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The 2020 Presidential Election - Convention & General Election


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35 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

You are the person charged with making the responsible decision here. You. You have to vote for someone.

 

Expecting Trump's opponent to have to earn your vote is passive. You, the "responsible voter" need to make a responsible decision. Proactively choose to vote in a way that sees Trump out. 

 

Expecting Trump's opponent to EARN your vote is you sitting back, passively, saying, "Convince me."

 

If you haven't been convinced by the last four years... man. What have you been looking at?

 

PROACTIVELY go vote against Trump. That's you. Joe Biden will not be filling out your ballot. YOU will.

 

Don't be passive. Be proactive.

Wha...????

 

 

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1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

But how many stayed home and didn't vote at all? You keep saying it's wasted time, but that kind of thinking/campaigning will result in even more not voting. Do you really think pivoting to the right will get more voters than appealing to Bernie's base? I'm old enough to remember Schumer literally saying this in 2016, and he was wrong. Trump won the election level of wrong.

 

And a lot of voters don't vote based on ideology, so there's something to be said just for making the effort to appeal to a group of voters.

 

I've been busy doing other stuff so I haven't been able to participate in all of this back and forth, but I skimmed it and I'm caught up. Here's what I am saying:

 

I don't think Biden needs to pivot to the right, but I don't think he needs to pivot too far to the left either. I actually think he's pretty well positioned currently as a solidly center-left candidate whose platform is more progressive than it gets credit for.  I do think he should adopt some progressive policies like the climate change ones we were discussing.

 

You keep talking about Biden appealing to voters. Implicit within that plea is that he appeal to voters like you. When you break down Bernie's actual base it's solidly about 1/3 of Democratic Party voters. The vast majority of those will ultimately vote for Biden. But there will still be that ~12% or so that will not for various reasons - don't like Biden, anti-establishment in general, would only vote for Bernie - and nothing will change that.

 

Of course Biden should appeal to voters. What I'm suggesting is he take a hard look at the data and make an informed decision on targeting the most persuadable voters to maximize his ROI rather than going after voters who already dislike him. That may not necessarily mean targeting progressives.

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3 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

Freedom of choice doesn't change just because you've determined the election is different.  That's your opinion and you're welcome to it...but not everyone has to agree and they can vote for Mickey Mouse if they want to.

 

Telling someone NOT voting Democrat/Biden is voting for Trump is a fallacy.  It was a fallacy in 2016 when people tried to claim that Bernie is the one who caused Hillary to lose because his base/he didn't support her.  It's a fallacy now.

 

 

 

It wasn't a fallacy. Look who's in the Oval Office.

 

Let's not make that mistake again.

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Also, FWIW I don't believe anyone should be forced or coerced into exercising their franchise. Either you choose to vote for your own reasons or you don't. I ultimately come down pretty close to Knapp's view - I'm blown away that the past four years can't get some folks jacked up to go and vote for whoever the alternative to Trump is.  But whatever, they've got their reasons and I'm not going to fault them for it. They're just a lot different than I am.

 

A lot of the points being raised here were covered on this debate between a Pro-Biden dude and a Pro-Bernie dude I found and watched last night. Feel free to watch if you've got time to kill (I'd recommend raising the playback speed to save time):

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

Also, FWIW I don't believe anyone should be forced or coerced into exercising their franchise. Either you choose to vote for your own reasons or you don't. I ultimately come down pretty close to Knapp's view - I'm blown away that the past four years can't get some folks jacked up to go and vote for whoever the alternative to Trump is.  But whatever, they've got their reasons and I'm not going to fault them for it. They're just a lot different than I am.

 

A lot of the points being raised here were covered on this debate between a Pro-Biden dude and a Pro-Bernie dude I found and watched last night. Feel free to watch if you've got time to kill (I'd recommend raising the playback speed to save time):

 

 

Only 2 minutes in and I'm loving the professional guy in the suit doing the debate from his bedroom with zebra print blankets and Christmas lights around his American flag!  :rollin

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The ONLY way the left gains power is by sitting the election out or voting for Trump. Thats the only way because if Biden wins then every election from here on out will be “we need to nominate a moderate because only moderates can win”. The left will get NO credit for Bidens win. The narrative will be about Biden appealing to never Trump republicans which is complete BS. The only way Biden wins is if Bernie supporters show up for him but even if they do they still wont be given any credit. So if the left wants power in the future they need to show the democratic party they have the power to influence an election. They do. Which is why dems lost in 2016. They didnt learn their lesson obviously. 
 

With that being said, I will vote for Biden because Ive lost all hope for this country and its future due to this primary

cycle and I guess its better to be s#!tty than really really s#!tty...

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3 minutes ago, Frott Scost said:

The ONLY way the left gains power is by sitting the election out or voting for Trump. Thats the only way because if Biden wins then every election from here on out will be “we need to nominate a moderate because only moderates can win”. The left will get NO credit for Bidens win. The narrative will be about Biden appealing to never Trump republicans which is complete BS. The only way Biden wins is if Bernie supporters show up for him but even if they do they still wont be given any credit. So if the left wants power in the future they need to show the democratic party they have the power to influence an election. They do. Which is why dems lost in 2016. They didnt learn their lesson obviously. 
 

With that being said, I will vote for Biden because Ive lost all hope for this country and its future due to this primary

cycle and I guess its better to be s#!tty than really really s#!tty...

That's the spirit!

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2 minutes ago, Frott Scost said:

The ONLY way the left gains power is by sitting the election out of voting for Trump. Thats the only way because if Biden wins then every election from here on out will be “we need to nominate a moderate because only moderates can win”. The left will get NO credit for Bidens win. The narrative will be about Biden appealing to never Trump republicans which is complete BS. The only way Biden wins is if Bernie supporters show up for him but even if they do they still wont be given any credit. So if the left wants power in the future they need to show the democratic party they have the power to influence an election. They do. Which is why dems lost in 2016. They didnt learn their lesson obviously. 
 

With that being said, I will vote for Biden because Ive lost all hope for this country and its future due to this primary

cycle and I guess its better to be s#!tty than really really s#!tty...

 

I don't agree with your first paragraph. I think there are a lot of ways the left can gain power.

 

And while I think your second paragraph is fatalistic, I agree. I think Biden is not good, he's just better than Trump. And I think a lot of this country is broken and maybe Biden won't fix it, but he sure as hell is going to be less bad than Trump.

 

And if he's not we'll have even more to talk about the next four years. And maybe if Biden is sufficiently crappy that'll push even more people to vote for the ideals Bernie & AOC espouse.

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1 minute ago, knapplc said:

 

I have never said that. I have been saying throughout this whole conversation that this should be irrelevant.

 

Ideally Biden would appeal to the broadest class of voters he can. The only place I think you and I disagree is the extent to which he should be courting Bernie voters. And we're likely not that far off.

 

I'm simply saying in this single election that responsible voters (which I think you & @Landlord are based on your input here over the years) should not need convincing.  Ideally, no one would. But this is far from an ideal version of America.

I agree with you. But most voters aren't going to think the same as each other, that's just the nature of humanity and one of the challenges of democracies.

 

And while personally I'd like Biden to move more progressive, if there was a good electoral reason to not do that, at least I'd understand it. But based on Hillary courting Repubs in the last election and infamous Schumer quote, I think it's a better electoral strategy to appeal to progressives.

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53 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

I've been busy doing other stuff so I haven't been able to participate in all of this back and forth, but I skimmed it and I'm caught up. Here's what I am saying:

 

I don't think Biden needs to pivot to the right, but I don't think he needs to pivot too far to the left either. I actually think he's pretty well positioned currently as a solidly center-left candidate whose platform is more progressive than it gets credit for.  I do think he should adopt some progressive policies like the climate change ones we were discussing.

 

You keep talking about Biden appealing to voters. Implicit within that plea is that he appeal to voters like you. When you break down Bernie's actual base it's solidly about 1/3 of Democratic Party voters. The vast majority of those will ultimately vote for Biden. But there will still be that ~12% or so that will not for various reasons - don't like Biden, anti-establishment in general, would only vote for Bernie - and nothing will change that.

 

Of course Biden should appeal to voters. What I'm suggesting is he take a hard look at the data and make an informed decision on targeting the most persuadable voters to maximize his ROI rather than going after voters who already dislike him. That may not necessarily mean targeting progressives.

Let me separate two arguments I'm making: 1) Biden should appeal to the most voters and 2) Biden should appeal to progressive voters.

 

1) is obviously the optimal strategy if Biden wants to win, and that's why I was confused when knapplc appeared to be arguing against that.

 

2) is my opinion on how Biden can do 1). It's based largely on what we saw when Hillary did the opposite in 2016, and that I don't think as many Repub voters will actually turn out and vote for Biden as progressives will if Biden were to court one or the other of those groups.

 

And yes, there's going to be some segment of any group that won't vote for a particular candidate including Bernie supporters not voting for Biden. So it'd be foolish for Biden to exhaust a lot of effort trying to get those voters. But I think you're lumping a lot of progressives all in the same boat when I think Biden could legitimately get them to turn out and vote for him.

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1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

Let me separate two arguments I'm making: 1) Biden should appeal to the most voters and 2) Biden should appeal to progressive voters.

 

1) is obviously the optimal strategy if Biden wants to win, and that's why I was confused when knapplc appeared to be arguing against that.

 

2) is my opinion on how Biden can do 1). It's based largely on what we saw when Hillary did the opposite in 2016, and that I don't think as many Repub voters will actually turn out and vote for Biden as progressives will if Biden were to court one or the other of those groups.

 

And yes, there's going to be some segment of any group that won't vote for a particular candidate including Bernie supporters not voting for Biden. So it'd be foolish for Biden to exhaust a lot of effort trying to get those voters. But I think you're lumping a lot of progressives all in the same boat when I think Biden could legitimately get them to turn out and vote for him.

 

And I think not appealing to progressives as a reason for losing in 2016 gets conflated a lot with the fact that Hillary Clinton was a uniquely bad, disliked candidate.

 

Of course Biden should appeal to progressives. But I'm not sure he should appeal to them at the expense of other non-progressive voters. There's some areas of overlap like climate change policy where he could make inroads.

 

Is there any evidence Biden should veer left more than he is to beat Trump? My argument is basically that the progressives that will come will come; hewing leftward too much will not yield sufficient votes to be worthwhile and is thus counterproductive. But I'm open to changing my mind.

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2 hours ago, Danny Bateman said:

My argument is basically that the progressives that will come will come; hewing leftward too much will not yield sufficient votes to be worthwhile and is thus counterproductive. But I'm open to changing my mind.

 

 

There are millions of gen z/millenial votees that will likely stay home, but might not if he widens his umbrella leftwards. At least being open and gracious and communicative with those votes instead of condescending and snide as we're seeing more instances of lately. 

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5 minutes ago, Landlord said:

There are millions of gen z/millenial votees that will likely stay home, but might not if he widens his umbrella leftwards. At least being open and gracious and communicative with those votes instead of condescending and snide as we're seeing more instances of lately. 

 

I agree. I don't know if we pay attention to the same type of stuff on social media but I actually don't see a lot of the snide, condescending stuff. I think to the extent that stuff is out there it gets amplified by social media to make Biden seem more condescending to these voters than he actually is.

 

Regardless I think that leftward shift is important and the party ultimately belongs to those voters anyway. Even though their candidate didn't win this primary I see nothing but good things ahead.

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8 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

And that's just colossally stupid. There is nothing remotely similar between Trump's & Bernie's politics.

 

A Bernie supporter who would vote for Trump wasn't a supporter of Bernie's ideas.

 

They're called swing voters and they basically decide every election.  By definition they don't care that much about ideology.

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This is not a normal election. Anyone thinking this is just a contest of ideologies is fooling themselves.

 

You either vote for the only candidate who can beat Trump or you vote for Trump.

 

 

Check your ego at the door of the polling place. This is not the time to make a statement.

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