This Week in Election Night, 2020
in the interest of trying to slightly curtail the domination of politics in ~news for people who don't care for it while also consolidating discussion for people who potentially do, i think we should try one of those weekly threads that's so hip and popular on the rest of tildes, so here we go: this is a test run of a weekly thread on 2020 presidential news/analysis/etc. it's probably not going to get any lighter from here, news wise, so it might pay to establish a recurring topic like this before the media really gets rolling with election coverage (and potentially before ~news becomes a deluge of 2020 topics).
i think common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread if it works out, so i guess i'll just say: if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.
leading off (and demonstrating that there really is going to be no dearth of 2020 primary and election news about this despite this week being pretty quiet on that front):
from NBC - Why some Democrats say: Don't sleep on 'Mayor Pete' Buttigieg. buttigieg is a pretty small candidate in a field of big names, but that hasn't put the damper on people's optimism for him as this NBC piece shows. i personally don't think he's got the runway necessary for takeoff, but with the debates, who knows. it might be that the debates stratify the field even more than it's already stratified--or it might be that they level it out a bit, to the benefit of people like buttigieg
from Buzzfeed - The Romance Of Mayor Pete In The Season Of Scam. another piece on buttigieg. this one is a bit light on substance and is basically an opinion piece, but if you're curious about buttigieg's qualifications you might be interested in it.
from Heavy - Bernie Sanders’ Los Angeles Rally Draws So Many, Overflow Crowd Fills City Hall Steps Across the Street [PHOTOS]. bernie sanders made the second of three stops in california yesterday, and he drew a pretty major crowd that's currently estimated at around 15k--and could potentially be as high as 20k or 25k, depending on the setup of the venue. his stop the day before was in san diego where he drew a crowd of about 6,400, and today he'll be in san francisco, which could lead to an early messaging and marketing win if he can draw a comparable crowd to kamala harris's kickoff in oakland (which drew 20k).
from The Guardian - The B-Team: are Beto, Biden and Bernie the best Democrats can offer?. i'll let this one present itself: "...But three of the top-polling candidates for 2020 so far are white men: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, O’Rourke and former vice-president Joe Biden, who has not even declared his candidacy. Does that present a problem?" one of the big criticisms of the democratic party is that, even as it diversifies its slate of candidates across the board, its biggest hitters generally remain white and male, especially in this presidential election. whether or not that's a particularly valid criticism, i'll leave up to you.
from POLITICO - Harris and O'Rourke go straight for each other's strongholds. sanders wasn't the only one buzzing around this week: o'rourke and harris have both been on tours of their own in states that will be pretty instrumental to the path of any democrat that wants to win the nomination. o'rourke, you may remember (tildes discussion), is the current day-one fundraising leader, and it appears we now actually have his individual donor numbers now (112,000, average donation of $55). so far, he doesn't appear to have parlayed that into particularly large crowd sizes (and outside of her campaign launch, harris hasn't really either) but we're still very early on, so i anticipate as their campaigns ramp up they'll start pulling larger numbers.
from NBC - Beto O'Rourke could be a threat — to Biden on his right and Sanders on his left. this article, as you can probably guess by its title, mostly focuses on how beto is trying to position himself in the primary, but also how some of the people he appeals to feel about his candidacy and why they support him.
lastly, from NPR - Small Donors Hold The Key To Campaign Buzz And The Democrats' Debate Stage. this NPR article on push by democrats to incentivize campaigns to build up their small donor bases in the leadup to 2020. the democrats have pretty much always been the undisputed champions of small-donor politics since the internet became a significant player in american politics, mostly on the back of things like actblue. nevertheless, there are still a lot of places they've been looking to improve (and it's really only a matter of time before republicans build infrastructure of their own), so it makes sense that they're really trying to shore up that advantage where they can while they can.
this isn't even every article that i could have tossed on here, but i've already been working on this post for like an hour, so i think that'll suffice for now. feel free to contribute other interesting articles or comment on some of the ones up there.
Let me add this one: Elizabeth Warren Bucks the Trend by Running on Ideas. I'll admit my own biases here, but I despise the horse-race, personality journalism style of most of the current reporting. There's nothing to see until people start the policy analysis, background investigation, and credibility testing.
Full disclosure: I have donated to Elizabeth Warren's campaign.
incidentally, warren appears to be getting some more attention for this today--NBC is leading its politics section with a piece on warren's policy: O'Rourke is getting all the attention, but Warren's economic policy proposals are leading the 2020 pack
given the congress obama had for like 60% of his presidency, i'm skeptical that he'd have been able to push for more regulation even if he wanted to (to say nothing of the fact that a fairly large number of democrats were not particularly for the sorts of regulations he would have been hypothetically pushing for--it's hard to understate how much the party has shifted to the left even in the past 10 years).
I can see why it's might be considered an issue. By the time we're casting our ballots for the 2020 Presidential Election, we'll have had four years of a president who is a white man who made little secret of his disdain for women, minorities, and the poor. The Democrats are likely wanting to put someone forward that is the complete opposite, both in policy and looks.
Throwing Sanders(who isn't the most popular candidate among minorities), O'Rourke(who is relatively inexperienced on the national level), and Biden(Arguably not progressive enough) into the mix means they're just putting up more of the same when options like Warren, Harris, and Buttigieg exist.
I firmly believe, perhaps wrongly, that the upcoming election will not be decided by policy but simply whether you like Trump or not. Similar to how the 2016 election mostly boiled down to "Do you like Hillary Clinton? If yes, vote Clinton, if no, vote Trump". Their stances didn't matter so much as their reputations did.
So putting forth candidates who are the polar opposite to Trump, in looks(woman? PoC?), policy(just how progressive are they?), and demeanor(Can they go toe to toe with the Twitterer in Chief?) is likely the Democrats play.
In a perfect world, absolutely, I agree, that race/sex/orientation shouldn't matter. That their ideas, how they can work with those who don't share their ideas and visions to achieve goals that benefit all Americans, but that's not the country we live in.
We have plenty of people who will not vote for a gay candidate, regardless of their ideas, because the very existence of the gay community is an affront to their beliefs. We have plenty of people who will not vote for a woman and/or minority candidate even if they had the absolutely best plans simply because they're still stuck in the 1950s. And that says nothing of what would happen if a transgender candidate stepped up to be a serious contender.
The only way to break through some of those closed minds is to slap them in the face with the reality that white Christian men are not the only ones capable of running this country. That a Muslim woman, or a Latina from the Bronx, a gay man or woman or transgender person can rise up and be just as capable of a leader as any rich business man. The result, hopefully, is that the next generation of children and voters see people who look like them at the highest offices. A little Muslim girl may see Rep Ilhan Omar holding her own and think "I can do that too". A young Dreamer may see AOC sparring with Fox News and realize that they're being fought for by people who know their struggle. A gay man might see Mayor Buttigieg and realize there's still hope for him in this country. It's the only kind of "trickle down economics" that may work.
Sorry that got a little preachy.
as an update to this subplot for the weekend, sanders' final stop in his three day california (which was in san francisco) visit drew around 16,000 people, so not quite what harris drew in oakland to kick off her campaign, but definitely indicative that there's quite a bit of support for sanders in california and a lot of support for democratic politicians in general. crowd sizes like that almost a full two years out from election day itself definitely aren't things you typically see in election cycles.
Great idea! Thanks, @alyaza.
small roundup for this morning since i've already bumped this topic:
this subplot i talk about is also repeating itself in base-shoring operations, since hillary did quite poorly with a lot of demographics that democrats normally do well with. Huffington Post has a piece on tom steyer's focus on this today: A Megadonor Wants 2020 Democrats To Get Out The Base
as mentioned up-thread, warren is getting some more attention from the media for her policy focus: O'Rourke is getting all the attention, but Warren's economic policy proposals are leading the 2020 pack
and NPR has a piece on trump's shaky support with some of the union folks who voted for him earlier, which just highlight some of the problems he's facing in winning reelection if the political arithmetic doesn't change significantly between now and 2020. Trump Faces Mixed Reviews Among Union Workers, Who Still Face Insecurity
if you thought this might have been an understatement, let me dispel that with another update today.
today, we have a mixture of policy-related articles and personality-related ones, and the unending stream of articles marches on even though even less has happened the past few days than in the few days before i started this thread.
from Vox, an interview with pete buttigieg on the tension between modern capitalism and the realities younger people face: Pete Buttigieg makes the case for “democratic capitalism”
also from Vox, an article on warren's newly minted policies for farming: Elizabeth Warren’s plan to make farming great again, explained (you can find those policies in warren's own words here)
from Slate, a piece on warren and why she shouldn't jut be considered "Bernie-lite": Elizabeth Warren Is Much More Than “Bernie-Light”
from The Guardian, a piece on beto o'rourke's track record with environmental policies and his support (or lack thereof) of them: Beto O'Rourke: just how green is the Texas Democrat?
from Buzzfeed News, a piece on what might be the most interesting minor campaign of 2020, which is that of mike gravel, an 88 year old former US senator for the democratic party hailing from alaska (and whose career is pretty interesting in general: A Pair Of Leftist Teens Are Tired Of The Democratic Party’s “Bullshit.” They’re Launching A Presidential Campaign To Fix It.
from FiveThirtyEight, a piece on trump's almost total lack of movement in approval relative to other presidents and the implications (or lack thereof) for him: Trump’s Approval Rating Is Incredibly Steady. Is That Weird Or The New Normal?
and lastly, from Vox, a recap of the big points of cory booker's CNN town hall: 6 key moments from Cory Booker’s CNN town hall
I think it's important to discuss the role of the media has in political influencing, in light of the mueller report.
I feel like they've been gaslighting us for 2 years by stringing us along on this story that resulted in basically nothing.
It seems possible to me that they're not on our side even though they're against trump.
We haven't even seen the actual report, just the summary by William Barr. He was hired to do this. It's been two years, don't jump to conclusions just yet.
You're right though, the media are not your friend. Remember the Iraq war - they will happily lie to you to secure trillions of dollars for their parent companies.
well, that'd be a good thing. honestly? it's not really supposed to be the place of the media to explicitly take sides and report accordingly, even if some of them (namely the big three political channels) have an explicitly partisan lean. they should report the news as it is, not report it for the sake of being on "our side", whatever that side happens to be.