The Democratic primaries are gonna be such a sh*tshow

[Mr. Smith]

The Bernbots Establishment are mental. I can only imagine the stuff they'll dig up about people like Harris Warren, Booker Tim Ryan, Gillibrand Ellison, Cuomo Bullock, etc.

The thing is they could actually make some major progress if they toned it down and try to build relations with the Democratic base (aka POC youth). Bernie No one yet seems to get this...maybe Harris is getting there, but some of their hardcore supporters are being obtuse.

You want to change the Democratic party then win over POC Youth and keep them engaged. ****talking prominent black young politicians who don't like donor-pha&*()ing and Midwestern white politicians in general and calling everyone who disagrees with you a racist, sexist, or baby is good way to marginalize yourself.

FTFBOY

And P.S.: sidelining Ellison just because he went for Sanders takes out that high ground argument anyway, who ftr went to Sanders last year if under 30.

The Democratic base isn't young people. It is POC, mainly women.

Jesus, you guys don't even know who the main constituents are of the party you want to take over.

Young people are also disproportionately people of color; the overlap between the two groups shouldn't be ignored.

Exactly.

[TheLeftwardTide]

If the economic populists take over the democrats, I'm gone.

bye felicia

[To OP] I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2018 midterms are a sh**tshow too. The thing is, progressives tend to be much more energized than establishment Dems. We have the momentum, and we will fight tooth-and-nail to get a progressive nominated, then either energetically or begrudgingly vote for whoever the eventual nominee is.

However, I think if we are to win, two things must happen:
1) Youth turnout in the primaries is very high
2) More minorities, specifically African-Americans, have to back progressives.

The second point is most dependent on who the establishment candidate is in 2020, and how the progressives tailor their messaging. So it makes perfect sense why the establishment wants to nominate candidate with major inroads into the minority community. Kamala Harris is the perfect fit, because she is not only half-black, but also half-Indian, female, and young. She colors in so many of those identity-politics bingo squares. A candidate like Kirsten Gillibrand would fare much worse in this regard, losing key support in the South. On the progressive side, issues such as education, public housing, and especially criminal justice reform will have to be at the forefront of discussion. Whoever the progressive candidate is will have to campaign relentlessly in the South in the weeks leading up to Super Tuesday, maybe even flipping Arkansas or Louisiana in a Bernie-Michigan fashion.

[Mr. Smith]

I'm not holding my breath though.  Despite what Shadows says, I'm not really sure how ugly it'll get.  For a couple reasons; first, I think there is less ideological distance between the factions in the party than the GOP, and most of the distance is based on messaging, tone, and what issues to focus on. Second, all of the D candidates in the pipeline are sorta... milquetoast.

That's not true. The biggest divide between Clinton and Sanders supporters was concerning trust in civic institutions. Source. Never forget that Hillary Clinton adopted 2/3's of Sanders platform yet millions of his most ardent supports didn't show up to vote for her and attacked her throughout the GE. Why? Because they didn't trust her when she said those things.

If the Democrats nominate somebody who progressives don't trust to follow through on their promises (and instead see them as being subservient to big money interests), then they will attack them in the GE and not vote for them.

Yes, I agree trust was at the heart of it, but where does trust comes from Timmy?  Messaging.  What issues to focus on.  Rhetoric.  How a candidate presents himself.  Optics.

I don't dispute that Clinton, in her heart of hearts, is certainly more of a neo-liberal than Sanders.  But how different are their respective platforms, really?  For all the talk of Sanders as a socialist, he's more of a reformer than an outright socialist.  He has more historical similarities with the early 1900s progressives than he does with say, Eugene Debs.  Sanders wants to break up banks and reform, to promote real market competition and prevent collusion.  He doesn't want to consolidate banks and then nationalize them.  Again, that's more progressive "trust-busting" than Eugene Debs.  Not to mention that both candidates actually moved closer to each other as the primaries went on.  Sure, Clinton had to take up some Sanders issues, but also consider that Sanders practically abandoned his former criticism of illegal immigration once the SJWs were let loose on him.

Fact of the matter is, TT, there is an overton window in the D party, and while Sanders may be on one side of it, and Clinton on the other, they are still very much within that window.  And Clinton could've easily moved leftward in that window with a few changes- e.g., fewer meetings with Goldman Sachs, more campaigning like she did in '08.

At the end of the day, we are a neo-liberal country and all of our candidates, D and R, fall within a certain range.  There is some evidence of that fraying- Trump was the first protectionist Republican in I don't even know how long, and Sanders is probably about as left-wing as a politician can be in the US.  But irrespective of that, both are still within the overton window of standard neo-liberal policies TT, and the Reagan system has not been seriously disrupted, at least yet.

No, no, no. It's not just about just messaging. You can spend millions on a marketing firm and you will still come up short with progressives. There's a large segment of the Democratic Party that fundamentally believes that politicians who take large donations from Big Pharma, Petroleum industries, Wall Street, etc. are paid off and will do nothing to help regular people. That's a deeply held belief in A LOT of people. Trump was so successful in part because he bragged about how he was self funding his campaign and how he wasn't beholden to donors the way Jeb and others were. That's part of the reason why no amount of attack ads could take him down during the primary; voters saw these attack ads were coming from people like Jeb and Cruz and figured they were empty suit politicians that didn't have their good in mind.

The other biggest difference between Sanders and Clinton supporters is concerning the question of "Has the Democratic Party been a force for good in the world?" And one side answers Yes while the other says No. The discussion progressives have have nothing to do with "pushing he Party to the other side of the Overton Window" and has everything to do with taking over the Party entirely (think of Goldwater's hostile takeover of the GOP in 1964 and multiply that by 2).

The DNC voted to keep accepting corporate donations and to have Perez over Ellison as the chairman and they haven't let up one bit on attacking Perez since then. And the corporate funding that folks like Schumer, Pelosi, and Perez oversee is seen as a fundamental threat to our democracy by much of the progressive base. This is a deep seething visceral hatred of the current Party establishment. And no amount of improved messaging is gonna take away the fact that anybody can just do two clicks on the internet to find out who's donated to a particular person.

Watch 2020 very carefully and you'll see the sh!tshow unfold. Don't just toss it aside as a slightly different perspective on ideas and LOOK for the attacks concerning trusting a specific candidate. You're already seeing this unfold with Harris and Booker (I suspect Cuomo might be next). This isn't something that can be easily reconcilable and it will not be reconciled cordially.

Except even self-funding isn't necessarily good. Look at California's attitude with Governor's and how Gray Davis still won just because Bill Simon was seen as trying to buy the election. In 2010, when Meg Whitman spent $120 million of her own money, or 2014 with Kashkari. Hell, part of the demise of the GOP there is partially because of this.

Whereas the populist GOP base may not care much for big wigs and connections, they have a respect for self-funders who don't seem beholden.

The Progressive base sees that "unbeholden" rich guy as someone who'll simply serve himself then over everyone else.

The way then is to promote the Bernie way of the small donations and send a message that everyone's included. Ossoff got where he did in part because of those small donations...too bad he 180'd in the last few weeks and started going on about budget balancing.

[The Other Castro]

Not sure if this was asked, but what is a "corncob"? Not the food, but the political term used in that anti-Harris picture.

[Famous Mortimer]

The left-wing has no candidate in the primaries, let alone a candidate to run third party in the general.

If they did manage to get someone to run though, that candidate would go absolutely nowhere, max out at Green Party levels, because they would be forced by left-wing activists to take a bunch of SJW positions which would totally alienate most of the normal people in middle America who voted for Bernie in the primaries.

[Donerail]

Not sure if this was asked, but what is a "corncob"? Not the food, but the political term used in that anti-Harris picture.

back in 2011 dril tweeted "'im not owned!  im not owned!!', i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob." This got picked up and turned into a meme—someone who is bad at online will say something bad and get dunked on, and they'll insist that they're fine and actually find this all very funny even though they're getting dunked on. They post a bad take, they get dunked on, they react poorly—this whole cycle is corncobbing. It's a silly way to ridicule people for their bad opinions.

[AN63093]

TT

I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what you are saying, but I think you're somewhat falling victim to the old "seeing the forest for the trees" problem.  You may hold some of these beliefs deeply.  Or maybe some of your peer group does.  But you are not most people, not even most progressive people.  I've enjoyed some of our discussions so far on this forum, and you seem like a reasonably intelligent fellow.  But you're also a person that follows politics very closely, and who.. for goodness sakes, has registered to post on a forum of election maps and has posted nearly 3000 posts on said forum.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, I'm also spending my free time here   But, that is not most people.

The hoi polloi see things quite a bit differently, and whether we happen to like it or not, most people have the attention span of a flea, and approximately the same intelligence level.  I understand perfectly your view that people answer certain questions in the negative, questions about whether they trust the party, the establishment, and so on, but have you ever considered where people actually got these views?  Did they lose trust in the party first, and then advocated for certain candidates accordingly?  Or was it that certain types of candidates weren't the ones they liked, and so they then lost trust in the party?

A bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem, and I don't think the answer is so simple as to say, well this is all the result of the progressive base sitting down and doing a deep examination of donations and tracing the money and so on.  Not to say that none do, I mean, for some, that might be their life's work, and they've made a 80 page excel spreadsheet for all I know.  But that is not how most people form their views unfortunately.  Most people that I have met in life, and I don't claim to be some grand "old wise man" that knows everything of course, but one thing I've found in common with all the people I've come across in life, regardless of socioeconomic group, is that not much thought goes into where their political views come from.

I've found that a significant chunk simply hold certain views because they wish to "fit in" with whatever peer group they belong to.  They hear people discussing certain candidates, viewpoints, and so on when they go to a party or whatever, and pick up on what people are agreeing on, disagreeing on, and so on and so forth, and go with the flow accordingly.  People are rather malleable in such a way.  Of course, you always have your contrarians and so on, but most people don't wish to be the social pariah of their peer group.  Growing up, for example, it was pretty obvious who were going to end up the more liberal of people.  The person who was sorta weird and a bit of an outcast in High School and hung out mostly in Drama Club and didn't play sports and didn't have the letter jacket; are we really surprised this person now lives in Brooklyn and will not STFU on my facebook wall 24/7 about how Trump is about to cause the next Reichstag Fire any day now?  I'm not trying to be patronizing, I'm just saying, do we really think this person came to these views by sitting down and doing a detailed comparison of the competing philosophies of John Rawls vs. Robert Nozick?  Does this person really support Sanders because of a trust deficit, or because he was the "in vogue" candidate of his peer group?  What happened first, the distrust of the Dem party, or the identifying with a candidate that distrusted the Dem party?

And what about the people that show up at that party and initiates the political conversation- the one that starts that talk and gets the ball rolling?  Maybe someone more like yourself, and has actually thought about these things, but often even that person has formed their opinion by osmosis-- what people were saying about a particular issue on facebook, or how journalists are reacting to something, and so on.  And where does a lot of that initiate from?  Well, from how the candidate or party messages things, whether they are sending the correct signals or not, what issues they focus on, the optics, etc.  Had Obama stressed certain issues and had Clinton campaigned in a completely different way, would Sanders ever had emerged?

I'm not saying there is no daylight between Sanders and Clinton, but I'm also quite unconvinced there is this great ideological gulf, and rather the difference is very heavily stylistic, and cultural/demographic- i.e., progressives tend to be younger, poorer, less trusting in institutions generally, and so on, whereas Clintonists will be a little bit more establishmentarian and probably richer as well.  And members of each group tend to form views based on what is considered socially acceptable in the peer group, and less so due to some deep, solemn self-study of the issues, like Aristotle writing the Nicomachean Ethics.

Again, I do think that someone like Sanders is on one side of the Democrat overton window, and Clinton may be on the other, so yes, there ARE ideological differences, but they are still very much in the overton window, the US is very much still a neo-liberal country (with all candidates, D and R, within a certain ideological spectrum that is much narrower than people think), and finally, Clinton certainly could've moved within that overton window (at least to some degree), depending on the campaign she had run.  Bases of support are flexible and a candidate can have different bases in different elections, depending on messaging and optics.  Again, compare Clinton's '08 campaign and base with her '16 base.

[AN63093]

Ah.  My apologies for the assumption.  

My point isn't so much about what you personally believe, though, but rather that your belief that these beliefs in others is deeply held, is a pretty bold assumption and I think lacks a wider perspective, and most people are not so well read on these things as you may be.  That's more of what I'm getting at.

[Beet]

AN63093 is quickly becoming one of my favorite posters, joining TT. 2020 is going to be a great test of how fundamental the "Sanders" critique of the Democratic party really is. I could see the primary being a repeat brutal-affair, but I could also see the Sandersites relegated back to a Ron Paulesque minority.

[Beet]

Starting to think it'll be either Sherrod Brown or Warren (God no).

Brown is a dark horse for 2020 IMO.

Again, if he wins re-election, he could be a top tier candidate. But it's hard to start putting together a presidential run as other candidates may start a rush of announcements within months of the 2018 elections, so Brown would be playing catch-up; unless he started planning for a run before the mid-terms. That's tough to do when you're fighting for your political life. And even then he'd be behind on fundraising.

[Lechasseur]

That is true. It will be ugly. Progressives won't take another loss easily. If another establishment Democrat wins, Trump will win re-election due to mass defection from progressives who will fell let down again. It will be a divisive ugly mud-slinging fight using surrogates.

The so-called establishment is literally searching & scouting for a candidate like Kamala Harris, a black woman, so that you can smear her opponents as a sexist & racist. Pure dirty identity politics is going to happen. And it also helps that people like Harris are empty suits with no record, so you can't even critique her record because she has done nothing & just came into office.

And that's where I will vote Republican for the first time. If the Democratic Party becomes the SJW Party, it deserves to go extinct.

Absolutely

[AN63093]

Thanks Beet and TT.  Shoot, I'm just glad anyone bothers reading my long posts at all (I have the bad habit of typing way way too much on forums).  Nice to know I'm not rambling to myself like a lunatic, which is sorta what I was assuming.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Amazing how a thread can be well over 50% hot takes. This proves it is indeed possible.

[JA]

2020 for Democrats will be more like 2012 for Republicans than 2016; there's really no foreseeable media whore and troll candidate like the GOP had with Trump. So, it'll be extremely chaotic and the media will throw fuel on the fire for ratings, and meanwhile Trump will be hitting the stump and holding fanatical rallies yet again. 2020 isn't going to be a qualitative improvement over 2016. That's very obvious at this point. I'm not even looking forward to it.

Also, you guys are overestimating how many Progressives are willing to defect for a third party; 2016 proved that number is rather low. The bigger worry for Democrats should be turnout. Low turnout has always been associated with poorer Democratic performance. Based on how things are shaping up so far, I don't expect to vote in the 2020 GE.

[Coraxion]

Yes. They will be a sh**tshow. And it will be the fault of the Bernie bots - the alt-left, if you will.

I don't have any issues with progressive economic policies. I support them. What I dislike are the inane purity tests. The Democratic nominee apparently must be a white male from an interior state who only accepts donations from individuals (with the effect being a massive financial disadvantage compared to the GOP), never talks about civil rights issues, isn't qualified for the job (qualified candidates are career politicians), etc.

[Devout Centrist]

This the dumbest thread I've ever seen. Shame on each and every one of you.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Also, you guys are overestimating how many Progressives are willing to defect for a third party; 2016 proved that number is rather low. The bigger worry for Democrats should be turnout. Low turnout has always been associated with poorer Democratic performance. Based on how things are shaping up so far, I don't expect to vote in the 2020 GE.

This the dumbest thread I've ever seen. Shame on each and every one of you.

It's a preview of how the primary will go.

Agreed with these two sentiments. Watching the center hacks churn themselves back up into a lather (both here and in the press) over the past couple months has been amusing, not a little offensive, and deeply worrying. We're at about half of the vitriol we were at in like, April 2016, and this is *three years * before we'll have an actual field to deal with. 

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Also, you guys are overestimating how many Progressives are willing to defect for a third party; 2016 proved that number is rather low. The bigger worry for Democrats should be turnout. Low turnout has always been associated with poorer Democratic performance. Based on how things are shaping up so far, I don't expect to vote in the 2020 GE.

This the dumbest thread I've ever seen. Shame on each and every one of you.

It's a preview of how the primary will go.

Agreed with these two sentiments. Watching the center hacks churn themselves back up into a lather (both here and in the press) over the past couple months has been amusing, not a little offensive, and deeply worrying. We're at about half of the vitriol we were at in like, April 2016, and this is *three years * before we'll have an actual field to deal with. 

Two factors are at play here. One is that the establishment just sees progressives as people to blindly vote Democratic, and not to give an inch to or else their fat cat donors will get upset. Secondly, they think that an unpopular Trump means that no matter how scorched earth and bridge burning they go in order to win the primary, their sh**tty candidate is guaranteed to win the election. Yeah, that didn't work out last time.

[JerryArkansas]

Also, you guys are overestimating how many Progressives are willing to defect for a third party; 2016 proved that number is rather low. The bigger worry for Democrats should be turnout. Low turnout has always been associated with poorer Democratic performance. Based on how things are shaping up so far, I don't expect to vote in the 2020 GE.

Ah, must be nice to be a white straight man who isn't affected by the sh**t storm that is trump.  Must be nice to be so selfish and sad that you can't get everything you want so you just sit out.  Must be real nice to sit on your ass rather than do the bare minimum.

Goes for all those who rather see Trump elected than vote dem come 2018 and 2020. 

[Shadows]

The so-called establishment is literally searching & scouting for a candidate like Kamala Harris, a black woman, so that you can smear her opponents as a sexist & racist. Pure dirty identity politics is going to happen. And it also helps that people like Harris are empty suits with no record, so you can't even critique her record because she has done nothing & just came into office.

She'll have at least 2-2.5 years of a record going into 2020. And besides she's already getting heat for the Mnuchin Prosecution (or lack thereof) and that was before she became a senator. There will always be something in anybody's record.

That's why celebrities can be so successful. Attract all the media attention, know how to act and speak to people, and they don't have a record to run on ("I'm an outsider and not corrupt! Vote me!").

2 years is still pretty low & a low bar to jude someone. There has been some great posts in this thread. I would like to comment on a couple of issues here - The long term future of the progressive base within the Democrats & the Current uneasy Establishment-Progressive dynamic. I have slightly different views about these 2 areas than some posters here & I totally second your views about money in politics so I won't add anything there.

For one, Sanders represents the base policy wise. 80% support Single payer, a high number support Criminal Justice Reform, Marijuana legalization, Minimum wage, Climate change policies etc. African Americans, be it a young guy or a single mother, will be disproportionately positively effected by his ideas. And they like him (Huge favorability rating) & they support his policies. But not enough to vote for him. They like so-called pragmatic, long term Democratic candidates with some ties to the Obama administration or what they find electable or who has long term ties with the African American community. Also the number of socially liberal but economically moderate/conservative voters, are a small minority vis-a-vis the Democratic base. Cook or some other site found that libertarians barely exist outside of Internet forums, where they are represented disproportionately higher giving a false idea of their numbers (read Atlas). People die but ideas don't. Sanders was a historic candidate who ran an amazing campaign & arose something people. 2020 may not be as good for the progressive base but ultimately the so-called establishment & the base are very wide apart in ideas/ideology/policy wise (maybe not in rhetoric or policy wise but certainly that is the "Perception" & perception is reality in politics). Millennials will increase as a share of the overall population & they are disproportionately more left wing than baby boomers. There is a demand for a Sanders type candidate & someone will fill that demand-supply gap soon, maybe in 2024 or later. But ultimately the base will be better represented.

Another great thing that Sanders did was to dissociate himself & make it about a common struggle & focus on policies & ideas. Obama's historic change campaign was centred a lot about his personality & oratory & the sheer history of being the 1st Black president. Sanders has tried hard to build a mass movement of people to campaign, agitate & run for offices from School board to Congress & initiate & help create the change they want. One of the good thing Sanders did was to take voter feedback & involve & engage them. He is running a campaign & is taking ideas from ordinary supporters on how to build a nationwide campaign for Single payer before he introduces his bill. Why would a TYT or a BNC waste so much political capital in a likely losing campaign which will give them negative press in 2018. There are 1000s of people in different reddit groups that I know are running for some office (inspired by Sanders). Can you imagine what will happen after Sanders dies? I think there will be many people who will be hell bent on fulfilling his struggle for justice after he dies.

Now when it comes to the relationship between the progressive & the establishment wing. Many of these so-called Berniecrats are attending the desolate destroyed DNC local country meetings where a handful of old people sit & discuss stuff. And they have been fairly polite & respectful to most & they have gotten along in most places. But the door is shut beyond a certain point. The so-called establishment doesn't want to give 1 inch of power, but they want the votes of progressives. Ellison was a strong progressive but was also close to the establishment & had support from Schumer & many of the other so-called moderates & was sure to win the DNC race. It was largely a symbolic post but progressives thought Ellison could help transform the party away from lobbyists, big money donors & get the grassroots involved in a common struggle. Obama waded in & got Perez elected for no good reason. Ellison was guaranteed a win with support from both factions. And they still couldn't even give him the DNC Chair race & this guy is a loyal Democrat, a life long Democrat who campaigned hard & said nothing ill of Hillary.

There is a resistance to the base & to the so-called Bernie wing. The elected officials instead of representing the base are resisting them & are not open to new ideas & are not changing even with feedback from their constituents. Now there is talk of a fresh face for 2020 which is totally BS. Why not have a fresh face instead of Schumer, Pelosi, Hoyer or Durbin, in other words the Senate/House leadership (& I like Schumer)? Why was there no talk of fresh face in 2015 or 2016? Now that Sanders (despite his age) is overwhelmingly a front-runner for 2020 (he will probably not run) they are stirring everything to resist him. This is despite Sanders toning down (on board with Russia-Russia hysteria, co-operating with DNC, 15 $ Min wage bill diluted till 2024 & so on). And ofcourse only 1 Senator & a dozen off members of the House endorsed Sanders in 2016 when he won 46% of the pledged delegates. There is a major disconnect & a tense relation between the base & the Democratic leaders.

[Shadows]

Also, you guys are overestimating how many Progressives are willing to defect for a third party; 2016 proved that number is rather low. The bigger worry for Democrats should be turnout. Low turnout has always been associated with poorer Democratic performance. Based on how things are shaping up so far, I don't expect to vote in the 2020 GE.

Ah, must be nice to be a white straight man who isn't affected by the sh**t storm that is trump.  Must be nice to be so selfish and sad that you can't get everything you want so you just sit out.  Must be real nice to sit on your ass rather than do the bare minimum.

Goes for all those who rather see Trump elected than vote dem come 2018 and 2020.  

It is kinda sad the way you are portraying gay people only through the lens of sexual orientation. Gay people are of color (& face racism) & some are economically liberal & some maybe economically conservative & to pigeonhole themselves into a box of gay/straight is pretty sad. There are gay Green party voters including Mike (huge Bernie supporter), the person who does the Humanist Report podcast which has 100K+ Youtube subscribers. Trump is possibly the 1st Republican to support same sex marriage.

Bernie had as big a share of gay voters as Hillary had in the Dem primary. This was the guy voting against DOMA & taking on homophobic Congressmen in the 90's when Hillary came over to support Gay marriage in 2013 (was one of the last to come over). And anyways, if you so care about the future of the SC, why did you support Hillary with all her flaws? Most people atleast recognize her as a terrible & flawed candidate, which you still don't.

Gay people are not servile creatures obligated to vote for the Dems. People have to make the case to gay people, like they do to straight people & earn their votes. And honestly Booker or Harris or any of the establishment hacks are better than Trump. But if you want to play the "Would you rather see Trump" card, you will have record low enthusiasm & turnout from the progressive base.

[Blair]

I reckon it will be like 2004; They'll be a progressive who everyone loves who then collapses, some sort of novelty outsider candidate like Wesley Clark, people trying to pad their resume for 2024 and then some John Kerry type (Chris Murphy, Kamala Harris, etc) will win both Iowa and New Hampshire and the race will be over. The biggest similarity is that much like '04 there won't be a many people running who've been serious candidates before

The only thing that would stop this would be Warren running, and consolidating the field. If not we're going to be seeing 9-10 people who've never ran national races, never had to compete etc

 

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also, you guys are overestimating how many Progressives are willing to defect for a third party; 2016 proved that number is rather low. The bigger worry for Democrats should be turnout. Low turnout has always been associated with poorer Democratic performance. Based on how things are shaping up so far, I don't expect to vote in the 2020 GE.

This the dumbest thread I've ever seen. Shame on each and every one of you.

It's a preview of how the primary will go.

Agreed with these two sentiments. Watching the center hacks churn themselves back up into a lather (both here and in the press) over the past couple months has been amusing, not a little offensive, and deeply worrying. We're at about half of the vitriol we were at in like, April 2016, and this is *three years * before we'll have an actual field to deal with. 

*Devout Centrist reads a thread that is practically nothing but blazing hot takes*
Devout Centrist: Wow, this is a dum thread.
You and Timmy: *more scorching hot takes*

[Coraxion]

Also, you guys are overestimating how many Progressives are willing to defect for a third party; 2016 proved that number is rather low. The bigger worry for Democrats should be turnout. Low turnout has always been associated with poorer Democratic performance. Based on how things are shaping up so far, I don't expect to vote in the 2020 GE.

Ah, must be nice to be a white straight man who isn't affected by the sh**t storm that is trump.  Must be nice to be so selfish and sad that you can't get everything you want so you just sit out.  Must be real nice to sit on your ass rather than do the bare minimum.

Goes for all those who rather see Trump elected than vote dem come 2018 and 2020.  

It is kinda sad the way you are portraying gay people only through the lens of sexual orientation. Gay people are of color (& face racism) & some are economically liberal & some maybe economically conservative & to pigeonhole themselves into a box of gay/straight is pretty sad. There are gay Green party voters including Mike (huge Bernie supporter), the person who does the Humanist Report podcast which has 100K+ Youtube subscribers. Trump is possibly the 1st Republican to support same sex marriage.

Bernie had as big a share of gay voters as Hillary had in the Dem primary. This was the guy voting against DOMA & taking on homophobic Congressmen in the 90's when Hillary came over to support Gay marriage in 2013 (was one of the last to come over). And anyways, if you so care about the future of the SC, why did you support Hillary with all her flaws? Most people atleast recognize her as a terrible & flawed candidate, which you still don't.

Gay people are not servile creatures obligated to vote for the Dems. People have to make the case to gay people, like they do to straight people & earn their votes. And honestly Booker or Harris or any of the establishment hacks are better than Trump. But if you want to play the "Would you rather see Trump" card, you will have record low enthusiasm & turnout from the progressive base.

Is it just me, or does this rant have nothing to do with the quoted post?

[McGovernForPrez]

Also, you guys are overestimating how many Progressives are willing to defect for a third party; 2016 proved that number is rather low. The bigger worry for Democrats should be turnout. Low turnout has always been associated with poorer Democratic performance. Based on how things are shaping up so far, I don't expect to vote in the 2020 GE.

Ah, must be nice to be a white straight man who isn't affected by the sh**t storm that is trump.  Must be nice to be so selfish and sad that you can't get everything you want so you just sit out.  Must be real nice to sit on your ass rather than do the bare minimum.

Goes for all those who rather see Trump elected than vote dem come 2018 and 2020.  

It is kinda sad the way you are portraying gay people only through the lens of sexual orientation. Gay people are of color (& face racism) & some are economically liberal & some maybe economically conservative & to pigeonhole themselves into a box of gay/straight is pretty sad. There are gay Green party voters including Mike (huge Bernie supporter), the person who does the Humanist Report podcast which has 100K+ Youtube subscribers. Trump is possibly the 1st Republican to support same sex marriage.

Bernie had as big a share of gay voters as Hillary had in the Dem primary. This was the guy voting against DOMA & taking on homophobic Congressmen in the 90's when Hillary came over to support Gay marriage in 2013 (was one of the last to come over). And anyways, if you so care about the future of the SC, why did you support Hillary with all her flaws? Most people atleast recognize her as a terrible & flawed candidate, which you still don't.

Gay people are not servile creatures obligated to vote for the Dems. People have to make the case to gay people, like they do to straight people & earn their votes. And honestly Booker or Harris or any of the establishment hacks are better than Trump. But if you want to play the "Would you rather see Trump" card, you will have record low enthusiasm & turnout from the progressive base.

Is it just me, or does this rant have nothing to do with the quoted post?

It's not just you. I didn't have any real idea where this connection came from either.