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Just curious who everyone is supporting and why. From where I'm sitting it's kind of funny that the party of diversity is down to all white as well they are the party of no genders yet they are fighting over which of the two genders have a better chance of winning.

So basically ... I want to look past the humor of the situation and try and see who and why you are supporting them? If your answer is because I hate Trump then please don't answer. We have enough threads bashing him already. Besides that takes no thought. I really am curious what the candidates bring for you as a democrat as I have to believe some of their ideas are pretty far out there ... even for you.   

Nobody is fighting over gender.  That is manufactured.

I will be voting in the republican primary this year, however,  if I was voting in .the democratic primary it would be either Sanders or Bloomberg.

Are you saying there isn't a giant movement about there being more than one gender?  Because if anyone is manufacturing it, it's guys like Bill Nye.

I'm not.  I'm saying that the question of "can a woman be president" like it's some Bernie vs. Warren thing is manufactured.

Some misunderstanding.  Nobody gives a shit.  Of course a woman can be president.  Bernie isn't a misogynist.  Warren isn't anti-Bernie.  CNN just wasted everyone's time with tabloid style questions, because they did a hack job of coverage.

This goes beyond CNN questions. They had words backstage.

Yeah, I agree with you there.

It doesn't matter if they did.  It's a non-issue.  It's two old people mis-remembering a conversation they had months ago. 

Bernie either didn't say it or he mispoke or they miscommunicated his idea or maybe he said it and forgot.  That happens to me all the time. 

But the content is that it doesn't matter.

To get back to the OP's question, I could support Biden or Bloomberg.  My main reason for supporting any candidate is the ability to work with the other party to get things accomplished for the WHOLE country, not just the extreme bases on either side.  It's like Mick Jagger said "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need".  There are currently too many people in Congress, on both sides, that if they can't get what they want, then their answer is NO to everything.

I just don’t see any of these democratic candidates beating Trump. They don’t have anyone with any substance. This election will probably come down to the devil we know.

i like Sanders. he's one of the few on the democratic side with substance. He's for things .. he's been for the same stuff for decades and he hasn't changed his position.

Stuff i like specifically:

corporate money in politics - sanders doesn't take lobbyist money. When he votes for a bill or against a bill he doesn't do it because he was bribed to by a lobbyist sent by a big corporation vested in the bill outcome. I'm against bribery. Our political system is rife with bribery. This is the most important issue in politics today.

medicare for all - This is a key issue for me, it's beyond logic that the US is the richest country on the planet, pays the most for health care per capita, and has measurably worse health outcomes. The rest of the world with similar economic power per capita has any number of flavors of universal health care either paid for or heavily subsidized by taxes. This doesn't happen if insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies can bribe politicians to protect them.

ending foreign wars - yep .. 2 trillion spent in Afghanistan .. that pays for every student loan debt dollar and then some, This doesn't happen if the weapon companies and bankers can bribe politicians into protecting them.

Those are my top 3, I'm a fan of high income taxes on the upper earners, i'm a fan of capital gains taxes or speculation taxes. I don't want a milquetoast democrat that'll hold a hand out to the republicans just to get it slapped over and over again, like Obama did. I want a democrat that will champion the people and not the corporations. Someone who will actually fight the republicans instead of folding like a cheap lawn chair.

Biden is out.. hard pass - he's bought and paid for
Bloomberg is absolutely out - he's the problem
Steyer is okish - he's been consistent for years
Warren is okish - I'm not a fan of her M4A transition plan but she's good with taxes
Butigeg is out - he's bought and paid for
Yang is interesting - but uninspiring and has no track record
Sanders is my choice

I want Warren gone.

She's a poor man's Bernie, with fewer people interested in her, but mostly the same message.  But he got that corner of the market first, his message is simpler, etc.

Once she's gone, this will become a clearer picture.


I see it as basically a 3-way race: Biden, representing the old guard that is comfortable.  Bernie is the change candidate.  And then one of either Buttigieg/Bloomberg/Yang/...maybe Steyer.  Who is maybe considered moderate, but it less known.

Democrats? None. A 2nd Trump term is fine with me. Besides all the infighting, manufactured outrage from the left and media. Our country is doing well. All my accounts look fabulous and are soaring. The economy is doing good. And I feel the country is strong.

Make no mistake though. Just like fucking Becky Sue on prom night, got to know when to pull out. We have a recession every 10-15 years, so we're overdue. It's a cycle and it's gonna happen regardless, especially with this long of a run up. The housing market especially. I feel sorry for anyone that bought a house anytime after 2013-2014. They gonna take a beating and better sell before the bubble pops. Now's the time to sell. If the economy holds until the election and any current democrat wins it's going to advance the process immediately. Then it's game over for the next 4-6 years if not longer and a lot everyday people will lose their ass. The recovery will be slow. Anyhow that's my take.

Surprised to hear you say this, as I would say something near the opposite.

Warren and Bernie are fairly close on policy - I agree with Warren on some bits and with Bernie on others - but Bernie's ideas of how to enact them are absurd.  Bernie is supposed to be the candidate of bold change, yet he is against ending the legislative filibuster and against adding seats to the Supreme Court.  Without those actions, 1) he will never get anything passed and 2) SCOTUS will strike down whatever he does get through.  For example, the idea that President Bernie will somehow pressure Mitch McConnell into not-filibustering voting rights legislation - when the passage of said legislation will directly lead to Republicans losing - is a nonsensical fantasy.

Warren is one of the few candidates left who recognizes that we are in a new political era.  There are no more "political norms"; there are people who are willing to use all the tools available to them, and there are people who are not.  Mitch McConnell is one of the former, and he has been the most effective politician of our lifetime.  Bernie has the right policy goals, but he's living in a dreamworld when it comes to how to achieve them.

To me, the biggest thing we need to tackle is money in politics.  It is screwing up everything for every side.  It's affects both the right and the left.  All of our politicians, regardless of issues, have to depend on corporate money to get things done. 

That's preventing anything from changing.  I think Bernie is the best person to tackle that issue.

Warren, while fine, is less electable, in my opinion.  And she's not polling as high.  So, I'd rather have her gone and bump Bernie's numbers.

I agree with you on that point. I think single biggest thing would be term limits. It would solve a lot of our problems. However, I don't think very many of the cows in congress will vote for their own slaughter. Funny how you can have term limits on the POTUS but none on the very people entrusted to pass the laws. It's a big con game and they're all in on it.

Term limits without getting rid of the money absolutely won’t fix the problem...in fact it will shift more power to well funded lobbyists. 

term limits for the president also had to involve an amendment to the constitution, otherwise good luck

I think Bernie has a big blind spot when it comes to money in politics, which we're seeing at play this year.

Bernie is against corporate donations, under the premise that donations buy influence.  Fine.  But what we are seeing for the first time this cycle are billionaires that are accepting no donations at all and vastly outspending their competitors.  So in Bernie's world, where we don't have election reform preventing huge campaign spending but instead shame people into not accepting corporate donations, the only people who can run are a) billionaires or b) politicians who harvest enough donations from the working class to compete with billionaires.  I think that's even worse than the old system.

I just think we should publicly finance campaigns and shorten the cycle.  Running for president for 2 years is crazy shit.

I agree that campaigns should be publicly financed.  But until we get there, I don't think we should handcuff ourselves in the meantime by refusing all corporate donations.  Money is the single biggest factor in determining the outcome of an election (not the ONLY factor, just the biggest one).

i think publicly traded companies that are "entities" should be completely eliminated, a company is fine, private ownership is even better. But a company should have an owner or group of owners that are directly criminally and financially responsible for the company misdeeds. As it is now, CEOs bear no responsibility and shareholders even less so.

I couldn't agree more. I also don't how how to change it but it really, really, sucks to live in a state that is up for grabs because the tv ads for both sides are waaaayyyyy toooo much.

It is even worse living in a state not contest and knowing your vote and opinions are irrelevant.  I have lived in both.

I don't know how. We get hammered every commercial

Since streaming, I just don't see commercials.  Really, the only way I ever see commercials is with live sports.

I just saw a poll that said Bloomberg is leading the Dems in Florida. Is he someone that makes you excited to vote? Seems to me he is a far cry from Bernie Sanders.

I saw that poll .. there's a few issues with the reliability of it tho. It's a machine recorded poll that only calls land-lines. Which tends to skew the poll towards those that are older and more conservative.  With that in mind, sure .. bloomberg is up in florida.

He doesn't excite anyone, He's the only one spending tons of ad money in the state since he's skipping all primaries until super tuesday, so it's not surprising that he's got name recognition.

He doesn’t excite me.  But I think of all the candidates he has the best chance at attracting swing voters and moderate republicans.  And while I personally am more aligned politically with Sanders, I think a centrist might be what is best for the country rather than another swing on the pendulum.  And he is the only one who can outspend Trump in the general election.

Your analogy is correct, but your thinking is wrong.

Republicans swing to the right with regan/bush, dems swing back to the center with clinton, the republicans call the center the left and swing even further right to bush II, then the dems swing back to the center with Obama, Trump swings even further to the right of Bush II as a fake populist, then you wan't to swing back to the center again. The next time bloomberg would be called a communist, and we'd get a populist much further right than trump. Nominating a centrist is
a - a sure way to lose (see hillary),
b - a sure way to get someone even further to the right of trump next time when billionaire centrist policies don't make the poor white people any better off.

swing to the left for fucking once, we need FDR left right now, not a "democrat" that would be about as far right on the spectrum as Ronald Regan.

Not sure how you see Bloomberg as anything slightly close to Reagan. Just a few differences off the top of my head ... Bloomberg is anti-gun, a radical pro-abortion, and stands against people of faith.  Not anything I'd attribute to Reagan.

Perfect example of how far the right has swung on guns.  RR signed Mufurd act as governor (banning open carry in California) and supported both the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons ban.  Today the NRA would jump up and down screaming he is trying to take away all our guns.

Many weren't keen then either. He didn't pass any meaningful gun restriction law while he was in office. Reagan had mixed support on the 2nd amendment but he did believe Americans had the right to have guns.  Bloomberg thinks only the police should have guns.

Blatantly false.  He supports background checks, assault rifle ban (supported by Reagan) and banning high capacity magazines.  Not ending private ownership of guns.

Ugh .. not that I want to defend Bloomberg, but he isn't a radical on abortion .. he's pretty mainstream on abortion.

Also, where have you seen that he stands against people of faith. I don't see anywhere where he wants to do away with the first ammendment.

2008 Obama campaigned FAR to the left of Bill Clinton and - although certainly moderated in office - governed significantly to Bill's left as well, so I wouldn't characterize that as a swing "back to the center."

The reason why you don't traditionally see Democrats swinging hard left after losses (unlike the GOP which goes further and further right) is twofold:

1) Republicans have a monolithic (white hetero Christian) base, while Democrats have a very diverse base with many different priorities, so it's harder for the Dems to swing left in a way that placates all of their base at once
2) When Democrats lose, they try to triangulate and regain the voters they lost to Republicans, whereas when Republicans lose, they work to drive turnout with their existing base (see #1)

Jesus could descend on live television, resurrect 40 year old Ronald Reagan and give him fingers that shot bullet shaped jelly beans and promised to give every MAGA hat wearer a shiny red sports car that played the confederate battle song when they hit the horn and they'd still vote for Trump. Sometimes people are just too far gone and our country needs to be denazified.

I really don't think it matters who the candidate is, they are going to get blown out by Trump.  

I found a nice article written by a Democrat from a left leaning website who attended a Trump rally.  It is a nice read, even if you hate Trump with a fiery passion.  I think it paints a picture that the real assholes are the ones calling people racists for supporting something they don't agree with, among other things, mainly because of groupthink.  If anything, it is realistic, so prepare yourselves come November.  

https://gen.medium.com/ive-been-a-democrat-for-20-years-here-s-what-i-experienced-at-trump-s-rally-in-new-hampshire-c69ddaaf6d07 (https://gen.medium.com/ive-been-a-democrat-for-20-years-here-s-what-i-experienced-at-trump-s-rally-in-new-hampshire-c69ddaaf6d07)

I think the Democrats have an ass-kicking coming to them in November, and I think most of them will be utterly shocked when it happens, because they’re existing in an echo chamber that is not reflective of the broader reality. I hope it’s a wake-up call that causes them to take a long look in the mirror and really ask themselves how they got here. Maybe then they’ll start listening. I tend to doubt it, but I can hope.

And that my dear friend is exactly why you don't understand why people are voting for Trump. Few of us are voting for Trump the man. Your assessment is straight out of the vocal minority getting off on the TDS that you see on liberal TV. I'm guilty of it at times but honestly if we had a conservative politician with balls who has tact ... we'd be all over it.  Give me a Nikki Haley over Trump every day of the week.

I think "It was at a Trump rally that I realized it is the Democrats who live in an echo chamber" is one of the most amazing claims I've seen.  She should write for The Onion.

In 2016, with the most well-regarded GOP primary field in decades, Trump won your primary by a landslide.  He is EXACTLY what today's GOP is about.

Nikki Haley would not beat a Trump in a GOP primary on any day of the week.  Ted Cruz has balls and tact, and he got his face stomped in.  Trump called Cruz's wife ugly and his father a traitor, then put Cruz on the phones to campaign for him.  Cruz was humiliated by Trump, not just politically but personally.

I can relate to this.  I agree with most of what Trump has done as president.  However, he is an embarrassment as a human being.  He is petty, arrogant, unprofessional,  etc. etc. etc.   But I don't vote based on how likeable someone is.  I agreed with most of what Bill Clinton did during his presidency.  But he was a pretty loathsome person.  Jimmy Carter seems like one of the most decent and kind human beings on the planet.  But I also consider him the worst president in modern history.  Andrew Jackson was a total asshole.  But he is also one of my favorite presidents.   Unfortunately, civility is an increasingly rare trait in our society.  Sadly, politicians are a microcosm of society and civility is pretty much disappearing from the political landscape as well. 

Wow ... I had to look twice to make sure this wasn't my post. LOL ... I couldn't agree much more.

Trump won because he is so different. I voted for Rubio but supported Trump once he got the nod. I really don't think it helped anyone to have Rubio/Cruz and even Bush vs Trump because they split the votes until it was too late for any of them. I don't think you realize how much conservatives felt attacked during the previous 8 years but to have an "in your face" rebuttal to it is appealing for many. 

I'm all Bernie at this point.

Even though Buttigieg is too corporate dem for me, I like the package he comes in.  He is smart, measured, and eloquent, and I could get behind him in leadership.  I am hoping that he has room to grow as a person and politician.

The rest, I just hope doesn't get there.

Bloomberg is the worst.  I would legitimately rather run Bernie and lose than run Bloomberg and win.  It would be the death of democracy to have two billionaire candidates...especially since Bloomberg is literally just buying influence.  And Bloomberg is 100% a Republican.  He's just softened on some issues he probably doesn't care about so that he can get a change PLUS the GOP is some other perverted force that doesn't represent normal conservatism anymore, as has been said ad-nauseum.

Biden is a corpse.  You could probably tell him that he won and put him in a nursing home and he'd think it was the white house.

Warren reminds me of my old-kooky aunt.  She's a poor-man's Bernie, anyway.  Her platform is OK, but it's really just putting your toe in the Bernie-water. 

I really, really want Sanders to get the nomination and then America really has a choice of two differing ideas of what this country should be and what kind of person you want running it.  In fact, Sanders is so far out of the establishment, that I bet he appeals to some of those Trump voters who realize they got had.

I agree with Dave.

I'm blue no matter who*

* except Bloomberg.

This next debate should be interesting. I'm sure Bloomberg's comments on blacks, Latinos, farmers, and his sexist and misogynistic behavior will be brought front and center. I think the ratings for this one will be big.

Really?  You would take 4 more years of Trump over Mike?  Bloomberg isn't perfect, but give me whoever is behind door #2. 

I ultimately would vote for Bloomberg over Trump, but I do think that it might have a longer-term negative effect.  Bloomberg represents an oligarchy and really, it's the death of democracy.  Let's be honest -- he has no business being in this discussion, but he bought his influence.

Bloomberg is forfeiting the Democratic party and admitting that we are the new Republicans.  And the Republicans...what are they?  It is a long-term rightward shift.  He is most assuredly better than Trump.  But I think it might be two steps backwards.

I'll say it again.  Run Sanders.  Win or lose, you stand for something.  If you lose, you look back on your principles and you run whatever Sanders-equivalent again in 4 years, until people finally give you that swing back.  Otherwise, you're selling out to the corporations and the ultra-wealthy to buy influence forever.

We need to move towards simpler elections without money controlling everything.  Two billionaires facing off to represent the best interest of the other 99.9 percent is insulting to even the most basic idiot. 

What policies does Bloomberg have that I care for?  His stop and frisk policy? Maybe his opposition to a minimum wage? Bloomberg is the problem. When Bernie talks about the billionaires that buy elections .. Bloomberg is the poster child. At least Trump is an idiot. We don't have that luxury with Bloomberg.

A couple of thoughts...

1) You may be confusing Bloomberg the New York mayor with Bloomberg the Presidential candidate. If you think his Presidential election platform will be identical (or even similar) to what he ran with in NY, I think you're wrong.

2) You may not appreciate money's place in a capitalist society, but money buys radio time, TV time and column inches, and those are necessary to win a general election. And, for what it's worth, Trump is actually the poster child for that niche.

3) In what world is idiocy a luxury?

Are you saying Bloomberg is magically a different person now or that he will find ways to hide it now that he knows he needs those same people?

First off no one thinks Trump bought a presidency. Well ... they probably do now just so they can justify Bloomberg just as you did. If Bloomberg was to win then like Dave says ... what democracy we have left would end. If only mega rich people can win an election then we (liberals, conservatives, and independent alike) are really screwed

If you're telling me that "family values conservatives" voted for an immoral idiot (that represents virtually everything they supposedly are against) just because it feels good to own the libs... yeah, I realized that.

You want to excuse your vote in the general election as saving the republic from the evil she-demon?  Fine.  But that does not explain at all why Trump crushed your primary.  You all nominated Trump because, at the end of the day, conservatism is not about tax policy or family values or any of that nonsense.  It's strictly about nursing your grievance with the left, and whomever "triggers the libs" is who will get the right's votes.

Please stop with this nonsense.  It was dumb when people said there would be no difference between Gore and Bush, it was dumb when people said there would be no difference between Hillary and Trump, and it's dumb to say there will be no difference between Bloomberg and Trump.

I'm pretty sure that if swastika-waving Nazis drive a car into a group of protesters and kill people, Bloomberg will not insist that "very good people were on both sides."
I'm equally sure that Bloomberg will not direct DHS to start stealing children from lawful asylum-seekers, then deport their parents with no record of how to reunite them with their children.
I'm 100% positive that Bloomberg will not withhold funds appropriated by Congress in an attempt to extort a foreign government into interfering with an election.

Give me a break with this purity BS.  If your candidate is so bad that he can't win a liberal primary against Mike Bloomberg, he would lose to Trump in the general election anyway and you should be glad a better candidate is there to hopefully stop his re-election.

And one more thing:

This is called "reaping what you sow."

Instead of fighting to, say, limit the amount campaigns can spend, Bernie - who gets more small-dollar donations than anyone else, by a wide margin - instead chooses to demonize accepting corporate contributions, so he can use all the money he harvested from the working-class and outspend everyone else in the Democratic primary.  Well, guess who never needs to accept corporate donations, or any other kind of donations?  Billionaires like Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer.  Bernie's self-serving approach to campaign finance made it EASIER for billionaires to parachute in and buy the primary.

Lol ... You live in a miserable world don't you? I had no idea you only vote for your "perfect" role models.  I've already explained most of us didn't vote for "Trump the man" and Dolphster backed me up. Trump has my back as far as I'm concerned because he is supporting my agenda. As a God fearing Christian I'm not going to look to my pastor if I need military action. I'm going to find a military man who will fight for me and I couldn't care less if he cusses, smokes dope, and is a little misogynistic as long as he gets the job done.

BTW ...Bloomberg got smacked down last night from what he should have expected. He seemed surprised. Another performance like that and he isn't coming back IMO.

In terms of the debate:

Warren gained the most.  She looked full of passion and her attacks on Bloomberg were absolutely brutal.  Worse yet is that he had no rebuttals.  He just took it.

Bloomberg was awful.  He had almost no good answers.  I don't doubt that might be an OK guy, but he just doesn't represent my views at all on many of these issues I care about.  Of course he'd be better than Trump, but I think it would ultimately harm what I am looking to accomplish to put a guy like that in, only to incrementally correct Trump (and not even to the levels of the other corporate Dems before.)

Pete is the best debater.  His answers are great and he seems really intelligent and able.  I would trust him as a leader.  However, I just don't agree with his middle-ground approach.  It's as simple as that.  I wish he were more in line with my views, because I really like him.

Amy kinda got lost last night.  She's kinda like Pete, but not as eloquent.  I don't think she helped herself, but she didn't perform poorly.

Biden, who I've been pretty critical of, was actually OK last night.  I think he's old and out of touch and is trying to channel Obama.  I just don't think it's what people are looking for.

Bernie benefited from Bloomberg being in the room.  All of his income inequality stuff hits harder when he's standing next to an out-of-touch Billionaire that is taking heat from everyone on the stage.  Bernie is a known quantity, so there are no surprises.  I think it's telling that the knock against Bernie isn't really what he's saying, but it's just that "people aren't ready for it". 

Never, in one million years would I ever vote for Bloomberg. He would do more damage to america if he won long term than 4 more years of Trump. It wouldn't just be the damage that trump does directly. It's that he would move the "left" right into the center right. And the right would go even further right to compensate. We need a steep correction to the left. Bloomberg would make it impossible for at least 20 more years

First off, the overwhelming majority of Republicans did vote for "Trump the man" in the primary, with many other solid conservative options available.

But more importantly, why shouldn't we on the left take the same approach you are rationalizing?  We're not voting for Angel-in-Chief either.  So why should we care about whether our candidates are socialist Kenyan Muslims as long as they'll pass laws we like and appoint judges we like?  Taking your approach, I shouldn't even care who wins the Dem primary, because I'm not voting for a mentor or a role model.

What you are describing is what happens when Republicans win.

If you want to push Dems to the left, you won't be able to do that when the voters - by electing Republicans - are saying the Dems are already too far to the left.  After Nader helped Dubya beat Gore, we didn't get a strong progressive candidate in 2004; we got a centrist that voted for the Iraq War.

You don't win by losing.  Things only get worse.

Weird part about this is Warren isn't losing voters to Bloomberg. She's losing them to Bernie but pretty much helped him out and left Bernie alone.

Personally I think Bernie will be the nominee unless they just decide to choose someone else. With that said I honestly believe there is a large amount of Dems who will not vote for Bernie. Considering the low rating for capitalism among Democrats these days it wouldn't surprise me to see that party splitting soon. Might be a good opportunity for a third party to be relevant.

Unfortunately, context and the full transcript matters more than feelings and opinions. You know, there can be bad people and good people at rallies and protests, they are not mutually exclusive. This kind of twisting of the facts is precisely the reason that the Democrats can't be taken seriously and will probably lose to Trump again. And then subsequently proceed to go ape shit 2.0

Boom, headshot.  Y'all have been on that tip about the good people on both sides thing and of course it was taken out of context. 

Most of their big "aha" moments about Trump are just exaggerations of things taken out of context.

Such nuance!  There were many perfectly good people marching next to the people waving the swastika flags, and they didn't even have swastika flags or drive a car into a crowd of people!  Yet the biased fake news liberal media would have you believe that every conservative there was a neo-Nazi, when almost none of them call themselves "neo-Nazi"!  (Including the ones waving swastika flags)

Here's a crazy idea from a radical leftist: if you're marching with people waving swastika flags, everyone else marching with you seems to be cool with it, and your response is not "I need to GTFO of here immediately" but rather "This is acceptable," you're a Nazi-sympathetic dirtbag, not "very fine people."

But please, give me more of your valuable insight into the flaws of the Democratic field.

I guess the same holds true when some misguided wingnut liberals are protesting alongside the terrorist organization ANTIFA who are hitting people with bats and bricks. I guess according to your theory, they're all domestic terrorists. You're logic is silly and ridiculous.

pondwater, I don't think you can look at those quotes alone, without looking at when things were said. His initial comments were going after "this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides", where he repeatedly said "many sides". This initially creates a false equivalency on how the neo nazi's are being compared to the other side. Somehow saying both sides are acting the same, which is obviously not the case.

His aides tried to get him to put out another speech because of his obvious blunder in the previous address. He later came out with another speech saying "Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups". If you believe the Bob Woodward book, you'll see that Trump thought it was a mistake to put out a speech like that.

The next day, he said "I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis or the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally". But, in the next sentence or so he said "there’s blame on both sides . . . very fine people on both sides.".

So, it isn't just what he said, it's when he said it, what he thought of what he said, and who forced him to finally say things.

Another innovation of the Trump wing: we can no longer universally agree that Nazis are bad.  Instead, it's a partisan political negotiation, where in order for you to condemn Nazis, first I have to condemn Antifa or BLM or some other left wing group that, you know, HASN'T killed millions.

I'd feel pretty ridiculous if I saw the need to defend people waving ISIS flags by saying, "But what about abortion clinic bombers?" ISIS is bad, and anyone who marches with people waving ISIS flags is an idiot or a dirtbag. This doesn't require a "but what about" disclaimer.

But just to be clear: if Mike Bloomberg were president, I would not need to do the same tap dancing that you are doing right now (and that conservatives have been doing since Trump's election), trying to thread some sort of needle about how not everyone marching next to the people waving swastika flags were themselves Nazis, or Well yeah, Nazis are bad, but what about the New Black Panther Party? I am confident that a President Bloomberg (or any other Democrat) would not feel the need to be Fair And Balanced when discussing the people marching next to swastika-flag-waving Nazis.

You are aware that the "Nazis" that killed millions don't exist anymore? The assholes you call "Nazis" are really just a sick misguided small fringe group. Kind of like the sick misguided "ANTIFA" assholes that go around beating people with bats and bricks. There are extreme groups on the right and the left. I'll be the first to denounce both of them. But let's be clear, there are good and bad people on both sides. What you seem to be doing is stereotyping everyone that doesn't agree with your agenda while giving a pass to the jackass idiots on your team. You seem to not have character or integrity in that regard.

Sorry, but when this "sick misguided small fringe group" has a rally with:

- hundreds of participants carrying torches while shouting "Jews will not replace us"
- armed partisans congregating in front of a Jewish synagogue
- a car being willfully driven at high speed into a crowd of protesters, injuring many and killing a young woman
- our head of state downplaying the significance of this event while insisting that there were good and bad people on both sides

...your "This is nothing" schtick doesn't work.

Furthermore, it is telling that you still refuse to simply condemn Nazis.  We've gone from "Well not all of them were Nazis" to "But what about Antifa?" to "There really aren't even that many Nazis so far."  Why is it so hard for the American right to simply say that "Nazis are disgusting and their ideology of hatred should be unequivocally rejected in our society"?  When your guys are flying the literal flag of Nazi Germany at political rallies, perhaps the time for dismissing the significance of Nazi influence on the right has passed.

I really don't even understand why you're arguing this point.  You're trying to make excuses for Trump when the reason I brought him up is to show that he's worse than the worst "Democrat" on the stage.  Are you saying that if the New Black Panther Party were to hold a rally in which one of them intentionally killed an unarmed woman and injured dozens of others, President Bloomberg would insist that both sides were to blame?  That's too absurd to even be worth discussing.

Nazis are disgusting and their ideology of hatred should be unequivocally rejected in our society.  They are responsible for the deaths of 11 million people.  Neo-Nazis are disgusting too.

Antifa, and in turn communism because that's what the majority of that fringe group believes, are disgusting and their ideology of hatred of anything right of far-left should be unequivocally rejected in our society.  Communism's death toll dwarfs that of fascism, and should be treated the same, if not worse.

I did back you up on your reasoning for voting Trump.  I probably should add just for context that I am a Libertarian at heart.  And I don't fit neatly into any specific category politically.  I have pretty much always been conservative on fiscal matters and foreign policy, but liberal on a lot of social issues.  For instance, I am pro business, somewhat hawkish on foreign policy (although I don't believe in getting into foreign conflicts that don't gain us anything), and hate our federal tax system like poison because I work for a federal law enforcement agency and every gov't entity wastes money like you would not believe  If they spent our money wisely, every single one of us would be paying at least 20% less in federal taxes.  However, having said that, I am an atheist, pro abortion, pro gay marriage, etc.  And in all honesty, the main reason I voted for Trump (and probably will again) is totally selfish.  I knew he would be very pro business and his approach would be great for the economy and the stock market.  I'm about 5 years away from an early retirement and the booming stock market is a big part of why that is possible.  My personal financial situation has boomed over the last four years and although it is admittedly selfish, I am not going to bite the hand that has been feeding me very well for the past 4 years. 

Only supporting more of what I had previously stated. You and I have many different views on things but voted for the same person and neither of us voted for "the man" himself.  Regardless of your social views ... you are a racist, sexist, homophobe to many on the left because you voted for him. LOL ... I follow a gay black man who supports Trump (more than I do) and he is called those same names so it's really hard for me to get bothered by it.

I don't know how much you can blame everyone that votes for and supports Trump. Some of them yes are going into it with eyes wide open. Others are victims for lack of a better word of Fox news propaganda. If that's the only channel you listen to and if you only listen to right wing talk radio, you'd be under the false impression that  Trump is the best president in the history of the country and that he's being unfairly prosecuted by a bunch of evil democrats that made everything up and are just out to get him because he's so good to everyone that it's making them look bad.

And that hillary is raping kids in the basement of a pizza shop.

Maybe, they hung out with Epstein on the lolita express enough to not rule it out, lol.

Let's skip past another round of "But what about Antifa/BLM/Occupy Wall Street?" and get to the point: I am 100% certain that, immediately following a rally in which an Antifa supporter drives into a crowd of pedestrians and kills a woman, no candidate on that stage would be talking about how there are "very fine people on both sides."

So I won't be forced into the unfortunate position you're in now, trying to argue that Antifa is technically worse than the Third Reich, all because the morally bankrupt clown in the White House feels compelled to stay Fair and Balanced when talking about his most overtly racist supporters.  Which is itself weird, because you guys insist over and over again that you don't look to Trump for moral leadership, yet instead of morally cutting him loose and strictly sticking to policy, you still reflexively defend him on stuff like this that has nothing to do with policy.

I thought we already established that was taken out of context by the left and twisted?  In the sentence before that, he'd already condemned the Neo-Nazis, and it wasn't about them when he said that.

Trump-“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group.  But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.  You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did.  You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”


I didn't say that, you're twisting words again.  First off, Neo-Nazis are a far cry from the Third Reich.  I would argue that Antifa is technically the same as modern day Neo-Nazis, just on opposite ends of the spectrum.  I would argue that Communism has a higher death toll than fascism, or that Mao or Stalin is at least as bad as Hitler.  But to compare Antifa to the Third Reich is just silly and a false equivalence.

That is a lot of assuming and twisting.  He literally said "Neo-Nazis bad" before the both sides thing, where he's talking about the people that weren't Nazis, but didn't want to get rid of the statue.

::)

Just one more thing, none of you that support the left have condemned communism.  Us right-ies have made it very clear that Neo-Nazis and fascism is terrible and do not in any way support it.   It is prevalent in your party as we speak.  Fascism isn't really a thing with politicians on the right.  You tell me which is more dangerous, some right fringe group that has no political foot hold, just a few crazies, or some left fringe group that has actual politicians that support something that has killed over 100 million people?

There's a communist running for president ? I'm not aware of any. I mean .. i guess technically the american communist party has a candidate, but does anyone know who it is or cares about it?

I also haven't seen any communist rallies have you ?

Dude seriously? LMAO ... you can call an orange a peach all you want but it's still an orange. Bernie and his distribution is a communist plot where only the politicians can be rich. He even reveres communist leaders.  It's so bad even other Democrats call him a communist. See James Carville as the latest example. hahaha

Anyone else find it funny that Bernie used to speak bad about millionaires and billionaires but since he has become a millionaire off the back of his constituents he's only attacking billionaires now ... hahaha.

Bernie isn't a billionaire, and he's not a communist. You can tell both of those facts but a - looking at his tax returns that he's released, and b - listening to what he says about the topic.

He's a democratic socialist. Calling him a communist would be like me calling you a heroin addict for taking some advil for a headache. Literally the exact same comparison.

Trump in practice is just as much of a socialist. Giving money to farmers because your stupid tariffs lost them all their customers is the literal dictionary definition of socialism. Giving subsidies to coal mine owners, or to the oil drillers is also socialism.

So take a step back and figure out if your whole communist plot is based on fact or if it's something percolating around in the right win news reverb dome you heard it in. I don't expect much, and I don't think it's your fault, i think we as a people have been constantly barraged with the notion that socialism for the rich is ok and it's only not ok when it's socialism for the not rich.

Oops ... I obviously meant millionaire since i said he no longer speaks bad about them since becoming one. The only thing separating him from communism is he says he did not agree with "concentration camps" of the Soviet Union but that was years ago. Once he gains the power he wants that may change as well.

Once again: with any decent human in the Oval Office, we would not need to try to parse exactly whom is being referred to as the "very fine people on both sides" during a press conference that was called to discuss a murder.  Because no decent human would feel compelled to shift blame towards the victims.

You directly stated that the "majority" of Antifa are communists, and that "Communism's death toll dwarfs that of fascism, and should be treated the same, if not worse." If communism is worse than Nazism (and fascism in general), and Antifa is equivalent to the communists, what other conclusion is there besides "Antifa is worse than the actual Nazis"?

That is, of course, literally true: the Third Reich no longer exists.  But I don't know if "Why are you making such a big deal? These are only neo-Nazis" is the rebuttal you really want to go with.

It's hard to say because the right's definition of "communism" is, shall we say, flexible. (And just to be clear: I think we can all agree that anyone sporting a swastika definitely supports Nazism, and anyone cool with marching next to people sporting swastikas is at least Nazi-sympathetic.)

When you say "communism," do you mean like the USSR, or Cuba, or Denmark?  I mean, you guys also consider Bernie a communist, right?  Is communist China's President Xi Jinping better or worse than Hitler?

At the end of the day, while you're still here arguing the finer points of Nazis vs. neo-Nazis in service of defending Trump, I'm confident I won't have to do the same for any candidate the Democrats nominate.

Fau, conservatives are sick and tired of the left calling everyone they disagree with Nazis!

But on a completely unrelated note, Bernie is totally a communist, and the communists were actually worse than the Nazis.

Anyway, as I was saying, Trump is just an understandable response to the non-stop unhinged attacks of the left!

How does saying there were fine people on both sides = victim blaming?


This is unimportant to the discussion.  I've clarified my stance on this, not going to play "ring a round the rosy" with you.


Again, twisting words.  You're a downright liar at this point.  They are a far car from the third-Reich were my exact words.  You're projecting things I didn't even say, and I doubt you're some kind of mind reader.  I portrayed my thoughts on that exactly how I wanted, so once again, not going to play ring around the rosy with you.


You can't just assume that.  ASSUME is all you do.  I'm sure there were people that were sympathizers, but I'm also sure there were people there marching for what they thought were right, as they didn't want a historic statue tore down.  That's a terrible problem with the left, they like to play these identity politics and put everyone in a box.


Would you like a list, or is this not even important to the discussion at hand?  Spin spin.  Bernie might be a communist, he's way too pro communist IMO and I think he's ultimately dangerous to the country.  He has a track record of of statements supporting terrible communist dictators over the years.


You already have to do that with people like Bernie and AOC as far as communism and socialism, which I'm also not a fan of.  Don't act like your party has some sort of moral high ground, they are more misguided than anyone.

I'm curious. When you are this ridiculous on purpose are just saying "I have nothing left to argue" or are you hoping someone will respond with something that you can argue?

OK ... gotta ask this. Bernie says Fidel Castro and communism is "not all bad". Considering thousands of Cubans have died as a result of him compared to the less than a hundred in the US from white supremacists I'm guessing you guys are pretty pissed. I mean Castro is 100 times as bad as those that Trump supposedly said the same thing. How are you handling that disappointment in your leading Democrat?

I'm sure Cuban refuges agree with Bernie 100% that it wasn't all bad.  ::)

i'm sure there were good people on both sides

I have read the entire transcript. 

In context, it was very clear he was trying to shift the blame for the violence towards those "on the left" that wanted to rename the park. 

You "read" the entire transcript and it was very clear he was trying to shift blame...you didn't hear the entire thing, which is what would be in context, no you read it.  So no, it was not in context, it was not clear, try again.

From a Democrat:

(https://preview.redd.it/ctd1vq16bwi41.jpg?width=640&height=786&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=74a63986150a5ddffc73db65fb9359c755764964)

^^^^ believe it or not, I am totally okay with the fact Powell and Sanders don’t see eye to eye on many issues.  I hope that if Sanders becomes president Powell and others challenge him when they disagree rather than roll over like the republican party has with Trump.

I was going to cite some direct quotes from the press conference, but then I saw this:


If you're going to say that the full written transcript no longer counts as "context," discussing Trump's statement is impossible.  The words mean the same thing when you read them as when you hear them; that's how written language works.  You are basically saying that any written record of his statement doesn't count.  Absurd.

If you are cool with marching next to someone waving a swastika flag because you want to protect a Confederate statue, your priorities and values are crystal clear.  But on the subject of playing identity politics and putting people in boxes:

Let me guess: when you call people communist, you aren't putting people in identity politics boxes because what you're saying is true?

Every so often, your hypocrisy hits a certain threshold where it's too blatant to ignore.  But let me explain in slightly more detail:

You guys complain all the time about "the left" calling you racists and Nazis.  And I'm not talking about objecting on the merits; i.e. explaining why your position is not racist, or not Nazi rhetoric.  No, I'm talking strictly about whining about being "attacked" (and "identity politics," or "labeling people").  You did it earlier in this thread, when you rationalized support for Trump as somehow justified by all the "attacks" from the left.

Yet you guys attack the left ALL THE TIME and you never see someone like me, Fau, or Hoodie complain!  When you insist that we're Marxists or communists or baby-killers, we don't complain about you attacking us; we explain why you're wrong.  And there is no chance whatsoever that I would say something like, "I wouldn't want my kids to emulate Bernie, but the right always says mean things to us so I HAD to support him."

You guys flip-flop from "Fuck your feelings, snowflakes" to "The left is always unfairly calling us racists!" at breakneck speed.  You're doing it in this very thread: whining about the left calling people Nazis AT THE SAME TIME you're insisting the left are communists and that communists are worse than the Nazis.

Do you guys need a binkie to be able to discuss this stuff without the endless hypocritical whining about how you're being called mean things?  I have no problem discussing the finer points of socialism v. communism, and yet I don't get my underwear in a bunch when you guys REPEATEDLY call the left communists; I just explain why you're wrong.

First off, no one has provided the full written transcript, Hoodie just said he read it.  In fact, Pondwater is the only one to post a statement with context.

--With a smirk, Tenshot said "Spider, you're an idiot."  Now, if that were in a transcript, it would just be me being an asshole, saying you're an idiot.  It doesn't take context that I'm joking, or my tone, smirk, or even what lead up to me saying that.  I bring this up because the left has attacked Trump MANY times for things like this.  What comes to mind is when he said he was "the chosen one".  An obvious joke, but there were A LOT of left media outlets that took that as him being serious, which is absurd.  So now that I have explained how actual audio can alter perception of written record, why don't you bust out those direct quotes.

Did I say I was cool marching next to Nazis?  No, I wouldn't be out there at all.  Please tell me what values are crystal clear.  There you go assuming again.  I'm not even going to argue with the whole confederate=racist thing, that's a whole other can of worms.  All I'll say is I think the people who are truly southerners understand the real meaning, and the racists abuse that and ignorant people from other parts of the country refuse to understand it.

Just to be clear because you support a communist sympathizer, doesn't mean I think you're one.  Misguided, sure.  Not all the people marching against the Neo-Nazis were Antifa, so it's not like I'd say all of those people are horrible because they marched with communists.  If you got rid of the Neo-Nazis and you got rid of Antifa, you'd have GOOD PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES, which is what I think President Trump was saying.

The people I call communists are communists.  Antifa.  Bernie Sanders is a communist sympathizer, that's not debatable.  The people you call racists is you projecting.  I'm not talking about the Neo-Nazis, they're obvious racists.  Donald Trump is not a clear cut racist like you make him out to be.  That's what I mean by putting someone in a box.

I'm pretty much a centrist on a lot of political topics, but I will admit I do like to say "Fuck your feelings, Snowflake" a lot.  But that has a lot less to do with politics than it does with the pussification of the American male.   ;D   Carry on, gentlemen. 

100%

Welp .. there goes all the democratic support from the cuban community .. i guess this time around they'll vote republican ...

What are you talking about?


https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-cuban-american-poll-20190131-story.html (https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-cuban-american-poll-20190131-story.html)

Cuban-Americans remain heavily Republican.



— Cubans who came to the U.S. before 1980 are 72 percent Republican, 11 percent Democratic and 17 percent no party affiliation.

— Cuban-Americans who weren’t born in Cuba are 41 percent Republican, 28 percent Democratic and 29 percent no party affiliation.

I think you are imagining things that aren't true. I've (and most people I know) never whined or complained about being called a racist homophobe and in fact ... have made of fun of the fact they even call black gays as racist homophobes for being republican. The name calling is annoying at times but it represents more about not having an argument than anything else. For it to bother me it would need to be true. Might just as well call me a race car as a racist or homophobe because I'm equally all of them.

Stating a reason for something happening is in no way whining about it. Obama's presidency did more harm against police, military, race relations, politically correctness and even the flag than any president ever. As such you got Trump which the other extreme. He backs conservatives and will hurt your feelings doing so.

BTW ... I'm still waiting for the justification of how it's ok to support communist loving Bernie but not Trump. I will say it's nice that several big mainstream democrat mouth pieces have come out against him. Chris Mathews has gone as far as to say it might be better to have Trump for 4 more years than Bernie for moderate Democrats. hahaha

No, you are not.

If Bernie were elected and was able to accomplish some of things he's talking about, I would directly benefit...something that has never really been the case for me.

Eliminating student debt would be a game changer for my family.  My wife has crippling student loan debt.  We have been paying it for decades and it just hovers.  There are various forgiveness programs, but with different leadership, they're promised, then cancelled, then changed.  It is directly preventing our family from improving.

Free state college would allow me to divert a lot of my savings into retirement.  I've been diligent about saving for my girls, but it came at the cost of not saving as much as I'd like for myself.  That would make my older years much, much more comfortable.

Medicare for all.  I have insurance.  But in order to take care of myself the way that I should I have to still pay large amount of money for stuff that isn't covered.  I cracked a tooth and had to have a root canal and some other work done.  It's going to cost me over $3000 out of pocket.  I could've just pulled the tooth out, but I don't want to be that guy, sacrificing the right care for money.


These would all directly benefit me greatly.   Even if he can get one of them done, it would be hugely significant.

Dave ... Do you not feel a little guilty that people like me who couldn't afford to go to college and others who chose not to go to college would be forced to pay for you and the others who knowingly borrowed money to go to college? Besides that ... for the rest of your life you will be paying for others to go to college instead of just your debt so in the end you'd be paying more. 

No.  Not one bit.

I also don't owe money for college, so it's not even for me.

We bailed out the banks.  We bailed out the motor companies.  Dropping public funds into frozen systems makes sense sometimes.  It's really millennials who have it the worst.

And this is all tied to income inequality and the tax structure anyway.

Having an educated populace helps our country.  College is getting to the point that it's not financially viable, which is bad.  Yeah, we'll save money in the short term by not going, but we'll be dumb and won't be able to innovate or compete globally. 


Also recognize, these systems will also help you.  You aren't going to be paying for other people's college.  The income earners above you will be paying for your kids, then those kids will be qualified to work at those jobs.  It's win-win.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Adding more fees to the "have's" only forces them to raise prices on the have "not's." It's a lot like Bernie and the $15 dollar wage for jobs that require no skills. After his tax plan that person would be making less than they are now. Well ... that's if they were one of the lucky ones who got to keep their job. 

I like where Governor DeSantis is going and that's to add trade school training in high school. This gives kids with no money a way to make a living wage when they get out of high school.

I find it absolutely stunning that the Republican party has somehow convinced people like you to vote against their own financial interests.  It's their greatest accomplishment.

These super rich people have somehow convinced you that you're going to pay more to live if they get taxed.  You are absolutely playing into their hands.

Usually when people are that smug, they are intelligent.  Apparently that is not always the case.  You clearly know me better than I do.  So educate me.  Am I a racist, a nazi, a socialist, a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what?   This is all so very confusing.  Thank you for informing me that I am not a centrist.  I will be sure to update my resume' accordingly.  I'm really hoping that I'm not a racist.  Because if I am, it is going to come as a hell of a shock to my 13 year old black godson.  

When Hoodie said that he read the full transcript, you said that reading it doesn't count and that only listening to it can provide proper "context."  Yet strangely, you also call the written excerpts that pondwater posted "context."  I wonder why written excerpts that you agree with are to be considered "context" and yet the full written transcript is not?

If you weren't in Charlottesville marching next to people flying swastika flags, then I wasn't talking about you.
So I'll repeat myself: if you are cool with marching next to someone waving a swastika flag because you want to protect a Confederate statue, your priorities and values are crystal clear.

And there it is again! For clarity:

The people YOU call "communists" (e.g. Antifa) are communists.  Without question.
The people I call "racists" is me projecting.  Because I'm wrong, of course.
But it's the left that likes to put people in boxes.  Because when the right does it, you're just stating facts!

This is what I'm talking about.  The non-stop, endless hypocritical whining about "labels" and "putting people in boxes" when not only do you guys do the same thing, you think your labels are Not Even Debatable.

Maybe you should focus less on how mean the left is for attacking you with these vile smears and focus more on explaining why they don't apply.

That's the joke.  Fau saying, "there goes all the democratic support from the cuban community" is like saying "Trump may lose his support in NY after this latest story..."

Was the existence of Obama's presidency itself an "attack" on conservatives?  I mean, is the very act of liberal governance that you ideologically disagree with to be considered an attack on you directly?  If not, what were you referring to when you said that conservatives "felt attacked during the previous 8 years"?

Well, if there's a communist rally to support Bernie where one of those communists kills an unarmed protestor, and Bernie's response is to say that both sides are at fault, we can compare apples to apples.

I think it's probably necessary to point out here that the economic ideologies of "communism" or "capitalism" are not the same thing as "the Soviet Union" or "the United States."  If you would like to have a discussion about the atrocities committed by all communist governments in history and compare them to, say, all capitalist governments in history, I'm perfectly willing to have that discussion.  But I think that's quite a bit outside the scope of the 2020 Presidential election.

I think what Hoodie is trying to say is that the positions you describe are not centrist; they are fairly standard conservative ideals.

Put in that context, I wouldn't have had such an issue with him saying it.  By saying that I was "centrist" I was really referring to the fact that even though I am fiscally conservative, I am more liberal on social issues.  For example, I am for a woman's right to have an abortion, I am for the right for homosexuals to marry, etc. I am for the legalization of mairjuana for recreational use.    And I don't know that those viewpoints are "fairly standard conservative ideals".  Maybe I chose my words poorly.  I think that is probably where half the disconnects that everyone on here has with each other.  With just the written word, it is very easy to misconstrue what people are trying to convey because you lose voice inflection, etc. 

I watched some of the debate last night.  I thought it was pretty terrible.

The format sucks.  It's 5 people yelling for time.  They really need to ask a question and then cut the mics of the other participants until the person's time is up.  Then the moderators should decide who gets a chance to respond, rather than this absurd hand-waving.  It's literally what a moderator is for -- to moderate.

The questions they ask are sophomoric and seem to be more about drumming up drama than highlighting policy differences.  "This person said this about you" is an embarrassment. 

On top of that, some of the things that the candidates bring up are stupid.  Like Warren's attack on Bloomberg for asking a woman to have an abortion so that she could keep working, which he denied.  It's just mud-slinging.  A 5-candidate debate is not the place to litigate that issue, which he denied even occurred.

And this last thing is conspiracy-theory stuff, but I believe that the audience was stacked.  The crowd was booing Warren and Sanders at weird times and cheering Bloomberg for stuff that didn't make sense.  I saw somewhere that the cheapest seat was $1700.  ...wouldn't surprise me if Bloomberg paid to plant a bunch of people.  But I have no evidence of that.  It's just the vibe in the room didn't seem to match the previous several debates I've watched.

Doesn't it strike you that a party that always claims to be for small government, get off the back of the people, the smaller the government the better. always ends up with social positions that are big government, meddling in people's lives positions?

From the TV Network’s perspective the purpose of the debates are to generate ratings and they get paid anytime another network uses one of their clips.  Providing voters with meaningful information about the candidates is not relevant.

If the choices are big government (REP) and bigger government (DEM), I'll go with the big government.

The latest Democratic debate had the look and feel of a senior center that ran out of Jell-O

Absolutely.  Government spending and interference is rampant under both parties and the Republicans are huge hypocrites to run on a "smaller government" agenda when they have no intent whatsoever of actually making government smaller.   And that is why I am a Libertarian at heart, but had to hold my nose and vote for Trump in 2016 as opposed to Clinton.  I long for the day when the Libertarian party will actually be an electable alternative to the current two major parties.  But I'm realistic enough to know it won't happen during my lifetime.  In local elections, I vote Libertarian quite often because where I live, they actually get elected from time to time.  But in presidential elections, I vote either Rep or Dem because otherwise I would be throwing my vote away.  And yes, I have voted Democrat in presidential elections before.  Just not recently.  

Not liberal governance at all. It was identity political attacks. He made white people, police, military, and the Christian church villains by his words and inaction. He highlighted white supremacy to the fact people actually think that's a major issue in the black community when in fact most blacks will never come face to face with even one.  

Many former liberal blacks like Candace Owens ... have been pointing this out for some time. She voted for Obama and then became ashamed of how poor an example he was for the black community.


We were speaking directly about his love for communist Cuba where atrocities did occur but thanks for trying to spin it. It's nice of you to think as long as a few don't show up to a liberal rally and kill someone they are a great country. That's a really weak ass argument.

I didn't think so. When he said that was wrong she asked him to go ahead and do a blanket release of the NDAs so that we could verify that. I thought she wholeheartedly got the point for that discussion.

I think the realization that people need to come to is that the Republican party are the corporate socialist party and the Democratic party are the other corporate socialist party. They believe that government should collect a bunch of tax money and then give it away to corporations as tax breaks or subsidies or just outright cash. Or they believe that the government should indirectly subsidize companies like Walmart, where something like 60% of their workforce collects food stamps.

There is no libertarian politics in the US, that's just a smokescreen to keep people from realizing that it's libertarianism for the working poor .. but socialism for the rich.

So if it wasn't liberal policy that made conservatives "feel attacked," but rather how the left was talking about conservatives... isn't that just another form of political correctness?  Complaining about being attacked when people say things about you that you don't like doesn't seem to mesh with the whole "fuck your feelings" philosophy.

I think many, many more black Americans will come face to face with white supremacy than will come face to face with radical Islamic terrorists.  People don't judge threats solely by the likeliness of their occurrence.

Would it be better if Bernie were broadcasting his love for North Korea, Russia, or China?  I'm sure I can find some very relevant quotes (https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/politics/donald-trump-dictators-kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin/index.html) about the dictators of those nations from someone else running for President in 2020.

You can't win an argument about who is more morally bankrupt when your guy is Trump.  Trump has already had more lavish praise for dictators than Bernie (or any other Democratic candidate) ever will.

I'm disappointed to see this kind of "both parties are the same" silliness coming from someone who certainly knows better.

Is this how you would describe Social Security, Medicare, or the ACA?

One party wants to privatize or eliminate those programs, which just so happen to provide crucial support for the poor and middle-class in America.  The other party wants to expand them.  The two parties are not remotely similar.

Who championed the bankruptcy bill that made credit card debt unable to be discharged? Maybe a certain senator from Delaware? I wonder why he'd do that, maybe because Delaware is a hub for financial service companies and credit card companies? Oh and they gave him a bunch of "donations".
Don't be naive.

FDR's programs, no. I would not describe FDR as a corporatist. I would absolutely describe Obama as a corporatist, because he was one. Insurance companies wrote the ACA, it's basically mandated that everybody had to pay them.

One party is a cup full of shit, the other is a cup full of piss .. i have a preference between the two. But i'm not happy with either choice.

The ACA is the single largest downward redistribution of wealth in American history, dwarfing Social Security (which is primarily deferred retirement savings) or any other program FDR created.

It's sad that many on the left do not recognize that significance, and it does not bode well for the electoral prospects of the next Democrat that makes it into the White House.  If you thought the ARRA, ACA, and Dodd-Frank were useless neoliberal corporate handouts, wait until you see what can get passed with Joe Manchin as the veto point in the Senate.

Unusual weekend for Democrats or should I say business as usual? Really strange timing of Buttigieg dropping out on the weekend before Super Tuesday. It's pretty obvious he was either paid off or threatened to drop out. Operation get rid of Bernie is in full effect and the funny part is Bernie will support whomever as they buy him another million dollar house. A win-win for him I guess.

Mayor Pete's constituency (his rich donors) told him to drop out. I think If Sanders ends up with any sort of plurality of delegates and the democrats end up nominating Biden, it'll be a guaranteed 4 more years of Trump. A portion of the sanders supporters just won't vote.

If the person who doesn't get the majority of the delegates isn't selected, I think I will change my party affiliation.  That would really REALLY piss me off.

To what?

Independent, probably.  Or maybe some fringe party like socialist or something.

I've never REALLY been a Democrat, but their views more closely align with how I view the world.  They are slow to adopt many of the ideas I believe in, but eventually seem to come around.  But if I have the opportunity to choose the candidate that really does believe in some of the things I care about and they choose someone else anyway, in the face of that vote, I can't trust them with my vote any longer.


I would love for their to be a political party that doesn't bow down to military spending.  I think that's the biggest welfare we have going...such a waste of resources that could be tangibly used to help people who need it. 

If one person gets the majority of delegates they will get the nomination. But if nobody gets a majority it is quite possible the person with a plurality won’t get the nomination. 

What I meant is pretty much if Bernie has more delegates than the #2 person and they pick the #2 person instead, I'm going to be enraged.

I would be OK with that if there were special circumstances, but not here.  This isn't a case where it would be fitting.

For me it would depend on how close it was.

Hypothetically:  If number one has 47% and number two has 12%, then yeah, I would be pissed.  (But I am still voting against Trump) If number one has 35% and  number two has 33% and number two gets the nomination because #3 and #4’s delegates vote for #2 I would consider that totally fine.

I could understand it if it were really close but it were a momentum thing, maybe.

But really, the purpose of that is to prevent disaster.  It's not really about how close it is.


If Bernie had 47% and the next had 12%, but then news broke that showed that Sanders was caught up in a pedophile ring or something -- then yes, you do that to protect the party.  It's really something like that.  Or if the person had some kind of hugely damaging views that aren't representative of the party.  If you argued that about Bernie -- fine.  But then you're also arguing me out of the party.


It doesn't matter.  If it's a brokered convention and the person without the most delegates winds up the nominee, they will get smoked regardless.  The calls of corruption would be too strong to fend off.

I'm not a Democrat so I don't care. My vote is a vote against Trump.

Does this work both ways?

Less than 4% of the 3,979 total delegates have been awarded so far.  Let's suppose Warren picks up a couple hundred delegates by the end of the primary, and the final totals look like this:

Biden- 1875
Sanders- 1839
Warren- 200
Buttigieg- 50
Klobuchar- 15

Are you saying that if Warren drops out and gives her support to Bernie, causing him to win over Biden even though Biden got more delegates, you will be enraged and change your party affiliation, due to the nomination being stolen from Biden?  Or is it only if your guy loses that that kind of stuff is bad?

The only thing more pathetic and shameless than that would be if Biden said Bernie's wife was ugly, called his father a traitor, and then put Bernie on the phones to stump for Biden 2020.

(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQu6IVLpJ4p6D4QZEb0ym-z3SbSfXSJikmCL4ffBy6JNXR56cl4&s)

Please spare us your concern for the inner workings of the Democratic Party.

I don't know, getting shadily shafted by your party TWICE when you probably have the best shot at the presidency in your party is pretty pathetic.

Tell me more about why you think the candidate you guys regularly call a communist has the "best shot at the presidency."
Your trolling is not at all convincing.

And, for the record: Bernie is not a Democrat, as he will remind you any time he's not running for President.  If you want to know why he has problems getting the most votes in a Democratic primary, that's a big reason: he and his surrogates bash the Democratic Party at every opportunity.  Now, maybe that could work in a general election.  But the voters in a Democratic primary are almost entirely Democrats, and this whole "both the Democrats and the Republicans are the problem" schtick doesn't really fly as well with people who see the Republicans as a dire threat and the Democrats as the only people doing anything at all to stop them.

Today has been a slugfest.   Biden did a bit better than Sanders, but Sanders took key states out west.   The race will come down to these two.   Everyone else may as well pack up and go home.

Biden has dementia or mental issue of some type going on. Something wrong with that dude...

Looks like Bloomberg took my advice and dropped out of the race.   Good.   It's bad enough he took large sodas and guns away from New Yorkers.   I don't want him doing that to the rest of the country.

The exit polls from yesterday are showing the same lesson from 2004: when progressives sit out and the Republican wins, voters don't respond by moving to the left.  They respond by moving to the center, because they're scared of losing to the right again.

If liberals want a strong progressive nominee, we don't get there by sitting out and hoping the center-left loses to the GOP.  We get there by helping the Hillary Clintons and Joe Bidens win, and then push their successors to the left (which is what happened after Obama: Hillary ran on the most progressive general election platform in the history of the Democratic Party, and if Biden wins, his platform will almost certainly be to her right).

The alternative is to sit home in November, let George W. Bush or Donald Trump win reelection and burn the entire country down to the ground (again), take control of the ashes and have just enough time to rebuild almost to where we were 16 years prior.  In 2000 we didn't have Citizens United, gerrymandering hadn't been reaffirmed, and the Voting Rights Act hadn't been gutted; none of those things happen if Al Gore is in the White House in January 2001.

So when liberal voters from Florida start talking about how they're going to sit out in November if their guy doesn't win the primary... I get slightly annoyed.  If 500 liberal voters in Florida cared just a little bit more about the electoral process, the last 20 years would be almost indescribably improved.  Hell, we might already have single-payer.

That might be what happens again. .. if Biden wins the nomination and runs to the middle, he'll cause a slew of Bernie supporters to sit at home or write in, or vote 3rd party (see Jill Stein). That's just the reality of the situation. The republicans have a unifying cause .. whether they liked Trump or  didn't on lots of topics, they held their noses and voted for him because of the "courts" .. if you don't give the left a cause that's better than "trump is bad" .. don't be surprised to see the idealistic left call Biden "blue Trump" and abandon the democratic party for this election.

Anyone who considers Biden "blue Trump" is an absolute moron.  Biden is "white Obama" not "blue Trump"

You're both wrong, he's "silver alert".

If so, these people are not winnable voters.  They should be ignored and the Democratic Party should work to win over other voters that will actually vote.  When progressives decide that their best move in November is to stay home (or vote for John Legend), don't be surprised if the Democratic Party spends more effort chasing the votes of suburban wine moms who regularly turn out at the polls.

The entire governing strategy that Bernie is offering is that his presence will cause an overwhelming flood of voters to rise up and participate in the electoral process; a flood that even Mitch McConnell cannot resist.  And yet turnout among younger voters is down from 2016.  Relying on the youth vote as an electoral strategy CANNOT work, not least because the youth vote 10 years from now is in elementary school today.

"Blue Trump" would be a combination of

- Biden's declining faculties and propensity for self-aggrandizing lies
- Bloomberg's casual matter-of-fact racism and overt misogyny
- Bernie's aggrieved savior complex and cult of toxic surrogates

...all merged and dialed up to 11.

The other problem with this theory is it isn't happening in the primary.  The Bernie 2020 campaign lacks the energy and excitement of the Bernie 2016 campaign.  Bernie 2020 is pretty blah...Bernie 2016 had excitement the kinda of buzz that Obama 08, Clinton 08, Dean 04, Jackson '84 or '88 generated.  This year I don't get that sense of excitement. 

They had the cause, it was the courts. Sitting out this will cost RBG's seat so suck it up and remember we need to vote against Trump.

The right understands the importance of the courts.  The left does not.

If Al Gore wins Florida in 2000, we never get the Citizens United ruling saying that unlimited money can be spent on an election.  We never get the Shelby County ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act and paving the way for mass voter disenfranchisement.  We never get the Rucho ruling saying that partisan gerrymandering cannot be adjudicated by federal courts.  These all have a massive effect on what kind of politicians can win today, and what kind of laws can get passed in Congress.

If you don't like your choices today, staying home or voting third-party just ensures that your choices in the future are worse.

^ You won't get an argument from me on any of that.



I'm not going to stay home.  The only one I think I couldn't have voted for was Bloomberg, but that's because I think he was a Republican anyway and that's just what the party would become.

To answer your question before if I'd be OK if they picked Bernie if it were close, but Biden had the delegate lead: probably not.  If the effort is to try to capture the will of the electorate, I'm much more OK with it.  But I don't want them to craft their own candidate.  The DNC doesn't want Bernie -- that's obvious.  So, if they take steps to make that happen (like encouraging candidates to drop out at the right time) and then they also pick the candidate with fewer votes, that would rub me wrong.

If Biden had a big surge and won all the late states and had the momentum, but slightly fewer votes, maybe I could be OK with it.

It is a two person race now.  Very unlikely one or the other does wrap this up by then of April with a clear majority.

There's a word for leaning on your allies to pressure your competitors to drop out and support you.  The word is "politics."

This is the downside of failing to build political allies because you prefer to maintain your independence as an outsider: you don't have any allies to lean upon.  At it's core, that's what "the establishment" is... a network of people who have built up trust through years of support.  And without that network of support, even if Bernie wins he'll just be another Jimmy Carter: a loner President that his own party in Congress ignores.

Even if Bernie didn't have the voter problem he keeps running into, his lack of ability to work with others means he has no leverage to get anything done.  Why would any Senator put their own neck on the line voting for his priorities?  He's never done the same for them; quite the contrary, he bashes them as "the establishment" every chance he gets.

This is why I supported Warren over Bernie.  She has similar progressive priorities, but unlike Bernie, she doesn't cast fellow Democrats broadly as the enemy.

One more thing:
If Democrats lose in 2020 - be it with Biden or Bernie - I would put my money on Bloomberg as the 2024 nominee.  And the fact that he was a Republican would help him, not hurt him.

When the country elects a Republican President, Democratic voters don't reach for the stars; they start looking to minimize their losses.  If Bill Clinton were legally allowed to run in this election, he would be absolutely smashing the field.  The only reason Obama was able to win the nomination in 2008 was because the GOP had screwed up the country so badly that it was obvious any Dem was going to win.

Is that when he's not too busy smashing interns?

Did i miss something? Why would Bill Clinton not be allowed to run for President if he wanted?

22nd Amendment

Are you serious?  Twenty second amendment of the US constitution.  

Like or dislike Trump, the Democratic party has essentially formed a circular firing squad and already guaranteed him another 4 years in office.   

Perhaps we should wait until the primary is over before we declare the Democratic Party hopelessly lost to infighting.

LMAO ...  the primary was over before it started. They chose Biden and are sticking with it. I honestly have no idea why the DNC even holds primaries since they rig everything to get their way. Changed rules to get Mike on the podium and then changed them again to get Gabbard off of it.  The only thing more surprising is how many of you who are getting screwed by them will continue to support them. Bernie should start a progressive movement and stick with it. No reason to call it Democratic Socialism if Democrats aren't going to ever support him.

Trump was accused of not being mentally fit to be the president by the left, and they decide to go with Joe Biden?  If there is any candidate that isn't mentally fit, it's him, he's going senile.

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/dementia-early-signs (https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/dementia-early-signs)

Although the early signs vary, common early symptoms of dementia include:

    memory problems, particularly remembering recent events. (CHECK, he can't even remember Obama's name.......Biden--"By the way, are you gonna stick with President on the following, President [awkward pause], the last guy, on this issue?"...Biden--"Because they invaded another country and annexed a significant portion of it called Crimea. He's saying that it was President [awkward long pause] my boss. It was his fault." )

    increasing confusion. (CHECK...Joe Biden forgets that Barack Obama, not George W. Bush, was “the last president.” )

    reduced concentration. (CHECK)

    personality or behaviour changes. (CHECK)

    apathy and withdrawal or depression.

    loss of ability to do everyday tasks.

Joe Biden is definitely slipping.

He's old as dirt.  I wish we would not have a geriocracy.  Sanders is old as shit, too, but at least I feel like he has all his faculties.

Both Biden and Trump seem to be edging into crazy old man status.

Funny, I didn't hear anyone saying this before SC.

Biden's campaign was saved by black Democrats in SC, full stop.   His campaign was broke and he wasn't even running ads in most Super Tuesday states!  The idea that the establishment "chose" Biden is ridiculous.  The Democratic voters chose him, and the establishment jumped on board.

Changing the rules to get Bloomberg on the stage was the single worst thing that could have happened to him.  Elizabeth Warren publicly pantsed him, and singlehandedly tossed Bloomberg 2020 in the garbage.  Tulsi Gabbard hasn't qualified for a debate since November, and the fact that she refuses to drop out despite having no support (she still hasn't won a single delegate in any state) makes it clear that her only role in this campaign is to set up her Fox News career.  It makes no sense to allow her on the stage when everyone with more delegates than her has already had the good sense to drop out.

My personal prediction is that Tulsi is waiting for Bernie to be eliminated, at which point she will declare that The Corrupt DNC Has Stolen The Primary From Bernie Again and declare a third-party run.  This maximizes her grifting potential before she moves to the final stage of the plan and spends the next few years flashing her legs on Fox News while spewing the right-wing talking points she already loves.

Yes, Bernie should form a third-party and run in the general election every cycle until he dies.  This will produce incredible results for the left.
Thanks again for your earnest concern and advice.

Although I am curious:

What has Joe Biden done between August 2016 and today that makes you now think he's a bad option?  I mean, you claimed you could "see yourself" voting for Biden over Trump before.

I believe the appropriate response is We aren't electing a Professor-in-Chief.

The American people have clearly indicated that mental capacity, rank ignorance, and brazen lying are no barriers to the White House; if Colonel Covfefe is lucid enough to be president, there is no bar to clear.  Donald Trump has claimed that he invented the term "priming the pump."  I'm not worried about the voters rejecting Uncle Joe because of too many gaffes.  There is no such thing as too many gaffes in the Age of Trump.

Maybe not relevant to the last few posts but I never thought Bloomberg was a Democrat anyway. Some of these sorry ass candidates are so eager that they grab on to whichever party. I was just watching John Oliver and he quoted a tweet from Mekita Davis (don't know her but it doesn't make this irrelevant). Bloomberg spent $500M on ads (a number I hear but haven't fact checked), and the U.S. population is 327M. He could have given every American $1M and saved money.  Imagine what good that could have done and the hubris of this asshole.

$500,000,000 / 327,000,000 != $1,000,000 each

To give every American $1 million would require $327 trillion dollars.

Oh yeah, it's both!  Both sides are mentally incompetent! 

BTW, brazen lying has always been a thing in the White House, don't act like it hasn't been just because you don't like Trump.  I'm not worried about Trumps mental capacity, but I am worried about Joe going senile within the next 4 years, and that you'd rather have a senile man as president than Trump.

I thought this was funny even if nobody else did. 

It's nice to feel appreciated lol.

You give one person $1m that is $1M. You give 10 people $1M that is $10M. You give 327 million people  $1M each  that is $327M. Not sure how you complicated the math into trillons.

yeah ! .. dumb math .. using  a calculator and stuff .. math is a liberal fake news hoax

 :)

You give one person $1m that is $1M. You give 10 people $1M that is $10M. If you give 327 people $1M, it's $327 million. Or if you give 327 million people one dollar ($1) it would come to $327M. However, if you give 327 Million people 1 million dollars a piece it would come to $327 Trillion. Maf is fun, maf is simple, use maf.....

How much would it cost to give 327 million people exactly $1 each?

I didn't say I'd vote for him ... I said he was a better option ... meaning he was a much better option than Killary. I said I could see myself voting for a "Blue Dog" which is a conservative leaning Democrat but even that has changed. Stephanie Murphy, a local one, who has proven to be more of a party line Democrat so even that's a very remote possibility unless the Republicans put up Romney again.   

Joe told some auto worker in Detroit he was "full of shit" today. That was right after Joe had been lecturing him on his "AR-14". hahahaha

He's confusing 327 people with 327 million people. Which isn't a small error, LMAO...

Yeah, just saw the video. That dude is senile. Out of 350 million Americans that's the best the DNC has to offer? This is their big plan to beat Trump at any cost? LMFAO......

The good news is the guy who knows him best is endorsing him. Oh wait ... I forgot Obama is not. LOL Maybe when he is the only one left he will get that endorsement.

It is not unusual for former Presidents to wait until the primary is settled to endorse a candidate, Obama didn’t endorse Hillary until June.

BTW not a single person who has ever served as President has endorsed Trump including those of his own party.

Then it's a good thing he would be running against this guy:

https://twitter.com/TheClearCider/status/1237524465828777985
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1237764804259045376

The tell is when he does the accordion hands and says "Look..."

If Biden is senile, Trump should be committed for dementia.

LMAO cope

If you say so, LMFAO...

Biden won all three states last night.  He won literally every county in FL (after doing the same in MI last week).  Even with the ongoing C-19 crisis, due to vote-by-mail FL participation actually increased from 2016.  Bernie lost by damn near 40 points in one of the most critical swing states.

This primary is over.  Bernie needs to drop out and stop trying to drive people to the polls during a pandemic for a campaign that is dead in the water.

Bernie continued to double down on his support for Castro which was basically saying he knew he was going to lose Florida so he might as well be honest. Bernie will end once the DNC buys his support off again.