JOE MANCHIN 2020!

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Lol Paula Jean Swearengin primarying Joe Manchin. Dumbest thing Justice Dems could possibly do is waste time, money, energy, and resources, on losing in a red state.

it really is saddening to see that bernie or bust peeps have learned nothing. IT IS BETTER TO GET YOUR WAY HALF OF THE TIME THEN NONE OF THE TIME!!!!

My brotha from another motha be spittin some truth down now!

[Statilius the Epicurean]

But seriously why does anyone think that Manchin is so much more valuable than any other Democrat who could be POTUS that we should give up a hard to hold Senate seat?

I like the cognitive dissonance in this thread of "Berniecrats are dumb, primarying Manchin would give the GOP a free Senate seat! Manchin for POTUS!!!".

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

But seriously why does anyone think that Manchin is so much more valuable than any other Democrat who could be POTUS that we should give up a hard to hold Senate seat?

I like the cognitive dissonance in this thread of "Berniecrats are dumb, primarying Manchin would give the GOP a free Senate seat! Manchin for POTUS!!!".

Also like "Maroon Avvie brings up valid strategic concern w/ a 2020 presidential run"

conservative red avvies: "Yeah well to HECK with this 2018 candidate that we think you support even though you don't!!!" <dancing gifs>

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But seriously why does anyone think that Manchin is so much more valuable than any other Democrat who could be POTUS that we should give up a hard to hold Senate seat?

I like the cognitive dissonance in this thread of "Berniecrats are dumb, primarying Manchin would give the GOP a free Senate seat! Manchin for POTUS!!!".

Well I agree with the first sentence and think the second is absurd. So what am I?

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

But seriously why does anyone think that Manchin is so much more valuable than any other Democrat who could be POTUS that we should give up a hard to hold Senate seat?

I like the cognitive dissonance in this thread of "Berniecrats are dumb, primarying Manchin would give the GOP a free Senate seat! Manchin for POTUS!!!".

Well I agree with the first sentence and think the second is absurd. So what am I?

Probably not the folks we're talking about.

[Lord Admirale]

Why do blue dog Dems on this board want to lose the Senate so bad?

It's the Bernie Hacks (like yourself) who are going "PRIMARY JOE MANCHIN" or "PRIMARY HEIDI HEITKAMP" in states with high GOP PVIs. If, by some alien space bats, Paula Jean defeats Manchin in the primary, Paula Jean will lose harder than Tennant did in 2014.

Okay, so who are you going to run in the special to replace Manchin?

EDIT: Oh wait lol WV fills vacancies by gubernatorial appointment. R+ 1 for four years.

It isn't guaranteed Jim Justice will win reelection; his approval ratings have plummeted since he switched parties. If West Virginia does elect a Democrat in 2020 (which I see as being likely), all Manchin has to do is resign the day that Democrat takes office, and a D is appointed to fill his slot.

[Illini Moderate]

I like Joe Manchin, (besides for his terrible stance on renewable energy and climate change)... but he would attract a strong third party challenge from the left. (No not Jill Stein, she will never actually be taken seriously)

[ProgressiveCanadian]

Just bend over and take his dick already geez.

[NYSforKennedy2024]

Please no.

[Lord Admirale]

[Tancred]

Manchin would never win the Democratic primary but I think he would be a good president. He is good where he is in the U.S. Senate.

[Fuzzy Bear]

He is our best bet, tbh. If we ain't getting Bernie, then he is second best. His losses among Bernie or bust peeps will be massively overshadowed by his amazing performance among blue collar workers and I could easily see him getting 350+EV's.


P.S-Please dont post in this thread, ProgressiveCanadian.

Bernie bros actually would vote for him. He's a white guy from a rural state.

I don't know if Manchin is the Dems best bet, but he's a serious candidate.

And, yes, white male voters ought to see a Democratic Party not look at them as if they're the root of all evil in America.  

That's not what we think. However, it is what they think because of their massive victim complex.

I don't know who the "we" is you mention.  I only know the tone and rhetoric of the identity politics that has seemingly taken the Democratic Party by storm.  

I would like to know who this "we" is that you refer to, and what the attitude toward America that "we" holds and projects.  I've been on Atlas long enough to know that not everyone who posts here actually loves America and wishes it well.  

Identity politics is an America tradition. The notion that only Democrats participate in it is ludicrous. There's a reason a guy like Ben Sasse has pictures of him taken in cornfields and on a farm

Republicans, however, have always been the party that did more to speak to Americans as Americans and not as port of special groups.  Democrats have always been the party of group appeals.  This is nothing new; it's a longstanding pattern.

What we have now, however, is a Democratic Party taking identity politics to a new level, in its attempts to cobble together a majority-minority coalition to sweep to victory.  This can only be done by appeals to group special interests, but these group special interests are often diametrically opposed to the interests of America as a whole.

There are appeals to Hispanics to allow for more immigration.  But is more immigration in the interest of the whole of America, of which Hispanics here are already a part?  There are appeals to blacks to enviscerate police over police brutality, but is that consistent with the well being of Americans who face varying degrees of violent crime and need police with the will to enforce laws and a citizenry that obeys the lawful directives of law enforcement officers on duty.  Loyalty to ethnic group or political alliance is encouraged by today's Democratic Party over loyalty to country.  A nation awash in identity politics is a nation whose leaders obtain power by accumulating more political debts than they can pay.

"I'm not a racist, but minorities are not American."

That's an interpretation of what you project on others.  Not a fact.  But it does beg a question; the question of "What is an 'American'?".

Being an American, in my book, has nothing to do with race, color or national origin  It has very much to do with loyalty.  Is your loyalty to the United States of America?  Do you advocate policies that are in the interests of the United States, even if they run counter to the interests of the country of your origin/heritage?  Do you identify yourself as an American and mean it?  Will you make common cause with folks who are not of your ethnic heritage in opposition to folks who are of your ethnic heritage if doing so is clearly in the interest of America as a whole?

Being an American, in my book, means being committed to certain things culturally.  It means being committed to speaking English, and to respecting English as the primary language of America.  It means being committed to the rule of law, and not the rule of ethnic or tribal customs and loyalties.  (That, by the way, includes our immigration laws.) It means recognizing the legitimacy of elected officials whom you do not agree with and who are not of your race/ethnicity, and it means recognizing them even if they defeat candidates of your choice  (And, yes, a degree of the response to Obama by some white folks was, decidedly, un-American.)  It means forsaking institutions that run counter to secular liberal democracy and the rule of law; things such as Sharia Law, honor killings, and the right of individuals to make decisions regarding their own lives.  

Being an American, in my book, means being of Mexican descent and refuting President Felipe Calderon's statement of "Wherever a Mexican is, there is Mexico." and recognize the Mexican War as a done deal.  It means being Arab and renouncing Sharia Law and the idea of a Caliphate.  It means being Israeli and renouncing the deeds of Jonathan Pollard.  It means being supportive of America in its wars, and not of its enemies.  And, yes, it means recognizing we are ONE nation, and there is no "Southern"Nation (for all the neo-Congederate readers.  But it also means that white folks have a legitimate right to weigh in on issues pertaining to the actions of non-white folks; the idea that white folks have no right to weigh in on problems affecting predominatly minority folks and neighborhoods is no more American than minority folks have to weigh in on problems that appear to predominantly affect white folks and neighborhoods.  America is too interconnected for that, is it not?

America is a unique nation; it's not "blood and soil", but "e pluribus unum".  Diverse people have become part of a united nation because they were willing to forsake old authorities for the authority of America and the freedoms that come with it.  I understand that lots of folks (including folks whose families have been in this country for centuries) feel "alienated".  To that, I would ask if some of that "alienation" is self-inflicted?  Do people talk themselves into being more victimized than they actually have been?  America, its republican form of government with democratic features, its guaranteed and enumerated freedoms, didn't just happen, and doesn't just happen.  To keep it happening, it requires some people to do some degree of changing their mind, and develop a willingness to be part of a greater whole.  Some folks never get that.  

Wrong. The answer is that if you live in America, you're American.

Illegal aliens live in America.  They are not Americans, unless you mean "American" as a person from North, Central or South America, which is not what we're talking about in this discussion.  An illegal alien is not my fellow countryman.

If you live in America, legally or not, you do enjoy the enumerated Constitutional Rights that "persons" living in America enjoy.  Not everyone who enjoys those rights is an American Citizen, or even an alien in compliance with American immigration laws, but folks in America do enjoy the protections of enumerated Constitutional Rights. 

[Lord Admirale]

When "progressives" say you'd lose in a landslide but in reality you'd unite the Democratic Party and win in a landslide.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

When "progressives" say you'd lose in a landslide but in reality you'd unite the Democratic Party and win in a landslide.

Well, he could unite the progressives and the SJWs.... Against him.

[Lord Admirale]

When "progressives" say you'd lose in a landslide but in reality you'd unite the Democratic Party and win in a landslide.

Well, he could unite the progressives and the SJWs.... Against him.

Being stubborn and childish like that will give us 8 years of Trump, and maybe 8 years of Pence. Have fun.

"My nominee must fit my beliefs EXACTLY or else I won't vote for them!"

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

When "progressives" say you'd lose in a landslide but in reality you'd unite the Democratic Party and win in a landslide.

Well, he could unite the progressives and the SJWs.... Against him.

Being stubborn and childish like that will give us 8 years of Trump, and maybe 8 years of Pence. Have fun.

"My nominee must fit my beliefs EXACTLY or else I won't vote for them!"

Bernie voted to spend a quarter billion of US taxpayer dollars on a defense system for Israel so that they could kill Palestinians without consequences, and I still voted for him.

[Lord Admirale]

When "progressives" say you'd lose in a landslide but in reality you'd unite the Democratic Party and win in a landslide.

Well, he could unite the progressives and the SJWs.... Against him.

Being stubborn and childish like that will give us 8 years of Trump, and maybe 8 years of Pence. Have fun.

"My nominee must fit my beliefs EXACTLY or else I won't vote for them!"

Bernie voted to spend a quarter billion of US taxpayer dollars on a defense system for Israel so that they could kill Palestinians without consequences, and I still voted for him.

He also cosponsored a bill to dump nuclear materials in a minority-majority town in Texas, but this isn't a crapping contest on Bernie Sanders.

My point is, the SJWs and progressives cry like babies when they don't get what they want, and wind up giving us President Donald J. Trump.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

When "progressives" say you'd lose in a landslide but in reality you'd unite the Democratic Party and win in a landslide.

Well, he could unite the progressives and the SJWs.... Against him.

Being stubborn and childish like that will give us 8 years of Trump, and maybe 8 years of Pence. Have fun.

"My nominee must fit my beliefs EXACTLY or else I won't vote for them!"

Bernie voted to spend a quarter billion of US taxpayer dollars on a defense system for Israel so that they could kill Palestinians without consequences, and I still voted for him.

He also cosponsored a bill to dump nuclear materials in a minority-majority town in Texas, but this isn't a crapping contest on Bernie Sanders.

My point is, the SJWs and progressives cry like babies when they don't get what they want, and wind up giving us President Donald J. Trump.

Getting the Democratic nomination doesn't entitle you to the vote of everyone who historically voted Democrat.

[Xing]

No, turnout among the Democratic base would suffer enormously. If Clinton wasn't appealing to progressives, why on earth would Manchin be?

[Lord Admirale]

When "progressives" say you'd lose in a landslide but in reality you'd unite the Democratic Party and win in a landslide.

Well, he could unite the progressives and the SJWs.... Against him.

Being stubborn and childish like that will give us 8 years of Trump, and maybe 8 years of Pence. Have fun.

"My nominee must fit my beliefs EXACTLY or else I won't vote for them!"

Bernie voted to spend a quarter billion of US taxpayer dollars on a defense system for Israel so that they could kill Palestinians without consequences, and I still voted for him.

He also cosponsored a bill to dump nuclear materials in a minority-majority town in Texas, but this isn't a crapping contest on Bernie Sanders.

My point is, the SJWs and progressives cry like babies when they don't get what they want, and wind up giving us President Donald J. Trump.

Getting the Democratic nomination doesn't entitle you to the vote of everyone who historically voted Democrat.

So you'd rather have a conservative Republican than a moderate Democrat?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

So you'd rather have a conservative Republican than a moderate Democrat?

If the Democrat is bad enough, I don't want them to win.

[Lord Admirale]

So you'd rather have a conservative Republican than a moderate Democrat?

If the Democrat is bad enough, I don't want them to win.

That didn't answer my question. Conservative Republican or moderate Democrat?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

So you'd rather have a conservative Republican than a moderate Democrat?

If the Democrat is bad enough, I don't want them to win.

That didn't answer my question. Conservative Republican or moderate Democrat?

3rd party obviously.

[Lord Admirale]

So you'd rather have a conservative Republican than a moderate Democrat?

If the Democrat is bad enough, I don't want them to win.

That didn't answer my question. Conservative Republican or moderate Democrat?

3rd party obviously.

A third party candidate cannot win in the United States due to FPTP.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

So you'd rather have a conservative Republican than a moderate Democrat?

If the Democrat is bad enough, I don't want them to win.

That didn't answer my question. Conservative Republican or moderate Democrat?

3rd party obviously.

A third party candidate cannot win in the United States due to FPTP.

Bernie Sanders, Agnus King, and Jesse Ventura say hi.