2020 elections superthread

[brinstar]

10/25 candidate ranking

gold

• sanders - the OG, the absolute yardstick. consistent and heartfelt, with unassailable integrity. on every single issue i care about, he's always had the right stance and he's never had to "evolve" on anything. still the single most popular politician in america. just yesterday he released his marijuana legalization policy via tweet at 4:20pm hahaha

silver

• warren - would totally make a fine potus, but still not lefty enough to light me up. her plans are almost as good as the OG's, but she's really starting to let me down lately by hedging on M4A, wtf?

bronze

• williamson - she's way too wuwu to be electable but i still love her stances, especially re: minorities (restoring honor to native american treaties, reparations for black americans). she's effectively already out though
• castro - still a bit centrist for my taste but he made numerous excellent points at the last debate that earned my respect (esp the bit about police brutality). also effectively already out
• booker - absolutely good people and i trust him almost more than sanders w/r/t race issues. he doesn't seem to really have an open lane available to him though and it's kind of keeping him out of contention

lukewarm

• o'rourke - i've softened on him a bit as he's fallen out of the spotlight, but i still really wish he'd drop out and use his national recognition to challenge that fucker cornyn. he'd have a much better shot at toppling one of the shittier GOP senators than he currently has at breaking into even the top tier of the primary field - more importantly, flipping cornyn's seat would mean a TON to whichever dem finally gets into the oval office (whether that's in 2020 or 2024)
• yang - i'm really into the idea of UBI but somehow yang doesn't seem very serious
• steyer - he's got a good climate game and that's a big issue for me but i bristle at the idea of another billionaih in charge
• harris - cop

anyone above this line would absolutely have my vote in the general
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anyone below this line would have to fight for my vote in the general

fuck off you

• buttigieg - sorry i know there's a lot of love for mayor pete but he lost me in the last debate. neoliberal centrism is a zombie ideology that needs to be buried and salted - and although he started out sounding fairly progressive he's begun to tack hard to the middle, and fuck that. "medicare for all who want it"? eat my well-toned ass. i think he's a good person and probably a good mayor but i don't want him in the white house.
• gabbard - she just announced she's not running for reelection to the house in order to focus on her presidential campaign, which is a huge mistake unless she is really just gunning for a new career as a pundit alongside all the other pundits who only became pundits after losing reelection bids - looking at you mccaskill and emanuel, you shitbirds. i DO NOT however think she is a russian asset, and i think anyone who honestly buys into that narrative can be safely ignored as a dumbass. hell, if anything, she's a BJP/modi plant. on the bright side, her dropping out of her house campaign clears the way for a better progressive to take her seat, so good job tulsi lmao enjoy your new pundit job i guess
• klobuchar - what the fuck are you doing just drop out already you're wasting everyone's time with your corny jokes and your 1980s-ass policy trash
• biden - absolute piece of shit, i'd vote 3rd party before voting for his senile old ass. every single thing he tries to say to promote himself is in direct contradiction to his record. tragic that nobody who loves him sat him down and said "no joe don't do this, just enjoy retirement!" for the record i don't think he or his son did anything shady w/r/t ukraine BUT if he buys the nomination (yes, buys - he flipflopped on taking money from super PACs this week since his campaign is out of money lmao) trump et al is going to beat him bloody with it and mark my words he'll lose just like the last fuckin moron did; "but ukraine" will become the new "but her emails"

/!\ exciting new opinion below /!\
speaking of the last fuckin moron who lost, clinton is again making noises about possibly entering the race, and i have some thoughts

• fuck you, please pokemon go right back into the woods thanks
• actually you know what? do it. just go right ahead and enter the race. just go for it. jump right in! can't think of a better epilogue for your political career than diluting the biden/warren/buttigieg/harris camps, because guess who that benefits most hahaha

[brinstar]

it's 4pm local time on wednesday february 5, 45.5 hours after the beginning of the iowa caucus and we still don't officially know who won the state, either because the tech company who built the shitty reporting app is stacked with buttigieg-aligned former clinton staffers, because the DNC and the IDP are incompetent hacks, or both

what we do know is that unless the final 25% of results drastically change anything it looks like biden placed FOURTH - possibly below the viability threshold of 15% - thus destroying the "electability" argument central to his campaign

here's what else we know:

• buttigieg has virtually zero non-white support anywhere in the country
• recent polls suggest sanders could perform a clean sweep of new hampshire next week
• warren has canceled over $350k worth of flights and TV ad buys in the past few days
• if biden can't right his ship in new hampshire (he won't, imo) then his donor flow might dry up completely, leaving his only path to victory 100% at the mercy of southern black voters

bold brinstar predictions

feb:
IA - sanders will ultimately come out ahead, though he's been denied a victory cycle
NH - sanders sweep
NV - sanders over biden by 3
SC - biden over sanders by 10
klobuchar and yang drop out after SC

super tuesday:
sanders will sweep CA and win am. sam., CO, dems abroad, ME, MA, MN, UT, VT, VA
buttigieg/warren will win nothing, but will come away with a few dozen delegates after coming in 3rd or 4th
biden will win AL, AR, NC, OK, TN
TX is a coin toss between sanders and biden
warren drops out

beyond super tuesday:
progressives solidify behind sanders; estabs bicker over whether to stick with biden (potato brain) or try to prop up buttigieg (no POC support) but they keep splitting the centrist vote thus allowing sanders to run away with it


three possible outcomes:
- the DNC lets sanders have the nom without any further fuckery, and he cruises to victory.
- the DNC changes the rules so superdelegates can swing the first vote to biden, who loses the general without even getting the popular vote.
- the DNC lets sanders have the nom, but bloomberg runs as a third-party spoiler, siphoning off enough angry centrist PUMAs to hand a second term to trump.

[Reynaldo]

Good thread Brin, you hit on almost every prediction.

I really considered Bloomberg the only real threat to Trump so now that he's out it could get ugly.

[Arlos]

I would bet all of my monies that Mindia has become a complete and total Qanon cultist. Anyone disagree? lol

[brinstar]

Good thread Brin, you hit on almost every prediction.

yeah except i didn't anticipate barack would call all the kids into his study and make them drop out and get behind joe the day before super tuesday and basically form centrist voltron, while making liz stay in and endure the humiliation of placing 3rd in her own state just to split the left

every election cycle goes like this it seems: moderates scream at progressives that they aren't needed and their policies aren't popular (which itself is a lie). if the moderate nominee loses (1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004, 2016) they blame progressives for shitting the bed. if the moderate wins (1992, 1996, 2008, 2012) they laugh at progressives and say haha see we didn't need you fuckers after all. it's a toxic relationship, and we now have a two-party kleptocracy where both parties punch left.

where has it gotten us? we're a failed police state choking to death on a double dose of self-inflicted socioeconomic desperation and a respiratory pandemic we are uniquely incapable of handling - and the best option the so-called opposition party can prop up is a sundowning groper fuckboy shitbag who has a decades-long record of being CONSPICUOUSLY and LOUDLY and SMUGLY wrong on every single policy position he's ever taken???

flush it all

[brinstar]

a complete and total Qanon cultist

100%