Right here, right now all bets are off.
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Except for the fact that he couldn’t tell the difference between “moderate” and “mediate”, this was Biden’s best debate yet. Hopefully people who were supporting Bloomie because they thought there was a hole in the Biden wing of the party are now reconsidering.
As predicted, every time he opened his mouth Bloomberg vomited on himself.
Warren was extra sharp last night, and it gave a preview of how she would be on the debate stage with Trump.
Bernie needs to find a clever way of defusing the redbaiting, since it would be better to show he can kill it dead now rather than wait and try in November.
I’m ready to whittle the field down to Sanders, Warren, and Biden.
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Haven’t we all been there?
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I agree, she was really on, and it showed how much reserve she has to bring beyond her usual.
I thought he gave a really great answer about what dem socialism is, it just wasn’t in response to Bloomberg calling him a commie.
(I tell my relatives there’s a difference between socialism and dem socialism, but if it helps they can just think “cares abouit people”.)
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He gave three answers, and they were all correct:
- dSoc is what we have in most modern countries, including countries like Denmark where the American dream is perhaps more alive than in the USA;
- We already have socialism for the rich and for corporations.
- It is about time that working people had a stronger say in government.
However, I worry about any of these defusing the attack with those voters for whom redbaiting is traditionally effective.
Years ago I was working on the first senate campaign of Adlai Stevenson III, who was running against an incumbent gubernatorial appointee (Illinois-style) named Ralph Smith. One of Smith’s campaign slogans was, I kid you not, “When I see Adlai I see red.” Adlai ended up winning handily, mainly because Smith was a nincompoop, but I can tell you from being on the ground in those districts that the redbaiting was effective when coupled with Stevenson’s stated aversion to the war and to police brutality, and to win he had to start moderating his positions, wearing an American flag pin and appointing a conservative prosecutor to direct the remainder of his campaign.
Bernie needs to find a way to end it now, and unfortunately the way needs to be more effective with the target audience than simply telling the truth.
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Thanks for that twitter thread at the bottom, which actually explains what the records mean.
Suddenly I see the comparison to birtherism. It’s not that it’s unreasonable to worry about whether a person running for president is in good health (which is not the same as selectively worrying that a black person might not be American). But the similarity is that even though the records have been released the conspiracy doesn’t go away. You can’t convince anti-fact people of anything using facts. Hopefully the media doesn’t decide to make this into emails.
I saw Michael Steele (who is definitely a Republican and not a Democrat at heart but who doesn’t lie to themself about what Trump is) say that he wishes people could just understand that the youth push for socialism is just about young people wondering why they don’t get what their grandparents had. If grandparents went to college for $4 and have medical care, why don’t children have that?
And I don’t think that’s a facetious thing to say. I think the question is, “When did America get so poor?” America used to build roads and bridges, telecommunications infrastructure, create new social programs, fund educations. Now America lets roads rot and bridges fall, accepts that rural areas will never catch up with internet access, closes down social programs and cuts education at every turn. I say it again, when did America get so poor?
Because I think people worrying about socialism need to realize what they are really worrying about is that America can’t pay the bills. And they worry that America can’t pay the bills because so many American people can’t pay the bills. But somehow we all know America is rich, not poor.
There’s a cognitive dissonance between a rich country and poor people that I think the culture is ready to notice. There’s a cognitive dissonance between cared-for elderly people* and uncared-for babies that I think the culture is ready to notice.
* I doubt America really does a good job of taking care of elderly people, they have medicare is all.
And I frame “When did america get so poor” as a rhetorical question even though I know the answer is 1981.
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I hate how that became a thing.
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I suppose “volume” is as objective a way to measure a candidate’s debate performance as any.
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While this article does veer into Will Rogers territory a bit
(
I think it is worth a read. At times nerdy and philosophical, but also very relevant to our current situation:
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IMO that’s probably the bump of people jumping the Biden ship into the next closest thing, they’re practically trending opposite of each other:
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In practical terms I think that’s a great article that really helps illuminate why people need to embrace what they’ve come to call “identity politics.”
But I think of my old philosophy prof who was asked who their favourite philosopher was and said, “Oh, definitely Aristotle,” then quickly added, “Of course everything he said is objectively wrong.”
Because while I agree with the article, I think the quotation from Steven Pinker near the beginning is actually correct:
Pinker has condemned contemporary identity politics as “an enemy of reason and Enlightenment values.”
The thing is, the enlightenment was over 200 years ago. Not only that, but it’s been the most eventful 200 years in the history of humanity. Enlightenment values are already dead and it’s time we put a bullet in the zombie’s brain.
The article presents liberalism as if it values equality and democracy. I don’t think that’s true. I think liberalism created a lot of equality and democracy. But looking at it as a source of those thing seems, to me, like looking at a ladder as a way up. It’s a way up until you climb it then it becomes a way down. 18th century Europeans didn’t crack the one true code for advancement of civilization that will stand the test of all time, there is no end of history.
Listening to the experiences of people and of peoples is the antithesis of liberalism because liberalism truly believes there is some way to make a perspective-free and judgement-free set of rules that will result in the best outcomes for everyone. But we’ve already arrived at the synthesis: the recognition that experiences are objective parts of reality and that the way to observe that reality is to hear the stories of people and peoples. Liberals like Pinker are living in a dead age and it’s time to listen to Bob Dylan:
Your old road is rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
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It’s a gesture that fearful Dem politicians make to “prove” that progressives and liberals aren’t unpatriotic (and, by extensions, aren’t commies). Now that Sanders is the front-runner and he can’t be ignored or dismissed, the 55+ Dem establishment crowd is starting to “helpfully” suggest that he move toward the centre for the same reason, to have broader appeal. Lost in their nostalgia for the 20th century and their insistence that they know better than everyone else, they miss the demographics behind Sanders’s surge.
His numbers are growing because of young supporters: people under 40 are well aware that, absent the post-war economic anomaly, they’re not going to have the same chance at middle-class comfort that their parents and grandparents took for granted. They like Sanders because for decades he’s been true to the social democratic ideals and rejection of Third Way Dem ideology that they know is their best shot for a decent life in the 21st century.
Fortunately, he’s listening to them rather than the “responsible” and “realistic” older people who want him to live in fear like so many Dem estalishment politicians have since Reagan.
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Wow, it sounds like Bloomberg is a giant idiot. I mean, all that money and they didn’t employ anyone who saw this coming?
But ultimately Bloomberg probably though they could take Warren because Warren is a woman. The sexism, after all, isn’t some kind of act, it’s Bloomberg’s core belief.
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edit:
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It’s wild. That clip shared above of him saying that the NDAs were about women being offended at jokes is a frighteningly out of touch narrative that everyone knows is bullshit and the crowd immediately booed at.
Recently I listened to this conversation about beliefs with Celeste Kidd on Adam Conover’s podcast and the latter part of the podcast includes sexism in academia, and how the truth gets hidden by blaming women of being too sensitive to jokes.
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Also, his line that the NDAs were to protect the women was also laugh-track-worthy. Warren nailed him for it, but I think she could have gone even further by pointing out that the awesome gravity of his wealth is a reality-distortion field.
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Somebody’s lyin’
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Bloomberg is scum. Pure, condescending, bad scum, and any Democrat who thinks he’s our savior is not John the Baptist but a Heaven’s Gate cult member. And his debate performance was a turd on a turd.
Give all your stolen money to FairFight2020, Mike. You’ll actually help America. It won’t get you on TV being owned as much, and it might even shift the election.
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Which is why it is too bad that the anti-Biden crowd took him out so soon. If Biden won the nomination I could vote for him, unenthusiastically but without regrets, expecting an Obama-like administration. Bloomie, however, will require big-time nose-holding.
He just needed to read this thread.
To be honest, I expected Klobuchar to be the one to go after him the hardest, but absent that was (pleasantly) surprised to see Warren step up and do such a fantastic job. With luck, Klobuchar and Buttigieg’s focus on one another will send votes from both in Warren’s direction.
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