Another scare story based on utter and complete bs about independent voters.
“Why, despite the warnings, is Sanders still winning? One reason is that a lot of people like him and what he stands for. Another reason is that other candidates are splitting the votes of moderate Democrats, leaving him with a plurality on the left. But there’s a third reason: Socialism doesn’t freak out Democratic voters the way it freaks out other Americans. On this subject, Democrats are very different not just from Republicans, but also from independents, who represent about 40 percent of Americans and about 30 percent of the electorate. Socialism is a loser among independents, and this makes it a liability in a general election. But Democrats don’t feel an aversion to socialism. So perhaps they don’t see the extent of the political danger.”
“Few things are more frustrating than people jabbering about what “independents” think, want, or believe. This idea that there are people today who truly swing between voting for Democrats and voting for Republicans doesn’t pass the anything test. Do you really know someone like this, an informed voter who regularly swings wildly between the two parties?
Yes, there are people who call themselves independent. They are the tea party conservatives, too cool to be Republicans, yet always pulling the lever for the GOP. There are the Bernie-type liberals, also too cool and pure to sully themselves by belonging to a party, yet when it comes time to vote, they wouldn’t vote for a Republican to save their lives.
And yes, there are “independents” who, generally, are too apathetic to care enough to realize that there are real differences between the two parties, and might swing. But that kind of person is also very likely to, you know, not vote at all.
And while this all sounds anecdotal, it’s not. It’s in the findings of the latest Pew Research study on so-called independents.
Top line? Only 7% of Americans are true independents—individuals who genuinely don’t lean toward either of the two major parties. And of those? Only 33% voted in 2018! That is, only 2.3% of real independents even bothered to vote!
So next time you see someone fretting about how this or that policy or message is selling to “independents,” remember that we’re talking about 2-3% of voters. If you’re worried about appealing to that crowd, as opposed to your core base, then you’re doing it wrong. Truly wrong. Really, really, really wrong.”
Pete B keeps being a mystery to me. I have a hard time understanding why any Dem would vote for him, and he just keeps making it worse. I expect the bomb to drop on his campaign between S. Carolina and Super Tuesday, and good riddance.
“But the main event was the attempt by the rest of the field, Warren excepted, to pin some of Sanders’s ancient quotes on him regarding Fidel Castro and Cuba. Sanders looked beleaguered and cranky, so much so that, when Buttigieg finally opened the floodgates on his formidable reservoir of sanctimony, Sanders whiffed on it.
“I am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the 1950s, and Bernie Sanders with a nostalgia for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s. … We’re not gonna win these critical House and Senate races if people in these races have to explain why the nominee of the Democratic Party is telling people to look at the bright side of the Castro regime.”
How could Sanders miss on this? Maybe, while he’s in South Carolina, Buttigieg could drive on up to Orangeburg, where, in February of 1968, fired by the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s, three students were shot down while trying to integrate a local bowling alley. Or he could discuss how the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s, as expressed at the Stonewall Inn in New York, was still relevant to our lives today. Or he simply could walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge a couple of times. I’m nostalgic for a lot of that. This was “OK, Boomer” shot through with a kind of entitled contempt for the importance of historical memory.
This was “OK, Boomer” shot through with a kind of entitled contempt for the importance of historical memory.”
“Pete Buttigieg Denounces the Politics That Made Him Possible
By J. Bryan Lowder
Over the past few months, political commentators have struggled to explain why many LGBTQ people, especially younger cohorts, have not enthusiastically lined up behind Pete Buttigieg’s historic campaign to be the first openly gay nominee for president. (Surveys of the group have shown him trailing Sanders and Warren.) Most recently, the New Yorker’s Masha Gessen offered an explanation for this apparent surprise, generalizing a broad divide in the community between queers who believe their queerness has a clear political component—one that happens to align more with the party’s left-wing vision of radical societal change—and those who view it merely as a demographic, “small part of me” detail that need not speak to anything other than basic gender identity or sexual orientation. Buttigieg has shown himself consistently to be the avatar of the latter camp, and in Tuesday night’s debate in Charleston, South Carolina, he made a strikingly transparent statement that should clarify the issue for anyone still confused.
Sticking to his recent mission of rescuing the Democratic Party from its progressive flirtations in the face of the Trump juggernaut, Buttigieg said: “I am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the 1950s and Bernie Sanders with the nostalgia for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s.” His campaign quickly captured the moment in a tweet, slightly revising to argue that the result was a scenario “we can’t afford.” Buttigieg was specifically referencing recent attacks on Sanders’ history of making statements that were less than categorically hostile to leftist authoritarian governments like that of Cuba, but in trying to bring back the language of the Cold War, he landed on a much more sweeping rejection of the 1960s.
But what’s easy enough to say is that in dismissing the “revolutionary politics of the 1960s” as “nostalgia” that he’d rather avoid, Pete Buttigieg has made abundantly clear why queer people of Gessen’s first, politicized category may not see him as a peer. To dismiss the political fervor and creativity of the ’60s is to dismiss the exact historical moment that made his candidacy, his marriage, his very public existence, possible. It is to abjure all the work, ingenuity, and sacrifice that his ancestors (though he may not recognize them as such) invested to enable such a strange, calculated relationship to his own gayness. To feel unable to “afford” the ’60s is to suggest that the righteous emotions and ideas that fomented Stonewall, the sort of wild dreams and unruly energies that introduced the possibility of queer liberation to the world, are just too costly for us in 2020.
If Mayor Pete really thinks that, then he and his campaign should have no trouble understanding why many of us queers don’t see him or his presidential bid as something to be terribly proud of. But hey, maybe there is a trace of shame yet in South Bend. After initially tweeting the disavowal of the decade that brought us Stonewall as a highlight of his debate performance, the candidate to be America’s first out gay president quickly deleted it.”
Another scare story based on utter and complete bs about independent voters.
“Why, despite the warnings, is Sanders still winning? One reason is that a lot of people like him and what he stands for. Another reason is that other candidates are splitting the votes of moderate Democrats, leaving him with a plurality on the left. But there’s a third reason: Socialism doesn’t freak out Democratic voters the way it freaks out other Americans. On this subject, Democrats are very different not just from Republicans, but also from independents, who represent about 40 percent of Americans and about 30 percent of the electorate. Socialism is a loser among independents, and this makes it a liability in a general election. But Democrats don’t feel an aversion to socialism. So perhaps they don’t see the extent of the political danger.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/socialism-bernie-sanders-independents-general-election.html
Personally I think that 2.3% is high.
“Few things are more frustrating than people jabbering about what “independents” think, want, or believe. This idea that there are people today who truly swing between voting for Democrats and voting for Republicans doesn’t pass the anything test. Do you really know someone like this, an informed voter who regularly swings wildly between the two parties?
Yes, there are people who call themselves independent. They are the tea party conservatives, too cool to be Republicans, yet always pulling the lever for the GOP. There are the Bernie-type liberals, also too cool and pure to sully themselves by belonging to a party, yet when it comes time to vote, they wouldn’t vote for a Republican to save their lives.
And yes, there are “independents” who, generally, are too apathetic to care enough to realize that there are real differences between the two parties, and might swing. But that kind of person is also very likely to, you know, not vote at all.
And while this all sounds anecdotal, it’s not. It’s in the findings of the latest Pew Research study on so-called independents.
Top line? Only 7% of Americans are true independents—individuals who genuinely don’t lean toward either of the two major parties. And of those? Only 33% voted in 2018! That is, only 2.3% of real independents even bothered to vote!
So next time you see someone fretting about how this or that policy or message is selling to “independents,” remember that we’re talking about 2-3% of voters. If you’re worried about appealing to that crowd, as opposed to your core base, then you’re doing it wrong. Truly wrong. Really, really, really wrong.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/30/1861458/-Pew-confirms-it-there-s-no-real-such-thing-as-an-independent-voter
Pete B keeps being a mystery to me. I have a hard time understanding why any Dem would vote for him, and he just keeps making it worse. I expect the bomb to drop on his campaign between S. Carolina and Super Tuesday, and good riddance.
“But the main event was the attempt by the rest of the field, Warren excepted, to pin some of Sanders’s ancient quotes on him regarding Fidel Castro and Cuba. Sanders looked beleaguered and cranky, so much so that, when Buttigieg finally opened the floodgates on his formidable reservoir of sanctimony, Sanders whiffed on it.
“I am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the 1950s, and Bernie Sanders with a nostalgia for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s. … We’re not gonna win these critical House and Senate races if people in these races have to explain why the nominee of the Democratic Party is telling people to look at the bright side of the Castro regime.”
How could Sanders miss on this? Maybe, while he’s in South Carolina, Buttigieg could drive on up to Orangeburg, where, in February of 1968, fired by the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s, three students were shot down while trying to integrate a local bowling alley. Or he could discuss how the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s, as expressed at the Stonewall Inn in New York, was still relevant to our lives today. Or he simply could walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge a couple of times. I’m nostalgic for a lot of that. This was “OK, Boomer” shot through with a kind of entitled contempt for the importance of historical memory.
This was “OK, Boomer” shot through with a kind of entitled contempt for the importance of historical memory.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31113413/democratic-debate-south-carolina-worst-moderators/
And here’s another take:
“Pete Buttigieg Denounces the Politics That Made Him Possible
By J. Bryan Lowder
Over the past few months, political commentators have struggled to explain why many LGBTQ people, especially younger cohorts, have not enthusiastically lined up behind Pete Buttigieg’s historic campaign to be the first openly gay nominee for president. (Surveys of the group have shown him trailing Sanders and Warren.) Most recently, the New Yorker’s Masha Gessen offered an explanation for this apparent surprise, generalizing a broad divide in the community between queers who believe their queerness has a clear political component—one that happens to align more with the party’s left-wing vision of radical societal change—and those who view it merely as a demographic, “small part of me” detail that need not speak to anything other than basic gender identity or sexual orientation. Buttigieg has shown himself consistently to be the avatar of the latter camp, and in Tuesday night’s debate in Charleston, South Carolina, he made a strikingly transparent statement that should clarify the issue for anyone still confused.
Sticking to his recent mission of rescuing the Democratic Party from its progressive flirtations in the face of the Trump juggernaut, Buttigieg said: “I am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the 1950s and Bernie Sanders with the nostalgia for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s.” His campaign quickly captured the moment in a tweet, slightly revising to argue that the result was a scenario “we can’t afford.” Buttigieg was specifically referencing recent attacks on Sanders’ history of making statements that were less than categorically hostile to leftist authoritarian governments like that of Cuba, but in trying to bring back the language of the Cold War, he landed on a much more sweeping rejection of the 1960s.
But what’s easy enough to say is that in dismissing the “revolutionary politics of the 1960s” as “nostalgia” that he’d rather avoid, Pete Buttigieg has made abundantly clear why queer people of Gessen’s first, politicized category may not see him as a peer. To dismiss the political fervor and creativity of the ’60s is to dismiss the exact historical moment that made his candidacy, his marriage, his very public existence, possible. It is to abjure all the work, ingenuity, and sacrifice that his ancestors (though he may not recognize them as such) invested to enable such a strange, calculated relationship to his own gayness. To feel unable to “afford” the ’60s is to suggest that the righteous emotions and ideas that fomented Stonewall, the sort of wild dreams and unruly energies that introduced the possibility of queer liberation to the world, are just too costly for us in 2020.
If Mayor Pete really thinks that, then he and his campaign should have no trouble understanding why many of us queers don’t see him or his presidential bid as something to be terribly proud of. But hey, maybe there is a trace of shame yet in South Bend. After initially tweeting the disavowal of the decade that brought us Stonewall as a highlight of his debate performance, the candidate to be America’s first out gay president quickly deleted it.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/buttigieg-revolutionary-politics-1960s-stonewall.html
Basically Pete B in politics and in his personal life exists because of a revolution, yet he runs against a revolution.