2020 Election Thread (formerly: 2020 Presidential Candidates Thread) (Part 1)

[d_r]

@anon62122146

a group of insiders get 40,000 times as many votes per person as everyone else

That’s not what is happening though; it isn’t like 700 oligarchs self-appoint to the list of supers. For example, in my state in 2016 all but two of the supers were from democratically-elected offices, the other two were from the state party hierarchy selected and voted on at the state convention. So, not pure democracy, but representative democracy just like we use for most things.

The supers represent one way to deal with the reality that there might not be a candidate with a majority of the won delegates. Other ways, like going with the plurality winner or some form of ranked choice or condorcet or transferable vote, might or might not be preferable depending on what the ultimate objective is, but plurality is especially susceptible to stupid outcomes. If the objective is to find a candidate that reflects the global party members’ will reasonably well, then it is probably best to go with some kind of human intervention. The transition from back-room deals to pure democracy 50 years ago turned out to be an operational disaster, which is why the Hunt committee came up with the supers in the 80s. Human nature being what it is, I think it is better to have a publicly-accountable large group like that than a small or secret group.

Democrats who don’t like the selection process can always try to change it, and in fact it changes pretty much every cycle due to grassroots pressure. That’s pretty remarkable for a big political organization!

Everyone moans about the supers subverting the will of the people, but that hasn’t yet happened, ever. Even the notorious last cycle, when the DNC was trying hard to abuse their authority, the nominee was (unfortunately) the clear choice of the majority of primary voters. It isn’t worth agonizing over until it happens.

Of course, people who don’t like the process and don’t like the final candidate are under no obligation to vote for them. That’s true whether you think the nominee is an oligarch and you think that’s bad, or a Socialist and you think that’s bad. (Though last cycle the people who griped about the Democratic primaries then voted as a result for self-nominee Jill Stein maybe didn’t think things through very well.)

However, the chances are that, whoever the nominee will be, will be there because they reasonably well represent the party as a whole; the supers can’t give the nomination to a Tulsi Gabbard or a Michael Bennett (and wouldn’t want to).

And, even in the unlikely event the system screws up royally and Michael Fucking Bloomberg wins, while he might not be an infinitely better human being than Trump he would for sure be an infinitely better POTUS.

[Wally]

@d_r

Everyone moans about the supers subverting the will of the people, but that hasn’t yet happened, ever.

Hahahaha, I want some of what you’ve been smoking since 2016 because it must be some prettttttty gooooood shit.

[d_r]

In 2016 Clinton won 2205 ‘regular’ delegates, Sanders only 1846. While the superdelegate imbalance made HRC’s victory seem more convincing, she was already a very conclusive winner; the superdelegates didn’t subvert anything.

[Wally]

@d_r

the superdelegates didn’t subvert anything

I’m still chuckling. But Kanye West style now.

[KathyPartdeux]

@anon62122146

I still stand by the part about superdelegates changing the vote, and Sanders tried to get them removed, so there’s no blaming him for the fact that they’re still around,

But will Sanders accept them if this time they give him a majority in a contested convention? It seems so.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/442617-sanders-shores-up-dem-superdelegate-support

[gracchus]

Sanders understands that the party establishment isn’t going to get rid of what he knows is a profoundly undemocratic factor this cycle, so he’s trying to work it according to the rules like every other candidate.

Doing so with his current popular support holding up will either get him the nomination under those rules or (more likely) demonstrate how utterly corrupt the DNC is (because people who abuse their authority tend to use every tool at their disposal when they have to).

[KathyPartdeux]

Of course- but this is what faces every candidate- not just one of them. They’re are working within the same system to achieve their victory.

[gracchus]

I agree, but Sanders (and probably Warren) contrast to the other candidates by having the additional goal of wanting to get rid of the superdelegate system, one way or another. If he wins using it, the party leadership will realise it’s no longer a tool they can potentially cheat with.

This part of a larger push by progressives to use the establishment’s own systems to their advantage.

Ocasio-Cortez Builds Progressive Campaign Arm to Challenge Democrats

[KathyPartdeux]

It’s also worth noting that Bernie is a superdelegate- as are Warren and Klobuchar as members of Congress. Not sure about Joe, Pete or Mikey.

Worth a look though.

Edit:

Wiki list:

List of 2020 Democratic Party automatic delegates

Joe as a former Veep - yes.

[KathyPartdeux]

The insider: How national security mandarins groomed Pete Buttigieg and...

[mr_raccoon]

Makena Kelly (kellymakena)

[anon15383236]

[anon50609448]

@d_r

If Biden+Bloomberg+Klobuchar+Buttigieg get 55% of the pledged delegates and Sanders+Warren+Steyer get 44%, and the supers all vote together to give Biden a majority even if Sanders or Bloomberg have the plurality, then that is fully consistent not only with the rules but with the will of the voters and the democratic intent of the primary.

That seems like it’s making a huge assumption that the “two lanes” narrative reflects the actual thoughts and feelings of the people who voted in the primaries. If it were actually the case that the vast majority of Sanders supporters had Warren as a second choice, the vast majority of Warren supporters had Sanders and none of the other candidates supports had any significant support for Warren or Sanders as a second choice that might make some sense. But we have polls on that and that’s absolutely not true.

Progressives vs. the rest is a story told be political pundits, it’s not reality. Saying that superdelegates are there to impose that falsehood on the party (and hopefully the nation) doesn’t convince me that superdelegates are good.

@anon15383236 jeremy scahill tweet:

I don’t disagree with Sachill’s implied point about the DNC’s priorities.

On the other hand, I’m glad Bloomberg was up on that stage to get skewered by Warren and reveal how utterly unprepared they are to have anyone talk back to them. If their argument is “I can take on Trump” I’m glad it they were shown to be a fumbling idiot who can’t hold their own in the face of discomfort.

[RickMycroft]

Something something Martha something.

[anon67050589]

From the Wiki link, something very suspect at the beginning of it all:

In 1981, Michael Bloomberg was let go from Salomon Brothers. He was given no severance package, but owned $10 million worth of equity as a partner at the firm.

There’s something big underneath the surface there. A man who had risen to partner back in those days being “let go” with no severance? That’s more than ‘just’ a sexual harassment case or two, which wasn’t a firing thing back then anyway.

[mr_raccoon]

That first one is pretty spot on

POLITICO (politico)

[anon62122146]

@d_r

If Biden+Bloomberg+Klobuchar+Buttigieg get 55% of the pledged delegates and Sanders+Warren+Steyer get 44%, and the supers all vote together to give Biden a majority even if Sanders or Bloomberg have the plurality, then that is fully consistent not only with the rules but with the will of the voters and the democratic intent of the primary.

That seems like it’s making a huge assumption that the “two lanes” narrative reflects the actual thoughts and feelings of the people who voted in the primaries.

This.

All of the situations @d_r brought up could be solved much better by, say, ranked choice voting, and if the DNC was honestly looking for an honest solution to those situations in good faith, they could have done that and nobody would have had a problem with it.

[RickMycroft]

Here in Ontario, mom’s GP is retiring, so she pulled out the phone book(!), located one in a building where she has other doctors, with a Scottish name . She called, checked to see if the doctor is taking on new people, booked an appointment, done. (I checked the doctor online in the provincial directory: privileges at the local hospital, and no need to puzzle out which healthcare networks she’s connected to.)

“take away your choice”, bullshit!

[anon62122146]

@d_r

Everyone moans about the supers subverting the will of the people, but that hasn’t yet happened, ever.

The point I was making above is that, if it does happen this time, they will lose a lot of people, many permanently, because of it.

@d_r

Of course, people who don’t like the process and don’t like the final candidate are under no obligation to vote for them.

Thank you for coming out and saying that! That is most of the point I’m trying to make. It is 100% true, but there are a lot of people spinning the narrative that, because Trump is bad, everyone who’s not a Trumper is obligated to eat whatever shit sandwich the Dems decide to serve us.

@KathyPartdeux

But will Sanders accept them if this time they give him a majority in a contested convention? It seems so.

He tried to get rid of them and was overruled. I don’t know what you’re trying to imply here, or how it’s relevant. Im sure that Sanders will stand by his pledge to support the nominee even if they screw him with superdelegates, too.

There are lots of things I disagree with Sanders about, and I’m not going to unquestioningly do whatever he says to. I come from further outside the political mainstream than he does, but he convinced me to actually give a shot at working within the two party system. I was never on any of those committees that decided to keep the superdelegates, and if they actually use them to change the results, that will tell me everything I need to know to know that I won’t have any more to do with them than with Republicans in the future, and I think there are a lot more people like that than the people trying to convince everyone that the superdelegate system is totally cool realize.

[emo_pinata]

It wasn’t “doctored” really. That description should be reserved for like when pro-Trump media doctored the footage of Jim Acosta “assaulting” a female intern, even if there’s a question of whether the doctoring was intentional (it probably was given the source and context) or just how shitty compression works on video uploads.

Mike Bloomberg is using comedic memes to make himself look good, despite being a terrible garbage person in reality that was decimated on stage. It’s easy to make a joke with footage and a punchline, especially with how easily swayed and defensive a lot of fans of comedy get. It’s part of why Trump was able to get a lot of support around being an online troll, because people tend to react strongly to memes like this. I’m just waiting for the political advisers to start peppering in the racist memes like Trump did and the people defending this meme just getting right on board like usual.