Brontoforumus

I think it's all of the above, and I also think it's a desire to return to the status quo. "Trump is gone; everything is back to normal; all the instability and uncertainty are behind us now" is a compelling narrative for the MSM.

Early reports suggest that it only sort-of worked. A 538 survey suggests people think Warren had the best performance in the debate, and while Sanders lost a few points in favorability, he still scored the highest favorability, second-highest net favorability (after Warren), and scored highest on "shares stance on issues", while polling about the same as most of the field for ability to beat Trump in the general.

Hard to say how much any of this will actually mean. If it makes any difference in Iowa, it probably means Warren gets a bump. I don't think it's likely to hurt Sanders much. The news media really want to pit them and their supporters against each other; I think that's unproductive and I still intend to vote for whichever one of them stands a better chance against Biden two months from now.

People who intend to vote in the caucus are probably pretty engaged at this point, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a debate will change their minds at this stage. OTOH, caucuses are hard to predict, and people really can change their minds on the day they vote. And if people are voting for Biden because they think he can beat Trump, it's encouraging to see a poll that says they think Sanders stands just as much of a chance as Biden does and Warren stands an even better one, and both those candidates are better on the issues than Biden is.

I don't know if this changes anything significantly. I think any of the top four still has a good chance of winning Iowa. But this may have shifted the order of the top four a little bit.

The easiest way to cure someone of their desire to return to the status quo is to remind them that the status quo involves Trump getting ready to suddenly happen again without warning.

Their narrative relies on the premise that Trump is an aberration, a freakish, unexplainable anomaly, rather than the logical endpoint of the past 40 years of American politics.

yeah because worldwide copies and semi-copies of Trump aren't fucking leading every nation on earth

Mongrel wrote:I think it's just the age old stupid "Leftists will lose us the election!" bullshit.

Doesn't seem that bullshit from my Thatcherism 2.0 bunker under Dartmoor. It's not built into the platform as such, but it does guarantee that all media companies will find a common cause in allying against you.

It doesn't matter. The Man might vaguely rally behind Biden, but the truth is that nobody in power has lost any money in the last four years of Trump, and they not only can weather four more years, they'll thrive.

So what will happen is, they'll make up the worst possible shit regardless of who is the democrat candidate, and the public will eat it.

mharr wrote:

Mongrel wrote:I think it's just the age old stupid "Leftists will lose us the election!" bullshit.

Doesn't seem that bullshit from my Thatcherism 2.0 bunker under Dartmoor. It's not built into the platform as such, but it does guarantee that all media companies will find a common cause in allying against you.

You know more about it than I do, but it seems to me that Corbyn lost because he didn't do anything to distinguish his stance on the election's single defining issue from his opponent's. I don't think he lost because of the many significant differences between his economic beliefs and Johnson's, I think he lost because of the one crucially important similarity.

zaratustra wrote:It doesn't matter. The Man might vaguely rally behind Biden, but the truth is that nobody in power has lost any money in the last four years of Trump, and they not only can weather four more years, they'll thrive.

So what will happen is, they'll make up the worst possible shit regardless of who is the democrat candidate, and the public will eat it.

I'm inclined to agree. They called the Clintons, Gore, Kerry, and Obama socialists; they'll call Biden a socialist just as surely as Sanders.

Thad wrote:

mharr wrote:

Mongrel wrote:I think it's just the age old stupid "Leftists will lose us the election!" bullshit.

Doesn't seem that bullshit from my Thatcherism 2.0 bunker under Dartmoor. It's not built into the platform as such, but it does guarantee that all media companies will find a common cause in allying against you.

You know more about it than I do, but it seems to me that Corbyn lost because he didn't do anything to distinguish his stance on the election's single defining issue from his opponent's. I don't think he lost because of the many significant differences between his economic beliefs and Johnson's, I think he lost because of the one crucially important similarity.

From my viewpoint thousands of miles removed, it seems to me that Corbyn lost, not because of any policy position he held or did not hold, but because every single media outlet was uncritically pushing blatantly false Tory talking points, while also running blatantly false smears against Corbyn?

Which is definitely a problem that this side of the pond shares.

"All lives matter and I don't agree with the Black Lives Matter movement and I think it's dumb and I hate it when people kneel before football games and honestly if you're going to protest why not do it politely where nobody can see you because honestly the cops shooting the blacks is just a few bad apples come on now be reasonable", bemoans White woman who cannot understand why Black people do not like her

"Honestly the blacks have issues but come on the number one perpetrator of violent crime toward a black person? A black person take some responsibility your family life sucks be more christian and the way you talk? and your music isn't"

That last point coming from a culture that spent centuries exploring the funereal dirge as their regular community music event.

So Bernie's getting a free boost from Hillary bashing him in public. Ahahahahah.

:chefkiss:

Man, Joe "kids cant be trans and why CANT I say N*****" Rogan, huh, Bernie. All right, I guess. I'll just leave this here.

And yet, not the most dangerous thing a campaign did this week.

Not to get to into it, but my take on Joe Rogan is he, and his audience are literal adult children.

I don't support most of his guests and the general views aired, but I do think that both he and his audience don't know any better. If we say "fuck that guy" and only hateful asshole go on, more of his viewers will be hateful assholes. If someone like Bernie or really anyone else was on, they'd give a chance to see an alternative for that many people.

I am not talking about Bernie going on Rogan's podcast, or even Joe endorsing Bernie, I'm talking about Bernie accepting the endorsement with a supportive campaign video that doesn't question any of Rogan's positions or feel like campaign did any research into the man. Just today, when called out on it, Rogan finally deleted a tweet questioning Obama's citizenship, for example.

This guy on twitter said it better than I can:

AHAHAHA