The “Who is running in 2020?” tea leaves thread, Part 3

[Heebie Jeebie]

Bloomberg, Biden and TMac now reconsidering and less likely to run due to Dem leftward shift.

The Democratic Party is racing at breakneck pace toward George McGovern territory.

This isn't a bad thing.

And the GOP pole-vaulting past Barry Goldwater and shacking it with Jesse Helms to great reward is evidence of that. It's not like the old trajectory towards Joe Lieberman or '80's Mondale did anything useful anyway.

Political polarization is bad for democracy.

You get things like government shutdowns. You get gridlock and the inability for Congress to solve problems. That opens the door to dictatorship. If the U.S. becomes a dictatorship it will not have any better claim to lead the world than China or Russia. The founders didn't design the Constitution with partisan politics in mind. When people become more loyal to their partisan factions than what brings us together, including respect for rule of law, in spirit as well as letter, America is dead. When that happens, YOUR rights will be dead.

Got a lot of problems with this. You talk about loyalty to partisan faction, but a more accurate way of thinking about it is loyalty to a coherent set of social and economic values.  Should we abandon our values because in some abstract sense "polarization is bad"?  What's more, can you identify a time in our history when American politics wasn't politically polarized?  At that time, how were our politics organized?  By sectional polarization?  Racial polarization?  Was "respect for rule of law" more sacrosanct during those periods than it is today?  You're right that the Founders didn't design a political system to effectively manage the politics of the world we live in, but the solution isn't to pretend we live in the world they imagined. The solution is to reform and change the system, to make legal changes that will add more democracy to our politics.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Bloomberg, Biden and TMac now reconsidering and less likely to run due to Dem leftward shift.

It's not 1996 anymore. Thank god.

1996 was more "left" than today. A 6-3 center-left supreme court majority, more progressive tax structure, more financial regulations in place, ICE didn't exist, no Patriot Act, housing more affordable, less debt, lower deficit, no Fox News, etc.

That was because there was 22 fewer years of neoliberals in power, not because the neoliberals weren't in power.

[Beet]

Bloomberg, Biden and TMac now reconsidering and less likely to run due to Dem leftward shift.

The Democratic Party is racing at breakneck pace toward George McGovern territory.

This isn't a bad thing.

And the GOP pole-vaulting past Barry Goldwater and shacking it with Jesse Helms to great reward is evidence of that. It's not like the old trajectory towards Joe Lieberman or '80's Mondale did anything useful anyway.

Political polarization is bad for democracy.

You get things like government shutdowns. You get gridlock and the inability for Congress to solve problems. That opens the door to dictatorship. If the U.S. becomes a dictatorship it will not have any better claim to lead the world than China or Russia. The founders didn't design the Constitution with partisan politics in mind. When people become more loyal to their partisan factions than what brings us together, including respect for rule of law, in spirit as well as letter, America is dead. When that happens, YOUR rights will be dead.

Got a lot of problems with this. You talk about loyalty to partisan faction, but a more accurate way of thinking about it is loyalty to a coherent set of social and economic values. Should we abandon our values because in some abstract sense "polarization is bad"?

 

The social and economic values of the Republican Party have become nothing but ethnic nationalism, one of the worst possible if not the most deplorable "social and economic value" there is, while the social and economic values of the Democratic Party, while not as bad (most of the time), are anything but coherent. Is that a good thing? I don't think so.

Further, even if these "social and economic values" were worth loyalty, it still tears the country apart. Would you support authoritarian measures to implement your "social and economic values"? Would you support undermining the Constitution, representative government, freedom of speech, due process, or support a dictatorship?

I like the United States system of government. Trump talks about Nationalism, but what I am arguing is actual Nationalism here. The Chinese are not going to come marching through Washington D.C. Neither are the Russians. The only people who can destroy this country are ourselves. The Soviet Union collapsed because by the end, no one believed in it any more. No one would lift a finger to save it. I like living in a country where people have rights. I like living in a country where the highest civic religion is the Constitution, human rights, and liberty. That is how America has thrived for over 200 years. I am not a fan of the worldwide authoritarian resurgence.

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Sure, save the Civil War, any other time but now. Political polarization of course always exists in some corners of every society, but it is usually disorganized and so does not prevent the operation of government. The difference is that today the most divided elements of society have their divisions reflected in political parties.

For hundreds of years, political parties existed as a matter of necessity: it made sense to organize into coalitions because you could logroll. John gives Michael X and Michael gives John Y and together they can form a majority coalition and so on.

But parties did not exist at a spiritual level. Today they do. This is bad, because when political parties are no longer practical organizations but religious organizations, the worst divisions in society are given expression. Democrats start to care more abut the Democratic Party than the good of the United States, and Republicans care more about the Republican Party than the good of the United States. This is toxic. It means too much is at stake in elections. It's okay to have disagreements, but there has to be a limit or else society falls apart because the two sides no longer have any common ground, no reason to respect the other.

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That illustrates my point, however. To effectively reform the system you would need broad agreement on how to reform it, and that is impossible, just like every other effective action, when there is sharp polarization. Because each side only cares about how it is going to benefit their side, and not whether the change makes sense on its merits.

[Mr. Morden]

O'Rourke:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/03/democratic-presidential-candidates-2020-1142895

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[Suburbia]

The Democratic Party is too far to the left.....

The Republican Party is too far to the right.....

This is why people are Independents

[Kung Fu Kenny]

The Democratic Party is too far to the left.....

The Republican Party is too far to the right.....

This is why people are Independents

Boy, wait til you find out about the Communist and Nazi parties.

[Heebie Jeebie]

The social and economic values of the Republican Party have become nothing but ethnic nationalism, one of the worst possible if not the most deplorable "social and economic value" there is, while the social and economic values of the Democratic Party, while not as bad (most of the time), are anything but coherent. Is that a good thing? I don't think so.

You're underselling the coherence of Democratic ideology.  Seriously, what are the major disagreements inside the party at the moment?  Lots of argument about style and tactics, but there's almost complete unanimity on shared goals and objectives. 

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This is such a straw man--no one is arguing in favor of authoritarianism here.  Just the opposite, really.  The critique is that the American political system, from the signing of the Constitution to the present, has been too authoritarian, too antidemocratic.  And it's not because we've suddenly become politically polarized as a society--our system of governance has always been this way.  If anything, our system has gotten far less authoritarian and dictatorial since around 1968, the start of our current politically polarized era.

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I just don't share your understanding of American history.  The Civil War didn't come out of nowhere--it was the unavoidable result of a polarized political system incapable of operating or dealing with its primary national problem, i.e. slavery.  Likewise for the problem of racial segregation.  The country was incapable of operating or dealing with this problem until political partisanship asserted itself and supplanted sectional polarization.

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Again, I just don't think this narrative lines up with our actual national history.  The limits on our political disagreements is the rule of law, and we have far, far more fealty to the rule of law today than we did in prior generations.  Lawless violence, terror, and corruption were just taken as givens in our past, and while there is unquestionably lawless behavior and corruption today (Trump, police killing black boys, etc.), we are far, far less tolerant of it and there are increasingly actual consequences for it.  A big reason for this is our increasingly democratic political system and intensified partisanship.

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Nonsense.  You don't need bipartisan agreement to reform the system.  You just need the votes!  If you want to pass voting rights legislation, get Democratic majorities in Congress.  If you want to end the legislative filibuster, elect Democrats, apply pressure, and count the votes.  If you want US citizens in DC and Puerto Rico to have Congressional representation, elect Democrats and count the votes.  Reform, when it happens, will happen along partisan lines.

[Zaybay]

The social and economic values of the Republican Party have become nothing but ethnic nationalism, one of the worst possible if not the most deplorable "social and economic value" there is, while the social and economic values of the Democratic Party, while not as bad (most of the time), are anything but coherent. Is that a good thing? I don't think so.

You're underselling the coherence of Democratic ideology.  Seriously, what are the major disagreements inside the party at the moment?  Lots of argument about style and tactics, but there's almost complete unanimity on shared goals and objectives. 

Nah, Beet is right on this one. Trust me, wait until the Ds are actually in government, without a common enemy in Trump to oppose.

[Heebie Jeebie]

Nah, Beet is right on this one. Trust me, wait until the Ds are actually in government, without a common enemy in Trump to oppose.

I'm genuinely confused by this.  Is there some significant segment of the Democratic party I don't know about that is opposed to delivering universal health coverage, or redistributing wealth downward, or fighting racial/sexual discrimination, or pursuing international cooperation, or protecting the environment, or expanding democratic representation, or on and on?  Again, I know there are disagreements about style and strategy, but it seems to me that the most prominent Democrats in the party are all on the same page when it comes to what the party is trying to accomplish.

[Zaybay]

Nah, Beet is right on this one. Trust me, wait until the Ds are actually in government, without a common enemy in Trump to oppose.

I'm genuinely confused by this.  Is there some significant segment of the Democratic party I don't know about that is opposed to delivering universal health coverage, or redistributing wealth downward, or fighting racial/sexual discrimination, or pursuing international cooperation, or protecting the environment, or expanding democratic representation, or on and on?  Again, I know there are disagreements about style and strategy, but it seems to me that the most prominent Democrats in the party are all on the same page when it comes to what the party is trying to accomplish.

Yes, actually. While the D party may be united on broad issues(such as the issues you described), the problem comes when you talk details. Thats always the killer. The GOP, long the more ideologically concise party, had trouble in government when they took power, the Ds will be much worse.

For instance, healthcare. Im pretty sure almost every D would say we need to expand healthcare to individuals. The problem is "How?". At least 1/2 the Ds are in the Medicare for All caucus, but many only support strengthening Obamacare. Then you have the public option to throw in, and it becomes a mess.

While most of the prominent Ds have lined up behind the Progressive side of the party, the 28 Blue Dogs still exist, as do the ideologically diverse New Dem caucus. Even the CPC has its share of moderates who disagree with the party's direction. So while the stars of the party are moving in one direction, the backbenchers, the ones you need to vote for the legislation, still exist, and are still formidable.

[Beet]

This is such a straw man--no one is arguing in favor of authoritarianism here.  Just the opposite, really.  The critique is that the American political system, from the signing of the Constitution to the present, has been too authoritarian, too antidemocratic.  And it's not because we've suddenly become politically polarized as a society--our system of governance has always been this way.  If anything, our system has gotten far less authoritarian and dictatorial since around 1968, the start of our current politically polarized era.

You don't have to explicitly argue in favor of authoritarianism -- the logic of Party over all else inevitably leads to it. Why do you think China has an authoritarian government? Before the PRC there was the CPC. The CPC was in WWII and the Civil War and it was everything. Once the PRC was established, why have a multiparty system? Everyone agrees the CPC should be in power. And if Party is what matters, why not use authoritarian means to achieve the Party's ends? I'm not saying it's going to happen overnight- but it is moving in this direction.

Already you have a Court system that has become another political arm, and it is losing its legitimacy. John Roberts is trying to keep it alive, but it is already at the point where both parties simply see the Courts as another means of achieving their policy goals or blocking the opposing party's. Tell me, in a normal society, would you think a judge is a fair judge if you can predict how that judge will rule on certain cases years before it is even brought up to trial? Yet this is what we have today. Both parties believe that judges are "theirs" or their opponents. That is why they fight so hard for certain judges and against others to begin with.

Already you have both Republicans and Democrats arguing in favor of the President using National Emergencies to enact policy goals, running around Congress. And they can say that it is necessary because Congress is so gridlocked that it can't get anything done - due to polarization. Eventually if this continues people will conclude Congress is useless, and start supporting the President doing things unilaterally through National Emergency, because stuff needs to get done. And that will further remove pressure from Congress to act. And eventually, if Congress is not doing its job, what will be the point of even having a Congress? Let's do everything through the President...

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The solution to racial segregation did not occur because of political partisanship. Republicans overwhelmingly supported the civil rights bills of the 1960s. If anything, it was relatively non-partisan and when Barry Goldwater tried to make it partisan, he was abandoned by members of his own party and got blown out. That is why it was successful. If the Republican Party had continued to reject civil rights, it would not have been successful.

The civil war, on the other hand, did begin when political partisanship suddenly aligned with sectional polarization, that is true. But it just underscores that when Party divisions begin to align with the most divisive problems of society, it exacerbates those divisions. It should not be up to political parties to solve these problems, because by nature they require consensus to solve. If the Democratic Party had continued to support slavery into the 1870s, that problem would not have been solved either.

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You are taking the victories of a less polarized time, the mid-twentieth century, which saw a decline in lawless violence, terror, and corruption, but which was a relatively non-partisan time, and trying to assign it to the early twenty-first century, where we are seeing a reversal of the positive trends we saw then. That is stealing the achievements of a good era and trying to give it to a bad era.

In the mid-twentieth century, there was strong support for democratic norms on a bipartisan basis, but this was not applied to all people. Liberals argued for these principles to be applied more consistently, and they were expanded. But the principles themselves were safe, and both parties' leaders supported them. Today you have a President, with record high approval ratings from his own party, who openly says things like, "it'd be nice to be president for life [like Xi Jinping]" and acts in a way that never respects America's political culture.

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Well that requires getting a Democratic majority in Congress. That will require you to pick up five Senate seats in 2020. Will you achieve that? Maybe, but maybe not. And even if you do achieve it, to actually pass legislation you will have to agree to get every Democratic Senator to agree to end the legislative filibuster. Will they all agree? Maybe, but maybe not. And even if they all agree, your legislation has to survive a challenge at the Supreme Court. Will it survive? Maybe, but maybe not. And even if it survives all that, you will have to hope the Republicans don't repeal or gut your legislation when they get back into power. Will they refrain? Maybe. But maybe not.

Any probability teacher will tell you that the chance of any X number of independent events happening is the multiplication of each of the probabilities of those events.

Don't you see? You are giving yourself, if not mission impossible, mission extremely improbable. Every lasting achievement is lasting because it became bipartisan. Medicare is safe today only to the extent that it is bipartisan. Roe is not safe because it is not quite as bipartisan. The NHS is in the UK is only safe because both the Tories and Labour accept it. If the Tories didn't accept it, Maggie Thatcher would have repealed it. You can't get what you want with only one Party, you need broad agreement. The same is true of society in general.

[Heebie Jeebie]

You don't have to explicitly argue in favor of authoritarianism -- the logic of Party over all else inevitably leads to it. Why do you think China has an authoritarian government? Before the PRC there was the CPC. The CPC was in WWII and the Civil War and it was everything. Once the PRC was established, why have a multiparty system? Everyone agrees the CPC should be in power. And if Party is what matters, why not use authoritarian means to achieve the Party's ends? I'm not saying it's going to happen overnight- but it is moving in this direction.

Geez, I'm not a sinologist so I'm not prepared to argue the nuances of Chinese political history.  I'll just make two quick points and not touch this subject again:  1.)  China has a one-party system because authoritarians savagely crushed the opposition; 2.) China has a one-party system because that one party has been delivering results--many suffer, but the masses are far better off today than they were a generation ago.

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This is nothing new!  SCOTUS since the time of John Marshall has been a deeply politicized body.   Hell, Lincoln and the Republicans of the 1850s and 1860s made stripping power from a politicized Court a central part of their political platform.

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The main reasons Congress can't get anything done are the anti-majoritarian rules that govern the body.  You want Congress to get more productive, elect Democrats and pressure those Democrats to eliminate the filibuster, end gerrymandering, extend representation to all US citizens, etc.

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Republicans didn't support the civil rights bills--Northerners did.  The Republicans who rejected civil rights continued to do so.  The rest became Democrats.

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You mean "it solves those divisions," right?  I mean, the alignment of political partisanship and sectional polarization that preceded the war did solve the problem of slavery even if it did nothing else.  And the Democratic Party, at least ideologically, did continue to support slavery into the 1870s.  What solved that problem was Constitutional/legislative change and the threat of renewed military force, both wielded by partisan, Northern Republicans.

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Are you referring to the good era of Jim Crow?

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What's more likely?  Winning Congressional majorities and passing democratic reforms to our political system; or achieving an imaginary, progressive, bipartisan consensus that our country has never known?  Talk about extremely improbable.  Also, you've got your causation backwards:  achievements don't last because they became bipartisan--they become bipartisan because they last.  And they only last if partisans fight for their preservation.

[PaperKooper]

Not to be rude, but can we keep this thread on topic?  It's for news about potential candidates. 

[Lognog]

Not to be rude, but can we keep this thread on topic?  It's for news about potential candidates. 

Thank you

[Heebie Jeebie]

Not to be rude, but can we keep this thread on topic?  It's for news about potential candidates.  

Thank you

Sorry.  I get carried away.  I'll stop contributing to this tangent here.

[Beet]

Not to be rude, but can we keep this thread on topic?  It's for news about potential candidates. 

Apologies. MormDem made a comment that was worth responding to because his view is rather widely shared in both parties and has been for quite some time. Perhaps a mod should split this discussion out to a different thread.

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So what are you arguing, to oppose authoritarianism or that authoritarianism is good because it makes the masses better off? Get your story straight. I don't think many people would agree with you that the CPC is some good organization.

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Politicized yes, that is the nature of courts- but not polarized in a partisan manner. The test of a good judge should be that the people who are invested in that judge's appointment do not fall into a predictable pattern that aligns with major cleavages in society. If all white people loved a certain judge and all black people hated him, or vice versa, would you think they are a non-racist judge? If all Democrats love a judge and all Republicans hate him, or vice versa, would you think they are not a partisan judge?

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And how are you going to do that? You would need to win the Senate, convince all Democratic Senators to end the filibuster, get the Supreme Court to rule against gerrymandering, which means winning successive presidential elections and waiting for judges to die. And even if you achieve all that, you still won't have achieved a majoritarian body because one vote in bum, Idaho will still be worth 50 Californians in the Senate. In other words, good luck. You're gonna need it. You are like a guy who insists he is going to climb Mount Everest and keeps insisting he can do it without a guide or proper equipment.

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Yes, they were northerners, but they were also Republicans. The Republican party has had a somewhat, ah, friendly relationship with the north. And it wasn't all northerners either. The guy who signed the dang thing and got it through the Senate was a southerner.

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So now you're advocating solving things by civil war? That's just my point. The logic of ultrapartisanship ultimately leads to authoritarian solutions to problems, including violence. That's just how dictators think. When a dictator has a problem, he just shoots a guy. Is that how you want things to be run? Once you've endorsed that, you have endorsed dictatorship.

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Jim Crow was dismantled during that era. Jim Crow was established in the late 19th century-- a time when there was high political polarization and partisanship.

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The question is why achievements last, not why they are bipartisan. There's nothing intrinsically valuable about an achievement being bipartisan. So saying "it lasts because it lasts" is circular reasoning. History shows that policies last when both parties agree on them and they have broad consensus in society. Policies that don't have that don't last. Because in a free, democratic society, power by its very nature shifts from one hand to another. Opposition parties win. And if one of those parties disagrees with a policy, it will have a chance to repeal it.

Why are you so against bipartisanship? It seems as if the very idea of broad agreement in society is offensive to you.

[Mr. Morden]

Bullock has a staffer in Iowa now, and plans to visit the state again “in about two weeks”:

https://iowastartingline.com/2019/02/02/steve-bullock-places-staff-in-iowa-to-lay-2020-groundwork/

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McAuliffe says that while he hasn’t decided yet, he’d “like to do it”:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/terry-mcauliffe-2020-president_us_5c5716d1e4b0871047547463

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Got to love it when a politician tells you "I'm very authentic".

In other news, it was already mentioned upthread that Holder is heading to Iowa this month.  Looks like this event on Feb. 12th is the event in question:

https://harkininstitute.drake.edu/2019/01/07/register-now-for-free-eric-holder-event-on-feb-12/

And then Swalwell will be in Iowa on Feb. 16th:

https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/swalwell-to-speak-at-democratic-event-in-sioux-city/article_88bff26a-ff62-561a-97ef-ea240489a4b8.html

[gottsu]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/howard-schultz-internal-polling-a-bad-omen-for-democrats-worried-he-could-play-spoiler

Let they stop holding their (right-wing) breath: if Schultz will run (of course as indy, progressives wouldn't let him into Democrats) he'll be another Ross Perot. Why it's so simple to me?

[WV222]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/howard-schultz-internal-polling-a-bad-omen-for-democrats-worried-he-could-play-spoiler

Let they stop holding their (right-wing) breath: if Schultz will run (of course as indy, progressives wouldn't let him into Democrats) he'll be another Ross Perot. Why it's so simple to me?

The reason why it is not that simple because he will be the leftish version of Ross Perot. The only things he sides with President Trump in some ways is health care, taxes, and debt. Immigration, Schultz basically has the typical Democratic tone. He also is diametrically opposed to every view social conservatives have. Plus, the fact that him taking shots at President Trump has really hurt his chance to steal GOP voters given how high the President's approval ratings are within his own party.

[gottsu]

I meant Ross Perot as some independent candidate who doesn't have much to virtually any chances in the presidential race, and that is why I wrote above "why it is so simple to me". I am assuming that due to the leftward shift in Democratic Party as of 2019 Schultz can end like John Anderson, even worse than Perot.

[Zaybay]

I meant Ross Perot as some independent candidate who doesn't have much to virtually any chances in the presidential race, and that is why I wrote above "why it is so simple to me". I am assuming that due to the leftward shift in Democratic Party as of 2019 Schultz can end like John Anderson, even worse than Perot.

Im pretty sure Schultz wont take away that much from Republicans to become a John Anderson. Most likely, Schultz takes away 3%, 1% from Ds, 2% from Rs, or something like that.

[Mr. Morden]

The Atlantic: Biden's simultaneously telling people that he's 70% likely to run, and that he's "close to saying yes".  (I don't know.  70% sounds like there's still a way to go.):

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/joe-biden-close-running-president-despite-doubts/581956/

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He's apparently told people that he's "70% there":

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[Pyro]

The Atlantic: Biden's simultaneously telling people that he's 70% likely to run, and that he's "close to saying yes".  (I don't know.  70% sounds like there's still a way to go.):

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/joe-biden-close-running-president-despite-doubts/581956/

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He's apparently told people that he's "70% there":

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Holy cow. Either run or don't, Joe.
Imagine going through a fast food drive thru with this moron.

[gottsu]

The Atlantic: Biden's simultaneously telling people that he's 70% likely to run, and that he's "close to saying yes".  (I don't know.  70% sounds like there's still a way to go.):

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/joe-biden-close-running-president-despite-doubts/581956/

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He's apparently told people that he's "70% there":

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Don't worry, the next day he'll change his mind.

[President Johnson]

Biden's back and forth starts getting pathetic at this point. I know this is not an easy decision, but why not giving yourself a defnite deadline and then enforce it? Can this be so hard? Presidents have to make lots of decisions and then live with it. Come on.