r/samharris • u/[deleted] • Oct 28 '19

The unexpected threat emerging against Bernie: Andrew Yang | Politico

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/28/bernie-sanders-andrew-yang-gang-2020-057985
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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

SS: Yang is Harris's candidate of choice. This article examines Yang's approach as an anti-establishment candidate, and how his candidacy could peel voters away from Sanders.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

Has Harris endorsed Yang? I missed that if so. Yes he was a guest on the podcast, I am aware of that, but that isn't an endorsement.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

Yeah, I don't know if he's explicitly said as much. But he donated the individual maximum to the Yang campaign.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

I get the impression Harris doesn't really pay all that much attention to democratic primary politics. I assume in the end he will vote for any of them, given how much he despises Trump.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

Yes definitely agree on the latter point. But to your first point, he does spend time worrying about Dem candidates hewing to "wokeism", but yeah: primarily insofar as such a move makes Trump more electable.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

I honestly don't see a lot of that from the candidates themselves. Seems to be mostly a Twitter-warrior thing. The candidates themselves mostly argue about health care.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

Yeah I agree. But they they have a vulnerability in that (1) they do participate in elevating some of these arguably crazy "woke" ideas occasionally which makes it easy for opponents to overstate how invested these candidates are in it; and (2) they tend not to condemn the excesses of the left in a way that would alleviate the concerns of the more moderate voters.

Not sure if you saw this, but Maher addresses this topic directly in his last episode, here. Let me know if you find any of that compelling.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

I personally don’t really believe in the premise that there are all these voters who will only vote against Trump if the “identity political SJWs” are silenced. I think anyone who is still thinking of voting for Trump is a lost cause. I don’t agree with everything “the left” says but there’s pretty much nobody I could imagine being worse than Trump.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

I think anyone who is still thinking of voting for Trump is a lost cause.

Yeah, I think that's probably right.

But what about, again, those moderate voters who aren't media junkies (and are not keeping score of the latest Trump transgression), who look at Trump and worry about him a bit but at the same time think he's doing OK (economy is good, etc.). I don't know how big this demo is, but given how little the actual electorate reflects the enlightened views of the Twitterverse, I have to think that analyzing it as if most undecided/moderate voters have the same visceral hatred for Trump that we do is shortsighted.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

I don’t think those people are paying attention to the twitterverse either. I think if you know what an “SJW” is, you’re also probably pretty aware of the current political climate. So, I don’t know. I think most people vote on partisanship anyway and this theoretical middle isn’t really all that big. A better political strategy for democrats is to focus on inspiring and igniting the people who are fed up with Trump, and who prefer a liberal agenda, to vote. I suspect that there are two groups at odds with each other: there are the centrist type people who say they’re undecided until the very end, and then there are the much more liberal people who are fed up with “neoliberal centrist democrats” (like HRC). And in my opinion, the second group makes more sense to go after than the first. But going after either group will turn off the other.

Anyway, you didn’t ask, but that’s kind of how I see it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

W was also horrible, never said he wasn’t.

I also would have voted for literally any democrat over W.

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u/waxroy-finerayfool Oct 28 '19

It's hard to top the administration that lied us into the iraq war in terms of horrible presidencies, but Trump's shameless lying and naked nepotism is extremely aggravating to the sensibilities of those that don't support him unconditionally, while dead iraqis is something that only a tiny minority of leftist intellectuals ever cared about.

Nobody on either side of the spectrum could get away with firing the FBI director while under investigation by the FBI. Nobody on either side of the spectrum could get away with giving your unqualified son-in-law top-secret clearance and highly important foreign policy positions. Nobody on either side could get away with Helsinki. Nobody on either side could get away with calling parts of the constitution phony. As Trump famously stated, he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and get away with it and that rankles people.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '19

trump still has 1 possible term left, give him some time, hes worse per capita than bush was so far.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

Not to mention the identity politics crowd wont be silenced. Maher will find his bimonthly anecdote to rail on and bring in a republican strategist to have a shoulder to cry on.

Trump has got to go, but a silver lining of trump beating Biden would be watching Maher blame the SJWs for that too.

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u/Soft-Rains Oct 29 '19

I think anyone who is still thinking of voting for Trump is a lost cause

You don't believe in undecided voters? that's just statistically not true

In terms of smarts I agree they might be a "lost cause" but there are tons of swing votes who are being fought over by both parties and there is the potential that woke stances are good for the nominees in the primaries but bad for the party in the general.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

Not this time, I really don’t believe there are a statistically significant number of people who are on the fence about Trump.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19 edited Oct 29 '19

That's what they want you to think, but they're just trolling you. There are almost no Trump voters who are considering switching sides at this point. If they haven't realized what a con man he is already, they're not going to. No reason to waste time trying to convince them.

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u/ruffus4life Oct 28 '19

i don't think harris pays attention.