Gazza M wrote:

Policy has never been something voters pay close attention to. I saw a tweet where exit polls in maine said most of bidens voters chose him because they thought he was for M4A

Yes, I've come to realise that too. Most voters seem to fixate on one or two policies come election cycle even though in focus groups they will indicate their approval on a policy by policy basis. It's odd but let's face the vast majority of public care much less about politics than those of us posting in this thread.

Most folks I talk to are t even looking deeply at policies. That Jones table would be utterly irrelevant. They are largely attracted to if the overall message resonates and if the candidates appear to be presidential. They will then take additional media guidance about if he or she is a risky candidate or not and be done. Actually the last point is typically the biggest factor

The people in my office are all mostly middle class and University educated, but I'd say 2/3rds of them are clueless when it comes to politics and vote superficially. Politicians have caught on to this which is why they've dumbed down their campaigns and speeches with catchy, repetitive, empty slogans and phrases like MAGA, build a wall, get Brexit done etc. It's more of a marketing campaign than anything.

I don't much like bill maher, but he did hit on this well when he interviewed bernie. He basically said bernie has everyone beat on policy, but is bad on messaging. if you could boil down your campaign to something that fits on a hat because that's about all americans can absorb, what would it be? Bernie proceeded to rant for a few minutes about the 1%.

I don’t think it’s the messaging. The messaging is very clear.
I think it’s the absolutist nature of Bernie’s approach and consequently that’s the lead his supporters follow. He is very dogmatic, believes that his policies must be delivered in a very particular pure way. I think this is why we see a lot of discussion on this forum about people like Warren being turncoats because they might be willing to negotiate certain positions on M4A etc., in order to make them politically viable. So they might be diluted from their Scandinavian form, but they would then be sellable to other democrats and consequently to Republicans.

I was listening to an interview today with Andrew Gillum. Sanders supported Gillum’s nearly successful campaign for Governor. But Gillum had a warning. He said that he noticed that as Sanders gained momentum last month, his campaign and surrogates became haughty. There was more of this talk of taking down the establishment, etc. That kind of talk is alienating. I agree. Sanders and his people need to learn the relationship-building side of politics. You need to build relationships to pass bills. You need to build relationships to have people who will drop out and endorse you. If you use a different lens to look at the last week, it’s not evidence of a conspiracy against Sanders. But rather evidence of Biden cashing in on his relationship building. Klobuchar campaigned for Biden in Minnesota. Who will campaign for Sanders?

Claudius wrote:

I think this is why we see a lot of discussion on this forum about people like Warren being turncoats because they might be willing to negotiate certain positions on M4A etc., in order to make them politically viable. So they might be diluted from their Scandinavian form, but they would then be sellable to other democrats and consequently to Republicans.

I think thats way off. The public support M4A. People are worried that Warren would do what Obama did and fold to the insurance companies.

If Warrens brand of watering it down was more palatable she wouldn't be losing so badly.

Claudius wrote:

I don’t think it’s the messaging. The messaging is very clear.
I think it’s the absolutist nature of Bernie’s approach and consequently that’s the lead his supporters follow. He is very dogmatic, believes that his policies must be delivered in a very particular pure way.

I mean Biden repeatedly tells people to fuck off and go and vote republican when they question his platform. He was cornered by veterans the other day who asked him about his war record and he went off on them. Imagine if there were footage of Sanders doing that. It would be rolling 24/7 on MSNBC. When people ask Biden about fracking and natural gas and immigration he tells them to vote for Trump if they want to be divisive. He's never made a single effort to attract independents and non-voters in his entire career even though they make up a bigger group than both parties combined, and there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that most of them will vote for him now as a consequence.

I think this is a really ridiculous critique to level at Bernie, at least specifically. Of course Sanders is going to stand out when he's opposed to so much of what the party itself finds acceptable. The reason he's polarising isn't because he's dismissive though, it's because his platform makes centrists feel like progressives and independents usually do by every other democratic candidate. That's a new feeling for a lot of them.

Spot on Klaus. Bernie has done everything possible to appeal to the Dem base over the last few years. He did around 3 times more rallies for Clinton than she did for Obama for instance. He's played ball since the 2016 election.

If there a lesson to be learned from Sanders and Corbyn its that compromise doesn't matter. Stick to your guns because no matter what you do the libs wont give you any credit for it.

Claudius wrote:

I was listening to an interview today with Andrew Gillum. Sanders supported Gillum’s nearly successful campaign for Governor. But Gillum had a warning. He said that he noticed that as Sanders gained momentum last month, his campaign and surrogates became haughty. There was more of this talk of taking down the establishment, etc. That kind of talk is alienating. I agree. Sanders and his people need to learn the relationship-building side of politics. You need to build relationships to pass bills. You need to build relationships to have people who will drop out and endorse you. If you use a different lens to look at the last week, it’s not evidence of a conspiracy against Sanders. But rather evidence of Biden cashing in on his relationship building. Klobuchar campaigned for Biden in Minnesota. Who will campaign for Sanders?

How does that differ to Trump's single-mindedness or his draining of the swamp?

Its nonsense. The other dem candidates aren't campaigning against Bernie cos he's not friendly enough. They are campaigning against him because of his policies. And not even because they care about the policies but because their donors care.

Trump should not be a standard for anything. Even pigs would shun a trough he’d been in.

Warren is gone. Let’s see if Sanders picks up all her votes.
Will miss her intellect and doggedness. Would love to have her running my country. Bad chick!

Except if you're native american. Or hate war. Or just want forceful action on progressive issues rather than a bunch of compromises really. Aside from that she was great though.

How does the NY Times publish tripe like this with a straight face?

Can you describe Warren as pro war? I read up on an article that suggested her views are closer aligned to her 'establishment' counterparts and while there were some ugly comments, particularly on the Israel-Palestine conflict, I didn't see anything in there that was particularly hawkish.

Klaus wrote:

How does the NY Times publish tripe like this with a straight face?

Because we live in a time when every newscast includes an update on the financial markets. Tell me, Klaus, what’s the fucking purpose of telling the world that the Dow is up or down 1% every hour on the hour? It’s possibly the worst and most destructive allocation of news time I can imagine.

Claudius wrote:

Because we live in a time when every newscast includes an update on the financial markets. Tell me, Klaus, what’s the fucking purpose of telling the world that the Dow is up or down 1% every hour on the hour? It’s possibly the worst and most destructive allocation of news time I can imagine.

Seriously. What a waste of life, and straight poison to democracy.

jones wrote:

I don't expect a warren endorsement any time soon. She's being advised by some fishy characters and took a chunk of change from a mysterious PAC in the last week. Either there won't be an endorsement at all, or she'll endorse biden when bernie is completely finished and there's no spotlight on her to make a choice between them

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC

Today is a hard day for so many people who love and respect @ewarren and admire her campaign - and I include myself in that. Elizabeth Warren is a progressive lion, a champion for working families, and her commitment to inclusivity is exemplary. Thank you for being a role model.

^^

That's how you include people.

I don't think there's much love lost between the sanders and warren camps. They may both be 'progressive' but the way in which they go about achieving their aims is different. Bernie has never really attacked her, but by virtue of being his authentic self and being further left, comparatively makes warren appear to be the watered down version. It puts her choices in a poorer light. if bernie hadnt run again,  she might've skated on choices like taking PAC money. Warren supporters would argue that bernies pure, uncompromising approach was always doomed to fail and the the incremental approach adopted by warren is the winning strategy. Fron what I've seen I'm not convinced that had bernie not run, warren would've able to garner the energy and enthusiasm required to be the nominee. we've also seen that it doesn't take much to make her compromise her positions

Conversely, we've seen Bernie in two elections now. He's lost one and based on the upcoming states, he looks very likely to lose another. So he doesn't necessarily have a winning formula himself

Not the first time Warren's had to leave a race.

Oof.

That whole thing has been understated to be honest, really quite reprehensible that she got herself special placements etc based on a fundamentally false account of her heritage.

Claudius wrote:

Conversely, we've seen Bernie in two elections now. He's lost one and based on the upcoming states, he looks very likely to lose another. So he doesn't necessarily have a winning formula himself

No argument there. We'll never know what the last 4 years would look like had warren shown the gumption to compete with clinton in 2016 like bernie asked her to. arguably another mark against her, and to me, hints at what will be her strategic attitude towards handing out any 2020 endorsements

Its’s telling that she didn’t immediately announce an endorsement. I suspect ideologically she sympathizes with Bernie more than Biden. Her track record shows that. But she also has deeper networks within the party and might see logic in letting the race run its course with Biden destined to win. That also opens up potential senior government roles for her.

As for question of where Warren support will go, I’ve looked in a couple of places. The newspapers like Washington post are inconclusive, but Morning Consult has Warren second choices as 35-25% for Bernie over Biden. Its 2/3 mix versus the typical 100% myth purported by Sanders advocates. If we redid the maths for Super Tuesday, it would help Bernie but not by a whole lot. For the next set of contests, that ratio might be narrowed further by the perception that Biden is the favorite.

[Twitter]

Ain't no endorsement coming from her. She's gone full HRC with the tut-tutting about internet trolls. This is the shitty part of politics when someone as fundamentally decent as sanders just gets cheapshotted by hypocrites from all angles.

She was never in it for the issues. She's just like the rest of them. I wouldn't have voted for her in a million years if she'd come through our political system; indeed I would have discouraged people from doing so. She's so far beneath any acceptable standard that I demand from a politician and a human being.

Burnwinter wrote:

Oof.

That whole thing has been understated to be honest, really quite reprehensible that she got herself special placements etc based on a fundamentally false account of her heritage.

I follow a couple tribal scholars on twitter and there's great frustration among them over how liberal media doesn't talk to them, doesn't even talk about them, it's all been hushed up. No adequate apology from Warren, no dialogue. It follows a consistent line where they are made invisible to everyone except when people want to score political points off them. When Warren published that DNA test which showed homeopathic levels of ancestry every shithouse liberal was: "Gotcha Trump!" They never understood the issue or the damage their behaviour did to indigenous communities. Tribeswomen and men had told her for decades before she ever took that test to stop claiming native identity, that it's not just a question of blood. She never listened.

Since the day she began her campaign native american journalists have been triyng to raise awareness about how they feel about having a presidential candidate behaving like this, and they've been relentlessly attacked by - mostly white - Warren supporters for it. You'd think there was a bigger story in there than in the Bernie voters who were telling Michael Bloomberg to eat shit.

Klaus wrote:

Burnwinter wrote:

Oof.

That whole thing has been understated to be honest, really quite reprehensible that she got herself special placements etc based on a fundamentally false account of her heritage.

I follow a couple tribal scholars on twitter and there's great frustration among them over how liberal media doesn't talk to them, doesn't even talk about them, it's all been hushed up. No adequate apology from Warren, no dialogue. It follows a consistent line where they are made invisible to everyone except when people want to score political points off them. When Warren published that DNA test which showed homeopathic levels of ancestry every shithouse liberal was: "Gotcha Trump!" They never understood the issue or the damage their behaviour did to indigenous communities. Tribeswomen and men had told her for decades before she ever took that test to stop claiming native identity, that it's not just a question of blood. She never listened.

Yup. There's also a general issue about "one drop of blood" logic in white hands, it's part of the eliminationist settler-colonial tradition to deny indigeneity when people have mixed ancestry, so it becomes even more troubling when people who are settlers try to reverse that to claim special privileges or appropriate indigenous culture based on one (imaginary or otherwise) ancestor.

We have the same problems for the same underlying reasons here with rural landowners or righteous academics who have mysterious "Aboriginal ancestors" ... whether or not they're right, they're usually trying to occupy both sides of the fence, implicitly gaining from white privilege at the same time as delegitimising the claims of those who can't with their protean Aboriginal identities that aren't linked to any community or country.

There are a lot more layers to it than that, don't want to flatten out the issue unnecessarily. If anyone's got a few spare hours I highly recommend Patrick Wolfe's book TRACES OF HISTORY, which compares different racist dynamics in the USA and Australia.

The business with Warren may have more context than I understand, but to me it seems like a serious failure of character.

MSNBC’s Brian Williams & NYT Editorial Board Member Mara Gay....

Claudius wrote:

Trump should not be a standard for anything. Even pigs would shun a trough he’d been in.

It's a genuine question. I read this thread with interest as I don't know a lot about American politics. 

So i'm interested as to why this is seen as a negative for Sanders, and something he needs to learn from, whereas it worked for Trump?

JazzG wrote:

MSNBC’s Brian Williams & NYT Editorial Board Member Mara Gay....

Sweet Jesus.  NYT is embarrassing these days

Tam wrote:

Claudius wrote:

Trump should not be a standard for anything. Even pigs would shun a trough he’d been in.

It's a genuine question. I read this thread with interest as I don't know a lot about American politics. 

So i'm interested as to why this is seen as a negative for Sanders, and something he needs to learn from, whereas it worked for Trump?

Burnsy put it succinctly a few pages back. If you're going the populist route, you need to be uncompromisingly outside the political establishment and appear to be unstoppable. It worked for trump because he had  never run for office and was willing to risk burning every republican bridge and throwing all decency and decourm into the bushes. And in spite of that, he kept winning. Its not a master strategy,  and lets not forget he only just barely won the electoral college against a very unpopular opponent in HRC. Bernie is a career politician and despite being anti-establishment, still has relationships in the party built over many years. he's always stopped short of completely throwing the DNC under the bus

Look, it’s a very good question. I don’t think I have a perfect answer but I will try.

Why Trump works.
We know that Trump has managed to excite and consolidate white voters who trust in his nationalistic ideas. Recent research also points towards a clustering of white voters on the right with large similarities in beliefs/interests on nationalism, evangelicalism, and other issues like guns, abortion and economic principles. They’re also informed by similar news souecss so easy to control information flow to them. From a government standpoint, once Trump was in power, the senators and congressmen have sought to use him to protect current and future interests like judges, taxes, etc. They can ride their consolidated base to ride our election victories in swing states with a minority of votes.

Democrats, on the other hand, are more diverse. AOC has said that in another country she and Biden wouldn’t be in same party. I mentioned that this is a party that includes black social conservatives. It also includes folks who are liberal on both social and economic issues. It’s in effect 2 or 3 European parties. So while Sanders has great ideas, he still has to master how to sell them to this diverse coalition so people feel included and accept him as the new power center. I think that includes steps like

• being willing to make some concessions on M4A if necessary. The end goal is coverage for all Americans. Work with others toward the goal
• do not be as dogmatic. Eg this week made clear VP candidate will be an M4A supporter. A VP is a great way to build your coalition. Instead he’s using it to further create an us versus them division which doesn’t work in a diverse coalition.

There is also an interesting aspect of vocal minority of Sanders supporters. I hear a lot of sexist rhetoric towards Clinton and Warren which is not dissimilar to Trump, Obama, Biden, Buttigieg supporters etc have not had similar use of language like snake, crooked, etc., when discussing these women. It’s well researched that women politicians have a higher trust hurdle, but it’s interesting to see how they’re portrayed indifferent spheres.

You keep repeating the Bernie bros point. Why does it matter? Nobody cares that Warren's supporters actively attack native Americans as Klaus pointed out earlier. Nobody cares that Bidens base literally would support Trump over Sanders but the latter is taken into sippenhaft for some teenagers posting stuff online

American politics are so farcical it takes the piss. Electability depends on what people post online anonymously. Politicians can drop out of the race and endorse someone else the same fucking day and large parts of their support actually follow their recommendation instead of making up their own mind. And the biggest newspaper and channel in the country can't count for shit