2020 presidential candidate 'crats

[8manpick]

I find it snarky and insincere when people conclude that Bernie is the only good option on the basis that Biden and Trump are basically the same.

The #1 platform item this year, by far, is Beat Trump. I don't think nominating a guy that a lot of difference making voters have a distaste for is the best way to achieve that. (See Hillary Clinton, e.g.) Further, part of what difference making voters don't like about Bernie is HIS PLATFORM. It would be rough ridin' stupid as eff for Biden to adopt it.

Great timing on this take chum. Biden says he is adopting two progressive positions he's spent time arguing against, bankruptcy reform, and free college. It's cute that his campaign thought he could get away with saying he's adopting Elizabeth Warren's policies. Man is whoring himself out for an endorsement from a candidate with whom he fought against on her signature issue. He's every bit as cutthroat ambitious as Hillary Clinton was.

So if Biden didn’t adopt any progressive positions, I kind of doubt you’d be pumping sunshine because he stuck to his true beliefs. I don’t think there is any way he could win for you. If he adopts positions you prefer it will be whoring himself out, and if he doesn’t, he’ll be ignoring the progressive part of the party.

[catastrophe]

It’s a hold your nose election for sure. I wouldn’t have voted for (this version of) Joe four years ago and I’d vote for Hillary this election if she was the nominee.

[chum1]

Yeah, that still seems unnecessarily risky to me. Especially free college. Seems like his campaign drew the line in the sand at m4a.

Do you think it's risky because they are positions you don't support? There's a reason he's moved left on them and it isn't because he's suddenly had an epiphany. He may have a hard time reading polls, but the people telling him what to say don't have that same affliction.

No, I support the positions. They're risy because he'll lose some votes from difference making voters. Winning the election is more important than making big campaign statements.

[MakeItRain]

I find it snarky and insincere when people conclude that Bernie is the only good option on the basis that Biden and Trump are basically the same.

The #1 platform item this year, by far, is Beat Trump. I don't think nominating a guy that a lot of difference making voters have a distaste for is the best way to achieve that. (See Hillary Clinton, e.g.) Further, part of what difference making voters don't like about Bernie is HIS PLATFORM. It would be rough ridin' stupid as eff for Biden to adopt it.

Great timing on this take chum. Biden says he is adopting two progressive positions he's spent time arguing against, bankruptcy reform, and free college. It's cute that his campaign thought he could get away with saying he's adopting Elizabeth Warren's policies. Man is whoring himself out for an endorsement from a candidate with whom he fought against on her signature issue. He's every bit as cutthroat ambitious as Hillary Clinton was.

So if Biden didn’t adopt any progressive positions, I kind of doubt you’d be pumping sunshine because he stuck to his true beliefs. I don’t think there is any way he could win for you. If he adopts positions you prefer it will be whoring himself out, and if he doesn’t, he’ll be ignoring the progressive part of the party.

It's not about him, it's never been about him. It's about the Democratic party. Did you watch the debate? He couldn't articulate why he's shifted on these things, he doesn't believe these things, it's a very obvious ploy and no one without an interest would argue otherwise. He was debating against these issues a month ago. What I'm much more interested in is if these things become adopted in the platform and actually fought for.

[MakeItRain]

Yeah, that still seems unnecessarily risky to me. Especially free college. Seems like his campaign drew the line in the sand at m4a.

Do you think it's risky because they are positions you don't support? There's a reason he's moved left on them and it isn't because he's suddenly had an epiphany. He may have a hard time reading polls, but the people telling him what to say don't have that same affliction.

No, I support the positions. They're risy because he'll lose some votes from difference making voters. Winning the election is more important than making big campaign statements.

This is where we differ. I would 100% take four more years of Trump, if it led to transformative change in the democratic party starting in 2022. The following view of America isn't the sole result of the last three years, it's decades of decline, which includes 16 years of centrist democrat leadership.

https://twitter.com/JeremyKlemin/status/1239218272521859073

We've not made one damn bit of progress on infrastructure, gun control, health care, or higher ed. All things we've been lapped on. A Joe Biden election doesn't change a bit of this. I don't care enough about abortion to care about who gets picked to replace RBG. The court is already slanted right anyway.

[sys]

just drop out, dude.

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1239418627155255301

[chum1]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1239603170382397443

[sys]

this person tricked steve dave into thinking she was a moderate.

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1240012636013592581

[ChiComCat]

this person tricked steve dave into thinking she was a moderate.

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1240012636013592581

I think share buyback restrictions at least are extremely reasonable as that was pretty much covered with Trump's corporate tax cut

[star seed 7]

Get 'em liz

[steve dave]

this person tricked steve dave into thinking she was a moderate.

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1240012636013592581

I WAS DUPED!


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[steve dave]

Actually I knew little about her and was going on gut feeling about how reasonable she sounded. I FOUND YOU OUT LIZ!


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[sys]

I think share buyback restrictions at least are extremely reasonable as that was pretty much covered with Trump's corporate tax cut

that's the dumbest of the proposals listed and i have no idea what connection you see to trump's tax cut.


the obsession populists have with stock buybacks is the most mystifying thing.

[michigancat]

did Liz just copy and paste bernie's plan? good grief

[michigancat]

I think share buyback restrictions at least are extremely reasonable as that was pretty much covered with Trump's corporate tax cut

that's the dumbest of the proposals listed and i have no idea what connection you see to trump's tax cut.


the obsession populists have with stock buybacks is the most mystifying thing.

I don't fully get it either or feel too strongly about it but I was watching the chyron on the news this week and in reference to the airline bailouts they noted that Delta or United had used all their reserve cash on buybacks. But I think in general the idea is that more profits should go back to workers rather than stock price manipulation.

[steve dave]

It doesn’t have anything to do with stock price manipulation


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[michigancat]

It doesn’t have anything to do with stock price manipulation


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it's obviously never the stated reason but it generally leads to higher share price, doesn't it? Like I said I'm not too deep into this but I found these two links in ten minutes of googling.


this first one kind of makes the case for why progressives are against them:

One class of shareholder, however, has benefited greatly from the temporary price jumps: the managers who initiate buybacks and are privy to their exact scope and timing. Last year, SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson Jr. instructed his staff to “take a look at how buybacks affect how much skin executives keep in the game.” This analysis revealed that in the eight days following a buyback announcement, executives on average sold five times as much stock as they had on an ordinary day. “Thus,” Jackson said, “executives personally capture the benefit of the short-term stock-price pop created by the buyback announcement.”

By contrast, the median worker pay at Home Depot is $23,000 a year. If the money spent on buybacks had been used to boost salaries, the Roosevelt Institute and the National Employment Law Project calculated, each worker would have made an additional $18,000 a year. But buybacks are more than just unfair. They’re myopic. Amazon (which hasn’t repurchased a share in seven years) is presently making the sort of investments in people, technology, and products that could eventually make Home Depot irrelevant. When that happens, Home Depot will probably wish it hadn’t spent all those billions to buy back 35 percent of its shares. “When you’ve got a mature company, when everything seems to be going smoothly, that’s the exact moment you need to start worrying Jeff Bezos is going to start eating your lunch,” the shareholder activist Nell Minow told me.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/the-stock-buyback-swindle/592774/

In the public market, a buyback will always increase the stock’s value to the benefit of shareholders. However, investors should ask whether a company is merely using buybacks to prop up ratios, provide short-term relief to an ailing stock price, or to get out from under excessive dilution.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/041702.asp

[MakeItRain]

did Liz just copy and paste bernie's plan? good grief

[sys]

a buyback is a dividend is a buyback is a dividend.


just tax buybacks as dividends (and if you want put in that execs can't buy or sell shares or options for a short time before or after a buyback or buyback announcement, that's fine too).  and then i never want to hear a politician mention them again.

[michigancat]

a buyback is a dividend is a buyback is a dividend.


just tax buybacks as dividends (and if you want put in that execs can't buy or sell shares or options for a short time before or after a buyback or buyback announcement, that's fine too).  and then i never want to hear a politician mention them again.

Ok that works for me

[sys]

getting buried again tonight.

https://twitter.com/LarrySabato/status/1240078193605795848

[bucket]

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1240085522137124867

This seems like a horrible idea, but I can't think of an alternative. Bernie should consider this when weighing whether or not to continue.

[sys]

they should move to vote by mail for remaining primaries and states that need to postpone in order to put that in place should do so.


also sanders should drop out.  continuing is pointless.

[chum1]

Oof

https://twitter.com/sabrod123/status/1240081396816887813

[Katpappy]

I don't get it; why are ppl so stupid.  Biden and Liz both steal Bernie's plan's and make them their own and ppl think they're great plans.  They don't call either rough ridin' backless commies', but somehow Bernie is?