer I believe. Politics is paradoxically extremely slow, and determined overnight.

Bernie won New Hampshire, won Iowa (after correcting the errors in the SDE count, which admittedly might not happen), and is in decent shape in Nevada (caucuses can be tricky, though). Those that are competitive with Bernie so far are not viable in states with larger minority support, where Bernie is strongest, with his only other competition among minorities dropping like a stone.

I'm feelin' pretty good so far - how 'bout y'all? I can't relax yet, since this is still a race and Bernie likely needs to win the majority and not just the plurality (to avoid superdelegate fuckary), but this ain't a bad start for him.

Conflicted.

On one hand, it's easy to be skeptical. Comparatively low Democratic voter turn-out in general and him barely eke-ing out wins due to technicalities like a fractured moderate field doesn't inspire confidence to many American would-be voters. He won, just not hard enough yet. On the other, that might also be media talking, downplaying any at all success he has, ignoring the thousands of people that actually do believe in his message. POC still have to vote as well, which both he and Biden resonate with really well. It does seem many Republicans are already sharpening their old "Socialism" brand swords though, which tells me they're already invested.

Finally, if Bernie does win, he needs to up his game, spill more basic truths rich media don't feel like printing and whilst it needs to remain his go-to policy, not be stuck with just the 1% line which has normalized for a lot of people so far. He needs to beat Trump over headlines, above all. A lot of Democrats seem to be really on board with the whole "unity to beat Trump" message, which is exciting as well.

Most of the moderates candidates don't have these huge programs they are promoting, just tweaking existing ones, while asking for moderate tax hikes on the wealthy/corporations. They know that's it more realistic, and a lot easier to pass, than some 32 trillion program that has no chance in hell of ever passing in the foreseeable future. That shit just makes you stand out from the rest, excites your base and the opposition, but won't go any further than that. And it's not just the only expensive program they are promoting - Green New Deal, free college, ect.

Sure, the reds did a much better job promoting their propaganda that it would lead to death panels, and government bankruptcy, and worse care, to take control of both chambers of congress. M4A is just a gift to them.

Yes, you are. See the following.

I'm still waiting for you to dispute my link over people's views over healthcare, while you continue to rant about how "every leftist policy of Sanders is favored by Americans". That's is misleading. That's your spin. That's your echo chamber that justifies your position not to believe there could be more who are against M4A than are for it. Even you own link said the following:

KFF polling finds more Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would prefer voting for a candidate who wants to build on the ACA in order to expand coverage and reduce costs rather than replace the ACA with a national Medicare-for-all plan (Figure 12). Additionally, KFF polling has found broader public support for more incremental changes to expand the public health insurance program in this country including proposals that expand the role of public programs like Medicare and Medicaid (Figure 13). And while partisans are divided on a Medicare-for-all national health plan, there is robust support among Democrats, and even support among four in ten Republicans, for a government run health plan, sometimes called a public option (Figure 14).

People support a general direction of progress, but that becomes quickly divided over how far. You always think in terms of full tilt left, when most simply aren't for it - conservatives, and most centrists, who, combined, far out number those on the left. You can argue that most of the moderate democrat candidates fit that description if we went with leftist policy only, but you don't seem to think that way.

Gario, we have been discussing this shit for years, and it's just gotten worse with you. You keep telling me that you are open minded, while accusing people of being closed minded. You can't have it both ways.

I haven't presented it that way. I just keep disputing your argument about how many actually support Bernie's actual policies in their entirety, rather than those agreeing in a general direction. And you haven't posted any actual polls, or statistic, that actually support your position. It's that simple.

Oh, I browsed it, and got the gist of it. But I simply see it differently. Where some see the media as controlled by some corporate, elitist, mentality, promoting their sort of propaganda (basically, establishment views), I see that and appealing to various interests. The latter is why you have both the left and right hating the media, and using it as an excuse for why their own bias establishment isn't in control. That is what your argument basically comes down to. Nothing more.

The media in this country is something you can't simply all encompass into one single convenient neat little package of some nefarious organization that Acid keeps promoting. It would probably be better that you think of it as diverse as individuals are, because it has a wide spectrum of views in it. And you have people picking and choosing what they want to believe from it, especially against their opposition, while whining about how the entire fucking thing is against them. That is the height of intellectual laziness, making excuses with a broad generalization for why things aren't the way they want it to be.

Update: Michael Avenatti has dropped out of the primary.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/02/14/us/michael-avenatti-verdict/index.html

That is news to me, considering he never officially entered it outside of publicly mulling it.

Oops lol I thought he was in, well, he definitely is going to be too busy in the future.

Bernie takes a landslide win in Nevada.

He has now cemented his front-runner status.

A couple of thoughts about the current state of the Dem race.

1. This thing is headed for a contested convention, for sure. If Bernie doesn't get the nomination, for any reason, Milwaukee is going up in flames. Right now the Fire Chief and Police Chief are probably sending emails out saying vacations the week of the convention have been cancelled. Do the Dems expect to still carry Wisconsin if the Bernie Bros go crazy?

2. Biden will take PAC money, Bloomberg can self fund. But Bernie is gonna run out of money trying to get the nomination. Since he refuses to take money from billionaires, his only source of funding is gender studies graduates working at Starbucks. Most of them will run out of money to donate in the primaries and far before the $2800 max. And then if he does get the nomination? Trump's massive war chest will bury him with spending in the general.

3. I think Bloomberg actually shored up Biden's support. Once Sleepy Joe started to look not just shaky, but extremely shaky, a lot of his support fled. But after Mini Mike got demolished in his first debate and all the oppo research on him came out, plus Biden's relatively lively debate this week, a lot of people said to themselves, 'It's Biden or nothing.' So I think that shopping around kinda solidified his support.

4. All the Pocahontas fans impressed with her attack on Bloomberg the other day are kidding themselves. They somehow think that proves she would be a formidable opponent for Trump. Yet the 'you said bad things about women' attack that ended Bloomberg is the exact same attack that Trump already proved he can avoid with the famous 'Only Rosie O'Donnell' line. Trump has already beaten her best attack. I do hope they put her up at the convention as a unity candidate though.

5. Clearly Trump is highly favored by God.

I think you mean the devil.

After Biden's big win in South Caroline, Tom Steyers won't stey, Buttigieg butts out, and more moderates are considering leaving to bolster Biden against Bernie. Curiously, Warren won't, causing many sceptics to think she might be putting her bets on a brokered convention (with maybe even a VP spot as result).

Yes, I will keep making wordplays for every candidate.

I think it’s more simple than that: he couldn’t get enough votes. Being gay won’t scare the old church ladies anymore, but the bulk of the democratic electorate are black voters who do care.

holy shit

In literally no surprise to anyone but Numbers McGee, apparently, Klobuchar klocks out.

Yes I was going back, 4% vote nationwide, and 5 delegates (which is close to 0)

I guess I'm more surprised by THREE candidates in 24 hours the Monday before Super Tuesday being knocked out.

Like, did the Ides of March come early? Half-joking

I wish I could use a time machine and go to November 4th. This stupid shit is driving me fucking insane. And I got 4 more months of the primary and then 4 months of the general bullshit.

If the dems choose anyone but Bernie in the primary, Trump will stomp the democratic candidate like a bag of burning dogshit on halloween.

If there's a contested convention and the DNC chooses anyone but Bernie, Milwaukee is gonna burn. I hope the cops have their tactical gear ready.

That being said, I haven't been paying much attention today (work, watching hockey) so I'm just looking at results now. I understand Bernie won two states and Biden won five. I can understand calling a winner in states such as Oklahoma where 89% of the vote is in. But Minnesota (as of right now) only has 34% reporting, and yet they called the race for Biden. There are several other states like this too. Are there just that many more votes for him, or is there some funny business with the early calls? Crazy, I know, but we all know what the DNC did to Bernie in 2016. To his credit, he's not taking it lying down this time.

California should go for Bernie IIRC and we won't see results begin to come in for another hour yet. That being said though, clearly the South and some of the Midwestern/Northeastern states aren't buying what Bernie is selling.

Also, Lieawatha is trailing in her own state. Ouch.

2016 2: Revengeance.

"The moderates" are back. And this time, it's personal.

I hope y'all want four more years of Donald Trump! Cuz it's definitely gonna happen now!

Bloomberg dropped and is supporting Biden, Sanders is screwed the party is rallying against him and the progressives are pissed you should see The Young Turks stream last night nothing but anger and screaming.