Gorgeous!
5 Likes
AOC, Sanders Say I Told You So, as Amazon, Facebook Come to NYC
Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders are taking a victory lap after Amazon.com Inc. and other technology giants leased millions of square feet of office space in New York City – without the billions of dollars in government support that Amazon tried to negotiate earlier this year.
14 Likes
If Uncle Joe was really worried about a party having too much power, he’d be backing a ranked choice voting system that would break the current duopoly. But it’s obvious that he’s very comfortable with Coke and Pepsi being the only choices.
If elected, I’m sure he’ll be very civil to and reach out for comity with McConnell and his ilk on the other side of the aisle.
That Biden doesn’t understand that the racist, sexist, Nazi-enabling, Putin-compromised, bad-faith GOP needs to be clobbered is yet another demonstration of why he has no business being President.
11 Likes
Hey Joe… fuck off.
13 Likes
Jeebus Crampus Joe, that’s just crazy talk!
Wow. If this guy gets the nomination, the Dem Party also deserves a quick death. He’s worse than HRC was!
11 Likes
He apparently doesn’t realize - despite the evidence in front of his face - that if the GOP truly crumbles, the Democratic Party will likely split into two (or more) factions. They may still be allied on a lot of issues, but when it comes to my support, the “how will you pay for that?” Party can fuck right off.
Then again, maybe he does realize that.
12 Likes
what the fuck nonsense is this? The only hope for our country is for this treasonous infestation to be purged from our government root and branch. Joe, seriously, what have you been smoking?
12 Likes
9 Likes
I don’t know where Biden stands on ranked choice, or if he’s ever thought about it. Over the years I think it would have helped him more than hurt him.
Incidentally, at least two states (Kansas and Hawaii) will be using ranked choice next year, and of course the walking caucus in Iowa is a form of STV. Progress is slow, but it happens.
1 Like
Others may choose to have illusions about Biden or any other member of the DNC establishment wanting ranked choice in general elections and breaking the party’s hold on what’s now one of two parties, but I don’t.
The fact that Uncle Joe can talk about the modern GOP as if it’s been anything other than a toxic influence on American political culture and discourse and governance since the 1980s and that it needs to be preserved instead of clobbered indicates that he’s very cozy with the duopoly situation as it stands.
I’m not sure what the Kansas and Hawaii state Dems using ranked choice in the primaries, or Iowa’s flawed (but oh so old-timey “charming”) caucus that incorporates a form of RCV has to do with all that. If you’re holding your breath for the DNC to establish a proper ranked-choice standard for state primaries as a precursor to having RCV in general elections … well, far be it from me to stop you.
7 Likes
I don’t have any illusions, I just don’t know of any information supporting the assertion that he opposes RCV.
If you support RCV or STV, then having 3 states using it rather than 1 is a form of progress. And I am well aware that many people who have never participated in the Iowa caucuses are not fond of them.
1 Like
His long tenure as a member of the Dem establishment and comments like that about the GOP are evidence enough that he opposes RCV in general elections (which, again, is what I was talking about in my original comment on the topic). I can’t really blame him – his career is predicated on the duopoly, and he certainly doesn’t want the Greens or the DSA or other parties posing a real threat to the Dems.
Within the Dem party for primaries, yes. But the persistence of a broken relic like the Iowa caucus indicates that anyone over age 40 will be long dead before the Dem party standards, let alone the general election ones, switch to a proper form of anonymous RCV in all state primaries. Given the challenges they’re facing in the coming decades, younger people don’t have the luxury of not having to worry about this ridiculous patchwork voting system and a duopoly preserved by FPTP.
I’ve read critiques of them from people who did participate, but didn’t get caught up in all the romance and false nostalgia. But (once again) I’m not talking about party primaries. Feel free to start a new discussion about how wonderful the Iowa caucuses are.
3 Likes
I’m a little hesitant to see RCV in the general election until we’ve fixed the voting machine problem.
broken relic like the Iowa caucus
What you see as a broken relic I see as the democratic process at its finest. But, time will tell. Maybe the future will be elections by upvoting on reddit, but I hope I’m not around to experience that.
Agreed. The Dem party establishment shows as much interest in fixing that as it does breaking up the duopoly from which it benefits by allowing RCV in general elections. Cui bono.
Not only me, and not only people who didn’t participate. But if the memories give you the warm fuzzies and you don’t care much for silly things like national standards and anonymous ballots, bully for you. One man’s “democratic process at its finest” is another’s mob mentality.
1 Like
another’s mob mentality.
I suppose it might look that way to a cub reporter from New England. I had friends from NYC who used to shiver and lock the car doors whenever we drove through Maquoketa and passed the sign for the two-butted calf.
Well, you know how the New Yorker is when it comes to the writers they publish – buncha inexperienced kids. It’s not much better than a content farm, amirite?
4 Likes
In this particular case the description is accurate. The article is well-written and entertaining, but the reporter just graduated college this year and cannot in any way be described as someone with experience of or expertise in the Iowa caucuses.
Yeah, the view of an outsider who hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid toward an insitution like this is never valid, especially if it’s a young person who’s written a bunch of articles for the New Yorker (perhaps you don’t consider it a prestige publication, but how many of your articles has it published? None for me, I’ll admit). Only tenure in an institution and age confers the authority to analyse it.
The article is well-written and entertaining, but it also critiques (but isn’t entirely dismissive of) the Iowa caucuses. The article just happened to frame the fact that this sort of “pure” expression of democracy also has more potential to sink into a mob mentality if safeguards aren’t put in place*. That’s an observation that’s been made since the days of ancient Greece, although the Athenian government – unlike the Iowan system you’re trying to make a case for – had the basic sense to keep their ballots anonymous.
[* to save you some keystrokes, this does not mean that those safeguards necessarily have to become perversions of democracy like the Electoral College or the American party duopoly or the DNC establishment’s rigging tricks]
7 Likes
