USA Politics

There's no left, left; not in States not anywhere. Left's principal mission should be redistribution of wealth, but since they are not able to do it and stay in power (or alive), they focus in lesser matters such as abortion, LGBT and all that.

Whilst I mostly agree with you, I still believe in the left working to have a fairer society (taxing wealth, among many other things).

This is my truth, tell me yours. ;)
 
At this point I'm sure that neither of us is going to gain anything out of this; we simply fundamentally disagree on various concepts so we'll simply have to agree to disagree, because I'm definitely not willing to go back and forth in circles.
I think you're right about that, but it's not because we have different opinions -- it's because I'm trying to engage in a rational discussion while you're just trying to posture and dunk on a perceived opponent as if this were Twitter.

You led with sneering condescension, othering, and labeling. When I called you out for it (since that's incredibly hypocritical behavior for someone strutting around declaring their supposed moral superiority), you labeled me again as having a "persecution complex". When I presented evidence, you ignored it, mischaracterized it, dismissed it, or wrote it off as anecdotal or "one YouTube video". You presented general electorate job approval ratings as if they were the same thing as Democratic "would you prefer a different candidate" numbers, acted like that somehow made your point, and ignored the fact that even your misapplied stats were still within 5% of the ones I referenced, and therefore didn't make your point at all, even if they had been applicable. You responded to me as if I were some alt-right troll, even after I was very explicit about being a liberal, just not one who subscribes to modern far-left dogma.

Almost your entire response read like you just hit each section and jumped through whatever rhetorical hoops you had to in order to pretend you had discredited the comment, rather than actually thinking about it and considering it in the context of the entire post. You cherry-picked one video of Biden sniffing a girl where a sound effect was added and behaved as if this somehow proved something, rather than acknowledging the wide body of unaltered evidence of this habitual behavior of his, which is ready available through a Google search. You declared that I have anti-Biden "bias" because of my comments, even though I voted for him in 2020 and actually wanted him to be at the top of the ticket in 2008, because you apparently can't fathom the idea that my opinion might have legitimately soured on him due to the obvious effects of advancing age and the baggage he's taken on in public perception that will negatively impact his chances of re-election. You even bashed me for misusing the term "CRT", then unironically quoted my later comment where I had already explicitly said that the term CRT was being misused. This requires an appalling lack of self-awareness, and is exactly the kind of anti-intellectual nonsense that I was complaining about before. You sound like a shill delivering spin rather than someone attempting to actually engage with the discussion authentically.

Your one valid point was about my not presenting direct evidence of the poll about the generic Democrat vs. Trump and Biden vs. Trump in 2024, and I've still been unable to find it. You're right that I can't expect anyone to believe that unless I can back it up, and despite my reading about it a few weeks ago, the only polls I can find with a generic Democrat vs. Trump are from 2016. It's possible that what I read was incorrectly referencing an older poll, I don't know. I had originally brought it up in good faith, but until I can back it up, I have to withdraw that piece of the argument.

I'm always happy to have a real discussion with someone who actually wants to engage in one. That's clearly not what was happening here, and unless that were to change, I agree it's best to move on.
 
Please explain how these are ‘lesser’ matters.

Money =power and if money is redistributed more fairly the people who call the shots in this world will loose part of their power.
It's totally indifferent to them if women can have abortion or LGBT rights, which religion will prevail, etc.
Having the 90% of the population struggling to make ends meet every month, means that they don't have the time to think or the means to act in order to reassert power.
And whoever young people still with some energy left to fight, instead of fighting for the one thing that matters, they are redirected to spend their energy fighting lesser wars, totally harmless to status quo.
 
The other interesting angle to keep an eye on. If Trump gets disqualified from the ballot in any of these states then we can expect a tsunami of filings in every other state. And if he gets booted in any key swing state, that might finally make the Republican electorate sit up and take notice.
 
The other interesting angle to keep an eye on. If Trump gets disqualified from the ballot in any of these states then we can expect a tsunami of filings in every other state. And if he gets booted in any key swing state, that might finally make the Republican electorate sit up and take notice.
This would almost certainly make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I'd be very surprised if it would uphold any ban. Thomas would certainly not uphold it, for one.
 
This would almost certainly make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I'd be very surprised if it would uphold any ban. Thomas would certainly not uphold it, for one.
Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch aren't completely in the bag for Republican political interests in the same way that Alito, Thomas, and Coney Barrett appear to be. These cases would certainly be stronger (and arguably ought to be a slam dunk) if Trump were criminally convicted for any crimes related to sedition, insurrection, or violating his oath of office, but there's already so much documented and corroborated evidence out there that I think it would be a mistake to write these challenges off as futile. We'll see.
 
TL;DR: Biden pissed off New Hampshire Democrats by invalidating and snubbing their primary, and now with Phillips in the race the only way for him to not get a bloody nose from New Hampshire is to win a write-in campaign by a meaningful margin. If Phillips beats him or has a close showing there, history suggests it could be a serious problem.

“If he ignores New Hampshire or half-asses it, he loses,” said Duprey. “But if he goes all-in and blesses the write-in and loses then it’s even worse.” The only answer: “He’s got to win now.”
 
I couldn’t find a reference to the earlier poll I’d mentioned, but here’s a brand new one that says the same thing. Biden is losing to Trump in 5 of the 6 battleground states that will likely decide the 2024 election (by 10 points in Nevada!), while a generic Democrat vs. Trump would win all 6 of those states — 5 of them by 7-12 points and Nevada by 3 points.

Yes, many of these are technically still within the margin of error. Yes, the generic Democrat numbers would change once you get specific alternatives. Yes, we’re still a year out from the election. But the DNC talking points about Biden and Phillips don’t hold up against this kind of polling.
 
Now even David Axelrod is openly questioning whether Biden should step aside.

I doubt Biden would willingly bow out unless he got completely shellacked in the early primaries, but it's interesting to think about what might happen if he did exit the race, or if he had a sudden health issue that forced him out.

The filing deadlines for New Hampshire and Nevada have already passed. Arkansas and Alabama deadlines are coming up within days. Florida and Michigan deadlines are at the end of November and early December. There's a raft of additional deadlines in mid-December including places like Massachusetts, Texas, Ohio, and Virginia. By mid-January the deadlines for states like New York and Illinois will have passed. That means that if anyone else wants to get in the race and have any shot at getting a majority of delegates, they would realistically have to do it within the next 4-5 weeks.

Gavin Newsom has obviously been positioning himself for 2028 with both national and international moves lately, but he's probably also keeping his powder dry in case something happens with Biden and he needs to run in 2024 instead. He'd never get in unless Biden got out first, though.

If Biden stepped aside today, who else could even mobilize a 2024 campaign in time? Kamala Harris, maybe, but her numbers are even worse than Biden's at the moment. The party would probably have to choose between Phillips, Newsom, and Harris, and only one of those three doesn't have national-level baggage weighing them down.
 
I think Biden’s track record has turned out well with successful policy and legislation, but Newsom should run in his stead. The guy’s got charisma and rhetorical punch: two things Biden nowadays lack due to extensive mileage. I just hope Biden will realize it in time.
 
I agree that Newsom is the logical replacement for Biden if he decides not to run/dies. I've read a few analyses of the big poll from the weekend and there's a few people who think it may be a bit of an outlier, but it should be worrying for Team Biden anyway.
 
Newsom should run in his stead.
I agree that Newsom is the logical replacement for Biden if he decides not to run/dies.
But wouldn't the right be able to completely go to town on this guy? You've got a pretty hard left-leaning policy history from both San Francisco and Sacramento, and lots of past comments that wouldn't go down well with centrists. Yes, he has the look and the polish, but he also has meaningful baggage -- just not the same level of baggage as Biden.

I mean, yes, of course the right is going to find a way to try to savage any Democratic candidate, but it seems like there's a lot of low-hanging fruit with Newsom that just wouldn't be there with someone like Phillips.

All the more reason to have a real primary season with a full set of debates and all the serious potential candidates openly running, IMO. Trial by fire, and see who rises to the top.
 
I agree that Newsom is the logical replacement for Biden if he decides not to run/dies. I've read a few analyses of the big poll from the weekend and there's a few people who think it may be a bit of an outlier, but it should be worrying for Team Biden anyway.
I have been chewing on the poll numbers and I am not really sure what to make of it honestly. I have a hard time calling it an outlier mostly because this is not the first poll that has been released showing Trump ahead of Biden nationally or in key swing states. After a certain point, you can't call these polls outliers anymore (although I would argue that "certain point" is closer to Summer 2024).

There are a few things that seem like red flags to me though. I'm not usually a big advocate for reading into the crosstabs, but there are some really bizarre things about this poll. 20% of black support for Trump seems unlikely. Reading into comments from voters under 30 found in the article shows a lot of people who are upset about the way things are and are taking that out on Biden, but once the public has gotten a reminder of what Trump is like when he's in full force campaigning (and regularly appearing in court) they might come back to Biden. I have a hard time believing that Biden can win Wisconsin if his numbers are that dire in other states. I do think that replacing him as the nominee at this stage does not solve the problem and would be really unwise.
 
But wouldn't the right be able to completely go to town on this guy? You've got a pretty hard left-leaning policy history from both San Francisco and Sacramento, and lots of past comments that wouldn't go down well with centrists. Yes, he has the look and the polish, but he also has meaningful baggage -- just not the same level of baggage as Biden.
I don't believe the left-leaning policy history is disqualifying across the board. The problem with Biden is 1) the economy is perceived as poor by people and 2) he is old as fuck. It's got nothing to do with Joe's policies, and elections aren't really won on policy anymore. The WaPo and NYT are already digging out stuff on Phillips that isn't ideal either. It's true that the right is ready to fight Newsom, because he's been one of the heirs apparent for awhile, and Dean Phillips is a nobody outside of Minnesota, or was until a couple of weeks ago.

The Dems can only win elections when 1) the left shows up or 2) the centre comes over to them in massive numbers. Newsom can probably reliably get left votes while being acceptable to the centre (in a Donald Trump election).

Probably my hottest take on Newsom is that I think he loses to Nikki Haley.
 
The WaPo and NYT are already digging out stuff on Phillips that isn't ideal either.
True, the Harlan Crow donation isn't great, and the Annadea LLC thing for his houses is odd, and wasn't disclosed properly to the Ethics Committee.

Newsom can probably reliably get left votes while being acceptable to the centre (in a Donald Trump election)
Sure, just as Phillips could probably reliably get centrist votes while being acceptable to the left.

Anyone truly afraid of a Trump presidency is going to vote for the Democratic candidate in the end, whomever that is. The candidate who can pull the most independents and swing voters is going to be the lowest-risk choice in the general election in this scenario, IMO, because their ability to win will be less dependent upon base turnout and better suited to swing state victories.
 
I think if Nikki Haley becomes the nominee she's an unstoppable force.
I don't understand the buzz about her at all, really. People keep talking about her first debate performance like it was something noteworthy, and I really couldn't understand why. Does she sound more sane than most of her competitors? Yeah, sure. But she's all over the place re: her positions on Trump, and she also thinks ignoring Mexican sovereignty is perfectly OK, which is a frankly bizarre position for a former U.N. ambassador to take.

Would Haley beat Biden? Yeah, probably. Would she beat Newsom or Phillips? Eh, I'm not so sure.
 
You know, sorry for being so cynical, but considering the fact the most likely candidates are a septuagenarian and an octogenarian, I would say it's rather wild to plan or to count on anything happening even in '24.
 
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