Conundrum for the Democrat Establishment

[SoyLeche]

The party in power (by far) is right wing.

United Russia - Wikipedia

 

[BSM1]

If you loved the Soviet Union, then make certain you vote for Trump, who is clearly former Soviet KGB head Vladimir Putin's puppet.

And now the Soviets-- er, I mean Russians-- are at it again, and yet the Senate Pubs refuse to pass any legislation to try and safeguard our electioneering process that's been presented to Moscow Mitch.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but in my day we used to call people like that "traitors".

You tell 'em. And don't forget that Trump honeymooned in the Soviet Union....oh, wait...that was Bernie.....hmmm...

 

[Revoltingest]

Some clarification is due: By Trump voter, I don't mean people who have voted for Trump in the last election, but rather those that if asked will tell you they have already decided to vote for Trump in the next election.

Considering what you have said so far you don't seem to match that description.

I would wager that people that have already decided to vote for Trump even before the Democrats primaries is over don't give much weight to those points you have mentioned. At least not to the degree they would care enough to have a change of mind.

I still recommend that Democrats find a candidate
who'd embody the platform I laid out.

 

[Koldo]

I still recommend that Democrats find a candidate
who'd embody the platform I laid out.

Honestly, I think any Democratic candidate can defend most of those points without much of a hassle.

 

[Revoltingest]

Honestly, I think any Democratic candidate can defend most of those points without much of a hassle.

I'd be interested in the ones who would,
& had a consistent legislative record.

 

[ecco]

It is pretty well accepted that Bernie Sanders was cheated out of the Democratic nomination for President in 2016. The super delegate system, delegates not elected by the people, but appointed by the party bigwigs, gave the nomination to Clinton.

That's a pretty poor way to start a thread. Party rules are party rules.

Both parties have them.

Besides, why would you care about the Democrats nomination rules?

 

[Mr Spinkles]

It is pretty well accepted that Bernie Sanders was cheated out of the Democratic nomination for President in 2016. The super delegate system, delegates not elected by the people, but appointed by the party bigwigs, gave the nomination to Clinton.

The party said that this time around the process would be fair.

However, that idea has gone out the window.

Why? Because those who make the rules know that if the current front runner, Sanders, is picked by their people, he has absolutely no chance to beat Trump.

So, they threw out the rule about qualifying to participate in the debates, because they are pinning their hopes now on an almost 80 year old ex Republican billionaire, Bloomberg.

However, he was a disaster in his first debate, he could not hide behind his billions there.

They have a stable of 3 almost eighty year olds, Sanders, whom the party seems to want, but the party establishment does not. Biden, their hand picked antidote to Sanders, who is dropping faster than a greyhound bus entering a black hole, and Bloomberg, with the charisma of a sink filled with cold dirty dishwater who wants to buy the election.

So, in the end will they allow the democratic voters to select whom they want, apparently Sanders, or will they ram Biden or Bloomberg through.......................................Or, will they work for a brokered convention, where they might be able to retread hillary?

Biden or Bloomberg, as the nominee of the alleged party of youth and diversity, will be white guy's older than Trump.

The premise of the thread is that Bernie has no chance of beating Trump. However, polls suggest otherwise. If you look at the RealClearPolitics polling averages, Bernie has a meaningful edge over Trump in both a general matchup and in several key swing states that Trump barely won in 2016. Including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and a tie in Florida.

It was the same story in 2016. The media constantly says Bernie can’t win even though polling data suggests he can. The media made the same mischaracterization with Trump in 2016. They said he had no chance of beating Clinton in spite of polling data showing he had a decent chance.

Having said that, your broader point is a good one. You just are not quite correct in your assumption that he can’t win. He might, according to polling data just as Trump had a shot in 16 according to the data (both of which the media downplay).

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Yes ! I have eaten way too much popcorn watching their never ending circus, especially all the clowns. The gift that keeps on giving.

I’m glad that after 4 years of defending Trump you have rediscovered your ability to spot clowns.

 

[shmogie]

The premise of the thread is that Bernie has no chance of beating Trump. However, polls suggest otherwise. If you look at the RealClearPolitics polling averages, Bernie has a meaningful edge over Trump in both a general matchup and in several key swing states that Trump barely won in 2016. Including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and a tie in Florida.

It was the same story in 2016. The media constantly says Bernie can’t win even though polling data suggests he can. The media made the same mischaracterization with Trump in 2016. They said he had no chance of beating Clinton in spite of polling data showing he had a decent chance.

Having said that, your broader point is a good one. You just are not quite correct in your assumption that he can’t win. He might, according to polling data just as Trump had a shot in 16 according to the data (both of which the media downplay).

He may have an extremely thin chance of winning.

Once the oppo research is done, and people learn much more about him, that could change

 

[Mr Spinkles]

He may have an extremely thin chance of winning.

Once the oppo research is done, and people learn much more about him, that could change

I’m just going by the polls, since the media underestimated Trump’s chances last time because they went with who they felt voters would vote for rather than what the polls were saying. Guess what all these states have in common? They are all swing states Trump carried (in some cases by razor thin margins) in 2016.

Personally I have a hard time imagining how a country that elected Donald Trump could possibly elect Bernie Sanders. But, I also had a hard time imagining how this country could elect Trump. It would be a mistake to ignore the data and assume voters will do what we think is rational ... 2016 taught us that.

 

[columbus]

Once the oppo research is done, and people learn much more about him,

Personally I have a hard time imagining how a country that elected Donald Trump could possibly elect Bernie Sanders.

Pretty much this.
I think that the Republicans have avoided hammering Comrade Sanders because he would be easy to beat.
Once the attack ads and "The commies are coming! The commies are coming!" ads get in full throat he'd be doomed.
Tom

 

[shmogie]

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I’m just going by the polls, since the media underestimated Trump’s chances last time because they went with who they felt voters would vote for rather than what the polls were saying. Guess what all these states have in common? They are all swing states Trump carried (in some cases by razor thin margins) in 2016.

Personally I have a hard time imagining how a country that elected Donald Trump could possibly elect Bernie Sanders. But, I also had a hard time imagining how this country could elect Trump. It would be a mistake to ignore the data and assume voters will do what we think is rational ... 2016 taught us that.

ah. but the polls said hillary would walk away with the prize in 2016. That fact voids the polls results you have posted.

Always, except in 2016 the distance between he candidates in the polls always tightens, and sometimes flip closer to the election.

No one can predict the future.

 

[shmogie]

Pretty much this.
I think that the Republicans have avoided hammering Comrade Sanders because he would be easy to beat.
Once the attack ads and "The commies are coming! The commies are coming!" ads get in full throat he'd be doomed.
Tom

Correct.

 

[BSM1]

Pretty much this.
I think that the Republicans have avoided hammering Comrade Sanders because he would be easy to beat.
Once the attack ads and "The commies are coming! The commies are coming!" ads get in full throat he'd be doomed.
Tom

As well he should be. Ran across this just this morning. Scary stuff.

 

[columbus]

As well he should be. Ran across this just this morning. Scary stuff.

I don't want him to get elected either, but probably for reasons opposite of yours.
I just don't think he'll manage to keep any promises and will get run over by The Swamp. He'll make things worse.

But, let's be realistic.
If Trump and the TeaParty were being judged by the most freakish video on the internet?
Tom

 

[Mr Spinkles]

ah. but the polls said hillary would walk away with the prize in 2016. That fact voids the polls results you have posted.

Always, except in 2016 the distance between he candidates in the polls always tightens, and sometimes flip closer to the election.

No one can predict the future.

That's correct, no one can predict the future. That cuts both ways, though: you are predicting the future when you say Bernie can't win.

It is a common myth that is repeated in the media, and accepted broadly, that the polls in 2016 were way off. But they weren't. General polls showed Clinton had a slight edge within the margin of error, about 3%. That doesn't take into account the fact that a 3% edge for a Democrat in a general poll looks even worse on an electoral basis, since a lot of that 3% edge is lost in swing states with lower populations but higher electoral votes. So the polls indicated Clinton had an edge, but it would still be close - and both of those things came true. Clinton won the popular vote by a slim margin. And Trump won the electoral vote - that was by a wider margin, but importantly, it was largely due to winning in several key swing states by razor-thin margins.

For example: Trump won Michigan by 0.2%, the narrowest margin in history. For that he got 16 electoral votes. He won Pennsylvania by 0.7%, the thinnest margin in almost 200 years, which got him 20 electoral votes. He won Wisconsin by 0.8%, getting 10 electoral votes.

If those three states had swung the other way by less than 1% each, Hillary would have picked up those electoral votes and would have won the election. (Trump had 307 electoral votes and Hillary 227, so if you take the electoral votes from those three states and re-allocate them to Hillary, Trump ends up with 258, Hillary 273 - and Hillary wins.)

So Trump won the electoral vote by a razor thin margin that no poll is accurate enough to predict with certainty. The outcome was within the margin of error.

By analogy, imagine that the weather forecast called for a 60% chance of sunshine. Now imagine that everyone in the news media confidently went outside for a party, with no umbrellas, because we know it will be sunny today and rain would just be crazy. And then it rains. Was the forecast flawed? Or were people just in denial about what the forecast was telling us, that sunshine was likely, but there was still a real, meaningful chance of rain? I would argue in 2016, it was the latter.

By the way, please do not think I am trying to argue that Trump did not legitimately win the 2016 election, or anything like that. I am in fact admitting that the media was biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. They had a hard time imagining that such a non-establishment, bigoted candidate like Trump could win in spite of the polling data that suggested he could. What is interesting is that in the Democratic primary of 2016, the media kept repeating the message that Hillary had the best chance of winning, even though polling data showed Bernie doing better in a matchup with Trump than Hillary. Again, with Bernie as with Trump, people in the media have a hard time imagining the stupidity and inconsistency of the American voter, and will go with their instincts rather than let the data be their guide. I myself have the same bias. But we trust that bias at our peril.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Pretty much this.
I think that the Republicans have avoided hammering Comrade Sanders because he would be easy to beat.
Once the attack ads and "The commies are coming! The commies are coming!" ads get in full throat he'd be doomed.
Tom

Well, let me challenge you on that a little bit by asking a question: is this expectation based on your experience and instincts?

Follow up question: after 2016, why would you trust your experience and instincts as a predictor? One could have argued in 2016 that the Democrats were avoiding hammering Trump at first because he, too, would be easy to beat.

Personally I wonder if people who follow politics (like us) put more weight on things like whether someone is a lying bigot or a Communist, while the voting public puts more weight on things like the cost of drugs and healthcare and just want "change". They were to some extent cheated, and to some extent simply lost, when Bernie lost the nomination in 2016. Some of them stayed home and it appears a small number of them actually voted for Trump, who outflanked Hillary on the left on a number of issues (trade, closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, etc.) Trump was a substitute for Bernie in a very narrow sense, that they both represented "change" and an appeal to populism. Clearly Trump and Bernie are extremely different but they did share that thin thread.

Did you know that as recently as January 2019, 70% of Americans favor the federal government doing more to help provide health insurance to Americans? This includes 40% of Republicans. Think about where the Overton window is for a population like that, and how different it is from the Overton window among prominent politicians. You have basically 0% of Republican politicians and what seems like only 50% of Democratic politicians, so a total of perhaps 25% of all politicians, who are in step with 70% of the public. Think about that. No wonder curveball candidates like Trump and Bernie who appeal to "change" and populism keep doing better than expected. Source: Public Opinion on Single-Payer, National Health Plans, and Expanding Access to Medicare Coverage

 

[Revoltingest]

As well he should be. Ran across this just this morning. Scary stuff.

Well, there's Bernie's biggest problem....
If he embraces the term "socialism", & attacks the wealthy, but doesn't
defend capitalism, then anyone with access to a dictionary will see
him as wanting government's control of the means of production.
That's not the vaunted Scandinavian model....that's N Korea.
Perception drives votes.
This is how he appears to many.
If he believes otherwise, he'd have to make that clear, & do
so in a manner that doesn't appear hateful & threatening.

 

[columbus]

Well, let me challenge you on that a little bit by asking a question: is this expectation based on your experience and instincts?

Yes.
Both.

I am so old I remember when Jimmy "The Christian" Carter lost to a divorced Hollywood movie star, because Christians didn't want Christian values in the government.
That's also when I realized that the USA isn't a democracy when it comes to the POTUS.

Follow up question: after 2016, why would you trust your experience and instincts as a predictor? One could have argued in 2016 that the Democrats were avoiding hammering Trump at first because he, too, would be easy to beat.

Dang.
Yes.
I believe that in 2015, Billary owned the Democrats. They allowed Comrade Sanders to jump onto the Democratic bandwagon, and gave him a card, because they knew that he couldn't even win the Democratic primaries. But Comrade Sanders could float some political balloons, about health care and education and such, before Godzillary took on whoever won the Republican primaries. She could take the most promising socialist ideas and make them her own and run with them.

And yes,
I think that the Democratic party knew that Trump was easy to beat, which they did.

But they got so overconfident that they tried to flip states, instead of locking in states, and Putin/Trump/Pence wound up in the White House.

That's what I think happened. The party of Clinton got overconfident and got cooked by the party of Putin.
Tom


ETA ~And I fully expect the same thing to happen again in 2020.
People who don't want Trump will stay home or "vote their conscience", and Trump will be elected(for once). While everybody else behaves like cats in a bag, Trump will march to victory. That's what I expect from the people who oppose Trump. Finding reasons to vote for him while pretending that they didn't.~

 

[shmogie]

That's correct, no one can predict the future. That cuts both ways, though: you are predicting the future when you say Bernie can't win.

It is a common myth that is repeated in the media, and accepted broadly, that the polls in 2016 were way off. But they weren't. General polls showed Clinton had a slight edge within the margin of error, about 3%. That doesn't take into account the fact that a 3% edge for a Democrat in a general poll looks even worse on an electoral basis, since a lot of that 3% edge is lost in swing states with lower populations but higher electoral votes. So the polls indicated Clinton had an edge, but it would still be close - and both of those things came true. Clinton won the popular vote by a slim margin. And Trump won the electoral vote - that was by a wider margin, but importantly, it was largely due to winning in several key swing states by razor-thin margins.

For example: Trump won Michigan by 0.2%, the narrowest margin in history. For that he got 16 electoral votes. He won Pennsylvania by 0.7%, the thinnest margin in almost 200 years, which got him 20 electoral votes. He won Wisconsin by 0.8%, getting 10 electoral votes.

If those three states had swung the other way by less than 1% each, Hillary would have picked up those electoral votes and would have won the election. (Trump had 307 electoral votes and Hillary 227, so if you take the electoral votes from those three states and re-allocate them to Hillary, Trump ends up with 258, Hillary 273 - and Hillary wins.)

So Trump won the electoral vote by a razor thin margin that no poll is accurate enough to predict with certainty. The outcome was within the margin of error.

By analogy, imagine that the weather forecast called for a 60% chance of sunshine. Now imagine that everyone in the news media confidently went outside for a party, with no umbrellas, because we know it will be sunny today and rain would just be crazy. And then it rains. Was the forecast flawed? Or were people just in denial about what the forecast was telling us, that sunshine was likely, but there was still a real, meaningful chance of rain? I would argue in 2016, it was the latter.

By the way, please do not think I am trying to argue that Trump did not legitimately win the 2016 election, or anything like that. I am in fact admitting that the media was biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. They had a hard time imagining that such a non-establishment, bigoted candidate like Trump could win in spite of the polling data that suggested he could. What is interesting is that in the Democratic primary of 2016, the media kept repeating the message that Hillary had the best chance of winning, even though polling data showed Bernie doing better in a matchup with Trump than Hillary. Again, with Bernie as with Trump, people in the media have a hard time imagining the stupidity and inconsistency of the American voter, and will go with their instincts rather than let the data be their guide. I myself have the same bias. But we trust that bias at our peril.

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Interesting. I didn't say that comrade Bernie couldn't win, I said he had a slim chance to win.

If he is nominated, I think it is possible that he will wind like up McGovern.

It is all speculative monkey business, till the future, is now.