Democrat candidates

[Dolphster]

No, you are not.

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.  

[Spider-Dan]

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.

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?

Did I say I was cool marching next to Nazis?  No, I wouldn't be out there at all.

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.

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.

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.

What are you talking about?

Cuban-Americans remain heavily Republican.

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..."

[Spider-Dan]

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.

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"?

BTW ... I'm still waiting for the justification of how it's ok to support communist loving Bernie but not Trump.

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.

[Spider-Dan]

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?

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

[Dolphster]

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. 

[Dave Gray]

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.

[Fau Teixeira]

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. 

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?

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

The questions they ask are sophomoric and seem to be more about drumming up drama than highlighting policy differences. 

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.

[Tenshot13]

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?

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

[BuccaneerBrad]

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

[Dolphster]

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?

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.  

[CF DolFan]

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"?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Fau Teixeira]

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.

[Spider-Dan]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

[Spider-Dan]

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.

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

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.

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.