Democrats

[Ronster]

[Mike]

Those are Phoebe's stereotypes. I don't know enough Trump-lovers to draw any conclusions. Most people I know well enough to judge claim they don't like him even if they plan to vote for him.

[Phoebe]

Yes, I have detected a big, bigleague, uge difference between people who grudgingly accept him as the best tool for getting done the things they want to get done, and also because they take a certain glee in sticking it to the libs (or what they imagine this to be, which in reality is just harming themselves economically but whatever), and people who think he is some kind of wonderful daddy. Pretty sure the worst example of this wishes to be wife #4.

[Mike]

Back to the Democrats... Larry Wilmore just put this in perspective for me. He said Democrats need to quit arguing and worrying over which candidate might be racist or used to be racist or whatever else. Because who cares when the current occupant of the White House is an actual racist who isn't shy about acting on his racism? And I realized this applies to ANY quibbles we might have between candidates.

Sure, I don't want Bloomberg to win, and I'm not thrilled about Biden or Buttigieg, but so what? If Trump is out, it's better and we worry about the rest later. With unreal amounts of luck, Dems take the Senate too, and as a backlash to Trump, they hurriedly pass a series of reforms to make the executive branch more accountable and limit the possibilty of Trump-style abuses in the future.

[Tahlvin]

I do NOT want Bloomberg to buy his way into the White House. This is the same stuff the R's had with allowing Trump into their primary. The Dem party needs to kick him off the ticket, but they won't because they like taking his money.

[Mike]

I fully agree. I think it's a perversion of our democratic system that a person can win consideration for our highest office based on nothing but spending obscene amounts of money. But this didn't start with Trump and Bloomberg. It's been part of our politics for decades. Ross Perot didn't start it either, but he's a very visible example from almost 30 years ago.

And at least for now, it still requires more than JUST money to actually win. Trump is a celebrity with almost universal name recognition. And while I agree that Bloomberg's money is what is getting him ahead here, he also has massive name recognition AND a resume that makes him far more qualified for the job than Buttigieg. I don't think he WOULD be better, but on paper.

Of all the current candidates, Bloomberg is absolutely the worst of them in my opinion, but if he's the nominee, he's a far sight better for this nation than Trump. At least President Bloomberg wouldn't actively seek to undermine our nation based on his personal vanity and temper tantrums.

[Phoebe]

Help. Watching debates, I despair. This is SO bad! And why do we keep having these terrible setups with false equivalences between ANY of these Democrats and the wannabe dictator? Why are we letting them tear each other down? OMG. Help these people get their **** together before it's too late. I'm in misery here.

The gods heard my plea and straight up just witnessed a brutal slaughter of Bloomberg by Warren. I need to hide somewhere it was so scary. She has destroyed him utterly.

Warren now having to defend Klobuchar from whatever utter bitch on the panel just came for her, and then cut off her reply and let that sniveling man-child interrupt and answer instead! Klobuchar seems shaky and defensive tonight, bad look here. She looks like she has the flu. I'm sorry but I loathe Pete. I'll vote for him cheerfully if he's the pick, just like anyone on this stage, but he's wretched and only Bloomberg is worse. Bloomberg is just a complete a******, but Pete is very fake and snooty. Yech, I could live with any of the other four.

This is awful and there is no reprieve. But Warren is basically doing a Wonder Woman thing onstage here, she's on fire. So that's something.

[Mike]

I'm sorry I didn't catch that live.

[Phoebe]

You guys, I cannot stand Mayor Pete. And I'm saying, I would vote if I had to, but please, please no. I cannot stand him, he is terrible. How on earth is this stuffed-suit weaselly jerk making it this far while so many good people like Kamala and Julian and Kristen had to drop out? What did people see in him before? This is the longest I've ever seen him speak and I just cannot stand him.

[Phoebe]

Mike I'm so sorry I ever said Chuck Todd looks like you. He is deteriorating both physically and intellectually and has closed the debate in such a dumb manner, I give up.

Amazed that protesters are protesting against poor Joe in his closing when Bloomberg is on the stage! It was idiotic because nobody could hear what they were saying.

[Phoebe]

One of my biggest concerns about Warren is that I didn't think she had that Winner aura, and she would deflate on stage next to Trump and his antics. But after last night I think she probably has a dozen dynamite comments at the ready to shut that s*** down. Now I'm really conflicted because I saw something in her I haven't seen before. Maybe being so continually discounted and disrespected by the media and put in underdog status is lighting some fire in her.

Meanwhile all the panicked articles in the mainstream media about the dangers of nominating Bernie are making me want to nominate Bernie. Part of me thinks this is not the time to take that gamble, but if the only way for another D to win is not to beat him outright but to somehow suppress his very real support, that will be disastrous.

I'm feeling particularly frosty about Mayor Pete right now because I loathe him and his presence in the race is certainly carving a huge chunk of support away from some other better candidate.

Also feeling very frosty about Bloomberg screwing up polling and media attention in so many states. If he would just leave, we could actually see who is good among the remaining few.

[Stan]

[Phoebe]

I'm willing to feel the Bern, and I feel quite sure that the mainstream media is representing the interests of their ownership by wildly exaggerating the danger of his inability to win, but I'm still worried that he might not be able to win. Meanwhile, the "everyone else" vote is still being split among so many others. If they had all coalesced into one person, I think that one person would be beating Bernie right now. So what I really want to know is who polls in second place for these D voters. Would most of Warren's supporters switch over to Bernie if they didn't have her? Would Biden voters flock behind Klobuchar, and would her voters flock behind Warren? Or whatever?

And who the hell are these people in the polls voting for Bloomberg? I have trouble believing that's a stable result - it seems more like a vote for Other.

[poorpete]

Worried a bit over Bernie's comments on Castro, but he does an ok job qualifying his praise. He may be trying to be intellectually honest, but if he was really good at this, it wouldn't have sounded like praise, it had just sounded like the truth.

I'd like for him to take this bump and tell the networks he'll make a speech on it tonight. There he can let us know:
Will he give any leftist government a pass simply because they are leftist? Of course not.
Will he support democracy, workers rights, nationalized systems benefiting citizenry, possibly to the detriment to capitalists/US interests? Of course.
He can support that and still speak softly and carry a big stick.

[Phoebe]

I missed it; sounds juicier here than it probably really is!

[poorpete]

https://www.tiktok.com/@krissychula/vid ... 9412543749

[Phoebe]

I laughed and one little tear fell out of the left eye.

[Phoebe]

Truth boiled to the very essence, lollll can't stop laughing. Help I have cough anyway. The Buttigieg Biden Sanders sequence has killed me.

[poorpete]

Now we're down to 4. I'd have picked a different 4 but that's ok.

[Phoebe]