***Official Political Discussion Thread***

If we're playing the spot the 2020 Gary Johnson and Jill Stein game, I'd like to put a fiver on Tulsi and DA MAYOR.
 
In regards to Universities, if I were running or advising a candidate, I would propose the Federal government charter tuition-free Universities. Universities that could hold tens of thousands of students, high-quality facilities, do research, completely free, food, and housing, focus on educating local students and international students from lower economic status overseas, educate nurses and doctors for free and serve as an economic stimulus for the area. Put them in the regions that could swing voters over to team blue.

If we want to go left on education at the federal, let us try going truly all the way left.

This is actually a legitimate need for this due to large parts of the country being “education deserts” which means no nonprofit higher education institutions located within 25 miles. Studies show this distance has a pretty huge affect on students potential to complete college.

For profit schools have targeted those areas and take advantage of people not being able to go to Legitimate colleges further that crisis. A federal university system would fix this issue and help a lot of Rural Americans.
 
She’s nice I would

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I think Bernie supporters are reaching for something to get mad at. We have no idea the context of what he said and when he said it. Because BTW, it was never likely that Bernie was gonna be the runaway winner in this go around.

Also Obama also said people should calm down about the primary and be ready to rallying around the winner, and Dems should avoid the circular firing squad.

So the dude that:

-Obama campaigned to help Bernie get his Senate seat

-He said nothing in 2016 in the Dem primary so the process could play out

-Who told Bernie that he would hold off on releasing the video endorsing Hillary if Bernie wanted (this was after it was clear Clinton would be the nominee)

-Hell he didn't even say anything about Russia helping Trump so it would got be seen are him interfering

Is gonna try to stop a runaway candidate from getting the nomination.

So he is gonna act completely out of character to do something politically stupid. Yeah, sorry, not buying it without a better source or direct quote for me to buy Obama is out to stop Sanders like this. This is just the usual Bernie capers in the media being reactionary like they always do.
None of this refutes what’s actually in that article—which by the way, was published by Politico, not Jacobin, Current Affairs, or some other leftist outlet. How on earth that can be characterized as “reactionary,” as it “always” is with “Bernie capers” is quite confounding, to say the least.

And ****, it could be argued that Obama is already doing this in his own understated way, in his recent remarks equivocating leftists with Trump and the alt-right and disparaging the more progressive policies being proposed by Bernie and Warren. You wanna talk about bad faith and obfuscating whataboutism—good Lordt!!

That said, I obviously don’t know whether the impetus for Obama’s recent series of exhortations to moderation have been borne of a desire to stop Bernie or of Obama’s own severely limited political vision and commitments. I don’t even know how meaningful whatever distinction may or may not be there actually is or how much it matters. I wasn’t even upset when I read the article—I laughed because the political prerogative(s) the article describes are already self-evident to anyone paying attention.
 
In regards to Universities, if I were running or advising a candidate, I would propose the Federal government charter tuition-free Universities. Universities that could hold tens of thousands of students, high-quality facilities, do research, completely free, food, and housing, focus on educating local students and international students from lower economic status overseas, educate nurses and doctors for free and serve as an economic stimulus for the area. Put them in the regions that could swing voters over to team blue.

If we want to go left on education at the federal, let us try going truly all the way left.
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None of this refutes what’s actually in that article—which by the way, was published by Politico, not Jacobin, Current Affairs, or some other leftist outlet. How on earth that can be characterized as “reactionary,” as it “always” is with “Bernie capers” is quite confounding, to say the least.

And ****, it could be argued that Obama is already doing this in his own understated way, in his recent remarks equivocating leftists with Trump and the alt-right and disparaging the more progressive policies being proposed by Bernie and Warren. You wanna talk about bad faith and obfuscating whataboutism—good Lordt!!

That said, I obviously don’t know whether the impetus for Obama’s recent series of exhortations to moderation have been borne of a desire to stop Bernie or of Obama’s own severely limited political vision and commitments. I don’t even know how meaningful whatever distinction may or may not be there actually is or how much it matters. I wasn’t even upset when I read the article—I laughed because the political prerogative(s) the article describes are already self-evident to anyone paying attention.
-Dude, the Politico article, had one unnamed source that said he that without giving context to the conversation. Another source could not confirm that they have had a similar discussion. So in the Politico article itself, they could not confirm it with a secondary source. So I don't exactly know what solid piece of evidence you're trying to point to.

-Please quote where Obama compared leftist to Trump and the Alt-Right. I missed it, and I want to hear the exact context of his words.

-Obama is out here telling people to get ready support, whoever is the candidate, and that compared to beating Trump and the GOP, the differences among the major candidates is small. He has said that to audiences that are specifically worried about Bernie and Warren too. So it is not like Obama has just been out there throwing him under the bus.

So how exactly is that disparaging Warren and Bernie, by pointing out the obvious that broad public support is not there for some of their plans? To take it a bit further, some of Bernie and Warrens's plans are pie in the sky. A perfect example of what Obama is talking about is M4A. Warren tried to go wonkish on the payment question, and it was a bad look for her because her plan to pay for it was unworkable. While Bernie has a more straightforward method, his *** avoids the details. People losing their private insurance still polls poorly. So Obama is telling people to be progressive, but some things can work against you if you don't consider what voters will accept. It is a common-sense piece of political advice. It is reactionary to take Obama saying online call-out culture is not real activism, and that progressives have to consider things outside of suggesting what the think is the best plan.

People like AOC are pushing a nonsensical economic theory to try to duck the question of funding a left-wing political agenda altogether. That is another example of going too far left. There is a difference between calling out the fear mongering over the deficit by conservatives and centrist is overblown, and saying we should run multi trillion dollar deficits without much worry of the consequences of doing that.

No matter what kind of alt-facts the National Review, Fox News, Mayo Pete, Bernie Sanders, Jacobin, and others try to say, Trump voters didn't turn to him because of economics. It was racist and xenophobia. Of course, the Democratic Party should represent a vision on immigration, one opposite of Trump. However, it would be wise when we are telling people we will give Dreamers legal status, give undocumented people a path to citizenship, accept more refugees, not put kids in cages, stop ICE raids, improve conditions in central American to not give folk a reason to leave their home countries, and tons of positive ****; that we will also try to prevent influx of drugs, and trafficked girls, and deport violent criminals. If they don't, it leaves the door open for Trump to fear monger again and win over people on the margin.

And like Obama said here...

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/21/20976733/barack-obama-dnc-fundraiser-silicon-valley

“When you listen to the average voter — even ones who are stalwart Democrats, are more independent or low-information voters — they don’t feel that things are working well but they’re also nervous about changes that might take away what little they have,” he said. “So, there’s always a balance in politics between hope and fear.”

If just speaking like a revolutionary was the answer then Bernie would be blowing out the field. I am well left on most Dem voters but when I sit down and talk to more centrist people I still have to try to ground my ideas to something people can understand and not be scared of.

He seems to be criticizing people's tactics more than attacking them for being progressives. Obama openly says the point is for people to be more progressive than him. He is not out here like Joe Biden.

-To win the primary and beat the GOP, the Democratic nominee needs to rebuild to the Obama coalition, and no other person understands how to build that coalition better than Obama himself. He is offering advice on how to do that. So I feel that has little to do with his supposed lack of political vision, but it has to do with his explicit knowledge of building a winning coalition.

It is reactionary because when it comes to liberals and Obama leftist usually want to put the worst read on his comments. Anyone paying attention would know Obama is saying be progressive, do real activism, and be ready to rallying the candidate no matter who it is. So yeah, this smells like more reactionary nonsense from Bernie supporters because King Liberal was critical in any way of King Leftist.

I will save my shade for Obama on this issue for when he actually violates.
 
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I would say about voters being scared of Bernie, it is true. It is true because the American political system is set up to have lots of eligible, potential voters not vote. Election day on a weekday, no labor movement so no real protection for workers to take time off, a voter registration system that penalizes renters (since renters move much more often than home owners). Then there’s the bipartisan rhetoric which centers “middle class families.” Finally, we have, of course, racialized efforts to reduce citizen participation. What we are left with is an electorate that is made up of the wealthier and more reactionary half of the country.

Even when we can get decent voter turn out (if you can call 60% decent), the oligarchy frustrates popular will and ignores the left of center mandates created by the expanded electorate (2008 being the most prominent example). Thus, we have a feed back loop where voters, whose interests align with oligarchy, end up feeling like their votes turn into political success. Those people are usually: members of the oligarchy, lumpen workers, aristocrats of labor and the professional-managerial class. Capital is able to select the workers that most align with capital’s interests and create the appearance of legitimacy. That further alienates the types of workers, whose political preferences would counter to capital’s interests, from voting consistently.

Given the profound constitutional, economic, political, sociological, legal and rhetorical impediments to genuine universal sufferage and political democracy in the US, it is unfair to say that one elderly Social Democrat’s inability to reshape the electorate with a few years of running for President is evidence of a general failure of popular, left politics.

It is true that Sandersism has a near zero percent change of becoming policy in the near future. What also is unlikely to become law any time soon is the platform of any other Dem candidate. Our system was designed to prevent foundational change in favor of workers and after a decade of McConnellIsm, our system is now set up to prevent incremental changes that would help workers.

We should not abandon electoralism but our system is beyond saving via electoralism alone. We need to organize workers to confront capital outside of our formal political system. We need to radically alter the terms of our politics because right now we are in a death spiral of a shrinking electorate and an ever more reactionary median voter.
 
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