Who will be the Democrats' presidential candidate against Trump?

BarrileteCosmico wrote:https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/23/politics/sanders-fidel-castro-cuba/index.html

Here he goes again

Good luck winning Florida with this guy

Freaking Sanders. Of course he is right, but that never plays. It's like saying that it was pretty nice of Hitler to feed the poor on sundays. Of course it was nice, but shut the fuck up, nobody is going to think better of you for praising anything Hitler did, even PETA doesn't mention how he was a vegetarian.

Same goes for Castro. Of course compared to dictators like Kim, or Saddam, or Assad Castro was pretty nice. And of course he did quite a lot of programs that benefitted the people of Cuba. But don't praise dictators, there's nothing to gain from it.

This will be a stern test of just how good the political flak jacket Bernie's been wearing really is.

Trump got his "Teflon Don" moniker from gaffes like this. Saying something like this pretty much kills the momentum of normal politicians, but it fueled Trump's campaign. I see the same energy with Bernie's.

I personally think it's not going to hurt him much. Florida was never in play for him anyway. It's not in play at all this election given that it's Trump's new home state.

Too many rich fucks in Florida to vote for Bernie lol

McLewis wrote:This will be a stern test of just how good the political flak jacket Bernie's been wearing really is.

Trump got his "Teflon Don" moniker from gaffes like this. Saying something like this pretty much kills the momentum of normal politicians, but it fueled Trump's campaign. I see the same energy with Bernie's.

Populists don't have voters, they have cult followers. Explains why Trump can do 20 things in a row that would've cost any "normal" candiate/president his run/job and it only makes him stronger.

Young Kaz wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:That implies that they would up their spending if the US were not overspending in military, how do you know that's the case?

Europe could simply choose to live peacefully with their neighbors and not invade other countries while also maintaining the welfare state. Maybe the US should give that a shot?

Not that I disagree that Europe right now is free riding off US military spending, but that doesn't mean they would act otherwise if free riding was no longer a choice.

They'd have to up their spending or fear being overrun by people who DO spend money on a military. Ask the Ukraine.

Not really, they could choose not to. It's up to them. If the US decided to cut military spending in half and remove all military bases from Germany I think Germans would celebrate that rather than freak out about what Putin will do next

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

Young Kaz wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:That implies that they would up their spending if the US were not overspending in military, how do you know that's the case?

Europe could simply choose to live peacefully with their neighbors and not invade other countries while also maintaining the welfare state. Maybe the US should give that a shot?

Not that I disagree that Europe right now is free riding off US military spending, but that doesn't mean they would act otherwise if free riding was no longer a choice.

They'd have to up their spending or fear being overrun by people who DO spend money on a military. Ask the Ukraine.

Not really, they could choose not to. It's up to them. If the US decided to cut military spending in half and remove all military bases from Germany I think Germans would celebrate that rather than freak out about what Putin will do next

Nobody wants a foreign force living in their country. Doesnt change the fact that Germany would have to begin spending to match that loss.

futbol wrote:The US would be bankrupt without its military.

What a ridiculous thing to say Like arguing a degenerate gambler would be bankrupt if he suddenly kicked his gambling habits

futbol wrote:The US military is not there to protect themselves let alone Europe, it's there to be a threat to the world, dictate the economy and protect the dollar as the lead currency so a small group of elites can become even richer.

Yeah, no one is under any illusion that the US military is there for protection, but the US dollar's supremacy has nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with a long history of being a stable, safe haven currency for a strong economy. Something the euro doesn't have, as it's not very old, and it's designed to cater to German sensibilities, which tend to prefer balanced budgets over growth, meaning that the euro-zone economies have slumped for the past decade leading to a rise of populism throughout. If I were a billionaire seeking to protect my assets over future turbulence I would put them in dollars over euros every chance I get.

futbol wrote:Example? Tesla has an imaginary stock exchange worth of 100 billion dollars, eclipsing Volkswagen. Tesla sells 300,000 cars a year and makes no profits. With the current energy storage technology it will stay a niche product and possibly become irrelevant within 10 years. Yet it's worth more than Volkswagen which sells 11 million cars a year according to US financial rating agencies.  

So your support for your previous ridiculous statements is... Tesla? This has absolutely nothing to do with economics and everything to do with a bunch of wall street and retail investors buying into the Cult of Elon. Tesla is valued like a tech disruptor rather than the car company that it is because of this cult of personality. The valuation might be right or it might all end in tears, but either way it has literally nothing to do with the US military spending.

futbol wrote:That wouldn't be possible if the USA were a peaceful nation. They wouldn't be able to find many buyers of their garbage products, be it fracking gas or corn-fed and infested meat products.

They would find tons of buyers, there are people everywhere that are willing to buy the shittiest cheapest product. And what happened to your previous perfect example, is Trump invading other countries to force them to buy Teslas?

futbol wrote:So of course the US needs a bloated military with 1000 military bases all around the world. Without it Trump's "America first" stance would be answered by Europe with a simple switchover from the dollar based currency and that alone would end the US economy.

America first has been around for 3 years, what about all the time before then? Was the Euro the dominant currency then? Or was Germany dragging it to the ground by impoverishing all of Southern Europe?

futbol wrote:So don't spread nonsense that the US is spending money to protect Europe.

No one said that. Betty said Europe is able to spend more on welfare because they're not spending as much on military as they would if the US were not over-spending on it.

This debate is horrific.

Constantly Broadcasting Shit is horrible.

Bloomberg wrote:All of the new Democrats that came in, put Nancy Pelosi in charge, and gave the Congress the ability to control this President, I boug… I got them.”

Lmao what a way to waste 400m

Best way to deal with Russia? imo is to move away from Fossil fuel. This is Russia #1 resource and economy. If most of the world move away from it, what is Russia power?

With China? Break our supply chain dependence on them, there is many more countries we could trade with and bring back jobs back to US.

CBarca wrote:Too many rich fucks in Florida to vote for Bernie lol

Ron Desantis has 72% favorability and one of Trump biggest ally. Good luck to any Dem winning that state.

VivaStPauli wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/23/politics/sanders-fidel-castro-cuba/index.html

Here he goes again

Good luck winning Florida with this guy

Freaking Sanders. Of course he is right, but that never plays. It's like saying that it was pretty nice of Hitler to feed the poor on sundays. Of course it was nice, but shut the fuck up, nobody is going to think better of you for praising anything Hitler did, even PETA doesn't mention how he was a vegetarian.

Same goes for Castro. Of course compared to dictators like Kim, or Saddam, or Assad Castro was pretty nice. And of course he did quite a lot of programs that benefitted the people of Cuba. But don't praise dictators, there's nothing to gain from it.

Castro assisted Nelson Mandela cause to end South Africa apartheid. I am going to post on Fidel Castro on another time and on this discussion. But yeah he was bad, but i do not think you should place him along side Hitler.

Bernie should really use the threat of coronavirus and other possible health pandemic as an argument for M4A. Could help early detection and calm people fears, honestly it will put a lot of uninsured people in a tough bind making a financial decision and possible unease if they have the virus.

CBS News Poll of Democratic voters who watched the debate:
Debate viewers said national frontrunner Sanders impressed them the most of any candidate, followed closely by Biden and then Warren. pic.twitter.com/3tzyxcN4I4

— CBS News Poll (@CBSNewsPoll) February 26, 2020

Pedram wrote:That audience was weirdly pro Bloomberg, they booed Warren for asking him to release his tax returns.

What was weird about it? This is the south.

It would be like me coming to Iran and being booed for preaching about how freeza and other gay persians should be allowed to marry as they wish. People down here view taxes as tyranny...despite the fact that most of them are too broke to pay almost anything honestly.

Bloomberg is a rich racist. Same way Trump is popular down here is the same way bloomberg is strangely loved.

Blue wrote:
Castro assisted Nelson Mandela cause to end South Africa apartheid. I am going to post on Fidel Castro on another time and on this discussion. But yeah he was bad, but i do not think you should place him along side Hitler.

Oh sorry, yeah, you're absolutely right on that. That's why I also meant I wouldn't place Castro along the likes of Saddam or Kim. I abhor the authoritarianism of the Castro regime, and there can hardly be any excuse for dictatorships, but as far as I can tell, Castro at least tried to move his country forward, and not just enrich himself.
I just meant it's not very smart to make that point in the idiotic media environment that exists in the US, you can't make nuanced points there.

"Castro at least tried to move his country forward, and not just enrich himself"

I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous sentence. Cuba is an anachronistic dictatorship made by Castro. There couldn't be a more clear example of doing everything to not move his country forward. The whole country was hostage to his hunger for power, and sadly not just his country, but part of the region too.

Nowhere near as good a debate as Nevada, which has been the high point this primary season.

Far too much cross-talk. The moderators did not maintain enough control.

My take on each candidate's performance:

Sanders - His status of frontrunner was well and truly felt in this debate. He got targeted just as previous frontrunners have been targeted. This should've happened in Nevada, but Bloomberg took a lot of that incoming fire. I think Sanders did as well as he reasonably could though. He needs to stay away from any praise for Cuba. He's been saying it for 30 years and his consistency is one of the reasons he has such a following, but there is no way politically to reconcile that positively, no matter how true it is. Trump will hammer him relentlessly on that alone in the general. He also needs to really simplify his Medicare for All questions. He doesn't want to get into the minutiae of how this will be paid for, but he's going to have to if he wants moderates to coalesce more comfortably under him.

Biden - A better performance than Nevada and that's despite his embarrassingly unforced error yesterday. It was a continuation of "I was the only person who...." train that he's the conductor of, which has become rather tired to me, but works very well in places like South Carolina, where he remains popular. His attacks on Steyer appear to be weird on first viewing given that Steyer is essentially a non-entity from a primary perspective, but it makes more sense given Steyer has been gaining traction in South Carolina, which could only hurt Biden. I do feel his attack on Sanders regarding the AME Church shooting was lopsided and forced though so not all of his punches landed. He looked sharper and crisper though. He did fine though his whining about not being able to talk came off as petty.

Warren - A far weaker performance after the tour de force we saw in Nevada, but found it very curious that she otherwise left him alone. She was right to really try and flesh out the contrast between her and Bernie (since they essentially are appealing to the same demographic), but her hits on Bloomberg were nowhere near as clean as they were in the previous debate. That said, I do believe that out of all of the candidates on that stage, she gave me the most "presidential" feeling with her answers. It was a decent performance, but not her strongest and it's not going to help her at all in South Carolina or Super Tuesday.

Buttigieg - Frankly, his rather surgical take on juxtoposing Sander's views on Castro's literacy program with Trump's affinity for dictatorships was masterfully done. For me, Buttigieg is a perfectly acceptable candidate and that's even knowing his problems with his own community in South Bend. Frankly, compared to Bloomberg, his problems are far less concerning to me. The problem he continues to face is that black voters do not trust him. Without Biden or Bloomberg around, he'd likely fare much better. Unfortunately for him, he now has 2 competitors eating his breakfast and there's very little he can do about it.

Klobuchar - Anemic performance and it will do absolutely nothing for her in Saturday's primary. New Hampshire was the pinnacle for her and she'll never get there again in this primary season. I think she's done as a candidate honestly. I just don't see much of anything going her way Saturday or Super Tuesday.

Steyer - Had the fewest minute to speak, as expected, but was surprisingly compelling with those 7 minutes. Of course, it will do nothing for him on Saturday or Super Tuesday, but this was the first debate he's been in that I've actually seen some teeth from him, especially defending himself from Biden's attacks while launching some of his own. His stance of reparations is appreciated, but it feels very lopsided and even a little artificial. He cashed in all his chips on South Carolina, but it was never going to be enough. He never should've been on any of these stages and can be of best use as a donor. I hope he returns to that role after he suspends his campaign after Super Tuesday.

Bloomberg - Better than Nevada, but he set that bar very low. Still not good enough though. His Freudian slip about buying the 2018 House candidates was very telling. And then there's that really awkward brag about how he apparently "beat all of them" in Nevada.....just wow. The true mark of a someone who has never been taken to task for anything is that level of delusion. Unfortunately though, he's going to be in this primary as long as he decides he wants to remain into it. The DNC have no control over him, that much is clear.

My winner: I don't think there was one.

Vibe wrote:
There will be a time when people, well actually not people because people are stupid, but a certain group of men will change thing for us. But not all of us.

Politics don't really exist. It's nothing but a reality show. It serves a purpose, and the purpose is that people look away and believe the problems are elsewhere.

While the reality is simple, there are no problems. The system is perfect, a well oiled machine. It runs just fine, the only problem for us, is that it runs on us. We are the fuel.

Every single one of us is being exploted and slaved. In such a refined way becase the idiots we are, we look at each other and blame each other. We pay taxes for the air we breathe. We pay taxes for the work we do. We never did anything in our whole lives that wasn't taxed one way or another.

And we pay it to support the political system which doesn't really exist. We all blame all our problems on bad politics and government. Politicians are given money, infuence and power to create that image that we so blindly believe, even though every single one of us knows there is something fundamentaly wrong.

Real power is not visible. We don't even know who owns us...

I close my eyes and I picture this splendid post as the voiceover narration on top of high profile movie beginning

South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and one of the most powerful Black Democrats in Congress has endorsed Joe Biden.

That's Biden winning South Carolina, I believe. Not a shock, but this has an air of finality to it.

Given that Sanders lost to Clinton by like 50 points in South Carolina in 2016, losing to Joe by a mere few points is a marked improvement. Doesn't bode well for him with the other Southern States though.

rincon wrote:"Castro at least tried to move his country forward, and not just enrich himself"

I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous sentence. Cuba is an anachronistic dictatorship made by Castro. There couldn't be a more clear example of doing everything to not move his country forward. The whole country was hostage to his hunger for power, and sadly not just his country, but part of the region too.

Cuba was also hostage to massive pressure due to US sanctions, and of course there's a more clear example of not moving a country forward: North Korea.

Again, I'm not praising Castro, just saying dictator-wise he's kind of a pussy.

VivaStPauli wrote:

rincon wrote:"Castro at least tried to move his country forward, and not just enrich himself"

I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous sentence. Cuba is an anachronistic dictatorship made by Castro. There couldn't be a more clear example of doing everything to not move his country forward. The whole country was hostage to his hunger for power, and sadly not just his country, but part of the region too.

Cuba was also hostage to massive pressure due to US sanctions, and of course there's a more clear example of not moving a country forward: North Korea.

Again, I'm not praising Castro, just saying dictator-wise he's kind of a pussy.

What makes North Korea a more clear example?

Sanctions have little to do with it. Castro, and his successors, have had 6 decades to do as they want. What they want is clear from they have done. With the amount of death and misery that he has caused it's insulting to hear his regime be minimized as kind of a "pussy" dictator.

Sanders has the easiest job in the world regarding this by simply choosing not to praise a dictator, i'ts absurd that this is what he is choosing to do with this issue.

rincon wrote:
What makes North Korea a more clear example?

Everything. Neither the treatment of political opposition nor the idiotic scope of famine in North Korea are matched by anything the Castro regime did. Who are still assholes, not disputing that.

Sanders has the easiest job in the world regarding this by simply choosing not to praise a dictator, i'ts absurd that this is what he is choosing to do with this issue.

Agree 100%.

VivaStPauli wrote:

rincon wrote:
What makes North Korea a more clear example?

Everything. Neither the treatment of political opposition nor the idiotic scope of famine in North Korea are matched by anything the Castro regime did. Who are still assholes, not disputing that.

Torture and execution aren't enough? the (possibly) lower degree of brutality performed when you kill your opponents isn't an indicator of wanting to move your country forward.

Romanticizing Castro as someone who helped, or tried to help, Cuba is unacceptable.

rincon wrote:Romanticizing Castro as someone who helped, or tried to help, Cuba is unacceptable.

Oh, certainly Cuba would've been better off with a democratically elected, legitimate government, for sure, that's out of the question. Just saying that Castro seemed to follow an idea of what he wanted to do with Cuba, instead of just lining his own pocket, like the Kim dynasty does.
Pretty sure he also lined his pocket, though.