Senate Going Postal: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

That's not my point. It's a ridiculous and meaningless thing to assert when the major party candidates for at least the past 50 years have been solidly right-wing. Biden is the same person he was in 1994.

 

I'd say he's actually not the same person, in the sense that he's the classical politician who follows the consensus. In the 90s, for example, the tough on crime approach was extremely popular when compared to now. So he is a different person, in the sense that now he wouldn't advocate for the crime bill because all he cares about is to put himself where the majority is.
It is correct to state that he'd be the most progressive, and that's just because the public opinion has shifted significantly toward progressive ideas, and he'll likely move in that direction on several issues.

 

I think both standards are pretty dumb. On the one hand, yes, faced with a continued leftward movement in the Party platform since about 2004, every candidate is iteratively "the most progressive in history." At the same time, asking whether their goals are entirely satisfying to one of the most firmly left wing posters here probably also misses the mark, as that would reflect a speed of political evolution that is rare to witness at any time in history.

I think the standards are:
A) Relative to the default/relative rate of change, does the nominee significantly outpace, retard, or match it?
B) Will the policies they propose on the issues in question substantively alter their lived experience or operation?

On this analysis, as Esmir suggests above, I'd say Biden "matches" the expected rate of change (noting current events have accelerated it) and that his policy recommendations would alter lived experience.

 

As I've posted before, Biden has consistently been trying to me the exact middle of the then-current Democratic party at the time. The party's moved significantly leftward, so his "middle of the party" is way more left than his middle in the 1980s.

 

Come on, Biden has always positioned himself at the right of the party. The man was palling around with Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms in the 1980s. He admonished Ronald Reagan and HW Bush for not prosecuting the drug war strongly enough.

 

Love being a Jewish American right now. Yep, absolutely love it.

 

Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg... classic Marxists !

 

Yes, but that doesn't hold up to the statistical analysis that 538 did. He's gonna be righter on some things and lefter on some things, of course... hence the middle.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-pandemic-has-pushed-biden-to-the-left-how-far-will-he-go/

 

Because 538 statistical analyses are the best things to rely on, as history has demonstrated.

EDIT: I actually don't think I do satire that well so I'll just be more direct. I find the guy that runs 538 to be something of a charlatan. He started out denouncing political punditry and trying to contrast it with his more mathematically robust approach. But there are a number of problems here:

1. He asks questions that are fundamentally not compatible with this kind of analysis. The above, which tries to mathematically calculate someone's political position, is an egregious example of this genre. It just misunderstands how these matters actually work. A person who takes a virulently right wing position like "immigrant make our country dirtier and sicker" but also a nominally populist one like being concerned about unemployment doesn't make you a centrist. It's literally just Tucker Carlson.

2. He knowingly interprets results in dishonest ways. Yes, he usually offers the caveat that polls are a snapshot and not a prediction. At the same time, he also had a familiar refrain that people were worried "too much" and that the election was well in-hand, even though that necessarily requires the sort of predictions he simultaneously claimed not to be making.

I don't mind punditry. I find it distasteful when they over-inflate their own importance or are misleading about the reliability of their results.

 

Aren't you supposed to know how statistics works in your supposed profession? You're scaring me, man...

 

I don't really care what fivethirtyeight says. He bragged about being a conservative Democrat.

 

The actual source...

 

I think you are right, "conservative Democrat", which seems to me something that we can indeed consider the center of mass of American politics (?)

 

The typical Democratic politician in the 1980s did not want to cut Social Security and Medicare and was not anti-choice.

 

I think the problem here is that Biden is behind the consensus on marijuana. Michigan voted to legalize in 2018, and they already have recreational dispensaries open. That's a state Biden needs to win, and he's against legalization? I think he's been listening to Republican advisors too much.

 

Those criticisms strike me as disingenuous. Biden offered those cuts as compromise positions against more ardent plans from Republicans.

I think it was a stupid strategy. It miscalculates the relative economic effects of some of these different initiatives and dramatically underestimates the importance of Medicare/Social Security. He puts too much faith in Republicans being genuine about their policy goals. It doesn't push back hard enough on defense spending. But a strategy that centers the preservation of Head Start and welfare because its "everything I care about" isn't an example of raging conservatism.

 

We are saying the same thing: he puts himself on the right of the "typical Democrat" so that he is roughly on the center when you consider both Republicans and Democrats together.

 

cause he is a republican and is running as one

literally just "Jewish Bolshevism" people forget that the antisemitism and anticommunism in fascism are not two evils, they are one and the same. It even shows up very overtly in fascist Finland before the term fascist" becomes a thing.

Then again Biden is also running on the same tactics. Both campaign's ads are indistinguishable from white army propaganda.

 

Communists were plenty anti-Semitic on their own... they didn't need any help.

This is why Russian Jews are generally not great fits for the Democratic party, and why it didn't surprise me some of Engel's positions, etc.

 

Not to mention closet Illuminati members.

 

Also, they boil Christian children for their blood... let's not forget that part.

 

11% of Bloomberg voters are switching to . . . Kanye?

 

Backing up a few posts, my boss claims with 100% certainty - and that proof exists - that George Soros is paying folks (like Anakinfan who CLAIMS she has never received her check - ). Proven fact, folks. Courtesy of my boss.

So who can dispute that known fact (and wish to retain their job)? Since my boss is other-than-politics a good guy and good boss, I will shut myself up.

 

Joe Biden really needs to improve on health care. I'd be willing to accept some universal non single payer program, but it appears that he really has nothing to offer.

 

It's galling how Biden just interrupts Ady to drive home the point that, no, he doesn't support a system that wouldn't bankrupt people like the man dying from ALS.

Also we need to do something about those Klobuchar bros not voting for Biden.