Lot of news about Pete Buttegieg, someone whose candidacy interests me, but here is a pretty scathing review of the man:
Before I dive into Shortest Way Home’s account of the life and career of Peter Buttigieg, let me be up front about my bias. I don’t trust former McKinsey consultants. I don’t trust military intelligence officers. And I don’t trust the type of people likely to appear on “40 under 40” lists, the valedictorian-to-Harvard-to-Rhodes-Scholarship types who populate the American elite. I don’t trust people who get flattering reams of newspaper profiles and are pitched as the Next Big Thing That You Must Pay Attention To, and I don’t trust wunderkinds who become successful too early. Why? Because I am somewhat cynical about the United States meritocracy. Few people amass these kind of résumés if they are the type to openly challenge authority. Noam Chomsky says that the factors predicting success in our “meritocracy” are a “combination of greed, cynicism, obsequiousness and subordination, lack of curiosity and independence of mind, [and] self-serving disregard for others.” So when journalists see “Harvard” and think “impressive,” I see it and think “uh-oh.”
I try my best to be fair, though. I thought former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed was suspect because of his shiny résumé. But after examining his proposals and listening to his speeches, I realized he was the real deal. He had done well in school, but he was genuinely outraged by preventable human misery, talked openly about taking on corporate oligarchy, and had bold plans for revolutionizing health care, environmental policy, and just about everything else. I have lots of friends who are the products of elite institutions, but became critical of those institutions after being exposed to their inner workings. If Pete Buttigieg is one of those, great!
Pete Buttigieg is not one of those.
Not sure how I feel about many of the criticisms, but it’s well worth a read.
zhena gogolia
No it isn’t.
My god, this whole blog has gone “destroy Buttigieg” all the time. Haven’t we learned anything from 2016??????
JMG
Nobody, but nobody, who runs for President, especially as a Democrat, won’t have the kind of resume and background the author of this piece dislikes and distrusts.The last two Democratic Presidents, who I’m sure the author regards as neoliberal sellouts, were models of the type. So are Harris, Warren, Booker, and even Biden. There are criticisms to make about Buttigueg, but this isn’t one.
The Dangerman
@zhena gogolia:
Indeed, we have; it’s not about competence, it’s about electability. Buttigieg is unelectable; full stop. On first Joe, after a late night, any synapses wasted on him are just that … wasted.
And Raven, saw “Which One’s Pink” last night; excellent show, I hope they travel up from LA again (seemed like a solid sized crowd and Heaven knows we can always use more good shows coming to town). They might be the first cover band I’ve seen do “Fearless”, which is my favorite PF in the category of hardly ever gets any airplay (might be my favorite song of all their playlist, actually). And their cover of “One Of These Days” grabbed you by the (insert appropriate, or perhaps inappropriate, body part here) and just rocked the place.
If your Brother mentions a tall(er) Dude coming up after the show and asking them to come back here, yeah, that was me.
Sad I missed the end of Purdue/Virginia, however; I don’t think anything can ever top Tyus Edney’s 4.8, but if that 5.9 didn’t do it, it was close. I’ll never say 5.9 to any Purdue fan, ever. Heartbreak
eemom
@zhena gogolia:
But this time we have an embarrassment of riches.
PaulB
Look at that commenter’s other posts. He’s a Bernie Bro who insists that the only way to stop Trump is to run Bernie.
JPL
@JMG: Agree. Pete has made some mistakes preaching to the democrats about how to address trump supporters that turned me off, but not disqualifying. Trump and the republicans can just sit back and let the bernie bros destroy the party.
fuckem
TaMara (HFG)
This came across my facebook feed from George Takei yesterday.
From Jay Kuo:
Duane
@The Dangerman: Didn’t need to be reminded of Ty Edney. That was thirty freaking years ago. Missouri has plenty of recent disappoints to remember.//
Carson Edwards is going to be a great NBA player.
chris
Testing
feebog
You lost me at Noam Chomsky. Look, there is no doubt that Russian interference and the second James Comey letter were determining factors in the 2016 election. But anyone who want to argue HRC ran a flawless campaign is just flat wrong. Her lack of transparency with her Wall Street speeches and her wink and a nod relationship with the DNC are just a couple of examples. That said, the tone of the article makes it highly suspect.
germy
The people who are running for president, the ones I don’t really care for, I’d still love to see in the administration of the candidate I prefer.
PaulB
One other note: I gave up on that article when I realized about a third of the way through that he still hadn’t come up with a substantive criticism. It was all innuendo, purity trolling, and guilt by association.
If there were substantive criticisms further on, let me know and I’ll try again.
TaMara (HFG)
@TaMara (HFG): Jay is a former lawyer turned composer and activist and works with Takei on projects. Just for some context on his background.
Roger Moore
I think there’s some truth to that, but it’s ignoring what’s really going on. The detailed policy prescriptions that Democratic candidates produce aren’t an alternative to or precursor of articulating values. They’re a concrete way of expressing values and putting them into action. A statement of values that doesn’t translate those values into an actual set of governing policies is a pile of bullshit. At best, it’s pointless wanking. At worst- and most frequent among Republicans- it’s completely divorced from their actual policies, so those stated values are betrayed the moment the people stating them step into power.
chopper
@chris:
mayor pete is catching hell from some folks over his being a bernie fan some 20-odd years ago.
Jane2
I quit reading when the author scoffed that Pete B. said that he was amazed at the Boston subway. Pro tip to the Bernie Bro author who finds this fact unbelievable: despite the presence of a “top university”, there are no subways in South Bend.
Jeffg166
Blow back. To be expected. Pete has to prove who he is. Seems like he is managing so far. He may have clay feet. We’ll find out. The purity test goes on.
zhena gogolia
@eemom:
Oh, no. they’re going to be attacked one by one in the same fashion. All day yesterday this blog was full of people breathlessly reporting the latest “deal-breaker” about Buttigieg. Next it will be Harris or Abrams or Booker or Klobuchar. Gillibrand has already been eliminated for her “deal-breaker” of doing the same thing Harris and others did vis-a-vis Franken.
The Russians are going to go through each candidate systematically until all we’re left with is Bernie — and as soon as he gets the nomination, they’ll unload on him. And there’s a lot of there there.
The Dangerman
@Duane:
I hear you; I still wince when I hear Princeton, Pete Carril, or “backdoor play”.
debit
I’ll repeat something I’ve said in other threads. Not one candidate (or potential) has done a thing to sway me from my first choice of Kamala Harris. If she doesn’t make it through the primaries, then I’ll re-evaluate. But Pete Buttegieg has not done himself any favors with me for bad mouthing Hillary and I’ll remember that, probably for the rest of his political life.
CaseyL
There are valid criticisms to be made of all our candidates.
But Berniebros are not the ones to make those criticisms. Anything a Berniebro says, I’m not only going to discount, I’m going to think more highly of whoever it is they’re criticizing.
central texas
And after a brief look at his work at Current Affairs I see that the only possible answer for Democrats in 2020 is Bernie. Not any of those posing whipper-snappers or know-it-all experts.
It might have been a worthwhile addition to his other confessions of his dislikes to mention that.
zhena gogolia
I’d like to see front-page posts that talk up various candidates, not tear them down. I’d love to see commenters coming here breathlessly to share what they LIKE about their chosen candidate(s). I’m not interested in coordinated hit jobs this time.
lamh36
Joy Ann Reid had the Mayor from Miramar, FL who threw his hat in the ring for the Dem nomination.
Any coverage of him?
I mean on paper he and Mayor Pete lineup pretty much the same except one is white and gay the other is African American and I believe straight…
opiejeanne
@PaulB: The fact that he cites Noam Chomsky made my antennae deploy.
There are valid reasons to criticize Mayor Pete, but this column is BS.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is why I’m just hanging back and letting things unfold, not getting too exited about anybody. I’m Broken Glass 2020.
tobie
@TaMara (HFG): I don’t do Facebook, so I’m grateful that you reposted that great reminder of the various ways in which we’re being moved to knock down candidates. It’s a good summary.
I’ve learned to avoid the threads on candidates because my preferences are so far outside the readership of this blog right now. I did host a little campaign launch party for Beto in my place in the sticks (and at that in a remote corner of the sticks), where if a Democratic candidate gets 35% of the vote, they’ve basically swept every Democrat in the county. In attendance were two young Latinos, one middle-aged white man, and a single mom, also white. People had good things to say about all the candidates, so from my miniscule sample I’d have to conclude that the internet flame wars are not hitting the general population. Granted–my sample is paltry and of no scientific merit.
The Dangerman
@central texas:
Egads. Staying with a theme, the list of people that are less electable then Bernie is short. If this thing with Biden that came up yesterday is factual, he’s done, too (well, he’s already done, but we’d be into charbroil territory).
Chyron HR
@zhena gogolia:
Well, gee, what Mayor Pete thinks we should “learn from 2016” is that Hillary Clinton is a stupid b*tch. Do you have a different opinion?
chris
@chopper: Well, he’s done then!// Hell, I was, for a while, a Bernie fan 30 years ago. We were amazed that a self-styled “socialist” could actually be elected in the the US.
wmd
@Jane2: No, but Chicago is likely to be visited regularly by the son of Notre Dame professors via the South Shore, and would certainly have ridden the L on visits.
I gave to Pete – second donation this cycle. His intellect and compassion are worth some support. This hit piece offers some food for thought. I’m sure it will also result in some policy details from his campaign in response.
MomSense
@JMG:
They went back to kindergarten for Obama – he’s been conniving to be president since Kinfergarten!!
Mandalay
@zhena gogolia:
That is not the case. Gillibrand’s much bigger problem is the way she handled sexual harassment charges against against someone working for her.
She is being skewered for her double standards, and deservedly so IMO.
bystander
Yuck. You mean Buttigieg is not just a Harvard grad but a Rhodes scholar? And a military intelligence officer? What is he thinking running for the Presidency? We need somebody who either didn’t go to college or who got in as a legacy or via Dad’s checkbook.
MattF
Look, folks, this is how politics works. It’s not a walk in the park. It’s a public dissection– with malice aforethought. People say and think bad things about the candidates and they’re going to continue to do that. It’s how the system works.
It’s fair at this point to note that the system failed spectacularly with Trump, but that doesn’t mean everyone now gets a pass. For most of the candidates, we can visualize how they will fail. We’d like to know how Mayor Pete will fail, but… for some reason, it’s hard to get a grasp on that. Is that a fair criticism? Maybe not, but it’s what’s on the menu from now on.
JPL
@TaMara (HFG): Thanks.. I’ve sent it on, because it’s an important message.
JPL
@debit: How’s the kitty cat? I agree with you.
Mnemosyne
@feebog:
You know why we even knew that she made those speeches? Because she’s been releasing her full tax returns for the past 20+ years and Bernie’s team went through them with a fine-tooth comb to find things they could use to attack her.
Meanwhile, neither Bernie nor Trump released their tax returns to ensure that Hillary couldn’t fight back.
So congratulations: they manipulated you and you fell for it.
opiejeanne
@debit: Thank you, amen. I’ve seen the weak-ass, manipulated and manipulative criticisms of Kamala Harris and they did nothing to sway me away from her. What they did do was make me research the claims.
I like her message and I like her. I am disappointed in Mayor Pete for what he said and for some of the things he’s done as mayor, but even if I weren’t disappointed the truth is that Republicans are not going to vote for a gay Democrat.
Fair Economist
@PaulB: Yeah, this looks like panic from the BernieBro types who are afraid Mayor Pete will split the “racist masquerading as lefty” vote. Looking at the polling shifts, it does look like Mayor Pete is pulling support from Bernie. Bring it on, I say. Buttigieg would bring less baggage into a general than Sanders, and I don’t have doubts about him having a relationship with the Russians.
dogwood
@bystander:
He also speaks 5 languages. Can’t get anymore un-American than that.
germy
JPL
The Sunday talk shows were all about Joe and his inappropriate touching. Not one mention about Stephen Moore trump’s nominee for the fed who owed 75,000 dollars in back taxes and not paying his ex child support to the tune of 300,000 dollars.
TaMara (HFG)
@zhena gogolia: I tried and those threads turned ugly fast. I’ve kind of given up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Giving those speeches in the age of Occupy and Elizabeth Warren was not smart, but I don’t know what you mean by the second part.
The Dangerman
@MattF:
Ever hear how golf reveals character? If so, or even if not, you won’t be surprised by this new book.
dogwood
@opiejeanne:
Republicans aren’t gonna vote for any Democrat.
bystander
I do understand referencing Chomsky in expressing a disdain for the Ivy League. After all, Chomsky went to UMKC and spent his life teaching at Baltimore’s best junior college.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, I’m not getting my heart set on anyone this early. I do think that Mayor Pete is too young and inexperienced, but we’ll see how things shake out.
rikyrah
About the Joe Biden accusation:
NO
I don’t believe all women.
I am a Black woman who has lived in America longer than 3 days, and I know history.
I know that the pages of history of THIS COUNTRY are littered with the blood of Black men at the end of FALSE accusations.
So, nope. I don’t believe all women.
PS-I am solidly in the “Don’t run, Joe” camp, but this is bullshyt.
MattF
@bystander: Uh, what? Chomsky has been at MIT for his whole career.
Fair Economist
@Chyron HR: Buttigieg has not criticized Hillary in general and certainly not uncouthly like that. He has made some specific criticisms of her campaign, which were made at the time by many other people. It’s not like he has made a big deal about it. He has overwhelmingly been talking about policy and outreach.
Elmo
I’ve got no issue with Mayor Pete, or anyone else, talking about their view of where Clinton fell short, as long as that’s not *all* they talk about. I donated to HRC, I voted for HRC, but I didn’t particularly like her as a candidate and I certainly didn’t forget what I hated about her 2008 campaign.
She is still the person who hired Mark Penn. She is still the person who refused to concede until June because hey, look what happened to RFK.
She is still the person who called herself the candidate of “hardworking people, white people.”
She is still the person who went into the 2008 campaign so sure of victory that she didn’t bother to figure out the rules of counting votes until late in the process.
Does any of that mean she would have been a bad President? Of course not. But does it tend to show that she has some terrible weaknesses as a politician and candidate that persisted into 2018? Yup.
debit
@JPL: Kitty is doing great, very bright eyed and active, very much a lap cat. No one has expressed a hard interest thus far, so I’m resigned to keeping his Thursday appointment at the AHS. However, they only have 50 odd cats spread across the entire metro area so he isn’t going to be lost in the crowd. He’s so handsome and charming I don’t have a doubt he’ll be snapped up right away.
TaMara (HFG)
I personally believe we need to be focused on the Senate. If we don’t take that back, it’s going to be impossible for a Dem president to undo the damage the circus peanut has done.
opiejeanne
@dogwood: That’s true, but it is thought that the comment he made that has pissed off several of us here was made to pander to Republicans, possibly never-Trumpers.
germy
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wikileaks conflated two separate agreements that Hillary had with the DNC and implied that the one that was made after she secured the nomination was actually made before it. The claim was not true, but that mischaracterization has lived on, as was intended from the start.
And who was the “DNC insider” who gave credence to the claims? None other than Fox News’ latest hire, Donna Brazile.
TaMara (HFG)
@debit: I dunno, I think he could be dropped off on a certain doorstep in WV and someone would gladly take him in. ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Amen. If McConnell is still Majority Leader in 2021, all the Big Bold Maximalist Ideas won’t mean much
rikyrah
@lamh36:
His time is bigger and more diverse than Mayor Pete’s?
Emma
Rules of the game:
1. You mention “Wall Street speeches” or “email servers” and your opinion is ignored.
2. You tell me Bernie is a democrat, or even a liberal, ditto.
3. You always come around to “the white guy is best” because we can attract the deplorables, ditto, ditto.
4. Gabbard and Bernie are right out. Everyone else is in play.
5. I will always find something about a candidate that I violently disagree with, but that won’t stop me voting for her if the other 80% works.
6. In 2020 the Senate is probably more important than the Presidency.
schrodingers_cat
About Mayor Pete Buttgieg
1. I find some of the things that he has said problematic.
2. That piece you linked to is a hit job.
Conclusion: So far he has not shown me that he is ready to be President.
FlipYrWhig
I’m tiring of the implicit or explicit presumption that Bernie Sanders is not part of “the elite” — and perhaps even, as he sometimes styles himself, working-class. For fuck’s sake, Bernie Sanders is a bookish guy who went to the University of Chicago and essentially never had a job until finally breaking through as a politician at age 39.
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes! This is the reason I’m hesitant about Warren. I like her very much as a Senator and think she needs to stay right where she is. We need her to keep doing the things she has been doing.
germy
TheDemCoalition is focused on removing these 8 GOP Senators in 2020:
Lindsey Graham (SC)
Cory Gardner (CO)
Martha McSally (AZ)
Thom Tillis (NC)
Susan Collins (ME)
David Perdue (GA)
Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS)
Mitch McConnell (KY)
SFAW
Fuck it, with all the problems that every single Dem candidate (apparently) has, I’m just going to write in Harold Stassen
Fair Economist
@zhena gogolia: It is sad that in a race with an absolutely jaw-dropping and unprecedented level of serious, ambitious, and doable policy proposals, we are getting arguments over purity tests. There has never been a policy discussion like this in any primary I have seen in 40 years. Controlling monopolies, providing housing, GND, reining in BigTech, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, infrastructure pushes, stopping addiction – this is amazing! Warren is the standout, but almost every candidate has strong, serious, policy proposals.
eclare
@debit: Agreed, both with Harris and the sentiment about Mayor Pete dissing Hillary. What part of “don’t piss into, piss *out* of the tent” do people not get?
TaMara (HFG)
@germy: I’m going to try and dig up some research and front page this some time this week. Any info you have would be appreciated.
debit
@TaMara (HFG): It would only be fair. He sends me a dog, I send him a cat.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Also she appears to have made the rounds of the lecture circuit giving the same speech to various groups including the American Camping Association and the Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association. Construing them as “Wall Street speeches” implies that she was (a) *mostly* on Wall Street [she wasn’t] and (b) appearing on Wall Street to kiss banker butt [she wasn’t]. IMHO it was an *extremely* unfair attack.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: @lamh36: I don’t know much about him but, I find Stacey Abrams far more impressive than Pete. And She is not ashamed of the D coalition, or HRC or Obama like this guy.
The Thin Black Duke
I’m voting for the Democratic candidate, whoever that might be. See? Simple.
Colleeniem
When will people consider their sources? Did you see the bio on that dude? He’s been sitting in academia and has never been in a administrative job in his life, with no responsibilities that expose him to the public. Also, he thinks you should have hate in your heart to get things done, if you read the article to the end. WTF.
That such a recipe for constructive accomplishment./s
I’m sure Pete’s not perfect, because nobody is, but god damn he’s just as relevant in the conversations without the circular firing squad. He’s framing things in a super valuable way for democrats. That’s amazingly helpful, even if he’s not the nominee. Can’t he see that?
germy
@TaMara (HFG): The Dem Coalition is a Scott Dworkin project. I don’t completely trust Scott (I get a whiff of a grifter from him) but I agree those Republicans need to be replaced.
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hey, if you’re still here, the first episode of The Good Place on Netflix for the second season is actually 40 minutes long and counts as two episodes, so the complete season is on there even though it says only 12 episodes. If that makes sense.
piratedan
Mayor Pete’s comments notwithstanding, what bothers me the most…. no, let me be honest, if bleeping infuriates me, are people decrying the Clinton campaign strategy and NO ONE, NOT A SINGLE ONE mentions the last election and list as a reason that she lost was due to what took place during the election:
Illegal campaign contributions from foreign persons/entities
illegal campaign coordination with said same
voter suppression
and for all we know, vote tampering
the thumbs on the scales by not only the NYT, but also the FBI
until the Dems can come clean and admit this, and stop this misogynistic bullshit that she needed to be a “better” candidate then to be fair, I really can’t accept them as being a viable candidate if they can’t accept these simple truths that are plainly evident to anyone with two functional synapses.
I’m not saying that HRC was a perfect candidate, but the obstacles placed in front of her run for office were/are un-fucking-precendented and we need to understand that those obstacles ARE STILL FUCKING THERE.
debit
@opiejeanne: I would be happy to vote for Warren, but I agree, we also need her where she is.
@SFAW: I was going to suggest Walter Mondale.
TaMara (HFG)
@germy: Those would definitely be top of my list…maybe I’ll do a post and we can come up with our own list and see who are viable candidates against them. I’ll ponder this….
Redshift
@JPL:
And who isn’t an economist and who has said (himself!) that he doesn’t know anything about monetary policy and would have to get up to speed on it if he were appointed!
Fair Economist
@germy: I did not have a problem with Hillary citing scripture (Not quoting here) and I don’t have a problem with Buttigieg citing this. There are good things in the Bible and it can carry powerful rhetorical punch.
Death Panel Truck
@The Dangerman:
Yep. And I’m not giving a nickel to anyone who is going to waste it trying to make common cause with Trump cultists. They’re too far gone to reason with. I expect a Democratic nominee to go after the people who can be persuaded, and ignore the crazies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eclare: Cool, thanks, I’m trying to figure out when I can sit down and watch a couple of episodes in a row.
rikyrah
@central texas:
Phuck Outta Here ?
SFAW
@debit:
Fine, be that way, suggesting someone who’s still alive. Killjoy.
J R in WV
Well, the article is good, and now I’m almost as suspicious of Mayor Pete as I am of Bernard “Russian Stooge” Sanders. They hate the SPLC too, and don’t care to have people comment on their articles, or contact them, unless you want to donate.
All the points the Current Affairs editor brought up are good ones. Tearing down houses is good, IF they are in fact unrepairable at a reasonable cost. But just tearing them down to make the Mayor’s pledge to tear up 1,000 is shortsighted and cruel if there is a housing problem. And what about the poverty of the minority population going unmentioned?
Their copyright notice is C 2015, so not all that bright, either. 3+ years of invalid copyright notice is poor management by any standard if you call yourself a publisher or editor-in-chief.
I’ve attempted to work with Arthur Androids, can’t be done, Just out of college, course in how to be a consultant by hiring consulting firm, now you are one of the masters of the business world!! I’m sure McKinsey is pretty similar to Arthur Andersen, now deceased, IIRC from their work for Enron.
Thanks John, will still work for Kamala, not former whizkid consultants.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@TaMara (HFG): Takei is a smart man. I’m trying to take this attitude for now. Aside from the usual suspects, I have no beef with our candidates, though I prefer some to others. At the moment, I don’t need to go farther than that.
West of the Rockies
@TaMara (HFG):
Excellent points.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
You know I’m with you.
It’s fine not to support a specific candidate, but the need to tear down and demolishing is really dispiriting.
TaMara (HFG)
@piratedan: You know when pundits say, “Oh but Trump took out all his primary challengers, etc” my first thought is, but how did Putin help him there? I don’t think it started with Hillary.
But yeah, when anyone says, he did this and this and Hillary should have done this or that, I’m like, you’ve neglected to mention Elephant in the room and he’s wearing a Russian ushanka.
Mandalay
@germy:
So who is this Violet Skyye? Her twitter account says “Consumer and Democratic campaign lawyer”, but also shows a photo of her proudly standing next to Hillary Clinton after giving her a check at a fundraising dinner. So that particular piece of ratfucking on Buttegieg was from a Clinton supporter.
And how any lawyer could manage to interpret the First Amendment in that way leaves me baffled. She’s either lying, or dumber than pigshit.
guachi
Buttegieg was mayor of a city that was 25% black. From what I’ve read (which isn’t everything) he doesn’t talk a lot about what he did for black people or his interactions.
He sounds like a politician from Montana, which has the lowest black percentage of any state in the country. He also sounds like a politician from a city that’s not remotely close to any large cities. Kinda like being from Billings, MT, the largest city within 500 miles, and it’s only 100,000 people.
In other words, he’s playing like a politician that doesn’t seem to fit his actual background.
debit
@SFAW: Fine! The Ghost of Hubert Humphrey! And his running mate is Zombie Paul Wellstone.
…
I would actually vote for this ticket.
debbie
@debit:
Are you still angry at Bill Clinton for badmouthing Barack Obama during the 2008 primaries?
Kirk Spencer
@zhena gogolia: Not FP, but I’ll start. I like a lot of candidates but my first choice is Elizabeth Warren. And I’ll sum what I like about her by staying on one topic: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She drove its creation from well before she was a Senator, and had significant input on it since.
This agency’s mission tells you what’s important enough to Senator Warren that she spent a very large portion of her reputation on getting it created. And the fact it was created before she was a senator tells you about her political skills – even more than the skills necessary to become elected against the incumbent senator. (Say everything else you will about how bad Scott Brown was and the fact it was Massachusetts, he was still a well-funded incumbent.)
There are a lot of ills in our nation that need focused attention to make right. Highest on my personal list is the issue of wealth and income. Its inequality, its impact on issues of health and education and law enforcement, and my personal question of how we’re going to deal with the in-progress change to a supply economy are all factors in why it’s highest. And Senator Warren has demonstrated that it is her topic, that her priorities of where the solutions need to focus are similar to mine, and that she can get it done despite opposition.
I will happily support most of the field if they become the nominee. But until that is settled or Senator Warren drops out, she’s the one getting my support.
Redshift
@piratedan: Hear, hear. It’s of a piece with the deflections that Nader didn’t tip the 2000 race because Gore would have won if he’d run a better campaign.
Yes, you can win a race with a ten-pound weight tied to your leg if you work even harder, but that doesn’t change the fact that the ten-pound weight changed the outcome.
PaulB
@MattF: “Look, folks, this is how politics works.”
Yeah, we get that. But we can and should call out and discount the dishonest attacks whenever we encounter them. This was one such attack: substance-free and from an incredibly biased partisan. I will not pretend that it needs to be taken seriously. Either Pete will handle these attacks well or he won’t; we’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, I’m going to call it out as dishonest, ignore it, and move on.
debbie
@Fair Economist:
Exactly. He criticized her campaign, not her. Hillary’s done it herself.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: Did Buttigieg lecture Democrats about how to talk to Trump supporters per se, or did he lecture them about how to approach voters in red states? I ask because there’s a huge difference. I mean, fuck Trump supporters, but given the mechanisms of our government, we can’t afford to write off every single red state forever. For one thing, even the reddest state has Democrats who deserve consideration. And we also need to keep in mind that about 40% of folks don’t bother voting at all, and perhaps not solely because Republicans suck and the media has a GOP bias. Maybe those folks aren’t hearing us for other reasons too. That’s worth talking about.
@TaMara (HFG): You raise a topic I’ve been struggling with personally and may attempt to address in a post at some point. It’s true that every candidate is flawed, but not every flaw is equal, and we’ll all draw the line in different places. I find Biden’s history as a senator and frankly creepy (IMO) behavior toward women disqualifying, at least for my primary vote. Meanwhile, I don’t get the freak-out over Buttigieg’s criticisms of the Clinton campaign and advice about red state outreach. It’s subjective for sure.
We all come at these questions loaded with preconceived notions and biases, and that’s normal. What isn’t normal is that now objections that arise organically AND made-up stuff are amplified on social media by people with an agenda, and they percolate up into the political media. I don’t know how we address that issue, but I think we have an obligation to try to be fair and avoid falling for bullshit.
Cacti
Mayor Butt-egg wants to be the angry white guy whisperer.
The younger, sexier, 2020 Bernie.
He can fuck off.
Fascists need to be fought, not hugged.
lamh36
@JPL:
Amir Khalid
Liverpool won 2-1 at home to Tottenham Hotspur today by the skin of their teeth: Spurs keeper Hugo Llori fumbled a Mo Salah header, and the loose ball bounced in off defender Toby Alderweireld for a 90th minute own goal. Liverpool are top of the league with one more match played than Manchester City, and are still in this title race
debbie
@debit:
Jeez, it’s usually more?
PaulB
And speaking of dishonest attacks:
@Chyron HR: “Well, gee, what Mayor Pete thinks we should “learn from 2016” is that Hillary Clinton is a stupid b*tch. Do you have a different opinion?”
Yeah, I have an opinion that you shouldn’t make up bullshit. If you have a problem with what Pete said, then quote him accurately and state why you have a problem. Pretending that he said something he never did say is foolish.
debit
@debbie: I sure was, right up until Bill went to the convention and passionately advocated for him. I forgave him and remain fond of him, but never forget it.
FFS people, we can dislike our candidates without being ratfuckers.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thirded. As long as Mitch can make the Senate serve as a paper shredder for Dem legislation, judicial nominations, etc, nothing is going to get done.
The Senate NEEDS to be flipped to actually function again.
schrodingers_cat
@Cacti: I said this in last week’s thread. He is a BS fan, even wrote an essay about him. I was met with a volley of condescending comments from his Balloon Juice fan club.
debbie
@germy:
What do I have to do to get Rob Portman (OH) on that list?
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Since he’s from Indiana, he understands trump supporters economic woes. I’ll find the quotes for you.
JanieM
@JMG:
I have not read the thread beyond JMG’s early comment, but for what it’s worth (and I suppose it could go either way), the author of this piece has the following resume and background, as summarized at Harvard’s Department of Sociology page:
From here, where there’s also a picture of the natty gent.
debit
@debbie: They have four locations (used to be five) and I have seen over 200 cats available on multiple occasions. Sometimes it’s so bad they do a BOGO (buy one, get one).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Why does Jerry Brown come to my mind reading stuff like this?
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m on episode five, it’s good, maybe better than the first.
West of the Rockies
TaMara at 55
A to the MEN! We must retake the senate and put the turtle on its back to bake in the sun.
germy
@debbie: I forgot about Rob.
Nettoyeur
Interesting that right wing politicos Steve Bannon, Tom Cotton, and Ben Sasse are all Harvard products, too. So much for the trope of elite Ivy universities as leftist education camps. (Trump went to Penn, as he reminds us incessantly).
My brother (Harvard 74, romance lang) says the pressure to go for money / status is intense, Wall St and business consulting suck in people who were once creatives.
Full disclosure: I am an engineering grad of MIT, son about to start post doc @ Harvard Med Sch.
James E Powell
@Roger Moore:
This relates to a never-ending argument between “we don’t want to be like the Rs” and “our values don’t mean anything if we don’t win the election.” We have to deal with the fact that the majority of Americans are not educated on policy matters and do not wish to be educated. The Republicans solved this problem by making a consistent set of lizard brain arguments that work for them. Their voters do not care about policies except to the extent that they make the people they hate miserable. (Cleek’s Law).
One of the pathetic conceits of the Nader-Sanders-Whoever left is that if we just explain the benefits of our leftist policies to The People they will agree and elect us. They remind me of the narodniks who were chased out of villages and turned over to the secret police.
What would you propose for a Democratic solution to this problem? After all these years of being attentive and active, especially at the door to door level, I am sad to say that I don’t fucking have a clue.
Cacti
@schrodingers_cat:
Glenn Greenwald used to be a popular figure around these parts too. Some people just take longer than others to spot a phony, and Mayor Butt-egg oozes phony to me.
Full stop. Anyone who wants to tell me that I need to put a friendly arm around the shoulder of the people waving swastika banners can fuck right off.
debbie
@debit:
Horrifying.
germy
@Cacti:
http://leftycartoons.com/2019/03/26/dear-some-of-my-fellow-lefties/
Mike S
His disclosures about not trusting Ivy League attendees rings a little hollow coming from both Harvard and Yale. Essentially he’s saying “don’t trust me.”
debbie
@germy:
He’s quiet and doesn’t attract much attention, but he’s as bad as a Rethuglican can be.
matt
I have to say I’m pretty sick of the whole Harvard/Rhodes Scholar/whatever/McKinsey elites production pipeline that has failed us.
cleek
Noam Chomsky says…
lol
fuck off.
trollhattan
The most hyperventilating Berniebro hot take of last week was not about mayor Pete.
I wonder where he got his copy of the actual report?
germy
@Cacti:
I can’t reach across the aisle to people who want me dead. After 2016, I’m not a big fan of comity. I want a fighter.
PaulB
@The Dangerman: “Buttigieg is unelectable; full stop.”
With all due respect, a lot of people are “unelectable” … until, magically, they aren’t. History is full of examples of “unelectable” people who subsequently were, in fact, elected.
I have no idea if Peter has what it takes to be elected. This is the beginning of the marathon. He may be a flash in the pan who cannot build a national organization, who cannot put together a coherent message, who runs out of funding in a few months, who shoves his foot in his mouth on a regular basis, who has a scandal waiting in the wings. Or, perhaps, none of that is true and he runs a competitive campaign and deserves to be taken seriously.
I’ll wait until I have more data before I jump onto either bandwagon. At this point in the primary campaign, none of the candidates has won my vote and only a few of them have firmly lost it (Biden, Sanders, and Gabbard). In the national election, of course, I’ll vote for the Democratic candidate, even if it’s one of the three I’ve crossed off my list.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Amen.
matt
He might make a good running mate for Schultz once he washes out of the Democratic primary.
JMG
As ever, 99 percent of Democratic voters will be accepting of whoever’s nominated. Even my fourth and fifth choices are pretty good candidates.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Thank you.
Mandalay
@eclare:
So you want all the other Democratic candidates to stay silent forever on Biden’s vile groping, and Sanders’ refusal to release his tax returns?
Sometimes it’s not only appropriate to piss inside the tent – it’s essential.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: This is from the Washington Post.. link
TaMara (HFG)
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, like the said the other night – Biden is just a NO for me. Go be an elder statesman and support the up and comers
@lamh36: yup
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cacti:
“Butt-egg”, seriously? you do know he’s gay?
James E Powell
@debbie:
Yes, I am. I am also still angry at him for his failure to keep his dick in his pants. But my anger about these matters is not germane to the 2020 primaries so I don’t mention it.
PaulB
@Cacti: “Mayor Butt-egg oozes phony to me. Full stop. Anyone who wants to tell me that I need to put a friendly arm around the shoulder of the people waving swastika banners can fuck right off.
And another one….
If you’re going to attack him, at least do him the courtesy of attacking him for what he actually said rather than for some made-up bullshit. And do him the courtesy of spelling his last name correctly. Or, if you’re unable to, call him Pete.
You do your position no favors by intemperate and dishonest remarks like these.
Cacti
@Mandalay:
Bernie’s not a Democrat.
His wrinkled old Trump-enabling ass deserves every drop of piss it gets.
chris
@germy: About Mitch, there is a Ditch Mitch Pac which seems legit with an FEC filing and a noble cause.
https://ditchmitchfund.com/
lamh36
Listen you want to reach out to Trump supporters fine, but I’d sure wish folks at least be willing to admit this point instead of trying to say it’s just about “economic anxiety”.
Trump ran as a racist. Trump voters didn’t mind that racism. He’s pushed racist policies since taking office…and still Trump voters support him despite that racism.
It’s not about HRC to me. Excuse me if I don’t care for ANY candidate who thinks winning those folks is more a priority. When what it would take seems to be ignoring the soft racism of their economic anxiety
JPL
@TaMara (HFG): The only ones that I would have trouble voting for are bernie and tulsi.
Cacti
@PaulB:
What fascist movement was ever defeated by appeals to its humanity?
FlyingToaster
@bystander: @MattF: I think a snark tag was left off…
Chomsky, for the record, graduated and got his PhD from an Ivy League school (Penn), was a Fellow at Harvard, and went tenure-track at MIT. He retired from MIT a couple years ago and is part-time faculty at Arizona.
This was a hit piece, written by a Bernie Bro. I have significant problems* with Buttigieg, but this ain’t gonna have any effect.
* Specifically his dissing Hillary, and his lecturing Democrats to “reach out” to Republicans. I lived in Indiana for 8 years, and in my experience there’s no fucking point in reaching out. Getting people registered and to the polls, yes; accommodating the racists, no more.
germy
@chris: Thank you. I’d love to see him retired.
Bill Arnold
That was savage. Some raw (not baked) impressions. I will note that Nathan J. Robinson said nothing directly negative about D.J. Trump. I see that he is a Bernie Sanders advocate (at least in February 2019)
Let’s be honest: running Bernie in 2020 is the best shot the Democrats have at beating Trump…
So, lots of negative articles about other Democratic presidential contenders, and very little criticism of D.J. Trump. (At least on the first page of at current affairs.) Some of the negative articles will become well-worn pages in the opposition research dossiers maintained by Republicans.
My attitude? People can change. Buttegieg did leave McKinsey. Robinson’s points are (mostly at least) interesting red flags. Buttegieg still has some of the cold managment consultant attitudes that many of us (including me) loath; his policy positions need to be worked out pronto; he needs a proper plan for climate change. (Not necessarily the GND, as long as it addresses the urgency.) And etc.
schrodingers_cat
@lamh36: They are also the cheerleaders of the naked xenophobia that the President has unleashed. I wish I could forget that, but I can’t.
satby
@TaMara (HFG): really ugly. I’m just staying out of them. But repeating what I said on Betty’s thread this morning and what @zhena gogolia: says here: 2020 is going to be (already is) worse than 2016. And the trolls and ratfuckers are just warming up with Mayor Pete as their current chew toy.
PaulB
@Cacti: “What fascist movement was ever defeated by appeals to its humanity?”
So you respond to a remark about your dishonest comments with a complete non sequitur that has nothing at all to do with anything under discussion. And I’m supposed to find this a compelling argument why, exactly? And I’m supposed to play your silly game, a game that I haven’t fallen for in at least 30 years why, exactly?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@JPL: And those industrial guys, as in normally blue voting Union Workers, I hear it all the time from my Union, blue voting father and his union blue voting friends how much they loath the Clintons over shit like NAFTA. The union guys are utterly convinced the Clintons want to destroy their jobs because of what Bill Clintion did in officer to them and surprise surprise, all the Blue states Trump got are the union heavy rust belt states. But, nah, it has to be White guy entitlement(tm), sexism and racism.
dogwood
@opiejeanne:
I’m also hesitant about Warren’s electability. Her fans are a lot like Bernie fans. They refuse to countenance any criticism of her as a candidate. When she ran for re-election in 2012, she under-performed in relation to Obama in MA. That’s a red flag for me.
Major Major Major Major
Sorry, not going to read anything that starts with that paragraph. I look forward to seeing how Mayor Pete addresses the *substantive* criticisms that have been mentioned elsewhere. So far I’ve seen nothing worse than any other candidate’s record.
Cacti
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It’s a play on his “Boot-edge-edge” explanation of his last name.
mrmoshpotato
@debit: Hate to rain on your parade here, but you’d be getting Thurston, not Rosie, and definitely not Lily.
:)
Amir Khalid
@PaulB:
This. There have already been a lot of hot takes aired about things that can be spun against certain candidates. It’s important to see how significant this stuff really is, and to see how well they deal with it. This is all part of the test for the candidates and shouldn’t be reflexively treated as grounds for dismissing this one or that one.
@Mandalay:
On the other hand, you don’t want your tent smelling of piss.
JR
That article is pretty weak sauce. I mean, I’m not really a fan of Buttagieg, I’d like some level of federal or at least state-level government service before you run for the effin’ Presidency, but that’s an entirely different issue.
Cacti
@PaulB:
If you and Butt-egg want to chase the hug a fascist strategy, be my guest. I’ve got no use for it.
Brachiator
I am interested in reporting about Pete, but not summary judgments about him by political gate keepers.
lamh36
@schrodingers_cat: I mean there have been studies about this…but folks still want to play the “we just speak to their economic anxiety” game
No you want to speak their language of soft racism and xenophobia without admitting that exactly what you are doing. Just admit that and be open about it.
PaulB
@Cacti: “If you and Butt-egg want to chase the hug a fascist strategy, be my guest. I’ve got no use for it.”
Thank you for confirming that you have no interest in an honest debate. When you’re tired of playing silly games and you’re ready to engage with what I actually wrote, I’ll be right here, continuing to point out your dishonesty.
debbie
@James E Powell:
Of course it has nothing to do with 2020. That was not my point. Some people get forgiven, others never do. This is my point.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: Stop with the homophobic slur. Seriously. Just fucking stop it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cacti: so “The gay guy is to much of a sissy to fight back” Still running with homophobic dogwistles?
zhena gogolia
@TaMara (HFG):
This passage is great:
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
OMFG, the first six letters of his last name are literally Butteg.
B.B.A.
The lesson of 2016 is that all intraparty dissent must be crushed and destroyed.
Better to oust Mayor Pete from the race in March 2019 than in March 2020.
PaulB
@Cacti: “OMFG, the first six letters of his last name are literally Butteg.”
OMFG, and you think that’s an excuse for a childish and homophobic attack? How old are you, again? Kindergarten?
Bill Arnold
@zhena gogolia:
I’m not sure it’s the Russians (at least not entirely) but the pattern is increasingly clear, yes.
Joey Maloney
@piratedan: I comment seldom but I just wanted to say, this is right on the money.
It scares me shitless that none of these have been seriously addressed. It won’t matter how many votes our candidate attracts if they don’t get counted.
James E Powell
@dogwood:
Being less popular than Obama is a red flag? Warren is, after all, a woman running in a state that seems to like Republican men more than Democratic women.
I know – ’cause I’ve been told – that Martha Coakley was the worst candidate evah! But it was a special election to replace a liberal Democratic icon at a time when everybody knew it was critical to maintain Democratic control of the senate and everybody knew that after being out of power for eight years we had a lot of work to do and we needed every Democratic vote we could get in congress and despite all that the ostensibly liberal Democratic state of Massachusetts voted for an empty car coat of a Republican dickhead who ran a campaign based on the vow to oppose the recently elected Democratic president.
So, like, get off Warren’s case. She won. Twice.
Major Major Major Major
@Cacti: I’m offended. Something that would be harmless applied to one person can indeed be offensive applied to a different person, due to that person’s demographics.
zhena gogolia
@TaMara (HFG):
I know you tried — I hope you’ll continue it.
Cacti
Color me shocked.
The former members of the Greenwald fan club are the most enamored with the mayor, and the first to hide his disregard for people of color behind a rainbow flag.
Damned if that doesn’t sound familiar.
zhena gogolia
@MattF:
Sarcasm tag missing.
PaulB
@Cacti: “Damned if that doesn’t sound familiar.”
Tell me, does randomly making up bullshit, propagating dishonest arguments, and coming up with childish attacks work on the other forums you frequent?
Redshift
@FlyingToaster:
I agree, but as I recall, one of the things that impressed me in his interview with Preet Bharara was that he was talking about getting reelected with votes from “the other side” while campaigning on progressive issues, not pandering to racists. (I wasn’t particularly favorably inclined toward a candidate from Indiana before that.)
I’m fine with any outreach to people outside our coalition as long as it doesn’t involve throwing our base under the bus or looking for a halfway point between things we know are important and their bullshit. Buying into the “economic anxiety” idea is dumb, though.
Nettoyeur
@dogwood: I thought it was 7.
Major Major Major Major
@PaulB:
Um, have you used the internet…?
Cacti
@PaulB:
Kitten, it might be best for your mental and emotional health if you just tuned out of the 2020 campaign. If you’re already this breathless about perceived outrages, you’re in for a rough ride.
JPL
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Not all trump supporters should be lumped together, and you’re right about that. If you attend one his rallies, then you support his racist, bullying, and misogynistic behavior
Barbara
@zhena gogolia: Yes, I agree. My method of dealing with this right now is to ignore articles like this one for the most part and to support candidates that I think are trying to put meat on the bones of their campaigns, and to keep an open mind. My only fixed stars in the firmament at this point are releasing tax returns (not because Bernie hasn’t but because it is a simple and effective separator from Trump) and paying serious attention to voting rights.
Mandalay
@Cacti:
WTF???
Just step away from the keyboard and get some air – you’ve lost the plot.
zhena gogolia
@TaMara (HFG):
I happened to be doing a project with a student during the primaries, and we were watching how Russian television covered the debates. They were constantly featuring Trump’s devastating takedowns of all the other candidates, particularly Jeb. I found it a little strange . . . until later.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Personally, I don’t see Pete Buttegieg in 2020, to many people will hate him on the right for the unforgivable crime of being openly gay and two many on the left won’t forgive him for being born white with testicles. That’s way to much of a uphill to get elected.
zhena gogolia
@Kirk Spencer:
Thank you!
I haven’t chosen a candidate yet, but I’m open to all (except BS). I love to see comments like this, because I’m in information-gathering mode — about their positive programs and qualities.
L85NJGT
Bernie bros are frustrated elements of his 2016 support are wandering off to bright new shiny objects. Beto pulling the college kids is another. Pete is to type – the novelty candidate that gets a high word count in think pieces but not so much in money or votes.
Points of concern:
Small city mayor with no large bureaucracy (state or federal) experience.
Crossover appeal? He got crushed running for Indiana Treasurer.
Cacti
@JPL:
Pardon my saying so, but bull fucking shit.
PaulB
@Cacti: Dear heart, I was mirroring your own tactics. Frankly, I don’t really give a shit what you call Buttegieg because you are your own worst enemy. Your dishonesty, childishness, evasiveness, and refusal to engage in a serious discussion are all patently obvious to everyone here.
It’s fine with me if you continue to engage in such silliness as all I have to do is point and giggle.
A Ghost To Most
@debit: Me too.
Competence, smarts, and strength. If her baggage is that she was too law and order, I think she can live with the guilt.
ETA Kamala Harris, that is.
Barbara
@lamh36: One problem with candidates whose resume is longer than their time in public office is that it is too easy to project onto them what isn’t there, to both positive and negative effect. That is one reason I like to see some serious time having to support, propose and vote on actual legislation. You can’t make that up or wish it away.
Cacti
@PaulB:
Hey, that’s great, kitten.
This my sad face that you don’t like me. :-( I care a lot.
Cheryl from Maryland
@piratedan: Yes!!!
Major Major Major Major
@Cacti: Hillary was wrong in her “basket of deplorables” speech then?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@JPL:
It would be useful to see how many of the union guys are MAGMA hatters, but the impression I got, and it’s purely anecdotal was Trump was a unknown for these union guys and Hillary was a known they didn’t like. Even then my dad voted for Hillary. So if that’s true then they will vote Blue in 2020 again as long as the dem candidate doesn’t scare the begeezes out of them and 2018 certainly suggests that.
JMG
@dogwood: In 2012, Warren was running against Scott Brown, at the time a well liked incumbent. She wasn’t up against the usual GOP sacrificial lamb in Mass. There are reasons to think Warren might not be the strongest Dem candidate, primarily her age, ferocious opposition from the 1% and good old American misogyny, but her 2012 campaign ain’t one.
PS: Also, Warren is all about policy and most voters and ALL the media hate policy.
Cacti
@Major Major Major Major:
Only in backing away from it.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: I guess it’s a fair interpretation to label that advocacy of general outreach to Trump voters, but that’s not the way it landed with me. Buttigieg has specifically said status anxiety, economic dislocation, etc., are no excuse for racism but that they set the conditions where extremism can flourish. That seems self-evidently true to me and not at all an excuse for the behaviors, just an attempt to understand how it arises so you can address it, much as you have to understand regional history, economics, etc., to effectively beat back ISIS and similar extremist movements.
Uncle Cosmo
@TaMara (HFG): I personally believe we ought to be focused on every elective office up for grabs, down to & including town council seats. The more Democrats we can elect the better. Governors & state legislatures are crucial for rolling back the worst of the Thug gerrymanders after the 2020 census. Senate is crucial for judges & treaties. POTUS, well, y’know.
@opiejeanne:
And how many Republicans are going to vote for a Democrat of Harris’s skin color & gender?
I’m not saying that’s a deal-breaker; KH might emulate JFK going in front of Catholic-suspicious ministers in Houston. I am saying, focus on What’s Important Now. Which is, first to get that obscene SOB out of the White House & clear out his crowd of Nazis & bigots. Second, to start clawing back some electoral sanity from Thuglican gerrymandering.
And third: Preventing Civil War II. Which IMHO is far far closer than we want to think – & liable to erupt very quickly after the inauguration of a Democratic President whose inaugural speech says, We won, suck it, it’s our turn now! Let us not bend over backwards to placate the Trumpistas, but for dogsake let us reach out at least a little way to say something like
I get that much of the Jackaltariat will be outraged by this approach. But I’m half-terrified that even if we win, if we don’t manage to conciliate enough of the opposition to keep actual sedition unthinkable, we’ll be staring it in the face, And I am open to any candidate who looks like they could do that.
PaulB
@Cacti: Clearly, you do, since you cannot help yourself in your replies. Sorry if it hurts you so badly to be called out for what you are.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The folks who say Sanders don’t seem to recognize that they need former HRC voters to swing to them. How else will they make the numbers work? And they fail to acknowledge how infuriated many D voters are with Sanders, particularly women voters. If Sanders is our nominee, I will certainly vote for him. But do they know they need me?
Major Major Major Major
@Cacti: The thesis of the speech was that not all Trump supporters should be lumped together.
Cacti
@PaulB:
Zzzzzz
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Cacti: In point of fact, no they aren’t. His name is spelt Buttigieg. Maybe you should learn how to spell his name before straightsplaining.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major:
Good luck!
PaulB
@Cacti: LOL… Like I said….
Redshift
I rarely do New Year’s resolutions, but as a defense against division driven by Russian and wingnut trolls, I’m adopting a campaign season resolution: any flaw people are outraged about based on a tweet-length quote or summary, I’m going to dismiss out of hand.
I can wait to see if the candidate repeats it to see if it’s something truly disqualifying. It’s not just that we can’t afford to let disagreements become permanent hard divisions during the primary, we can’t afford to have only grudging support for the eventual nominee (like too many Wilmerites) based on something we decided was a major issue a year earlier.
trollhattan
@Cacti:
You’re going to ride this particular Max right into the turf, aren’t you? Great choice; please proceed, governor.
A Ghost To Most
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
“MAGMA”
Make America Great My Ass?
Cacti
@(((CassandraLeo))):
I used to draw a similar level of vitriol from my progressive betters at BJ when I’d point out why Greenwald and Snowden were a pair of frauds.
It’s a handy way to distract from my real problem with Butt-egg. His dangerously stupid belief that fascists need love and understanding, and he’s the one to bring both.
But keep fighting the good fight of, whatever the hell it is you’re bent out of shape about.
PaulB
@Cacti: “I used to draw a similar level of vitriol…”
See, a smarter individual might have figured out that it was them, not everyone else.
“His dangerously stupid belief that fascists need love and understanding, and he’s the one to bring both.”
Still opting for childishness and dishonesty, I see. Gee, what a total surprise that your remarks might lead to “vitriol.”
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Cacti: All I’m reading is a bunch of deflecting from your factual error and you ignoring that at least two actual queer people are bothered by your overt homophobia. Keep fucking that chicken.
dogwood
@James E Powell:
I’m not on her case. If she’s your candidate and you think she’s electable, you are free to support her and should do so wholeheartedly. I’ve always had reservations about her political skills, but if she gets the nomination I’ll support her. That’s how it works.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cacti:
OMFG, nope. The first six letters of his last name are BUTTIG. Your lame joke just got even lamer.
And since I’m feeling nit-picky and out of sorts:
@dogwood:
Warren ran for the first time in 2012. She managed to unseat the incumbent R with 53.7% of the vote. Admittedly, that’s well below Obama’s 61% in MA, but hardly means she’s unelectable.
A Ghost To Most
@PaulB:
Cacti’s bad behavior aside, I think he is correct that most of these people are not reachable, except with a brick to the face. I ignore Hickenlooper for the same reason.
dogwood
@JMG:
Good point. We’ll see how it shakes out.
oldgold
This Democratic field gets sorted out on Super Tuesday – March 3, 2020. That day, 3 days after the South Carolina primary, 10 states including Alabama, California, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Vermont hold their primaries.
My guess is that on March 4 Kamala Harris and one other candidate remain viable.
Cacti
@(((CassandraLeo))):
What factual error? The good Mayor wants to be the angry white guy whisperer of 2020. Fuck that.
If it actually worked, shouldn’t he have won the only statewide election he ever contested?
In the meantime, salve your tender fee fees, be ready to fight the real enemy, or stay the hell out of the way.
Major Major Major Major
I wonder if the pie filter works when you’re logged in…
ETA sadly, no.
Cacti
@PaulB:
I’m not sorry for being right about your former heroes.
Maybe you should be for being too credulous to see their real motives.
Brachiator
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I really don’t like Sanders. But it comes down to this.
Do you want more Trump?
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Cacti: You are objectively wrong about the spelling of his name that you used to “justify” your lame homophobic attack on him. It is as though you aren’t even reading my responses, which I can’t say surprises me given your conduct throughout this thread.
FlyingToaster
@Major Major Major Major: I had taken everyone out of the pie filter. Until Now.
And the current version notes that the responses are pied as well, so I don’t have to deal with the bullshit at any level. Heh.
Immanentize
To me, this is the essential statement of the values of the Democratic Party:
FDR. Addressing Congress, SOTU, 1941.
We need nothing new and nothing more.
PaulB
@A Ghost To Most: I agree that most of the hard-core “deplorables” are unreachable but there are multiple reasons why Cacti’s arguments here are bullshit, starting with the fact that he is simply making up shit rather than engaging with what Pete actually said, and then pretending that this all has something to do with fascism. Forgive me if I refuse to take bad faith arguments seriously from someone so patently dishonest and childish.
Back to your point, there are a couple of reasons why Pete’s tactics may not be that bad. The first is this media passion for “both sides” and “the heartland.” I’ve lost track of the number of news articles about “Trump voters” in the “real America.” What Pete actually said, unlike the fiction that Cacti is trying to propagate, just wasn’t that bad and it plays into that media meme. That media meme may be bullshit but there is no question that it’s real.
The second reason is that word “most.” The hardcore 35% absolutely cannot be reached and we should not try but that leaves a good 10% or more that might be persuadable. Whether Buttigieg is the right person to do that or not is something we currently do not know. To dismiss it out of hand without any data, though, strikes me as a mistake.
PaulB
@Cacti: “I’m not sorry for being right about your former heroes.”
LOL…. Dear heart, there’s that making shit up problem again. I haven’t said one word about Greenwald or Snowden on this thread or any other thread at Balloon Juice.
Maybe you should learn to read? Maybe you should respond to what people actually write rather than listening to those voices in your head?
Cacti
@(((CassandraLeo))):
You’re a little late to the party, here. My point about Butt-igg (there you go), is that he wants to run the Sanders campaign in 2020. None of his fans have remotely refuted that, and instead have resorted to “waaaaaah, you’re a homphobe!”.
Just as I was for correctly calling Greenwald a phony. Just as I was an anti-semite when I said that Bernie was all hot air. So, if the best you can do is call me a big insensitive meanie, I know you’ve already lost on the merits.
PaulB
@(((CassandraLeo))): “It is as though you aren’t even reading my responses”
He isn’t. It’s a pattern throughout the thread. Not a single one of his responses on this thread has anything at all to do with the post that he is nominally replying to. It’s a remarkable feat of evasion.
He can’t defend what he’s writing and he can’t argue with the people contradicting his points, so he has to engage in these childish attacks and silly strawman arguments instead. It’s rather transparent, and more than a little pathetic.
B.B.A.
@Brachiator: if we nominate Sanders, we’re getting more Trump.
Cacti
@PaulB:
That was a very long-winded way of saying “We need a white guy whisperer”.
Fuck that.
PaulB
@Cacti:
Dear heart, since you are the one making the assertion, it behooves you to support it. Thus far, you haven’t. Would you like to try to do so one of these days? Or would you rather continue playing silly games?
(Never mind … that was a rhetorical question. We both know the answer.)
PsiFighter37
Here’s my problem – kind of crystallized after talking to my wife (a generally apolitical person, albeit extremely anti-Trump) earlier…the bar for qualifications for being president have been buried since the current clown stole the last election. Being mayor of a tertiary city in America’s declining heartland is no qualification for running a country of 300 million plus folks. The only cities you can run that provide any kind of qualification, IMO, would be New York City and LA (with LA being a very distant second place, since the axis of California politics also revolves around San Francisco). That’s why when folks were bandying around names of mayors, I never took Mitch Landrieu or Eric Garcetti seriously. For better of for worse, Bloomberg is (and was for him, specifically, since he already said he’s not running) who had the chops as mayor to credibly run for president.
PaulB
@Cacti:
No, dear, it wasn’t. Anytime you’d like to engage with what I actually wrote and respond accordingly, I’ll be right here.
A Ghost To Most
@Immanentize:
No. I have the right to be free from any imaginary sky fairy. How theist of you.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Cacti: News flash: It’s 2019. You don’t get to tell queer people what is and is not homophobic. In point of fact, I haven’t discussed Buttigieg’s statements at all, because I’m not particularly interested in taking a firm stance on candidates this early in the primary. I haven’t responded to any of Buttigieg’s other critics in this thread (and there have been several; I’ve read every comment) because none of them have said anything I’ve found broadly objectionable. My issues have been entirely with what you’ve said. I expect you’ll deflect this into some other non-sequitur, but I will just point out that I’m non-binary and Major^4 is gay, so you have very definitely been straightsplaining your homophobia to queer people for around ten comments now. In summation, go fuck yourself with a rusty cactus.
Cacti
@PaulB:
A person close to the 2016 campaign recently said:
“Trump ran on pessimism, racism, false promises, & vitriol.”
There isn’t a single Trump voter who didn’t vote for that. It was not possible to vote Donald Trump and avoid voting for that. The people who voted for that are the ones you think we need to reach. There isn’t a good character exemption for choosing the candidate of pessimism, racism, false promises, and vitriol.
My position, as ever, remains: fuck that.
Major Major Major Major
@A Ghost To Most: God, that FDR guy is so unelectable. Things like this religion comment… and a fucking child of privilege will never get my primary vote. And not to sound ableist, but is Peoria really going to vote for a man in a wheelchair?
I’d crawl over broken glass to vote for him in the general, of course. But right now I’m going to say as many shitty things about him as I can think of.
jonas
@Elmo:
Word. The two following statements are not mutually exclusive: “Hillary Clinton was by a million light years the better, more qualified candidate in 2016 and fuck Comey, also, too” and “Hillary Clinton came with a lot of unfortunate baggage as a candidate, and didn’t run a great campaign, particularly in rural parts of the country.” If all Buttigeig wants to run on is bagging on Clinton, he’s obviously not going to get very far. But harping on one comment, or complaining that he’s not an ideal progressive because he went to Harvard and isn’t some balaclava-wearing Antifa activist, is also not particularly trenchant.
The only two candidates I *definitely* don’t need to see more of are Biden or Sanders. I’m perfectly willing to give the rest a fair hearing, with my primary question being: 1. can they beat Trump and 2. do they have the coattails to flip the Senate. “Never having uttered a single controversial or politically incorrect comment and fulfilling every single last thing on my progressive wish list” is a very, very distant third. If Kamala Harris can kick Trump’s ass to the curb, but isn’t in favor of a 70% tax bracket or something, I will fucking vote for her a million times. If Pete Buttigieg can kick Trump’s ass to the curb, but doesn’t have as many women or POC on his campaign staff as I would like, I will fucking vote for him a million times. If Elizabeth Warren can kick Trump’s ass to the curb, but mistakenly claimed she had a distant Native American ancestor, I will fucking vote for her a million times.
B.B.A.
@A Ghost To Most: pfft, angry atheism is so ten years ago.
Immanentize
@A Ghost To Most: This from someone self-named as a ghost?
I agree, that freedom should include “or not worship.”. But frankly if we could get to the original wording, the problem of not worshiping would be sorted as well, no? Ben Franklin was particulary eloquent on this IIRC. There is a great passage somewhere that he wrote about a group of people who had no holy text and no particular rituals….
ETA Clarity
Cacti
@(((CassandraLeo))):
Feel better now?
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
This.
BS has the perfect initials. His name, his political views, his proposals and his campaigns. All BS and no substance.
A number of people have made the point that they are waiting to see what’s what about all the candidates, including, if they have one their favorite. That is a good thing as it is very early, we are what a year out from the first primaries? And we know that there are a lot of groups that are going to attempt to tear down every one of our candidates. We have, this early, an actually large selection of great candidates. They are differences between them, but the top few are all reasonable and have the skills to do the job.
Many of us have favorites at this time, hopefully all of us are willing to look and listen to all the candidates to see if our current views hold. And the very first thing to remember is that we have to defeat the republicans both for the WH and the senate, and take every possible elected office away from republicans, local, state as well.
We have to take back our country from the racists, the religious right, the uber wealthy, Vlad and his surrogates.
trollhattan
All the fratricide is not occurring among Dems and pseudo Dems.
They all seem like such nice people.
PaulB
@Cacti: Pretending that 63 million people all voted for exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons is both foolish and counter-productive. Fuck that.
A Ghost To Most
@PaulB: Anyone who thinks that we can speak rationally with brain-washed nazis is deluding themselves. Believe me, I tried for 25 years, then gave up and left.
Buttigieg and Hickenloooper fall into that category.
John Revolta
@germy: That’s a great cartoon but he lost me at the punchline. “Get outta my party” isn’t what we need here.
The folks in that cartoon, most of ’em anyway, would profit more from “Hey, stop and think about what you’re saying here” I think.
There’s a lot of folks we’ll never reach but the types in that cartoon are mostly people who wanna be on the right side but haven’t thought some things through. I know some of ’em in fact.
Cacti
@PaulB:
And yet it remains. It was not possible to vote for Donald Trump without casting a vote for pessimism, racism, false promises, and vitriol.
Those are the people you and the Mayor want to make cause with. Good luck.
I’ll be here to tell you I told you so when it fails.
J R in WV
@Jane2:
Pro Tip: South Bend is less than two hours and under a hundred miles from the Chicago Loop, where there are pretty nice subways, AKA The El, or at least there was when I was there in the 1970s. Surely they haven’t devolved enough for the transit system to have collapsed!!
I have ridden in subways in DC, Philly, NYC, Chicago and Boston, and did so while in high school, except for DC which wasn’t built way back then.
Big money says Mayor Pete’s first time on a subway was NOT in Boston.
And Bernie Sanders is still a Russian stooge, and was a Soviet stooge before that.
Suzanne
I am just astonished that a mild criticism of HRC’s messaging strategy from someone who lives in the upper Midwest—when she lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—is seen by so many as this huge betrayal and slam on her. Whatever. This is Balloon Juice, where everything is binary, Bernie Sanders is as bad as Trump, and God forbid a young politician from a red state try to raise his national profile.
Hell, I’m old enough to remember when everyone around here hated HRC in 2008 and loved Sanders in 2016.
CatFacts
Can I just say thank you to the folks who developed the pie filter? It was a really, really good idea. Especially as we get more candidates that don’t tick every single one of the boxes marked white/straight/male/conventionally-religious/old-enough-for-the-Beltway-to-take-them-seriously.
Cacti
@J R in WV:
His “folksy” roots ring about as authentic as Bill O’Reilly’s and John Edwards’, i.e., “My father only made $30,000 a year” (in the 1960s), or “My father was a textile mill worker” (by which I mean he was the plant manager).
PaulB
@Cacti: Actually, the only thing that “remains” is the utter foolishness of your remarks and the dishonesty and childishness you have displayed throughout this thread. Amusing, perhaps, but hardly convincing. And your posts here say far more about you than they do about anyone else, including Buttigieg.
A Ghost To Most
@Suzanne: The actual complaint by me is that we don’t need a “militant moderate” or a Rhodes Scholar who wants to unite with people people who would as soon see us dead.
PaulB
@A Ghost To Most:
Good thing nobody thinks that, then, isn’t it?
Doug R
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie Sanders IS the establishment candidate:
You don’t get any more establishment than Putin.
J R in WV
@opiejeanne:
Small correction: Republicans are not going to vote for ANY Democrat, whom they will call a Demonrat among themselves.
ant
I made it this far:
A quick skim past that didn’t show any other examples written by others of what this author wanted to see.
My take: So Pete is pulling support away from bernie eh?
Interesting.
chopper
@schrodingers_cat:
he wrote an essay about sanders like 20 years ago. i mean, come on. back in the 80’s liz warren was a republican. so the hell what?
Cacti
@PaulB:
Your doubling back to personal attacks on me is your concession that you can’t refute a word that was said.
Thanks for playing, champ. Good luck with your appeals to the decency of Trump voters. ;-)
PJ
@JanieM: In general, I believe it is unwise to judge people solely based on their personal appearance or fashion choices, but I will make an exception in this case for the author.
I bothered to skim another piece of his in favor of architectural ornamentation, and while I dislike most big box store and glass shoebox architecture, the general impression I got is that he wants us all to know that he’s no mindless capitalist square, he likes things that are “different”. I’m sure he loves Restoration Hardware and despises Ikea, and before he started writing for Current Affairs (whatever that is), put up some choice pieces on Thought Catalog about how much of an individual he is.
A Ghost To Most
@PaulB: Pete B does.
Suzanne
@A Ghost To Most: I think that’s a fair criticism. But I also think it’s valuable to keep in mind that the dude likely represents a lot of those people, as he lives in Pence-ville. Dems aren’t going to be the same everywhere, and I don’t see any bad faith out of him. Maybe mistaken.
I also don’t really think he’s moderate, and I also don’t see a Rhodes Scholarship as a disqualifier. Considering the absolute morons the GOP has put up for years, I look forward to being led by my intellectual betters.
Aleta
Probably would go off the rails, but my idea of a helpful thing would be a cooperative thread in which commenters list TATWL* for each. ***
* TATWL= things accomplished or attempted** that we wanted
** solid attempt=visible record and result
*** (from list above) Joe Biden Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren Kamala Harris Cory Booker Amy Klobuchar Kristin Gillibrand Beto O’Rourke anyone else
Cacti
@Suzanne:
He also got his ass kicked in the only statewide Indiana election he ever contested. His results suggest that his message is all wet.
Frankensteinbeck
I’m fine with all these hit pieces, because the ratfuckers launched too early. None of this shit is going to matter when the candidates get up on the debate stage for the first time. Right now, most of us are working on hearsay about most candidates. When the campaign gets rolling and we get to seriously compare them against each other, everyone’s opinions will change. Very few of these complaints will be remembered, and the ones that are, we’ll see who is good enough to stomp them in their wake. In 2016, hit pieces weren’t nearly enough. It took the runner-up actively stoking conspiracy theories and badmouthing the entire Democratic Party well after the primary to give them traction. I doubt we’ll be facing that this time, because when the campaign gets going Bernie is going to disappear. Everyone else will show party loyalty and band together around the winner.
Aleta
@Aleta: should be TATWW
banditqueen
@Cacti: Look, continue to insult the guy via another insult-nickname choice. You have been told by a number of different commenters (I agree with them), that the insult-nickname you’re using is offensive. You would rightfully be called out for using any derogatory insult-nickname. If you don’t like Warren, please don’t stoop to calling her Pocahontes–really, what you are doing in this thread is exactly the same as that pathetic insult-nickname.
chopper
@Cacti:
well then, thank god the first three letters of his last name aren’t F, A and G. i mean, you’d have no choice, right?
A Ghost To Most
@ant:
He does have his good points.
West of the Rockies
Making fun of Pete because his last name starts with BUTT is pure 5th-grade humor. It’s no different than when rightwing folks called #44 “BO” and chortled over their brilliant comedic wit.
The anti-Pete stuff has been floated here for several days now. This article figured prominently in last night’s late thread. You don’t like Pete? You see his face and go ?? Does sowing discontent help our overall game? Color me doubtful.
A Ghost To Most
@chopper: They’re right you know, Cacti. Who he loves is not our business. What he believes is.
Cacti
@banditqueen:
You know, when all of these unfamiliar names keep whinging about tone, but don’t actually address my actual problems with the guy, I start to catch a whiff of comrade troll.
Who the hell are you?
PaulB
@Cacti:
LOL…. Oh, the irony…. You really don’t like your tactics used against you, do you, dear? And you still have no answer for anything I’ve written in this thread, nor any defense of your own remarks. My own are right here, dear, anytime you’d like to actually engage rather than playing silly games.
Colleeniem
@Cacti@A Ghost To Most: I promise you some of them ARE. A trump voter in my office now calls him the Anti-Christ. They exist. We can walk and chew gum at the same time—fight for easier voting/more representation for underrepresented communities/people, while stating the the water’s okay to join us. Luckily for us we don’t have to exclusively choose, but we won’t sacrifice our values to do it.
PaulB
@A Ghost To Most:
No, in fact, he doesn’t, which is why you don’t actually quote him.
Emma
Primal Scream coming up:
No. NOT EVERYBODY “worshipped” or “was a member of the fan club” of Greenwald, Sanders, Buttigieg, or whoever chaps your arse. The strength of this community is that there are many voices. In the current situation most of us are at the “lean towards, maybe” stage. If some of you have chosen your hill to fight on, more power to you AS LONG as you vote for the Democrat in the general election.
Stop pissing inside the tent. Save it for the Republicans.
Cacti
@Colleeniem:
I want a candidate who isn’t afraid to say that if you enjoy waving swastika banners and chanting “Jews will not replace us”, I’m not the candidate for you.
We didn’t have to equivocate about being the anti-bigotry party to win the House back. We don’t need to start now.
banditqueen
@Cacti: You are not addressing the ‘please stop, the insult-nickname you’re using is offensive‘–so you aren’t addressing the “the actual problem” in persisting to use an insulting homophobic insult-nickname.
Cacti
@Emma:
Tell that to candidate Buttigieg.
West of the Rockies
@Cacti:
Hey, chief… Condescending names make you look silly, ‘k, butter cup? See how that works, sweetie?
I dont even disagree with all of your points, but your comments are frequently needlessly offensive, and your language undermines your effort. That’s just like my opinion…
PaulB
@Cacti:
That’s because your “actual problems with the guy” are largely figments of your fevered imagination. Then, when you got called on that, you respond with childish attacks, evasion, and now, whining. I have no idea why you think these are effective tactics.
A Ghost To Most
@PaulB: Bullshit. You’re not worth the Google.
Buttigites are the new BernieBros.
PaulB
@Cacti:
Good thing that doesn’t describe a single Democratic candidate in 2020, then, isn’t it?
schrodingers_cat
@chopper: He is repeating Sanders critiques of D voters and policies, Obama, and HRC in 2019. Talks derisively of “identity politics” and so on.
Emma
@Cacti: Why don’t you stop screaming at the rest of us and ask him directly?
PaulB
@A Ghost To Most:
Thank you for confirming that you have no idea what you’re talking about and cannot back up what you wrote.
Good thing I’m neither, then, isn’t it? I’m mostly just here amusing myself at the expense of a couple of obvious fools. I’ve only ruled out three candidates, have probably a top five in no particular order, and the rest are all acceptable to me.
Suzanne
@Cacti: Indiana is a red state. He’s running for POTUS to raise his national profile and hopefully build himself a career. I don’t see losing in a red state to be an indicator that he’s not a talented politician who is generally on my ideological wavelength—quite the opposite.
There are lots of talented Dems from red areas of the country. They’re not going to be like AOC or Ilhan Omar or Andrew Gillum.
Cacti
@banditqueen:
Comrade, I didn’t know he was gay, don’t particularly care that he is, and haven’t used the name which must never be spoken, ever, ever, ever, as courtesy to all the gentle souls who think we can kill the fascist movement in this country with kindness.
I haven’t mentioned the obvious spelling of his name, that can and will make easy fodder for any Republican opponent, in probably close to 100 posts now.
So, Svetlana, what are you still yammering on about?
trollhattan
@Emma:
Now where’s the fun in that? :-P
Kirk Spencer
@Suzanne:
I was here then (and a lot earlier) and I’ve got to say I think you’re thinking of a different site – on both those candidates, actually.
Cacti
@Suzanne:
If his message ever lands him something higher than mayor of South Bend in his own state, his message would have a lot more weight and credibility as a national strategy. He’s not running for President of the United States of South Bend.
And at this point, we can’t afford a nominee who isn’t an ironclad guarantee to deliver their home state.
Aleta
@debit: Hi, I left you a message back on that thread.
Cacti
@schrodingers_cat:
Careful now. The tribe doesn’t like hearing that sort of unflattering factual information about their new one true savior.
PaulB
@Cacti:
Now if only such people actually existed, you might not have made such a fool of yourself in this thread.
Oh, lord, I hope they go there; I really do.
Emma
@trollhattan: sometimes I think we have one of these circular wicker man dances just to raise our blood pressure.
eemom
@A Ghost To Most:
Wait, I thought the guy who wrote the Buttigieg bashing article was a BernieBro? Shit’s moving too fast for me here.
PaulB
@Cacti:
There’s that making shit up again. Are you really so incapable of actually reading what people are writing? So wholly unable to muster a coherent argument? So enamored with childish games that you cannot help yourself?
Cacti
@PaulB:
And then there are the people who don’t think that the Trump movement is a fascist movement. They’re as unreachable as the fascists themselves.
Kirk Spencer
@Cacti: So you keep telling us that this man is running a Bernie campaign, but I’ve reread this entire column to my post 289 and still can’t figure out what you mean.
Can you give some specific examples of this? Not “the most casual observer” crap, but real “point a point b point c” elements? Without the insults or bush type (cute-demeaning) nicknames, please?
PaulB
@eemom:
He is. That particular poster was referring to me because I had the audacity to challenge him as to the accuracy of his paraphrase of Buttigieg’s remarks. He promptly departed in a snit, deciding that I was a “Buttigite.”
Cacti
@PaulB:
The tribal elder hath spoken.
PaulB
@Cacti:
There’s that making shit up again. Are you really so incapable of actually reading what people are writing? So wholly unable to muster a coherent argument? So enamored with childish games that you cannot help yourself?
Cacti
@Kirk Spencer:
See post 283.
A Ghost To Most
@PaulB: Yea, I’m such a fool that this conversation we are having is probably traversing telecom code I wrote long ago.
You might also want to read up on Pete B.’s checkered history with POC. He’s not quite the angel you portray him as. I recall a bunch of links yesterday right here on BJ.
Now fuck off, junior
PaulB
@Cacti:
Dear heart, has it really escaped your notice that posting made-up bullshit here isn’t winning you any friends or doing you any favors?
We can all see what you’re doing, dear. A smarter individual might learn from his failures.
Cacti
@PaulB:
See post 283.
Cacti
@A Ghost To Most:
Was he thread stalking you yesterday?
PaulB
@A Ghost To Most:
What a lovely, not to mention totally meaningless, non sequitur.
Dear heart, I haven’t “portrayed” Buttigieg” as anything, angelic or otherwise. I simply pointed out that your paraphrase of Buttigieg’s remarks was dishonest. You know that, of course, which is why you don’t even try to defend your post and why you’re playing these silly games and engaging in these amusing, and more than a little pathetic, childish attacks.
You first, dear.
trollhattan
@Emma:
Edgy as cats in a room-full of rocking chairs, I think the saying goes. Plenty of things to be nervous about and ironically, the 2020 campaign ain’t one. It’s still March 2019 last I checked.
PaulB
@Cacti:
ROFL… No, dear, I wasn’t. I almost never post here and this is the first thread I’ve posted to in quite some time. You just happen to be lucky that I’m bored today.
Cacti
@PaulB:
I wasn’t asking you, stalker.
PaulB
@Cacti:
Why, dear? That has nothing at all to do with your comments that I was responding to.
PaulB
@Cacti:
LOL… I guess there’s another word we can add to the list of words you clearly do not know the meaning of….
Oh, you poor fragile soul.
Cacti
@PaulB:
Because you just keep pasting the same thing, stalker.
Fair Economist
@lamh36: That doesn’t mean that appealing to their economic issues can’t win their vote. There is a section of white racists that prefer Democratic economic policies. Some of them voted Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. Those presumably could be convinced to vote for a Democrat in 2020 and based on Obama it doesn’t take appealing to racism. It may or not be the best tactic to aim at those voters but it is not a moral failing to do so.
A Ghost To Most
@Cacti:
No. There were a bunch of comments (rikyrah, et al) yesterday about Pete B and POC. I was just reading them.
Who is this guy?
Cacti
@Fair Economist:
Did it win their vote in 2016?
PaulB
@Cacti:
Only in response to you “posting the same thing,” dear. When the comment is appropriate, I have no problem with repeating it, particularly since you have no answer for it, other than these rather pathetic attacks.
This is hilarious, though. i feel like I should be paying you for the entertainment. Do you have a Patreon account?
Major Major Major Major
Jesus christ, people
J R in WV
@FlyingToaster:
OH, No! You didn’t take Goblue72 out did you? I took everyone else out also too….
Cacti
@A Ghost To Most:
I’m starting to think a per-post troll, just based on the volume, ad hominem as his M.O., and the tendency to repeat himself.
Now watch him reply to this in 3…2…1…
PaulB
@A Ghost To Most:
Someone who is vastly amused by the games you two are playing. And by your presumption.
Cacti
Called that one.
PaulB
@Cacti:
ROFL…. Oh, the irony…. And the blissful lack of self-awareness.
A Ghost To Most
@PaulB: Go take a shit somewhere else
Cacti
@A Ghost To Most:
I wonder if the B stands for Brezhnev? ;-)
Suzanne
@Kirk Spencer: Mmmm, no. HRC was definitely seen as suspect for having Mark Penn and her “hardworking Americans, white Americans” quote. For which she absolutely deserved criticism, BTW. And there was quite a bit of Bernie fandom around here early in the 2008 primary cycle. I recall one incident when someone in his camp said something mildly douchey, and someone in HRC’s camp replied that it was sexist, and everyone around here was like, “What? That wasn’t sexist AT ALL”. (It was mildly sexist but not a big deal, IMO.) Opinion didn’t really start to turn for another couple of months.
Then we are effectively stating that no Dems from red states can run. I disagree. Vehemently. Not just because that is a demographically losing strategy (70% of the population will soon have 30% of the senators—and this will mostly impact Dems), but also because I think that there are talented people everywhere.
Not to mention, he’s not really running for POTUS. He’s running for some sort of prominent role in national politics and is using this to raise his profile.
A Ghost To Most
@Cacti:
I’m thinking Buttwipe.
debbie
@Bill Arnold:
Just heard on the news here that it was Saudi Arabia who hacked Bezos’s phone and gave the info to the National Enquirer about his affair. No wonder Trump loves them so.
PaulB
@Major Major Major Major:
All right, I’ll move along and stop playing with these idiots, which should effectively end the trolling.
Although, let’s face it, this thread always was destined to go off the rails. And likely many more such threads to come. The 2020 Democratic primary is going to be brutal, if only because there are so many candidates that have to be torn down in order for someone else’s favored candidate to move ahead.
I don’t usually post here, preferring to lurk instead, and to post elsewhere. I’ll return to lurking mode.
Cacti
@debbie:
I thought it was the girlfriend’s Republican brother.
Emma
@trollhattan: I don’t even know why they’re fighting anymore. Someone should put up a new thread about any of the stuff we should be dealing with now. Me, I want to see the damn Mueller report. And kick that idiot DeVos from any jobs where she has power over children’s lives.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes, for example the whole issue of Warren’s possible Indian ancestry or was Harris was born …in Oakland, CA (someone would lie about that, seriously? it’s Oakland) are now old news.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
Point of order: Indiana is not the “upper Midwest.” Culturally and geographically, it’s much closer to Missouri or Kentucky than Michigan or Wisconsin. They even have Southern accents in Indiana. So, no, Mayor Pete does not have any special insight into what went wrong in Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016.
Sister Golden Bear
@schrodingers_cat: Agreed.
Thinking that that particular article is a hit piece is not mutually exclusive with thinking that a number his statements have been problematic. And I’m tired of people being toned police with the implications that they’re trolls and dupes for doing so.
Not just the HRC quote — dude, piss out, don’t piss in — but especially for his accommodationist remarks about Pence and Chik-A-Fil. No, I don’t want you to be a bridge to people who at best want to strip me of my rights as an American and a human being, and at worse want me quite literally dead.
I’m also irked by the implications that Midwesterner are the Real Murcians. Especially, galling because he wouldn’t be married — and would still be in the closet — if it weren’t for the actions of us coastal queers. I understand that as liberal politician in a red state he — and Beto — needs to couch things that way for the locals in a local/state race. But running for president means you’re running to represent the entire country, not just the Midwest, including us folks on the coasts (who also have a fuckton more votes).
These are all hopefully signs of inexperience, and I hope that he learns from them for a future run. But given that there are other candides who are more qualified ones who haven’t gotten a spate of puff pieces* because they’re the white guy d’jour — he’s gonna have to prove himself before I put him on my short list.
*As others have said, I don’t see anything sinister about the recent criticisms. A natural consequence of the recent puff pieces that dramatically raised his profile have been people taking a closer look at him — and the things that concern me are also things that happened recently.
matt
Let me tell you, I’m not especially impressed with candidates who have ‘one weird messaging trick’ to get through to Trump voters. It’s going to be about organizing and turning voters out without operating through the media, which is going to be hostile.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
At fucking least.
different-church-lady
If it’s all the same to you folks, I’ma sit this pie fight out until at least next January.
A Ghost To Most
Fighting? That wasn’t fighting. That was boredom. I know who Cacti is. PaulB might well be BorisInPutinland.
FlyingToaster
@J R in WV: I did, because I haven’t seen a comment from GB72 in an eon. If it returns, of course, back into the filter it goes.
Right now it’s a population of “1”, all the troll and his replies in this thread. Pfeh!
different-church-lady
@PaulB:
If we say yes, will you go away?
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck:
I hope you’re right, but I think it’s possible the 2016 shenanigans changed the fundamentals in a way we haven’t reckoned with yet. This thread is a pretty good demonstration that it’s not just Sanders supporters who are susceptible to the outrage machine.
Brachiator
@B.B.A.:
I don’t think that Sanders will be the nominee. But if he is, we have to make sure he wins. It’s pretty simple.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Well ain’t that the present danger: having learned the wrong lesson, disappointed “THEY’RE ALL ROTTEN” voters move from the Great Right Hope to the Great Left Revolutionary without any more understanding of what it takes to run a government than before.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
Before all the site issues I had about 12-15 people in the pie filter.
Since then I’ve had one or two and have taken various out every so often. Right now I’m up to two occupants, one a new one from this thread. Who might be Doug J doing a little light trolling? Probably not. But people who waste everyone’s time and makes reading here obnoxious? In the oven he goes.
smintheus
@Jane2: Ha ha. Seriously, you think they guy had never been to a city with a subway system? The author cites a number of ways in which Buttigieg plays the precious naif from the midwest, all of it seemingly as phoney as his current repackaging as a McKinsey “populist”. You may not agree with the author’s reading of Buttigieg’s self presentation, but it certainly is a legitimate way of reading the book.
smintheus
@zhena gogolia: Clap louder of tinker bell will die.
PJ
@different-church-lady: I’m sorry, but, notwithstanding that the first primary is not for another 10 months, it is required for all commenters in this establishment both to have vehement opinions about all Democratic candidates, and to relentlessly attack other commenters if their opinions, or lack of opinions, vary in the slightest from the commenter’s own opinions.
B.B.A.
@smintheus: This but unironically. It’s the other lesson of 2016. I’ll never doubt a woman again.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Everyone is uptight and worried about the future and if we can do anything about at least trying to shape it so that we doesn’t intentionally inflict damage and possibly actually make it better. And there is good reason to worry and be uptight. We see daily that our candidates are being bad mouthed and smeared. The right can not win on it’s actual policy, nor on it’s reasonable candidates, because it’s actual policy is horrible and none of it’s candidates are reasonable human beings.
I think we need to hammer this home every day, because the candidates can’t do this reasonably. But we have to also, as always, pick our battles and strategy. We are smarter than the opposition, we should use that and not our anger, which we all have plenty of.
A Ghost To Most
I know cacti well enough for benefit of the doubt. I also know that cacti can be as stubborn as me when pushed.
Being an asshole to another asshole is dirty work. It’s no country for nice people.
Kirk Spencer
@Suzanne: Point of etiquette first, please. The quote is from Cacti, but I’m the only person you named as responding to. I understand responding to two people’s points in the same message, but please identify either neither or both. My first reaction was a rude version of ‘don’t put words in my mouth’, then I thought to search for who was actually quoted.
To your point, while I do recall people doing both I’m seriously confused at it being “everyone”. I do recall bashing of Penn, and a lot more toward Hamsher after her site’s near-open racism against Obama developed. But there were several strong voices in favor of HRC as well. As to Wilmer, well, I don’t recall that at all. My recall is that this site was actually quite dismissive him fairly early in the cycle.
smintheus
@Colleeniem: So people who have not held office have now lost the right to critique their political betters? Or even comment on the blindspots in their political books? yikes
RobNYNY
OMG, PG is not agonizing enough about being a middle class kid who makes it into Harvard and becomes a Rhodes Scholar. That obviously disqualifies him even when his potential adversary is a mentally-ill fascist.
smintheus
@B.B.A.: Trump supporters are the very model of uncritical adulation.
A Ghost To Most
@Colleeniem:
As an engineer, I am always more impressed by real-world accomplishment than theory.
Marriages made be made in heaven,
But they are lived in Cleveland.
– My FIL to me on my wedding day
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: This is the nth time you have repeated this critique. It is condescending and insulting.
Implying that those of us who are not that enamored by Pete B are naive and easily led. So far among the people on this blog who have raised objections have been 2 black women, one immigrant and one trans woman. This critique has been repeated by you, satby, watergirl and gogol’s wife multiple times. May be you should listen to us, may be just may be we have a better bullshit detector than you. That’s how we fucking survive in your world. We are the opposite of naive and easily led.
Barbara
The one thing I will say about Mr. “You can believe me because I’m Harvard too and I know Noam Chomsky personally” is, would anyone be interested in hearing what you have to say without your pedigree? So, let us rewind the tape, including you, and now, make your case without including any reference to where either of you went to school, who you know, or whether someone else liked you or Pete when you were under 40, and try again.
When so much of an argument depends on proxies like where someone went to college, it is a weak argument. It is a logical fallacy to start with something like an a priori negative (“he went to Harvard so . . . basically any conclusion) and try to reason backward. I am also highly skeptical of what we mean by merit, but I think a lot of social determinants are far more significant than getting into Harvard, like how someone got into Harvard, and even that isn’t determinative. And until Noam Chomsky stops funneling his money into a trust for his kids, now probably his grandkids, and gives up tenure, he can stfu about what other people do with degrees from Harvard.
Anyway, I don’t mind negative accounts, but I hate weak arguments.
B.B.A.
@smintheus: And it works. They won the damn election.
A Ghost To Most
@RobNYNY: It’s not a binary choice on our side. If he is the nominee, we will vote for him. I’ve even reconciled myself to voting for nominee Gillibrand, though not Gabbard. I happen to think there are better choices.
smintheus
@Mike S: No, that’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying that there is a common type of Ivy striver whose main ‘principle’ is success at all costs, and who has mastered the art of seeming impressive to people who want to be impressed by pedigrees on paper.
And fwiw, that is exactly what most Rhodes scholars are. When you live among such students you see them making no pretense that they care about other people; they’re almost entirely about themselves and their careers and quite straightforward about that, while students. It’s only afterwards that they decide there is a use in pretending that they’re following some sort of higher calling than just personal enrichment and climbing the ladder of success.
I distinctly remember sitting in a common room at Oxford listening to a few Rhodes scholars discussing how they would break into the consulting ‘game’, and whether it was better to start by working for a big name firm or start their own. It was entirely a question of how to make the most money as quickly as possible. They acknowledged that they knew virtually nothing about business, so their strategy was focused on how to fake some sort of expertise for long enough until they could get sufficient experience to burrow in to the profession and cash in. Cynical barely begins to describe their attitudes. And they had zero concern for the damage they might do initially to the businesses they were going to help transform as they learned what the hell they needed to know. The only thing that mattered to them was to make as much money as possible as effortlessly as possible.
Citizen Alan
@germy:
Then the DemCoalition needs to actually get a viable candidate instead of anointing Mike Espy again and shoving everyone else out of the race.
Barbara
@smintheus: “He hasn’t overcome my preconceived bias of what ___________s are like.” That is about the level of reasoning on display in that article and it would be seen for what it is depending on which noun you use to fill in the blank. When you find yourself going on about Ivy Leaguers or Rhodes scholars in general you are talking more about yourself than any individual within the category.
wonkie
I don’t care about imperfections that can be found because I do not expect perfection.
So as far as I am concerned, I don’t read anything that isn’t policy analysis or polling data. I don’t want a candidate with policies outside the liberal/progressive range and I want the most electable based on polling data and ability to put together a campaign.
So I think that article belongs in the trash along with the comments from people who think Pete isn’t gay enough
Suzanne
@Kirk Spencer: Sorry. I’m typing on an old iPad and it often has Balloon Juice issues. Didn’t mean to put words in your mouth.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne:
He’s probably right that HRC’s message about American greatness went over like a lead balloon in strategically important parts of the country, including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I see nothing wrong with saying so. FFS, it’s not a personal dig. It seems excessive to me to basically decide, “Oh, he slammed Hillary, HE’S DEAD TO ME.”
smintheus
@Barbara: No, I’m talking about a type I knew well. I am not generalizing about Ivy Leaguers per se, but explicitly about a type that is all too common in the Ivies. I am however generalizing about Rhodes scholars, who are selected for certain qualities. Those qualifications do not include “cares about others” or “self effacing” or “principled”; they do include “charming”, “smooth”, and “self-confident”. Experience tells me to take Rhodes scholars with a huge grain of salt. There appears to be nothing in Buttigieg’s book or in his career thus far to persuade me from thinking he should not be taken at his own estimation.
Sab
@TaMara (HFG): Steve might be an asshole.
I acquired my fifth cat when I put my dad in a nursing home last year. The two girl cats are being unwelcoming. The boy tuxedo has been okay. The boy Maine coon has been a complete asshole. He doesn’t even dislike the new guy. He just can’t resist messing with his tail.
New guy is going blind, so of course he doesn’t see anything coming.
wmd
@Suzanne:
He’s running to get name recognition and a donor list for a Senate campaign in 2022. May try to get federal executive branch experience in a new Democratic administration as well, and likely a good speech opportunity at the convention.
Barbara
@smintheus: Full disclosure: I have deep skepticism about Mayor Pete, and although I think it’s important to examine 2016, I find it somewhat frustrating that any candidate would focus on Clinton instead of, for instance voting rights. Per rikyrah’s comments, talking about being more appealing to religious voters when black women are among the most religious demographics, is to put it mildly tone deaf. So he has a long way to go to appeal to me over others, but ambition and strategic career choices practically define what it means to be in politics. Bill Clinton, Cory Booker and Bobby Jindal were all Rhodes Scholars. I just don’t see how it matters one way or the other.
ETA: And the carefully curated career goes double or triple if you can’t self-finance. Sometimes you work at Mckinsey to pay off your student loans and learn in the belly of the beast what ails the corporate world.
Uncle Cosmo
@A Ghost To Most: Cosign. Let us update that one of FDR’s Four Freedoms to
That orta do it.
eemom
Would this be a good time to point out that the authorities Robinson adoringly quotes in support of his contempt for Buttigeig’s academic pedigree include Andrew Sullivan as well as Chomsky?
We are living in a parody of a parody of a parody.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I don’t mind the criticisms of McKinsey and Mayor Pete would do well to tell us what he did for the company. At the same time, the Bernout writing this won’t admit refusing to release 10 years of tax returns also raises red flags and requires an explanation by Wilmer.
schrodingers_cat
@eemom:This article is a total BS hit job, and I saw this as someone who is not sold on Pete B.
Brachiator
@smintheus:
Just stop with the bullshit.
I used to hear this same kind of shit about anyone who went to college.
Omnes Omnibus
I find myself spending less and less time here lately. I wonder why.
Procopius
I don’t know much about Buttigieg (yet) but as to distrusting ex-McKinsey consultants, I probably would have said the same thing three or four years ago, but I’m a fan of Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism and she’s an ex-McKinsey consultant. Great training in the tedious detail work of financial analysis and learning how the kind of people who hire McKinsey think. I’ve liked the little I’ve heard from him and so far haven’t seen any statement from him that’s a deal breaker. I can’t say the same for Harris.
debit
@Omnes Omnibus: I try to stay in the animal and gardening threads.
Barbara
@Procopius: I wonder at the level of student loans among emerging politicians. If earning money from a well-paying job for a few years to pay them off is now considered a liability, that would be, among other things, highly elitist. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to consider what kind of unearned advantage they bring to the table. I’ll start: my first year tuition at an out of state university was $1600. My entire student loan burden was under $7000, four four years. No doubt Matt Yglesias has less debt from Harvard than Mayor Pete likely does.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Moi aussi.
A lot of the recent comments make me stabby and migrainey.
Bex
@David Merry Christmas Koch: He does tell you in his book, “Shortest Way Home.”
Jay
119 comments short of a TBogg unit.
eemom
@Jay:
That’s why I brought up Sullivan.
PST
@Mnemosyne:
My experience differs. Indiana north of Indianapolis is very much like Michigan or Wisconsin. Cities like Fort Wayne, Elkhart, Lafayette, and South Bend are culturally and economically like their neighbors in northern Ohio and Illinois and southern Michigan and Wisconsin. Most of these developed around similar industries, especially adjuncts to automobile manufacturing. People across the region speak the same lower lakes dialect. There is a big shift in speech (something I learned through taunting) and some change in customs as you move south in Indiana, but every state has regional differences. I doubt growing up in South Bend was much different from growing up in Toledo or Kalamazoo.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s been a terrible loss. But on the positive side, we can miss you if you go away.
smintheus
@Brachiator: I don’t know what your point is supposed to be. Yes there is such a type. Yes Rhodes scholars are selected for the ability to talk a good game. Experience is one of the means by which we evaluate the world.
Barbara
@eemom: I think you missed the optimal point for launching comments into the Tbogg orbit.
smintheus
@Barbara: Why are you assuming that Buttigieg took a consulting job because he had large student debts? In my experience, students who take multiple summer internships rather than holding paying jobs are not those struggling to pay for college. If that is his reason for going to work for McKinsey, why doesn’t he say so in his book?
plato
Rethugs attack dems.
Dems attack dems.
No wonder rethugs are in control almost everywhere.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I’m done explaining how comments to other people that don’t reference you aren’t about you.
Sab
@debit: Yikes! as they say in the midwest.
Sab
@germy: I never forget about Rob Portman
Jay
108 to go pipple, let’s get moving,
TBogg waits for no nym.
eemom
@Jay:
Meh, I think Barbara is right. Ya gotta hit that sweet spot where you push enough buttons BEFORE you get buried under new threads.
Jay
@eemom:
Hard to say, sometimes the “vengance is mine” crowd come back to dead thread after a meal out, a stiff pint, or a good nights sleep,
??????????
chopper
@schrodingers_cat:
but you were criticizing him over an essay he wrote decades ago. that’s what i’m talking about here.
you want to attack the guy great, but that’s a fucking bullshit way to do it. there’s plenty to hit the guy over that actually counts.
Barbara
@smintheus: I am not assuming anything. I am not excluding the possibility. It seems like you are making assumptions, and I am pointing out that sometimes those assumptions might be incorrect.
Colleeniem
@smintheus: I didn’t say he wasn’t allowed. I said consider the source. The perspective. I read the entire article, I didn’t boycott it. Which is why I mentioned his thought that hate is required; I’m taking to he totality of his perspective into account. Everyone should do that.