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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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just to render him ineligible

if you're concerned with the law, nothing he's been charged with or investigated for is even in the realm of something which would render Trump constitutionally ineligible

that being said, the law hasn't mattered thus far so no reason to think it would going forward

Even if De Santis loses in the generals

desantis will certainly lose in the general

desantis must win the midwest to win the general, but I will tell you midwesterners do not like desantis and he will not appeal to them because he's an uncharismatic dork with a long history of being a neolib neocon who votes for forever wars and disasters like TPP

he wouldn't even win Ohio let alone Wisconsin

seeing him as the opponent will force democrats to prefer a moderate candidate

Joe Biden was the moderate candidate. So was Hillary Clinton. Democrats, as opposed to the GOP, are far more capable of forcing through moderate candidates, and they have, irrelevant of whatever "Democrats" think generally.

I mean, if the Democrats put forth a competent moderate who can beat Trump, then I'd be happy. I don't have any particular allegiances to the Republicans. But look at the alternative democratic candidates now... they're in disarray. Obama wasn't a candidate until the very last minute. So a miracle might happen. But, it doesn't look like the demos have a popular leader they want to band around. I like Pete Buttigieg and Marty Walsh. No nonsense moderates. But they seem to putting their weight behind Biden.

This means it will likely be Biden vs Republicans, and he will not fare well in debates against anyone.

he wouldn't even win Ohio let alone Wisconsin

Democrats won 2020 because they came out in droves to beat Trump, not vote for Biden. De Santis can force a lot turnout in Democrats, and energize enough Republicans to take it.

Democrats "won" 2020 because they fundamentally and illegally changed how elections were done and poured ~$1,000,000,000 3rd party dollars and biased gov grants to "get out the vote" organizations to certain areas of the country ran by certain people not to mention a vast manipulation campaign by google and facebook.

Without those illegal changes, Democrats would not have won.

De Santis can force a lot turnout in Democrats, and energize enough Republicans to take it.

you think this based on what?

Of their candidates the only one I could potentially stand is AOC and that’s despite her being the leader of the squad. I think she’s toned it down a little bit as she became a real politician.

But honestly I trust her as authentic. I don’t think she’s been bought and paid for yet. Not like Biden taking money from anyone American enemy who was willing to send his son a wire. And more than a few just come off as rich kids on a silver spoon that are listed (Newman for example) or just too old. She’s only a second rate mind (went to BC). I actually sense she’s a nice person. Not a sugar baby like Kamela.

Really? I find her understanding on nearly anything to just be vapidly regurgitate social media slop. She has an Economics degree, she has no business saying some of the crazy shit she says about socialism. I'm not sure if it's worse if she believes what she says or she doesn't.

Please don't insult my alma mater! (That's my job!)

AOC went to Boston University.

Sorry for being that guy. I guess she’s from a third rate school. And BC was my second choiceto be that guy.

Only other school I considered.

there is a gaping chasm between defensible polling and not

you want to bet this poll vastly oversamples certain demos and the polling organization has a poor record predicting objective outcomes?

Of course they do. There are a number of ways this happens, but the main driving force is the ability to affect outcomes in voting by party insiders because most of the Democrat primary voting base is in machine city politics, i.e., "black democratic primary voters," and in union members. Both of these groups are easy to drive to particular candidates. And even if all this softer "forcing" fails, Democrats have more control over who gets the nomination because the nomination is more controlled by party insiders in the nominating process, i.e., superdelegates. These party insiders have "forced" through candidates in the past. This process was slightly tweaked recently, but they are still able to force through a candidate in a contested convention (i.e., fails on first ballot).

yes, they can "force through" moderate candidates

IIRC Progressives in 2016 bitterly complained about super-delegates and the potential voter suppression effect they could have when added to tallies of delegates (which'd make it seem like Clinton's lead was insurmountable so why bother?).

Speaking as a left-wing social democrat who voted for Bernie in the primaries twice, those people were dumb.

The percentage of primary voters who ever saw a graphic w/ the superdelegates + Clinton's delegates on a TV screen or in a newspaper article was probably less than 5%, if not even lower.

There was no conspiracy in 2016 or 2020 against Bernie Sanders - he was just bad at appealing to make a majority of Democratic primaries vote for him over either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. This isn't to say those primary voters dislike him, which is something I think people miss.

Yes, there are a small amount of leftist online who think Obama is a neoliberal war criminal and Hillary is terrible, and a small number of 60-year old MSNBC voters who think Bernie Sanders is a sexist who would've lost 40 states, but the median Democratic voter likes Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and if they're aware of them, AOC, Gavin Newsom, and even Joe Manchin.

The only Democratic person of note who is actually disliked by the median Democratic voter is Sinema, because she openly pushed againt things even median Democrat's support, and openly decided to go all-in on being friends with rich Republican's, when she could've been a Mark Warner-style Senator in Arizona for a generation, and hell, maybe even been a VP or POTUS candidate in a decade or two.

There was no conspiracy in 2016 or 2020 against Bernie Sanders

Tim Kaine is replaced as head of the DNC with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who helped head Clinton's 2008 campaign, and then Tim Kaine is made Hillary's 2016 VP. The receipts were all leaked by WikiLeaks, which showed that the DNC did everything it could to ensure Hillary's win. (Donna Brazille even passed Hillary some debate questions in advance.) Tulsi Gabbard resigned in protest over it, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz was eventually made to resign over the controversy.

And in 2020, we got something more boring but still slanted: candidates dropping out and favoring Biden against Sanders, what Sh0eonhead called "The Neoliberal Voltron."