Political Discussion

dbarila said:
My takeaway is that I'd really be fine with any of the other 5 as the candidate.
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Some much more so than others, but yea I generally agree. Biden is very borderline.

Bernie and Warren I'd be happy to vote for, and same for Pete when it really comes down to it. Amy and Joe much less so, but dont think either would be terrible at the job.

But also I'd hang my head in shame and vote for Bloomberg over Trump if it came to that(it wont)
 
Woob_woob said:
Some much more so than others, but yea I generally agree. Biden is very borderline.

Bernie and Warren I'd be happy to vote for, and same for Pete when it really comes down to it. Amy and Joe much less so, but dont think either would be terrible at the job.

But also I'd hang my head in shame and vote for Bloomberg over Trump if it came to that(it wont)
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I saw an interview with Biden on MSNBC afterwards that was the most composed and thoughtful I've seen him throughout the whole campaign. It was the Joe I'd like to see in the debates.
 
i don't watch debates but i'm almost sorry i missed last night.
i needed some hope added to my day and by all accounts at least one billionaire pos was taken down a notch.
maybe i'll actually get to vote for someone i won't feel completely terrible about?
 
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Indymisanthrope said:
You gotta think Bloomberg this morning is really regretting his very public pledge of continued financial support to whoever the eventual Dem nominee is.
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Right! I was almost expecting him to yell fuck off, take his money and go home. The DNC is in a weird place too monetarily speaking, I have heard they are strapped for cash and are really in need of Bloomberg’s in flux of cash to compete with Trump’s war chest. Also, while I don’t appreciate the pro-Bloomberg commercials he’s running the anti-Trump commercials are pretty great.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I don't know. I'm not sold. Take this paragraph for instance:

I don't want to put words in the protesters' mouths, but it seems to me that this is exactly their point. She even said so: to her, there is no distinction. If Pete and Trump are the same, then Bloomberg is also the same. Racism is racism. Not all racism is wielded malevolently, but that doesn't make it not racism.

What Friedersdorf frames as "crying wolf" we could also call "declaring zero tolerance." Gone are the days of the culture quibbling over the threshold for acceptable levels of racist attitudes and actions; instead, we have turned to simply naming it for what it is. How people incorporate that information into their larger worldview and behavioral patterns is up to them; but the alternative, to go along to get along, has also ceased to be a winning strategy. In fact, naming racism and being a faction of dissent within the party has in some cases seen some concrete results in forcing candidates to do better in both word and action.

And here's the nut of it; I agree with the first half of this quote. After an unintended transgression, the message you see online is often "Person X is trash," in the parlance of our time, and not "Person X has a responsibility to understand why this is wrong and how to do better." But again, part of the trajectory that led us to this place is the growing impatience with being required to say these things. If Person X is thoughtful and putting in the work and doing their best, they will take the responsibility to learn and improve before they are told why or how. The responsibility is greater than it used to be: not just to learn and do better, but to do it proactively and without burdening affected groups with that task.

As for the second half of that last quote, I disagree, and I don't see any evidence that the electorate is growing less able to distinguish between transgressions. If anything we are developing a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of how things like racism don't only manifest in robes and segregation but also in the patterns of our speech and our latent attitudes about societal norms.

Are Pete and Trump and Bloomberg the same person? I think we would all say not. But their racism, when and where it reveals itself, is the same disease that afflicts all of us. The irony of being told that call-out culture is weakening the case against racism is that being tired of racism itself does nothing to prevent it.
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Agreed on all fronts

I had similar thoughts and feelings.

Edit: maybe where we differ? is that i have little faith that people can distinguish between the people in the current world, with the way we consume (but really don't consume) info.. everything is black and white thinking and people who can do so are becoming numb to everyone is terrible. i also think it's likely that there are people who buy into the thinking that if everyone is terrible no one is and so i do agree with the premise that an environment is created with that thinking that allows the Dems as a whole or Bloomberg individually to appear as equally shitty in some people's minds. People who probably have other unacknowledged reasons for thinking as they do.
 
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jaycee said:
i don't think that the people that this would be useful for are ever going to see it and this isn't in any way news or journalism but i got an of course chuckle out of it

www.politico.com

Who Said It: Mike Bloomberg or Donald Trump?

See how well you can tell the two septuagenarian New York billionaires apart.
www.politico.com www.politico.com
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I have to go shower now. I feel gross.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Yeah, I was second-guessing myself even as I wrote it. Those lines of thinking certainly exist, but I still can’t help but feel that there is a net positive outcome for the subset of people who have been stretching their perspectives because of these conversations.

Maybe I’m also just having a slightly-less-pessimistic-than-normal day today
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lolz - your lack of cynicism is worrisome ;)
 
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Indymisanthrope said:
Well now that I’m thinking about it more I also have to acknowledge that I think I just talked myself to some degree into the same position I was arguing against with @ayayrawn the other night, so maybe I’m just spinning contrarian nonsense idk.
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it's not nonsense and i was considering that too.

when all narratives are accepted as truthful how do we get the data and information that allows us to form an opinion that is both true and aligned with our individual morality???

when you figure that out please let me know

i was walking home and thinking about artists that are shitty even evil human beings but i still care about their art on some level and how different is this or that terrible behavior by a political candidate? yes they're very different arenas, and people who set and direct policy have an impact on our lives that is harder to avoid if we so choose to but where is the line? should there be a line?

I was essentially drawing a line at Trump while @ayayrawn and @DownIsTheNewUp was drawing a line at Bloomberg, and the point wasn't about the lines being right and wrong. The point is and was that there's privilege in where we are able to and choose to draw our lines.

Without diving too far into my beliefs about other potential lines between ignorance, racism, and white supremacy I basically feel like we are living in a moment where we are bombarded with choice in general and choice specifically about how we approach the horrible behaviors of people who are in power... even what power means.

It's pretty difficult to view Mike Bloomberg or Trump as a fellow human being. How can I have any empathy for these people whose lives are about hurting other people? Do they know that's what they do? I believe so. Is the institutional racism expressed by Pete Buttigiege any less racist? No. Is Amy Klobuchar's prosecutorial record any less racist? No... but i don't think of them like Trump or Bloomberg

I think I have to recognize that we have a tendency to rank these things so we can maybe not feel bad about ourselves for liking someone that is maybe not so great. I also need to recognize that this bombardment of choices and ranking of abhorrent behavior might make the offenses and real danger of Trump or Bloomberg seem less significant because most people are not sitting back and pontificating about this shit. how can you sort this out, even for yourself, when you are busy just trying to exist and pay your bills?

sorry for the long-winded, stream of consciousness post... i have little faith that any of this is going to be resolved with some coalescence around a dem candidate... i hope that people continue to think about their privilege and call this shit out and maybe at some point our political systems will be comprised of people that make different choices
 
I appreciate the conversation that took place today. I personally think there is a distinction between say Pete’s awful handling of his police department and / gentrification versus Bloomberg and Trump’s more blatant variety. But I also don’t blame black or Latinos for feeling differently and always try and listen to their opinion as a tool to framing my own.

On that note, I posted this to Facebook before yesterday’s debate to a very agreeable response (anybody that disagreed remained mute, but my Facebook is also almost entirely made up of under 40ers minus some family)...:


“If Bloomberg is elected It will codify the U.S. as an oligarchy. And while Bloomberg might be more palatable because of the subtly of his racism and disregard for civil liberties, that will also make him a far more effective and savvy politician than Trump.

This is a guy who said Latinos and blacks don’t know how to behave in the work place (while racking up over 60 sexual harassment cases in his own workplace). Who was a Republican up until a few years ago. Who is handing a blueprint to other billionaires on how to manhandle our democracy. Who is mostly running to drive up the cost of campaigning for Bernie and Liz. Who is the antithesis of people funded campaigns.

You know what’s funny in a really twisted way? Everyone is all wound up about the fact that Trump might try and alter term limits right? Well Bloomberg actually did that shit! He altered the term limits he was allowed while mayor...

He also utilized policy that is just as racist (and authoritarian) as border camps (just less likely to bring to mind a certain war). And that policy was aimed at actual U.S. citizens, not undocumented workers.

That policy ballooned the prison population and more than a decade later he didn’t blink twice before exploiting that same prison population to make phone calls on behalf of his campaign.

Again, he is a more effective, cunning version of Trump. And anyone who supports him in the primary in the name of defeating Trump is a spineless hypocrite.”
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
he is a more effective, cunning version of Trump.
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this is how i've felt about Pence from the beginning and why i felt like any efforts to remove Trump from office and de-facto install Pence would be a win-win for Republicans and even more pain and suffering for the country.

it still wouldn't surprise me if Trump somehow bailed from the candidacy for whatever reason and Pence would be installed. it seems like it should surprise me given that we're only about 8 month from election day but if the left does somehow manage to coalesce around a progressive candidate and there is a real threat to this gang losing power ... well i'm pretty sure they'll fight in whatever way possible.

one of the things that i think we have to accept is that even with a progressive person in the white house and more progressive people in the congress and senate (IF that happens) that undoing what we're talking about undoing and re-doing is going to take more than a change in approach and policy... the money that we're talking about "undoing" is not going to go quietly into the night and the tools that maintain that power (the police for example) are not going to simply be converted to a new team.
 
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