news 2024 US Election Megathread 🇺🇸🏛️

[GhostBox]

Can't make this **** up anymore 💀 like wtf 

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:59 PM by GhostBox

[Armani.]

 

 

[dancingqueen]

4 hours ago, BeenTheShit said:

This woman is truly a heartless ***** and she doesn't even try to hide it.  I am so disgusted every time I see her face or hear her speak. 

Don't go to the airport then. Her ass is everywhere there, unfortunately 

[FameFatale]

Ummm

 

 

[ClashAndBurn]

Thats the thing. He can't. Theres not a single statewide race in either Indiana (where he's from) or in Michigan (where he hopped the state line to do some carpetbagging) that he has the capability of winning. Actual voters in those states do not like him or trust him, and nor should they.

 

Maybe he can be UN Secretary if the Dems ever luck their way into winning the presidency again. Big IF at this point though.

[PicklePower]

10 hours ago, thedeathbymusic said:

she's a natural. run her in 2028 irdgaf

This fellow Ohioan agrees

[ClashAndBurn]

12 hours ago, thedeathbymusic said:

she's a natural. run her in 2028 irdgaf

She can run all she wants, but she's got a hard brick wall in front of her when it comes to South Carolina blunting the momentum of everyone who isn't the "most experienced" establishment-friendly candidate that's "put in the most work." It is going to require an actual miracle for that state to select anyone other than the 2024 candidate who literally just lost in the most embarrassing failure of a campaign in 20 years.

 

With AOC, the southern black elder church-goers are just going to say "Thanks, but no thanks. Come back in thirty years when you've run a state-wide race and served as governor, senator, or as a cabinet secretary in a future Democratic administration." Primary voters don't care much about ideology, but tenure. Name recognition. How long have you faithfully and loyally served the Party? They fully reject outsiders like Bernie Sanders and will never trust them. To make in-roads with black voters you have to spend years to go sit with them at church, go to their cookouts, and break bread with them unless you start out already really well-known in their respective communities. By definition, an outsider cannot do that.

Edited Thursday at 04:43 AM by ClashAndBurn

[canvey916]

1 hour ago, ClashAndBurn said:

How long have you faithfully and loyally served the Party? They fully reject outsiders like Bernie Sanders and will never trust them.

The way some of y'all talk about Black people makes me feel like I'm about to have my skull measured with a pair of 19th-century calipers.

 

Making inroads with Black communities in a state like South Carolina isn't some uncrackable code. Want to win the Iowa caucus? You spend time on the ground in Iowa. Want to win Michigan in the general election? Don't ignore the state like Clinton did. Want to generate a profile among the largely-Black primary electorate in the Deep South? Don't concede the entire region to the establishment candidate like Sanders did in 2016. You show up, like you would in any other state. You listen to people's concerns, like you would anywhere else. You read the room, and understand that when you're talking to working-class Black people (i.e. the vast majority of Black folks in S.C.), you can pitch an economic message without being a smug class reductionist.

 

It's not rocket science. But when's the last time any high-profile progressive made the kind of bare-minimum efforts with Black southerners that they make with white midwesterners? Have Bernie and AOC brought their tour to a single place below the Mason-Dixon line? You don't get to put in zero work with whole regions/communities and then act like it's *their* fault that your message isn't landing. That's literally what Clinton did in the Rust Belt nine years ago. "We tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

 

I'm a Black leftist: I truly want to see a real, multiracial working-class movement in this country. But s**t like this only moves us further away from that goal. If you treat Black southerners like an albatross around your neck, reduce us to church-and-cookout caricatures, and preemptively blame us for primaries that are three years away...then don't expect much faith to be placed in you.

[ClashAndBurn]

Trump can pretty easily clear Chauvin's federal charges which would trigger him being moved to state prison instead. At that point, the carrot of pardoning him at the state level is going to be a very motivating factor for conservatives to push to get Tim Walz out of office. Doing so would mean they have completely won the culture war once and for all, considering everything else about BLM was complete and total failure (seeing as the result was that it led to more people dying to cops, whose policing budgets ballooned).

Edited Thursday at 09:09 AM by ClashAndBurn

[ClashAndBurn]

1 hour ago, canvey916 said:

The way some of y'all talk about Black people makes me feel like I'm about to have my skull measured with a pair of 19th-century calipers.

 

Making inroads with Black communities in a state like South Carolina isn't some uncrackable code. Want to win the Iowa caucus? You spend time on the ground in Iowa. Want to win Michigan in the general election? Don't ignore the state like Clinton did. Want to generate a profile among the largely-Black primary electorate in the Deep South? Don't concede the entire region to the establishment candidate like Sanders did in 2016. You show up, like you would in any other state. You listen to people's concerns, like you would anywhere else. You read the room, and understand that when you're talking to working-class Black people (i.e. the vast majority of Black folks in S.C.), you can pitch an economic message without being a smug class reductionist.

 

It's not rocket science. But when's the last time any high-profile progressive made the kind of bare-minimum efforts with Black southerners that they make with white midwesterners? Have Bernie and AOC brought their tour to a single place below the Mason-Dixon line? You don't get to put in zero work with whole regions/communities and then act like it's *their* fault that your message isn't landing. That's literally what Clinton did in the Rust Belt nine years ago. "We tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

 

I'm a Black leftist: I truly want to see a real, multiracial working-class movement in this country. But s**t like this only moves us further away from that goal. If you treat Black southerners like an albatross around your neck, reduce us to church-and-cookout caricatures, and preemptively blame us for primaries that are three years away...then don't expect much faith to be placed in you.

Well, that's the thing isn't it? AOC doesn't do the things needed to make inroads with southern black voters and will probably copy the Bernie strategy of never doing so. And for good reason, since her name is absolutely toxic here. And among liberals, they absolutely still blame Bernie above everything else for Clinton's loss and reflexively hate anyone who has ever associated with him. That's kind of a burned bridge that will never ever be rebuilt.

 

Anyway, even if Sanders had gone to South Carolina, the dominance of Joe Biden there (he didn't really cede any votes to the other candidates that shared his moderate lane at all) kind of proves there was never any other outcome that was possible. Clyburn's endorsement was never going to go anywhere else, made evident by the fact that Biden literally lost three primaries beforehand, especially getting blown out in New Hampshire. Voters there usually tended to be pragmatic in the past, and picking someone who literally came in fifth place in a swing state should have been seen as a risky bet. And yet… they went for him because he's the Obama VP despite that fact. And despite the fact that the woman who would eventually become his OWN VP had called him out for siding with segregationists on the issue of integrated busing when she was a schoolgirl.

 

Anyway, the part you quoted was about primary voters in general, not just the elderly black ones in one specific state. It's the reason why Clinton won even though she was clearly a horrible choice. It's the reason Biden went on the win the 2020 primary after the field was cleared for him to do so by all the other candidates dropping out and coalescing their support behind him even though they all regarded him as a decaying dementia patient behind closed doors leading up to that point.

Edited Thursday at 09:04 AM by ClashAndBurn

[jakeisphat]

10 hours ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Thats the thing. He can't. Theres not a single statewide race in either Indiana (where he's from) or in Michigan (where he hopped the state line to do some carpetbagging) that he has the capability of winning.

This is something that perplexes me about Pete. Establishment Democrats foam at the mouth about "he's so smart, he's so well-spoken, he needs to run for president." If he's so smart, then why does he think a 2028 run is in the cards when his polling in Michigan was so bad that he chickened out of running for Senate? I would say that he has just as much or possibly even more name recognition than Gavin Newsom, and when both were polled in 2024, Pete consistently performed worse than him and all other candidates surveyed. I mean, this guy was coming in 7 points behind on average  and sometimes 10 points behind. No "smart" candidate thinks they have a shot with such poor numbers. He's just arrogant. Can anybody stanning him even name one issue that he is passionate about? 

[Armani.]

 

[dabunique]

 

 

[Communion]

8 hours ago, canvey916 said:

Making inroads with Black communities in a state like South Carolina isn't some uncrackable code. Want to win the Iowa caucus? You spend time on the ground in Iowa. Want to win Michigan in the general election? Don't ignore the state like Clinton did. Want to generate a profile among the largely-Black primary electorate in the Deep South? Don't concede the entire region like Sanders did in 2016.

I get where you're coming from but Sanders actively had boots on the ground in 2020, was actually 1st in polling nearing the primary thanks to Nevada showing to many he was electable, and was close to overtaking Biden with black voters in the state thanks to young black voters under 45, yet that all was wiped out after Clyburn not only intervened but actively smeared and attacked Sanders. 

 

It should be possible for progressives to win all types of black voters over organically while recognizing conservative rural black voters over the age of 60 are not a meaningful part of the national electorate at large and thus should not have oversized, undue influence on the primary. 

 

There's no reason why states like Michigan or Georgia wouldn't go before SC. 

 

The weaponization of older black people's identities in some weird "don't be disrespecting the elders, white demons!!" cynicism is why and how Dems elected an Alzheimer patient and lost young voters of color just 4 years later.

 

Sanders has been criticized by neoliberal media for both not actively trying to sales pitch to Southern black establishment figures AND seen as talking over them when actually making his case to them. The reality is that it is easier for progressives to simply make the obvious call SC should not be one of the first 25 primaries than convince older Southern black establishment gatekeepers in the party to not try and tank them. We're not even talking about voters anymore but affluent political gatekeepers part of the establishment. It *is* probably easier for a progressive to get an endorsement from black Georgia Dems than black SC Dems and leftists who believe in electoralism should want to make the pathway as easy for elected progressives as possible. 

 

The average Democratic voter is not an elderly Southern black woman who votes blue every election for the last 40 years but wouldn't vote for a socialist or gay person, for example. 

Edited Thursday at 03:26 PM by Communion

[nooniebao]

 

 

 

[Communion]

Not to beat a dead horse, but -

 

02/22/20 - SC Primary, Polling Average:

Biden - 23% (+2)

Sanders - 21%

 

02/27/20 - SC Primary, Polling Average:

Biden - 36% (+12)

Sanders - 24%

 

The world is not defined by essentialism. It is wrong to suggest Southern black voters cannot be progressive or to doom-monger and say nothing can be ever won and good things aren't possible. 

 

But would you rather have progressives have to overcome a -5 deficit in voter persuasion or a -25 deficit to make effective change?

 

Mississippi has the largest % of black citizens. Why not make that the first primary if you have to center the states with the highest % of black people to hear and listen to black Democrats? Why not have Mississppi and Lousiana go first then?

 

(Not recent census data showing me that a larger % of Georgia is black than South Carolina ddd. Though I already saw centrists on Twitter dismiss this and argue the black population in Georgia is too centralized and that how many counties have a black majority is actually the metric we should use? At what point does any of this actually bring black voters off the coych and into a general election?)

[Radical Pessimism]

You guys are making great points about potential dems candidates. I wanna hear your thoughts on gop, too. In 2028, who's gonna run? Who's trump's successor? etc.

[OreoCookie]

8 hours ago, canvey916 said:

The way some of y'all talk about Black people makes me feel like I'm about to have my skull measured with a pair of 19th-century calipers.

 

Making inroads with Black communities in a state like South Carolina isn't some uncrackable code. Want to win the Iowa caucus? You spend time on the ground in Iowa. Want to win Michigan in the general election? Don't ignore the state like Clinton did. Want to generate a profile among the largely-Black primary electorate in the Deep South? Don't concede the entire region to the establishment candidate like Sanders did in 2016. You show up, like you would in any other state. You listen to people's concerns, like you would anywhere else. You read the room, and understand that when you're talking to working-class Black people (i.e. the vast majority of Black folks in S.C.), you can pitch an economic message without being a smug class reductionist.

 

It's not rocket science. But when's the last time any high-profile progressive made the kind of bare-minimum efforts with Black southerners that they make with white midwesterners? Have Bernie and AOC brought their tour to a single place below the Mason-Dixon line? You don't get to put in zero work with whole regions/communities and then act like it's *their* fault that your message isn't landing. That's literally what Clinton did in the Rust Belt nine years ago. "We tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

 

I'm a Black leftist: I truly want to see a real, multiracial working-class movement in this country. But s**t like this only moves us further away from that goal. If you treat Black southerners like an albatross around your neck, reduce us to church-and-cookout caricatures, and preemptively blame us for primaries that are three years away...then don't expect much faith to be placed in you.

I've been lurking on this site on and off for years, and whenever I check this thread, that user is blaming 'old Black voters' and 'Zionists' for something. Racist and antisemitic vibes, for sure.

[nooniebao]

 

 

[ClashAndBurn]

1 hour ago, OreoCookie said:

I've been lurking on this site on and off for years, and whenever I check this thread, that user is blaming 'old Black voters' and 'Zionists' for something. Racist and antisemitic vibes, for sure.

Zionists are not equivalent to Jews, as much as you would like them to be. Joe Biden, a white Irish Catholic, was a profoundly evil Zionist to his core and was not even remotely Jewish.

 

You can call me what you like, but the fact is that elder black voters have a tendency to vote conservatively due to their religious backgrounds rather than any sort of racial predetermination. That would be the case for elderly whites as well, but in the South especially, the Baptist churches play a major role when it comes to political activity.
 

That said, black voters and all subsets of them are not a monolith, and it would be wrong to suggest that. However, I also don't think it is incorrect to suggest that voting patterns that are highly unlikely to change absolutely do exist, and that it will be an uphill battle for any candidate who isn't Kamala Harris to win South Carolina, and therefore, the primary as a whole, in 2028.

[Vermillion]

Fantastic discussion the last few pages which really highlights how THE story of 2028 will be the divisions in the Democratic Party causing a presidential loss. 
 

The Senate is gone for my lifetime which leaves the House.

 

The infrastructure in place isn't budging on the issues the base actually cares about.

 

Until moderates stop pretending they're going to be voting for anything but the Republican and the Dems shift both domestic and international policy to turn out more of the democratic base it's just going to be the same old same old.

 

Doesn't matter if the fine-tuned PR blitz from a Whitmer or Ossoff avoids word salads like Kamala.

 

Stop striving for a middle nationally that no longer exists in an era of negative partisanship and frame a national race differently in targeting and ad dollars from state and local.

[dabunique]

 

 

[FameFatale]

Republicans can't govern!!!

 

 

[canvey916]

3 hours ago, Communion said:

It should be possible for progressives to win all types of black voters over organically while recognizing conservative rural black voters over the age of 60 are not a meaningful part of the national electorate at large and thus should not have oversized, undue influence on the primary. 

 

There's no reason why states like Michigan or Georgia wouldn't go before SC. 

I mean, sure, South Carolina shouldn't be first. Frankly, no state should be first: it would be far fairer to have the primaries simultaneously across all 50 states.

 

But you have to play it as it lays. And as it is now, S.C. *is* first. (Granted, with Biden and Jamie Harrison no longer in place, New Hampshire and Nevada are both making new pushes to get the first-in-line slot. But I can't say how that'll work out.) My point is that complaining about it does nothing, and the quasi-dogwhistling is completely counterproductive. If AOC wants to run in 2028 (or later), she should be starting to lay her groundwork across the South right now. But unfortunately I was right: the Fight the Oligarchy tour has yet to travel below the Mason-Dixon Line. If that holds true going forward, it'll be inexcusable. An enormous own-goal.

 

If progressives were really willing to put in the work, South Carolina being the first primary could actually be a great opportunity. The Democrats' base, across racial and geographic lines, is demoralized and frustrated with the party. Approval numbers are at all-time lows, the establishment has its back up against the wall. There are real inroads that could be made with Black voters in the south, especially with those who were demoralized long before 2025. Bernie did a better job of this in 2020, but there's still a lot more that could be done. Especially now, with the party struggling more than ever. Will it turn these southern states blue during the general election? No. But it could allow for a real challenge to the establishment's grip on the primary season.

 

The catch is, "putting in the work" requires showing up, listening, and meeting people where they're at. If you can't make those efforts, inroads become dead-ends.

[canvey916]

4 hours ago, OreoCookie said:

I've been lurking on this site on and off for years, and whenever I check this thread, that user is blaming 'old Black voters' and 'Zionists' for something. Racist and antisemitic vibes, for sure.

Uh...no. Being Black is not a choice. Supporting a genocidal apartheid state is very much a choice. These two things are not remotely comparable.