And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[Herman]

If Trump wins re-election I will personally thank you, 71 db. 

Because you want entire states exterminated?

Like the death cult much?

[71 dB]

I'm all for Bernie running third party. Stir up the kids, get those Bernie Bros to pressure Sanders to keep up the good fight for democratic socialism.

If Trump wins re-election I will personally thank you, 71 db. 

The logical thing to do is thank those who actually voted for Trump. Corporate Dems only serve the rich and corporations. Crumbs at BEST to regular people. That's why regular people are struggling and are desperate. Trump said he is an outsider and that appealed to Trumpists. If these people still support Trump it's because Trumps genius of appealing to his base and the fact the corporate media sucks. It's possible Covid-19 makes MAGA-people realize how incompetent Trump is. We'll see.

Bernie Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, but is actually a social democrat. Had (older) Americans listened to me and supported Bernie in the primary the way he deserves Trump would not have a change of re-election.

[Todd]

Like hyperbole much?

Herman is a fiction author.  He is detached from reality.

Had (older) Americans listened to me

So is 71dB.

[Ratliff]

Well, dang, maybe I did not get this right.

I ain't no New Yorker.

Maybe it's just the NY media that used to dislike him.

Hating politicians is a sport in the United States. Possibly most people dislike him, but dislike him less than the other politicians. That, and a small group of diehard loyalists, is the closest a politician gets to being popular.

[ritter]

Had (older) Americans listened to me and supported Bernie in the primary the way he deserves Trump would not have a change of re-election.

This statement deserves to be framed and hung on as many walls as possible....

[JBS]

Like hyperbole much?

The hardest hit states are pretty much ran by the Dems, btw. Don't tell me they don't bear responsibility for their response. Your blame of Trump is a dishonest attempt to absolve them of any and all mistakes.

The lack of testing and PPE is all on Trump. 

The hardest hit states are more urbanized,  therefore have heavier concentrations of minorities.  The GOP is generally indifferent, if not hostile, to things that concern minorities.  So naturally those minorities vote for the Democrats. 

[Todd]

The lack of testing and PPE is all on Trump. 

Incorrect.  States are also on the hook. 

[JBS]

Incorrect.  States are also on the hook.

I see, Gov Coumo sent the national stockpile to China to hep them out back in January. Gov. Coumo took no steps to replenish it after doing so.

[Todd]

I see, Gov Coumo sent the national stockpile to China to hep them out back in January. Gov. Coumo took no steps to replenish it after doing so.

States, counties, and cities have public health departments.  They are directly responsible for assuring adequate supplies of medical equipment for the geographic regions they have responsibility for, and they are directly responsible for formulating response plans.  They coordinate these with FEMA, as well as other federal agencies, and other state and local governments.  The Covid crisis has exposed emergency response failings at all levels.  Expect DR consultants to make a mint in the next few years.

[JBS]

You said you were a conservative libertarian so I assume you'd realize it's not always about indifference or hostility but ideology  and principle. What should the GOP do? Advocate for a larger and more redistributive welfare state? Compensation? The crime reform bill from a few years ago was an attempt at rectifying past mistakes but are more protections for civil liberties needed?

Well, how about one step that should be well within bounds for actual conservatives; recognize BLM was about police abusing their authority and had nothing to with protecting criminals or insurrectionists? And that protesting during the national anthem is the reverse of being unpatriotic?

[Todd]

No, it's the federal government's responsibility to protect everyone at all times everywhere. Who the hell knows anything or cares about federalism? it's an 18th century bunk idea from a rural agrarian society. I don't vote in state and local elections because decentralized government won't save me from bad stuff like Covid-19. Thus no blame for mayors and governors and board of supervisors, city councils, too. That's why we elect president and congress. Trump and Republicans bad, do bad job. Vote Democrat next time and next time no one die.

I forgot all this.  Thank you.  This has convinced me of the superiority of the Democrat approach.  You should run for office.

[Karl Henning]

ooh-wee, lookit that boy toe the Trump line!

[SimonNZ]

Police abusing their authority in general is scary and needs to be addressed. Isolating one group above others for redress won't solve the bigger issue.

Solving that issue on its own would be a massive achievement, regardless of what other issues need to be addressed next.

Someone else here was making this argument recently: that institutionalized racism shouldn't be addressed separate to all other law enforcement problems. I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now.

Or is knowing that the perfect will never be achieved a way of avoiding the good and tacitly approving and continuing the racism?

Do you also think that institutionalized racism in teaching shouldn't be addressed unless all other pedagogical issues are resolved at the same time?

[SimonNZ]

I don't believe in utopias so maybe I'll just say that if we are still experiencing inequality, racism and injustice in general we probably always will until people naturally evolve away from that behavior. Past top down approaches such as legislative laws and governmental policies haven't fixed it and in some ways made it worse. Don't forget it was originally government laws and policies (eg, slavery and Jim Crow) that made a tragically but naturally occurring phenomenon a lot worse for black people, gays, etc. 

And I don't believe that at all, and furthermore believe its an attitude that legitimizes and perpetuates the problem.

Re the second part: it was the states that decided on the practice of slavery wasn't it? And the government with its "laws and policies" that ended it as well as giving black men - and eventually women - the vote? Because "bottom up" efforts were met with violence?

[JBS]

And I don't believe that at all, and furthermore believe its an attitude that legitimizes and perpetuates the problem.

Re the second part: it was the states that decided on the practice of slavery wasn't it? And the government with its "laws and policies" that ended it as well as giving black men - and eventually women - the vote? Because "bottom up" efforts were met with violence?

Without the bottom up efforts, the Federal Government would have done nothing.  Brown vs Board of Education was nit brought by the Justice Department

The case originated in 1951, when the public school district in Topeka, Kansas, refused to enroll the daughter of local black resident Oliver Brown at the school closest to their home, instead requiring her to ride a bus to a segregated black elementary school farther away. The Browns and twelve other local black families in similar situations then filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. federal court against the Topeka Board of Education, alleging that its segregation policy was unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas rendered a verdict against the Browns, relying on the precedent of the Supreme Court's 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Court had ruled that racial segregation was not in itself a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause if the facilities in question were otherwise equal, a doctrine that had come to be known as "separate but equal." The Browns, then represented by NAACP chief counsel Thurgood Marshall, appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.

[Wikipedia]

The civil rights workers were able to capitalize on a sympathetic Northern press to some degree, on a SCOTUS that was willing to end segregation, and used publicity to get the Federal government gradually involved.  The "top down" came into play but only after the "bottom" started acting up.

Similar to Emancipation in 1863-65. The Union acted to free slaves, but a large portion of slaves freed themselves by running away to take shelter behind Union lines, and black men enlisted in the Union army and proved they could fight as well as, sometimes better than, their white peers.

So efforts from both directions are really needed.

[SimonNZ]

Yes, I'd agree with it expressed that way.

[JBS]

It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. You emotive perspective of truth is certainly not grounded upon observable reality or historical fact and is more like a religious faith, which is certainly a characteristic of modern liberalism. 
The problem was originally giving the government a power it never should have been allowed in the first place. Hence the terrible injustice and the later needs to address and readdress and keep addressing the problems that arose from it.

That would be true only if you ignore the degree to which racism was embedded in American culture and the general society in the 19th century and into the 20th century.

[Herman]

I don't believe in utopias so maybe I'll just say that if we are still experiencing inequality, racism and injustice in general we probably always will until people naturally evolve away from that behavior.

By all means let's get back to segregation and wait till everybody has "evolved".

Just occasionally beat up or shoot blacks because they get uppity.

Love the way you use seventies language to support an ancient pov.

[71 dB]

The one positive effect of Dowder's presence is he makes me feel JDS is on my side politically, and that is saying a lot.   

The problem was originally giving the government a power it never should have been allowed in the first place. Hence the terrible injustice and the later needs to address and readdress and keep addressing the problems that arose from it.

The real problem is the (US) government is owned by large corporations and the rich. The power is power of the top 1 %, oligarchy so that regular people like yourself don't have the power they should have in democracy. So, you are correct in pointing out you lack the power you should have, but you are wrong in thinking government power is by default a bad thing. No, in functioning democracies government power can be a wonderful thing.

[Karl Henning]

The one positive effect of Dowder's presence is he makes me feel JBS is on my side politically, and that is saying a lot.   

I rejoice in your silver lining.