Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

" The cringeworthy parts come from parts of the campaign such as surrogates, spin, 'interns', all that stuff. It's tragicomic."

Campaign staffers are fucking retarded on social media.

In last night's debate, Sanders said:
""We are, if elected president, going to invest a lot of money into mental health," Sanders said. "And when you watch these Republican debates, you know why we need to invest in that.""

to which one of clinton's staffers tweeted this dumb response:

"Mental health is a serious issue. Cheap shots like this are a bad look."

Fucking hell, that was a decent line from Sanders and didn't even hit your candidate. Give me a break.

nah it was a bad look, as is saying "fucking retarded"

tbh as a sanders supporter I didn't like that line either

With the rise of populist right-wing parties and neo-racism, rightist governments tearing down many of the post-war achievements of the social democrats, and (most recently) the EU immigration situation leading to draconian right-wing measures (such as Danish goverment's recent decision to seize the money and valuables of asylum seekers who are considered to be "too rich", or the proposed law here in Finland that citizens and immigrants with a resident permit have to earn a middle-class income in order to bring their non-EU family members to the country), the Nordic states are hardly the poster boys for socialism that they once were.

Except for Sweden, the cheeky buggers! Sweden always maintains a higher moral ground than the rest of us.

You guys are hilarious hitting Bernie for that joke.

Sweden is debatable as well, has always had a more ingrained class-system. But yeah, they're big on having the higher moral ground :)

At least with immigration and racism that high ground is kinda justified, since they've been way more multicultural and have taken in more (non-Western) immigrants and asylum seekers than the other Nordic countries combined.

Oh, I'm a huge fan of Sweden. Denmark is racist crap compared to it. But I don't think Sweden is really 'socialist' either.

I things like this is more important: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkhemmet

thomp i am so disappointed by these liberal banalisms ur embracing

― Hungry4Ass, Monday, March 7, 2016 5:46 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

;_; senpai ... why r u always so mean

lol Vox link and all but did Sanders actually say this during the debate: http://www.vox.com/2016/3/6/11171092/democratic-debate-bernie-sanders-ghetto

tuomas didn't sweden just pass legislation limiting immigration in a way that's historically unparalleled for them

I am biased here but I love how when you hang with folks from the northern countries they all denounce each other as authoritarian. I remember an Icelandic friend remarking that "inside every Swede's head is a cop" with a tone of disgust.

Jante law

I think so, but still, what is historically unparalleled in Sweden is business as usual in the other Nordic countries, when it comes to immigration.

(xxpost)

Sigh, stuff like this: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/king-superdelegates-corrupt-tool-party-establishments-article-1.2555210?cid=bitly I don't get if he actually believes what he's saying, and what his point is. Also, 58%-42% isn't really a close election at all...

he's right on the facts that superdelegates exist to let the party keep some control over the final nominee and the republican party atm is doing a good job demonstrating why such a feature might be desirable

if hillary hadn't had the superdelegate lead all along, bernie might have had more momentum, and the race might be even more competitive. maybe not, but still, why does this bother you?

xp frederik

yeah I'm not understanding Frederik's agitation about everything.

The cringeworthyness I was talking about upthread is when the Sanders twitter feed tweets something like this: 'Tonight proved once again that we are well on our way towards winning this Democratic primary. Thank you, Maine!'

I get it, I get why a campaign tweets something like that, but it's still embarrassing. They know it's untrue, and we know they know it's untrue, and they know we know they know it's untrue, and still.

― Frederik B, Monday, March 7, 2016 6:16 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

clinton's camp and her propagandists do some of the exact same stuff man. it's just the way of the world. maybe just give it a fuckin rest?

Oh, I just use it as an example of something 'cringeworthy'. The cherry picking of data, stuff like that. Saying Clinton does the same is true, of course, but it misses my point completely. I'm not saying Sanders is bad, that his campaign is bad. I'm saying that because he is losing the spin becomes more and more cringeworthy.

I'm not entirely convinced that the superdelegates are really having such an impact on the race. Right now Clinton has a larger proportionate lead over Sanders for pledged delegates than Trump has over Cruz. That lead has increased as more states have voted. It is not too late for Sanders to come back, but so far he has only fallen further behind.

I guess you could say he is losing. I think he has been a wildly successful protest candidate whose run has strengthened the democratic party by pushing them to me more responsive to voter concerns. Just look at the kinds of questions that are in play now regarding campaign finance, public college tuition, free trade deals etc.

Yes, Treeship, you're right. But he IS losing the delegate count. Is that better?

It just seems like your "cringeworthy" critique is so detached from anything that matters

Like, he obviously can't go out there and say "we have no shot" without tanking his campaign. Tanking his campaign will cut short his opportunity to advocate for the things he thinks are important -- things the democratic party have not prioritized for decades.

^^^

And also that at least 40% of the electorate cares about. As Hillary said, he is kind of a one issue candidate. His big issue is economic inequality, and it's so important to people that they've come out to vote for him in droves (not to mention how many people donated to the campaign!) Why fold at this point, or even gesture toward doing that?

also he said what DJP posted

which is a pretty weird thing to say

since everyone is too busy explaining how American politics works to a Scandinavian to talk about actual candidate responses to questions about racism, I looked up my own answer:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/07/bernie-sanders-says-white-people-dont-know-what-its-like-to-live-in-a-ghetto-about-that/

which can also be considered cringeworthy

http://iquantny.tumblr.com/post/140615860419/trumps-unpaid-bills-a-closer-look-at-the-441

bernie should stay in at least till hillz selects professor warren as her running mate, because fuck rich people

^

that would be a fierce ticket, and would pull along Bernie's base, but Warren would have more impact remaining in the Senate imo.

since everyone is too busy explaining how American politics works to a Scandinavian to talk about actual candidate responses to questions about racism, I looked up my own answer:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/07/bernie-sanders-says-white-people-dont-know-what-its-like-to-live-in-a-ghetto-about-that/

― i like to trump and i am crazy (DJP), Monday, March 7, 2016 10:38 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is good.

"I'm not saying Sanders is bad, that his campaign is bad. I'm saying that because he is losing the spin becomes more and more cringeworthy."

I don't think you understand what a good or bad campaign is. Sanders is obv not going to win, but I don't think it's because he's campaign hasn't been run well.

Re. Sanders answer to the question of racial blind spots, his use of the term "ghetto" was ill advised but I don't think his general point was racist or something. He was saying that unless you have lived on the other end of a nation built on inequality, you'll never fully understand what it's like. His platform for addressing inequality is at least as good as clinton's imo. It's uncomfortable for an old man to make an uncomfortable statement like that but im not sure its a cause for concern, would be interested in hearing other perspectives

well, among other things, it kind of reinforces the idea that Sanders has a less-than-nuanced view of the relationship between race and economic class in America

Charles Pierce, who after admitting that neither candidate answered the question well, writes:

Afterwards, and not entirely fairly, Sanders was accused of comparing getting a cab with losing a child to police violence, and for not knowing that white people live in poverty, too. (I mean, come on. The man grew up in Brooklyn and he got his start in politics doing open-housing campaigns in Chicago. Not only does he know that poverty transcends race, he also knows how easily the latter can be used as a way to make sure not much gets done about the former.)

Not sure I agree wholeheartedly.

what I cringed at was that he continues to collapse the question about racial relations in the US to, essentially, the problems of poor, urban African-Americans. I really expected his shpiel to have evolved on this from earlier debates. This suggests that his advisors share the same blind spot.

I didn't love the use of "ghetto" but I'm not sure I prefer the euphemistic "inner city." I would have been fine with either term, however, if his fundamental approach to the matter had expanded.

The Sanders comment sent my mind back to where this thread was on Friday:

Accelerationism and dark enlightenment claptrap are the retreats of people who think their material circumstances wouldn't be much worse in a collapse scenario, i.e. white men.

― petulant dick master (silby), Friday, March 4, 2016 6:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i say the same thing about folks who argue that there's no or little difference between the parties. -- these aren't people who are dependent on medicaid and so forth.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, March 4, 2016 9:50 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that said, you're stereotyping -- plenty of white men experience precarity. in fact the fallacy that those utilizing the safety net (the one the likes of rubio and cruz would tear to shreads) are largely minorities plays into the racist fears of reactionaries...

― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, March 4, 2016 9:51 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Meanwhile Rubio announces his advisory council!. Elliott Abrams!

A casual observer could be forgiven for experiencing some rhetorical whiplash if there is really an argument along the lines of, "Bernie Sanders does not care about [the precarity of] white people."

xp I wonder, at the same time, if Sanders' use of the term "ghetto" represents an attempt (perhaps unconscious) to identify with African-Americans in some way. We're talking about the child of Polish Jews, after all.

https://twitter.com/NRA/status/706859878703177728

oh goody