To Biden or Not to Biden...That is the Question

Now that we've seen half of the candidates duke it out tonight, the NYT poses the question that has been on every Dem's mind for a while:

Democrats Diverge on Economy and Immigration in First Debate

Should Democrats rally behind Mr. Biden, a moderate who is the field’s best-known candidate, or find a more progressive alternative?

Some candidates had some hot takes tonight:

Elizabeth Warren

"What’s been missing is courage. Courage in Washington to take on the giants
“We need to make structural change in our government, in our economy and in our country”

Cory Booker

"When the debate turned to tech companies, Mr. Booker stopped short of endorsing Ms. Warren’s call to break up the biggest firms, like Facebook and Google, while saying it was clear that the economy 'is not working for average Americans.'
When Mr. Booker was reminded that he had attacked Ms. Warren this year for naming some of the corporations she would break up, he retreated. “I don’t think we disagree,” he said, adding that he also felt strongly about “the need to check corporate consolidation.”

However, there were also some centrists advocating for the status-quo in the field tonight:

John Delaney

“I think we should be the party that keeps what’s working and fixes what’s broken,”

Tim Ryan

“We have got to change the center of gravity of the Democratic Party from being coastal and elitist and Ivy League,” he said, adding the party needed to remember “the forgotten communities that have been left behind for the last 30 years.”

Questions to Consider:

-Should the Dems go with Biden and therefore the status-quo, or someone with farther-left views? Who has the best chance of beating Trump in 2020?

-Do you think the Democratic party's move to the left, gaining the votes of those who are very liberal while ignoring centrist voters, will lead to success in 2020?

-Has tonight's debate changed your opinion of any of the candidates, on economic policy or otherwise?

-Are the candidates just spouting campaign rhetoric, or do you think they will be able to affect change after they are in office?

-For the Republicans out there, which Democratic candidate would you vote for if you could not vote for Trump in 2020?

 

Biden has the best chance of beating Trump because he appeals to Trump's voters (especially the ones in swing states) more than someone who is super liberal like Bernie or Warren

 
Funniest

These debates cemented my view that the Democratic Party's policy platform is INSANE.

"Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly—and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence." - Thomas Sowell
 

As a resident WSO lefty, I was surprised to see them all do this. This is the danger of a long, 20-horse race to the primary nomination. I just pray whoever is left standing at the end of this 18-month process can still tack back to the middle enough to beat Trump. That's my only qualification to earn my primary vote.

And anyone not named Biden, Warren, Harris, or Buttigieg needs to exit stage left as soon as possible.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."
 
Alt-Ctr-Left:
As a resident WSO lefty, I was surprised to see them all do this. This is the danger of a long, 20-horse race to the primary nomination. I just pray whoever is left standing at the end of this 18-month process can still tack back to the middle enough to beat Trump. That's my only qualification to earn my primary vote.

And anyone not named Biden, Warren, Harris, or Buttigieg needs to exit stage left as soon as possible.

Due to social media and the Internet, candidates will no longer be able to move to the extreme to the primary and then move to the center in the general. There is visual record of their positions. At last night's debate, all the Dem candidates (except Biden, who had his hand halfway raised) was on record for using taxpayer dollars to fund healthcare for illegal aliens.

 
frothy88:
Why would anyone vote for a democrat

'cause they like free handouts from big government

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Biden had a rough night. Got beaten up a bit and seemed very old (although Bernie can make anyone seem young in comparison.)

Between the two nights, Warren, Booker, Harris, and Buttigieg performed the best. Time will tell if that means anything in the polling.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 
CRE:
Biden had a rough night. Got beaten up a bit and seemed very old

Agreed. I don't think he ends up with the nomination. But we're in the first inning of this thing.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."
 

Biden looks and is too old to get my vote. His performance last night was not very good and was schooled by Kamala Harris. I felt a little bad for Biden while he responded to the question about desegregation and busing. Rather than defending his position with states rights, he should have ignored her question and then immediately pivoted to his civil rights record.

 
Most Helpful

I'm a Republican who has been following politics for quite some time.

Overall, I am shocked at how far left the Dems have moved. Every Dem nominee in the post-Bill Clinton era has been more liberal than his/her predecessor. Gore 2000 was more liberal than Clinton but still fairly moderate. That year, Gore and Bush were not that far off in terms of policy and ideology. Kerry 2004 was more liberal than Gore but still center-left, although his position on Iraq was troubling. Obama 2008 was liberal, but he was able to run as a moderate, and the media let him get away with it. Add in the historical nature of his candidacy and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and an Obama victory was guaranteed. Obama 2012 was a sharp break: that year, Obama ran an aggressive populist campaign that lambasted the private sector (with PE tycoon Romney as his perfect foil), elevated the federal government into the center of American economic growth ("You didn't build that!!!!"), and cultural and social liberalism via DACA and other aspects of identity politics (Obama "came around" on gay marriage that year and pontificated on the Trayvon Martin case before knowing all the facts). Hillary 2016 was Obama 2012 on steroids: non-stop obnoxious identity politics ("I'm with HER!!!"), more refugees and de facto open borders, higher taxes and regulations, continuation of Obama status quo on foreign policy and trade.

But 2020 Dems. Holy cow. They would make McGovern 1972 blush with respect to the audacity and insanity of their proposals. Bernie and Warren are actual socialists who are advocating a total restructuring of America's capitalist system, one in which corporations are transformed from economic units to social ones. They want a government takeover of healthcare via "Medicare for All," a gross misnomer, as it really is Medicaid for All, resulting in a massive increase in consumers, shortage of providers, deterioration of care, and longer wait times. You really think government reimbursement of providers and hospitals at the medicare rate will result in a higher supply of top notch doctors and other providers? Lol. They also want massive tax increases to fund these programs. Don't buy the hogwash that they will only raise taxes on the "rich," an arbitrary group of Americans as people frequently move in and out of various income categories. The last Dem to actually cut the marginal tax rate on individuals was JFK 1962, so don't hold your breath that the average joe will get a tax cut under a Dem presidency.

Most of the other Dem candidates support Bernie and Warren's economic agenda. Kamala has not moved quite as far left as Bernie/Warren, but she makes up for it with race based identity politics. Many of the Dems support reparations, a morally reprehensible idea that Americans who had nothing to do with slavery should compensate blacks who were never slaves. Of course, we spent billions on government programs and affirmative action to help blacks since the 1960s, but don't tell that to Ta-Nehisi Coates and the race baiting liberals!

On immigration, they are not just wrong but downright un-American and dangerous. Look at the Dems' rhetoric on immigration as late as 2008. They are not too different from the current Republican position: secure our borders, deport illegal aliens, no citizenship. Obama even said in 2006 that he gets mad when he hears Latino workers speaking Spanish or wave the Mexican flag. Bill Clinton sounded downright Trumpian when he spoke about this topic during his presidency.

So what changed? Well it's about political power. In 2012, Obama realized that in the midst of a lackluster economy, he was not going to do that well with white voters (he got around 40% of whites that year). He had to rile up the minority base, and using executive power to essentially re-write immigration law via DACA was a great way of doing that. Sure enough, it worked. Obama crushed Romney with minorities and won re-election by a solid 332-206 EC margin.

Now, Dems are going way beyond Obama and even Hillary. They oppose increased border security, enforcement, or additional funding to ICE and immigration judges. They do not have a plan to reduce illegal immigration. They are on record saying that illegal entry should be a civil offense, not a criminal one and that they should not only get to stay in the U.S. and enjoy benefits at taxpayers' expense, but that they should be given citizenship. This is the Dems' endgame. They want millions of future Dem voters, assuring them control of the country. After that, America becomes a de facto socialist nation.

The 2020 Dems repulse me as their policy agenda is un-American and a threat to the Republic. Although I was lukewarm about Trump in 2016, I cannot wait to donate money to and vote for him in 2020. If I were forced to vote for a Dem, it would be Bennet or Delaney, as they are still sane and relatively moderate.

Good lord, this country is in decline.

 

Thank you for the breakdown, I follow politics closely but don't really know enough to analyze any president before Obama due to my age.

I will partially agree with you here. All the candidates' immigration policy is reprehensible and is a slap in the fact to all legal immigrants who played the game and jumped through hoops, although I wouldn't go so far to claim that this is all part of some big plot to create Dem voters. On the other hand, you could say that Republicans have a proven track record of manipulating voters (they were the first and are more frequent gerrymanderers than Dems). Reparations is plain stupid, no need to explain that one.

I will agree with you on Medicaid for all is a dumb idea, but not for the reasons that you are saying. Medicaid is where the government reimburses private companies for providing healthcare for the poor. The free market is still able to set doctors' salaries, so there wouldn't be any brain drain like the NHS is currently facing. The problem that the US faces is a lack of general practitioners, but I mean if you already slaved away for 4 years in med school why not slave away for a couple more to greatly multiple your pay. Medicare for all is a good theoretical idea for me because then the government can negotiate the cost of drugs and treatment, which keeps prices down unlike today.

My question to you would be: How can you put up with Trump? Dems policy may be wack, but I will take nearly every Dem over Trump any day. Trump is un-diplomatic, his foreign policy seems to consist of bullying other countries into compliance using tariffs rather than actually negotiating, and there are far too many shady question marks surrounding not just him (Russia, inauguration, refusing to turn over Citi/DB's records of him, tax returns) but also the people he has chosen for positions in his administration (old Interior Secretary, Elaine Chao, FEMA chief fired, etc.)

 

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I will address the last paragraph since that gets to a larger point about why I support Trump.

Some background is essential here. I was vociferously anti-Trump during the 2016 GOP primary. I reluctantly voted for Trump in the general, not because I liked the guy but because the Dems have moved too far left and I did agree with Trump on key core issues: immigration, trade, China, Obamacare, judges, taxes, regulations.

Now, let's fast forward to today and discuss what I like about the Trump presidency and my response to the objections raised.

  1. The Trump presidency is a fusion of Reagan conservatism with the older strain of conservative nationalism. Yes, it does advocate for lower taxes, deregulations, conservative judges, but it also rejects the neoconservative war mongering and nation building of George W. Bush and the libertarian fetishization of unlimited trade deals and mass immigration to maximize corporate profits. Trump believes in putting the interests of America first and foremost. He sees himself not as a globalist but as an AMERICAN President, wit a fiduciary duty to serve the interests of its people.

This means that we should be restrained in our foreign policy and not waste our blood and treasure on pointless wars unless they are absolutely necessary. And although Trump supports trade, he recognizes correctly that so many trade deals have been lopsided, in particular with China, and that the interests of American workers have not been served. Trump is correct to use our economic leverage via tariffs and other means in certain circumstances so that we can negotiate from a point of strength. On immigration, Trump is right to want to crush illegal inflow and to make legal immigration merit based rather than via visa lotteries and chain migration. Economically, mass import of unskilled immigrants undermine American workers and add very little incremental value to our economy. This is because their total compensation is roughly on par with the value of their products/services. Even Paul Krugman admitted as much in a 2006 NY Times article. And Harvard economist George Borjas has done excellent work on this topic as well.

  1. A major critique of Trump is his behavior: especially as it pertains to making fun of people on Twitter, overall tone, and interactions with foreign dictators. During the 2016 campaign, this bothered the heck out of me because I saw it as "unpresidential."

I have since considerably revised my views, mainly because I now recognize why Trump is doing this. Back in 2016, I thought the media had a liberal bias but was still more or less objective and concerned with getting the facts out. Since Trump's election, that illusion has washed away. I am disgusted by the media's double standard and intentional misinformation to divide this country and to undermine Trump. 90%+ of the media coverage is negative, and for the past few years they perpetuated the Russia collusion hoax, accusing our President of treason. The bogus Kavanaugh rape accusations, border crisis, and Covington Catholic, further reminded me that the media is now nothing more than stenographers for the Democratic Party. So if you are Trump, how do you respond? Play nice by acting "presidential?" Fuck that. You fight back hard and ruthlessly and use Twitter to get your message out. Trump responds when attacked first, and when he does, he will attack ferociously and with humor.

Now, onto his friendliness with foreign dictators. The critique is fairly ahistorical and shows an ignorance of human psychology and negotiations. First, there is a long history of U.S. Presidents saying nice things about dictators in order to get things done: FDR and Stalin is a prime example of this. Second, Trump is a businessman and a marketer, so he understands that in order to make a deal, you have to sell yourself first, before selling the deal itself. Trump knows that Kim Jong Un is a tyrant with nukes, that he is volatile, and in order to at least alleviate the threat, he needs to flatter his ego. Combine that with credible threat and unpredictability. It is still too early to say what will happen with North Korea, but we are not at war, contrary to what the pundits were predicting. It will be a long process, but I reject the notion that Trump needs to be a tough cowboy who rips on Kim because I don't see what the strategic rational behind that is.

Simply put, since this post is getting long, I am acutely aware of Trump's flaws. I am critical of many aspects such as his poor execution on healthcare and immigration and failure to staff important key positions. But overall I think he is the best POTUS since Reagan and will vote for him with enthusiasm in 2020. This decision would be different if Trump had governed as a liberal and the Dems were a moderate party of the 90s Bill Clinton era.

 
FCFE:

The 2020 Dems repulse me as their policy agenda is un-American and a threat to the Republic. Although I was lukewarm about Trump in 2016, I cannot wait to donate money to and vote for him in 2020.

Let the False Equivalence Election begin. We have a President who spends his days tweeting, crafting policy from cable TV, and fawning over dictators while holding the nuclear codes. And people want 4 more years of that because of..liberal policy platforms that will never see the light of day in the Republican Senate anyway?

Let’s get an adult in office in 2020 and go back to arguing over policy in 2024.

 
UnicornBanker:
FCFE:

The 2020 Dems repulse me as their policy agenda is un-American and a threat to the Republic. Although I was lukewarm about Trump in 2016, I cannot wait to donate money to and vote for him in 2020.

Let the False Equivalence Election begin. We have a President who spends his days tweeting, crafting policy from cable TV, and fawning over dictators while holding the nuclear codes. And people want 4 more years of that because of..liberal policy platforms that will never see the light of day in the Republican Senate anyway?

Let’s get an adult in office in 2020 and go back to arguing over policy in 2024.

And who on the dem side is a rational adult (except MAYBE Biden)?? When 90% want free healthcare for everyone, including illegals, they’ve lost me. It was hard for us to come to this country. Hugely painful, in fact. And we were running away from a pretty terrible place. But guess what? We respected US laws and abided by them. And we expected to be given nothing. A country’s government has a duty to put its own citizens first. Otherwise...why in the hell do we even need a government? For what?

 
FCFE:
I'm a Republican who has been following politics for quite some time.

Overall, I am shocked at how far left the Dems have moved. Every Dem nominee in the post-Bill Clinton era has been more liberal than his/her predecessor. Gore 2000 was more liberal than Clinton but still fairly moderate. That year, Gore and Bush were not that far off in terms of policy and ideology. Kerry 2004 was more liberal than Gore but still center-left, although his position on Iraq was troubling. Obama 2008 was liberal, but he was able to run as a moderate, and the media let him get away with it. Add in the historical nature of his candidacy and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and an Obama victory was guaranteed. Obama 2012 was a sharp break: that year, Obama ran an aggressive populist campaign that lambasted the private sector (with PE tycoon Romney as his perfect foil), elevated the federal government into the center of American economic growth ("You didn't build that!!!!"), and cultural and social liberalism via DACA and other aspects of identity politics (Obama "came around" on gay marriage that year and pontificated on the Trayvon Martin case before knowing all the facts). Hillary 2016 was Obama 2012 on steroids: non-stop obnoxious identity politics ("I'm with HER!!!"), more refugees and de facto open borders, higher taxes and regulations, continuation of Obama status quo on foreign policy and trade.

But 2020 Dems. Holy cow. They would make McGovern 1972 blush with respect to the audacity and insanity of their proposals. Bernie and Warren are actual socialists who are advocating a total restructuring of America's capitalist system, one in which corporations are transformed from economic units to social ones. They want a government takeover of healthcare via "Medicare for All," a gross misnomer, as it really is Medicaid for All, resulting in a massive increase in consumers, shortage of providers, deterioration of care, and longer wait times. You really think government reimbursement of providers and hospitals at the medicare rate will result in a higher supply of top notch doctors and other providers? Lol. They also want massive tax increases to fund these programs. Don't buy the hogwash that they will only raise taxes on the "rich," an arbitrary group of Americans as people frequently move in and out of various income categories. The last Dem to actually cut the marginal tax rate on individuals was JFK 1962, so don't hold your breath that the average joe will get a tax cut under a Dem presidency.

Most of the other Dem candidates support Bernie and Warren's economic agenda. Kamala has not moved quite as far left as Bernie/Warren, but she makes up for it with race based identity politics. Many of the Dems support reparations, a morally reprehensible idea that Americans who had nothing to do with slavery should compensate blacks who were never slaves. Of course, we spent billions on government programs and affirmative action to help blacks since the 1960s, but don't tell that to Ta-Nehisi Coates and the race baiting liberals!

On immigration, they are not just wrong but downright un-American and dangerous. Look at the Dems' rhetoric on immigration as late as 2008. They are not too different from the current Republican position: secure our borders, deport illegal aliens, no citizenship. Obama even said in 2006 that he gets mad when he hears Latino workers speaking Spanish or wave the Mexican flag. Bill Clinton sounded downright Trumpian when he spoke about this topic during his presidency.

So what changed? Well it's about political power. In 2012, Obama realized that in the midst of a lackluster economy, he was not going to do that well with white voters (he got around 40% of whites that year). He had to rile up the minority base, and using executive power to essentially re-write immigration law via DACA was a great way of doing that. Sure enough, it worked. Obama crushed Romney with minorities and won re-election by a solid 332-206 EC margin.

Now, Dems are going way beyond Obama and even Hillary. They oppose increased border security, enforcement, or additional funding to ICE and immigration judges. They do not have a plan to reduce illegal immigration. They are on record saying that illegal entry should be a civil offense, not a criminal one and that they should not only get to stay in the U.S. and enjoy benefits at taxpayers' expense, but that they should be given citizenship. This is the Dems' endgame. They want millions of future Dem voters, assuring them control of the country. After that, America becomes a de facto socialist nation.

The 2020 Dems repulse me as their policy agenda is un-American and a threat to the Republic. Although I was lukewarm about Trump in 2016, I cannot wait to donate money to and vote for him in 2020. If I were forced to vote for a Dem, it would be Bennet or Delaney, as they are still sane and relatively moderate.

Good lord, this country is in decline.

I'm genuinely afraid for this country. The Democratic party has fully lost its mind. After these debates and the last month or so of campaigning, I'm sort of in shock. Socialized medicine, de facto open borders, unrestricted federally funded abortion up until the moment of birth, slavery reparations(!), raising the corporate tax rate back to or above the highest in the industrialized world.

I just...it's shocking. This isn't the Democratic party. This is--this is the Socialist Party. In fact, in many ways, particularly on immigration and regulation, the Democrats are now to the left of the European left.

Array
 

Well why would Dems think they wouldn't get any and all of their progressive demands? "Principled" conservatives, aka the Washington Generals, haven't conserved a god damn thing over the last 50 years and have simply been token opposition that marginally slows down the full force of clown world.

But hey, at least the cucks are really good at writing 8,000 word op-eds about being Never Trump and coming up with "The Conservative Case for Transsexuals/Abortion/Single Parenthood" or whatever other issue they feeling like surrendering on.

 

Yes, you're right. However, the Democrats haven't lost their mind. They're merely pandering to the new demography, e.g. their new voter base. It's a paradigm and even Trump, elected to stop it, didn't - or couldn't - do it. And, in a few years time, the candidates which seems radical today will be considered beige.

It's a race to the bottom to appease minorities and in their eyes you (i.e. whites) will always be viewed as an oppressor. Regardless what policies are instated to help them, regardless the amounts reparations or affirmative action programs. Today we often hear how a disabled white man born into rural impoverished neighborhood is more privileged than health black man born into upper middle class neighborhood.

But will this affect the quarterly profits? Most likely, no. And, Hey! That's all we care for.

In the long term though.

 

The NYT just printed some idiotic "graph" where they tried to make the Democrats only mildly left by putting a "median" line on the graph. Nowhere in that graph did it say that the line was based on global averages which includes all of Europe and communists countries. The Democrats were left of that line, let that sink in. Also as a byproduct it makes the Republicans look like far right psychopaths, but if people read the article where it said how that median was created it had to have shocked them. I guess they were hoping their "intellectual" readership was too dumb to read the article and just took the doctored graph as face value.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

I just...it's shocking. This isn't the GOP party. This is--this is the Fascist Party. In fact, in many ways, particularly on American workers, the middle class, consumers, scientists, the environment, women, minorities, foreigners, religion, intellectuals, journalists, America's foreign allies and etc., the Republicans are now to the right of Ivan the Terrible / Attila the Hun / Genghis Khan.

 

Warren even proposed reparations for the LGBTQ community. Terrific. I hope she wins the nominee

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 

I was once a Republican. I grew up in a military family, and many military families are Republican, so I grew up with it. I've also lived a lot of places both in the US and abroad, so my opinions have evolved with my lived experience.

I was once against gay marriage, and would have regularly called others 'homo' or 'fag' without a second thought. I also used to believe in the collective wisdom of the markets as an imperfect but best available solution to most problems. I was vehemently against any form of socialized medicine, against affirmative action, and won a journalism scholarship to study in England and write for a major publication based on a single article I wrote in college arguing against slave reparations.

In high school, I was a Young Republican. In college, I was a College Republican. I have served as a Republican election judge in my home district, and I had never voted for any Democrat until Hillary, whom I disliked greatly. I have never understood this country's obsession with guns. My father was an Admiral, my mother was in the Navy, my brother is currently in the Navy, and both my grandfathers were marines. None of us own any guns. I was a wrestler in high school and college and plenty big enough to kick just about anyone's ass. I don't need a gun to protect myself because I'm not a pussy. I wish we had a few more non-pussies in this country. There's nothing more dangerous than a pussy with a gun, so I've never agreed with the GOP on that issue, but 10 years ago, I agreed with almost everything else.

I write all of this so that you understand where I'm coming from. It's not just the Dems that have lost their way. The GOP has lost its compass. It used to stand for fiscal responsibility, lower taxes and smaller government. But every administration of both parties have ballooned the size of government. The Republicans only want fiscal responsibility when the Dems are in power. We are currently running obscene deficits in boom times hoping to extend the bull run to the next election cycle. This sort of deficit spending was never meant to find its way into the GOP, but I guess Congress has grown too used to writing checks with their eyes closed to stop now.

The Dem platform on immigration is overly leftist at the moment to satisfy what they imagine are their primary voters. I hear all the time that 'all the energy in the party is on the left', and that 'the path to the nomination goes through black women'. Essentially, all the power in both parties has shifted to the fringes of the political spectrum. I blame the Citizens United decision for this. Politics has grown increasingly divided since then, and it has everything to do with allowing unlimited campaign finance contributions from special interest groups. After all, special interests almost always represent fringe issues. What did we think was going to happen?

The Dem positioning on most policy ideas is a mirror of the idiocy I see in Trump. Building a wall is dumb. That's not an immigration policy. We need to revise our asylum laws to narrow their scope. We need fewer low-skilled migrants entering the country. We need many more engineers and doctors and investors. We need to end family-linked sponsorship so that one person can't drag 3.5 more people (on average) from their extended family into the US after they arrive. And we need to reduce the number of visa lottery winners so we can take more people with skills we want. But Trump can't get any of that done because he talks about immigrants in a bigoted way so he isn't credible as a leader in that space.

The one thing I like about Trump is his stance on China. The Chinese need to change their unfair trade practices, their labor laws, their IP theft/forced IP transfers, and their human rights abuses. And they need to knock off their colonialist and militaristic tendencies in the South China Sea. But the way to bring them to the table isn't through tariffs. We aren't big enough on our own to force the Chinese to do what we want. We need our allies with us. We need the EU, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand to apply the same pressures to China that we are at the same time. But Trump has isolated most of those allies, so we have no coalition to force the Chinese to change their ways. And since we have to go it alone, and President Xi can't be seen as weak in facing off against the US, we're even less likely to get a reasonable deal.

My point is that even on the very narrow set of priorities I like of Trump's, I disagree entirely with his policies. I guess it's worth mentioning that his methods are abhorrent as well. The man is a joke of a human being. The fact that anyone voted for him is the reason I don't want most of the populace to have a vote. Democracy that results in Donald Trump is broken. Four more years of him will break it beyond repair.

The truth is that with Congress divided, no major policy initiatives will pass. There will be no movement on immigration, health care or anything else. The Republicans are likely to keep the Senate, so that won't change in the next administration even if a Dem takes the Presidency. Right now, they're all proposing ideas I can't get behind, and even if they move back to the center after winning the nomination, I probably won't support a lot of their ideas. But since their ideas won't get implemented and I dislike Trump's policies as much or more than theirs, and they're all more 'presidential' than the incumbent, I'm going to vote for one of them.

I'd honestly be ashamed to vote for Trump. You should be too.

 

Nearly everything you've said in your write-up is wrong or idiotic (I started a rebuttal but decided against it--would take too long), but I'll point out that GOP keeping the senate is not a foregone conclusion. It's well within the realm of possibility. About a 40% chance of Dems taking the senate right now, which is not lottery odds.

Array
 

Well said and I can relate to your story. I was also a member of a local young republicans club as a teenager. I lived in a area that was mostly lower middle class with very traditional views. I surely regret some of the things that I said and the views that I held. Today, I would describe myself as fiscally conservative to a point and socially liberal.

 

+1 brotherbear As a former Bush/McCain voter, I don’t even recognize the party anymore, and that transformation is something the younger Trump supporters on WSO can’t appreciate.

A testimony from someone like you is far more credible than someone like @real_Skankhunt42" who has been reliably cranking out pro-GOP posts on this site for 10 years now since his VTech username days. If you vigorously promoted the Bush GOP with the same enthusiasm that you cheer the Trump GOP, you are not a principled critic, you’re a partisan hack who roots for jersey colors.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."
 
brotherbear:
I was once a Republican. I grew up in a military family, and many military families are Republican, so I grew up with it. I've also lived a lot of places both in the US and abroad, so my opinions have evolved with my lived experience.

I was once against gay marriage, and would have regularly called others 'homo' or 'fag' without a second thought. I also used to believe in the collective wisdom of the markets as an imperfect but best available solution to most problems. I was vehemently against any form of socialized medicine, against affirmative action, and won a journalism scholarship to study in England and write for a major publication based on a single article I wrote in college arguing against slave reparations.

In high school, I was a Young Republican. In college, I was a College Republican. I have served as a Republican election judge in my home district, and I had never voted for any Democrat until Hillary, whom I disliked greatly. I have never understood this country's obsession with guns. My father was an Admiral, my mother was in the Navy, my brother is currently in the Navy, and both my grandfathers were marines. None of us own any guns. I was a wrestler in high school and college and plenty big enough to kick just about anyone's ass. I don't need a gun to protect myself because I'm not a pussy. I wish we had a few more non-pussies in this country. There's nothing more dangerous than a pussy with a gun, so I've never agreed with the GOP on that issue, but 10 years ago, I agreed with almost everything else.

I write all of this so that you understand where I'm coming from. It's not just the Dems that have lost their way. The GOP has lost its compass. It used to stand for fiscal responsibility, lower taxes and smaller government. But every administration of both parties have ballooned the size of government. The Republicans only want fiscal responsibility when the Dems are in power. We are currently running obscene deficits in boom times hoping to extend the bull run to the next election cycle. This sort of deficit spending was never meant to find its way into the GOP, but I guess Congress has grown too used to writing checks with their eyes closed to stop now.

The Dem platform on immigration is overly leftist at the moment to satisfy what they imagine are their primary voters. I hear all the time that 'all the energy in the party is on the left', and that 'the path to the nomination goes through black women'. Essentially, all the power in both parties has shifted to the fringes of the political spectrum. I blame the Citizens United decision for this. Politics has grown increasingly divided since then, and it has everything to do with allowing unlimited campaign finance contributions from special interest groups. After all, special interests almost always represent fringe issues. What did we think was going to happen?

The Dem positioning on most policy ideas is a mirror of the idiocy I see in Trump. Building a wall is dumb. That's not an immigration policy. We need to revise our asylum laws to narrow their scope. We need fewer low-skilled migrants entering the country. We need many more engineers and doctors and investors. We need to end family-linked sponsorship so that one person can't drag 3.5 more people (on average) from their extended family into the US after they arrive. And we need to reduce the number of visa lottery winners so we can take more people with skills we want. But Trump can't get any of that done because he talks about immigrants in a bigoted way so he isn't credible as a leader in that space.

The one thing I like about Trump is his stance on China. The Chinese need to change their unfair trade practices, their labor laws, their IP theft/forced IP transfers, and their human rights abuses. And they need to knock off their colonialist and militaristic tendencies in the South China Sea. But the way to bring them to the table isn't through tariffs. We aren't big enough on our own to force the Chinese to do what we want. We need our allies with us. We need the EU, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand to apply the same pressures to China that we are at the same time. But Trump has isolated most of those allies, so we have no coalition to force the Chinese to change their ways. And since we have to go it alone, and President Xi can't be seen as weak in facing off against the US, we're even less likely to get a reasonable deal.

My point is that even on the very narrow set of priorities I like of Trump's, I disagree entirely with his policies. I guess it's worth mentioning that his methods are abhorrent as well. The man is a joke of a human being. The fact that anyone voted for him is the reason I don't want most of the populace to have a vote. Democracy that results in Donald Trump is broken. Four more years of him will break it beyond repair.

The truth is that with Congress divided, no major policy initiatives will pass. There will be no movement on immigration, health care or anything else. The Republicans are likely to keep the Senate, so that won't change in the next administration even if a Dem takes the Presidency. Right now, they're all proposing ideas I can't get behind, and even if they move back to the center after winning the nomination, I probably won't support a lot of their ideas. But since their ideas won't get implemented and I dislike Trump's policies as much or more than theirs, and they're all more 'presidential' than the incumbent, I'm going to vote for one of them.

I'd honestly be ashamed to vote for Trump. You should be too.

So wait, let me get this straight. Your point about guns is...”I’m big and strong and I wrestled and I’m not a pussy, I don’t need a gun to protect myself, so others don’t need guns and I don’t understand why they would”.

...I mean...are you for real? Congrats on being big and strong and not a pussy. Many people aren’t, and don’t have you to protect them. Guns are the great equalizer - precisely because they don’t depend on strength, or combat skill, or numbers.

By the way, I come from a military family of big guys who are highly skilled in defending themselves (although not American) so I can probably somewhat relate. That said, I really don’t understand what you don’t understand.

 
FCFE:
I'm a Republican who has been following politics for quite some time.

Overall, I am shocked at how far left the Dems have moved. Every Dem nominee in the post-Bill Clinton era has been more liberal than his/her predecessor. Gore 2000 was more liberal than Clinton but still fairly moderate. That year, Gore and Bush were not that far off in terms of policy and ideology. Kerry 2004 was more liberal than Gore but still center-left, although his position on Iraq was troubling. Obama 2008 was liberal, but he was able to run as a moderate, and the media let him get away with it. Add in the historical nature of his candidacy and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and an Obama victory was guaranteed. Obama 2012 was a sharp break: that year, Obama ran an aggressive populist campaign that lambasted the private sector (with PE tycoon Romney as his perfect foil), elevated the federal government into the center of American economic growth ("You didn't build that!!!!"), and cultural and social liberalism via DACA and other aspects of identity politics (Obama "came around" on gay marriage that year and pontificated on the Trayvon Martin case before knowing all the facts). Hillary 2016 was Obama 2012 on steroids: non-stop obnoxious identity politics ("I'm with HER!!!"), more refugees and de facto open borders, higher taxes and regulations, continuation of Obama status quo on foreign policy and trade.

But 2020 Dems. Holy cow. They would make McGovern 1972 blush with respect to the audacity and insanity of their proposals. Bernie and Warren are actual socialists who are advocating a total restructuring of America's capitalist system, one in which corporations are transformed from economic units to social ones. They want a government takeover of healthcare via "Medicare for All," a gross misnomer, as it really is Medicaid for All, resulting in a massive increase in consumers, shortage of providers, deterioration of care, and longer wait times. You really think government reimbursement of providers and hospitals at the medicare rate will result in a higher supply of top notch doctors and other providers? Lol. They also want massive tax increases to fund these programs. Don't buy the hogwash that they will only raise taxes on the "rich," an arbitrary group of Americans as people frequently move in and out of various income categories. The last Dem to actually cut the marginal tax rate on individuals was JFK 1962, so don't hold your breath that the average joe will get a tax cut under a Dem presidency.

Most of the other Dem candidates support Bernie and Warren's economic agenda. Kamala has not moved quite as far left as Bernie/Warren, but she makes up for it with race based identity politics. Many of the Dems support reparations, a morally reprehensible idea that Americans who had nothing to do with slavery should compensate blacks who were never slaves. Of course, we spent billions on government programs and affirmative action to help blacks since the 1960s, but don't tell that to Ta-Nehisi Coates and the race baiting liberals!

On immigration, they are not just wrong but downright un-American and dangerous. Look at the Dems' rhetoric on immigration as late as 2008. They are not too different from the current Republican position: secure our borders, deport illegal aliens, no citizenship. Obama even said in 2006 that he gets mad when he hears Latino workers speaking Spanish or wave the Mexican flag. Bill Clinton sounded downright Trumpian when he spoke about this topic during his presidency.

So what changed? Well it's about political power. In 2012, Obama realized that in the midst of a lackluster economy, he was not going to do that well with white voters (he got around 40% of whites that year). He had to rile up the minority base, and using executive power to essentially re-write immigration law via DACA was a great way of doing that. Sure enough, it worked. Obama crushed Romney with minorities and won re-election by a solid 332-206 EC margin.

Now, Dems are going way beyond Obama and even Hillary. They oppose increased border security, enforcement, or additional funding to ICE and immigration judges. They do not have a plan to reduce illegal immigration. They are on record saying that illegal entry should be a civil offense, not a criminal one and that they should not only get to stay in the U.S. and enjoy benefits at taxpayers' expense, but that they should be given citizenship. This is the Dems' endgame. They want millions of future Dem voters, assuring them control of the country. After that, America becomes a de facto socialist nation.

The 2020 Dems repulse me as their policy agenda is un-American and a threat to the Republic. Although I was lukewarm about Trump in 2016, I cannot wait to donate money to and vote for him in 2020. If I were forced to vote for a Dem, it would be Bennet or Delaney, as they are still sane and relatively moderate.

Good lord, this country is in decline.

This. This x100.

 
TimWSO:
Democrats are so far left because republicans have gone so far right. Both parties are fucking nuts.. and Trump took it to a whole new level. Once the Dems get it down to 5 candidates I hope they tone down the borderline socialist rhetoric, or else it’ll be an easy win for a Trump.

I respectfully disagree. Trump's rhetoric and tone are polarizing, yes, but on policy he is by no means an extremist. Trump combines traditional GOP priorities on tax cuts, deregulations, and judges, with non-orthodox positions on immigration, trade, tariffs, and foreign policy. On social and cultural issues, he is vaguely pro-life but has stayed away from the Christian Right nonsense, aside from platitudes.

 
FCFE:
TimWSO:
Democrats are so far left because republicans have gone so far right. Both parties are fucking nuts.. and Trump took it to a whole new level. Once the Dems get it down to 5 candidates I hope they tone down the borderline socialist rhetoric, or else it’ll be an easy win for a Trump.

I respectfully disagree. Trump's rhetoric and tone are polarizing, yes, but on policy he is by no means an extremist. Trump combines traditional GOP priorities on tax cuts, deregulations, and judges, with non-orthodox positions on immigration, trade, tariffs, and foreign policy. On social and cultural issues, he is vaguely pro-life but has stayed away from the Christian Right nonsense, aside from platitudes.

We can agree to disagree then. I just can’t in good conscience vote for a dude saying windmills cause cancer. Every week he says something dumb on twitter. OTOH - I’ll never vote for a Warren / Sanders type democrat for obvious reasons. We need a common sense approach which generally means a moderate candidate, but primaries always bring out the extremes on both sides

 
TimWSO:
Democrats are so far left because republicans have gone so far right. Both parties are fucking nuts.. and Trump took it to a whole new level. Once the Dems get it down to 5 candidates I hope they tone down the borderline socialist rhetoric, or else it’ll be an easy win for a Trump.

Can you give an example of the Republican party moving "far right"?

Array
 
TimWSO:
Democrats are so far left because republicans have gone so far right. Both parties are fucking nuts.. and Trump took it to a whole new level. Once the Dems get it down to 5 candidates I hope they tone down the borderline socialist rhetoric, or else it’ll be an easy win for a Trump.
pew While it is true that conservatives have moved rightward, it's nothing compared to how far on the left liberals have moved, to the point that even moderate libs are starting to be labeled as Nazi for not being in tune with the latest id. politics fad.

Social media, campuses and broadly business have also started to encourage virtue signaling, thus the more extreme you are, the more you get praised by the mob, thus it's a never-ending self-fullfilling cycle.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 
neink:

While it is true that conservatives have moved rightward, it's nothing compared to how far on the left liberals have moved, to the point that even moderate libs are starting to be labeled as Nazi for not being in tune with the latest id. politics fad.

Social media, campuses and broadly business have also started to encourage virtue signaling, thus the more extreme you are, the more you get praised by the mob, thus it's a never-ending self-fullfilling cycle.

I assume that you mean "moving to the left" encompasses politicians running on platforms that offer "free education" and "free health care." The reason the Dems are trying to push these "free" programs is because their middle class constituents are telling them that these services are becoming unaffordable. For a middle class person with a family, purchasing a normal insurance plan would likely cost about $25,000 per year. That family (and lots of others) are opting for high deductible plans, which might only cost $5,000 to $10,000 per year. The high deductible plans are primary used as catastrophic coverage. Education has also become largely unaffordable for middle class people. To send two kids to state colleges, the cost would likely be about $250,000. These parents may as well plan to work until they are about 90 years old.

Do you have a solution for these issues?

 

No, conservatives/GOP/Republicans have been slowly moving to the center since ~2006. The gap is widening because the Democrats party has entirely collapsed into a huge number of small focus groups which has drastically shifted the balance point of the party to the left. Oh, not only has the GOP been slowly shifting to the center the base has actually been collating towards that balance point. What this means is that the more liberal parts of the party have been shifting right and the more conservative parts of the party have been shifting left. But yes, please do continue spreading fake news about how the GOP is just a bunch of "far-right" people. I guess when you are on the front of the hard left charge everything looks far to the right when you turn that way.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Not sure, but we know from Trump 2016 that polls do not necessary reflect reality.

Yang does not have strong media support but has had success building a base organically. I do not think that will be enough for his campaign to pan out though. Honestly, he lacks credibility to be believable in pulling off some of the audacious things he is saying.

He also claims that his mic was turned off during the debate. Maybe the fact that his is not a career democrat insider is working against at a deeper level that we cannot see.

 
real_Skankhunt42:
What I find confusing is that Yang seems to have intense and widespread support. Why is it not showing up in polls?

Yang has intense support that is not wide spread by any metric. He is a gimmick candidate and was terrible in the first debate.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

Manipulation, pretty much why Bernie seemed to have so little "poll" support yet he could pack a stadium like Trump could while Clinton struggled to fill a high school gym.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

I think many here are over weighting the influence of policy details on candidate favorability, which is sad but I increasingly see as the reality of politics today where the facts and details don't matter. We literally elected someone who ran on zero policy details and ultimately won an election that most thought was impossible. While on the other hand, Hillary offered zero emotional appeal, and ran on her focus on facts and plans.

Someone above mentioned that having opposing characteristics to an incumbent can be seen as a major positive. Trump has now actually been able to show himself in action for a few years, and it's basically been the same guy that was on the campaign trail. The experiment is over. May some people no longer give him the benefit of the doubt of being an untested politician? No doubt his base is perhaps even more staunchly at his side, but I'm not sure if that is true for a lot of independents. Especially those who held their nose and voted for Trump out of spite for Hillary, or thought to themselves "I'm sure his behavior will improve once he gets into office" or "we won't actually try to build a wall" etc. A lack of predictability also leads to a lack of security.

So I think many of the current democratic front runners are prepared to deliver on a potentially powerful message of being the adult in the room. Someone who is clear, stable, and pragmatic while ALSO being able to appeal to people on an emotional level (Warren, Harris, Butiggieg, Castro...Booker and Biden?? We'll see). I think many centrists will find security in that and respond favorably regardless of policy details. As an example, even I have never much favored Warren's policies, but I found myself gravitating towards her during the debate and even willing to keep an open mind now if she can come back center a bit (versus Bernie who has similar policies but I would never give a chance to).

Part of this is also taking the conversation away from Trump and keeping it on the issues (which sounds counter intuitive to my point, but I think Trump is simply an emotional topic for everyone). The first debate group did a much better job than the second on that.

 

I agree with you on Warren. She knows a lot about policy but so did Hillary and look where it got her. . Some people viewed Hillary as a knowledgeable robot. With Warren, not only is she knowledgeable but I think she will end up being more likeable than Hillary. I think Bernie has likeability issues even amongst some liberals. Biden has some likeability but he makes too many unforced errors.

 

I think the problem here is that that running and governing are 2 fundamentally different skills. I've been working my way through GoT and it's constantly mentioned that Robert Baratheon was a great conqueror but a bad ruler. Same concept here: the likeability of a candidate gets them into office, but it doesn't necessarily make them a good president, and in some cases even be a hindrance (see: Joe Biden and women). Likeability only becomes a factor for me if 2 candidates have an equally good policy platform, which almost never happens since there's always 1 or 2 issues where they differ.

Personally, I vote for whoever will be the best president, not who I think will win the nomination or win the presidency itself. Unfortunately, most people think the opposite.

 
Pmc2ghy:
"But her demeanor was so presidential!" shouted the straight white man as he was dragged off to the reeducation camp to atone for his sins of privilege and refusal to opt-in to his child receiving a state sponsored sex change operation.

Lol. Although you are being sarcastic, your post does strike at a truth: affluent white liberals are voting for nutty Dem policies because Trump is so mean on Twitter, and they don't like his vulgarity and persona. It is remarkably short sighted. Studies also show that white liberals are the only demographic group that favors other races over their own. And they are more liberal on race and identity issues than even blacks and Latinos.

 

The only candidate which can beat Trump is Gabbard. She can pull Conservative/Moderate votes better then any Democratic Candidate. She is even-tempered while still being able to smack-around Tim Ryan and effectively ended his campaign. Plus she's a fox. Unfortunately she's probably gonna get the Ron Paul 2012 treatment and get ignored by ideological agenda driven media outlets.

 
Pani55:
The only candidate which can beat Trump is Gabbard. She can pull Conservative/Moderate votes better then any Democratic Candidate. She is even-tempered while still being able to smack-around Tim Ryan and effectively ended his campaign. Plus she's a fox. Unfortunately she's probably gonna get the Ron Paul 2012 treatment and get ignored by ideological agenda driven media outlets.

Agreed on her electability. She did smack around Tim Ryan, but Ryan was 100% correct. Everyone recently elected (Obama, Trump) has been either an anti-war or anti-interventionist candidate until they get into office and realize that the world isn’t as black and white as they’d previously believed. People finally woke up to Ron Paul that his foreign policy was completely morally and intellectually bankrupt, which is why he finally faded into oblivion.

Array
 
real_Skankhunt42:
Pani55:
The only candidate which can beat Trump is Gabbard. She can pull Conservative/Moderate votes better then any Democratic Candidate. She is even-tempered while still being able to smack-around Tim Ryan and effectively ended his campaign. Plus she's a fox. Unfortunately she's probably gonna get the Ron Paul 2012 treatment and get ignored by ideological agenda driven media outlets.

Agreed on her electability. She did smack around Tim Ryan, but Ryan was 100% correct. Everyone recently elected (Obama, Trump) has been either an anti-war or anti-interventionist candidate until they get into office and realize that the world isn’t as black and white as they’d previously believed. People finally woke up to Ron Paul that his foreign policy was completely morally and intellectually bankrupt, which is why he finally faded into oblivion.

Libertarians are terrible on policy: naïve isolationist foreign policy, return to gold standard, open borders, fetishization of maximizing GDP and corporate profits at the expense of workers. There is a reason why Johnson-Weld only got 3.5% of votes nationwide despite so many conservatives looking for an alternative to Trump in 2016.

 

I voted for Gary Johnson in 2016; my state and local votes were split between the two major parties. I financially supported several candidates, none being Trump. In 2020, I will not only be voting for Mr. Trump, but I will also be making the largest campaign contribution I can.

I see Trump's many flaws. They are unfortunate and often quite troubling.

That said, the Democrats have lost all semblance of sanity and are now full-blown unrepentant Marxist authoritarians, both socially and economically. Hate-driven identity politics is their entire agenda and "equality" has now been re-defined as tyranically-imposed equal outcomes based on an ever-expanding "intersectional oppression" matrix. I say this as someone who grew up working class and who is firmly left-of-center on racial issues, with roughly half of my closest friends being black or Latino since childhood, due to my neighbohood being very integrated and everyone hanging out together. I generally date black women and will probably marry one. Even to me, Democrats right now are the scariest thing I've seen in my 31 years. They relentlessly attack both the first and second amendment under false pretenses--they CONSTANTLY try to shut down and cancel ideas they don't like (and intelligent arguments that don't fit their agenda) under the guise of "sensitivity", which is simply authoritarianism in sheep's clothing. And they lie about the reality of the gun issue all the time. It's staggering.

During the debate, Julien Castro called for free abortions for transgender women (who are XY's and obviously can't get pregnant). The crowd cheered! None of the candidates or moderators pointed out that what he was saying was completely insane. They CAN'T point that out anymore, because that would be "transphobic" to their new cult. The media tards actually said he had a great performance and was the breakout star of the night.

The Democrats needed to win back working-class Midwestern rust-belt workers who narrowly put Trump in office. That seemed quite doable. Until, of course, they decided on a platform of: group identity war, economic insanity, open borders, seize guns, and free abortions for men who cut their dicks off and wind up pregnant!

I could not have dreamed in 2016 that I would feel the way I feel now about Trump vs. Democrats. But I don't think I really shifted right, I think Trump has simply driven the Democrats to insanity. They seem to believe loud, unhinged, sanctimonious social justice warriors on Twitter and the Salon comments section represent the electorate. They do not. THEY LEARNED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FROM 2016! They have not left the NYC-L.A.-Academia-Media bubble in the slightest. They haven't peeked outside. They've just been raging and radicalizing and reassuring each other that "evErYoNE wHO diSAGreEs iS a BIgoT..." ever since the night Trump won.

I approached the Democratic debates with excitement and an open mind. I watched all two hours of both debates. It was the most insane fucking thing I have ever seen.

I am now sorry that I did not vote for Trump in 2016. I am sorry I ever listened to the mainstream press without critically examining their endless lies. And, for better or worse, I am aboard the so-called "Trump Train" for 2020.

"Now you's can't leave." -Sonny LoSpecchio
 

If the Dems want to win, they'll nominate Biden. He is the only Dem candidate who doesn't have one, or all of, the the following characteristics which result in being unelectable:

(i) Clearly an insane person (ii) Doesn't seem to, at a base level, like the country (iii) Shits on the middle of the country and panders exclusively to coastal progressives

Not saying the clearly insane thing in a tongue and cheek manner either. Anyone who argues that women are innately and uniquely (which is true in many ways) good and men are uniquely and innately bad, while also claiming that any man can be a woman if he chooses, comes off as an insane person. Also, wrt to the economic policy of a good chunk of the Dem candidates, a person who, after being warned that hot stoves burn skin, continues to attempt to place his hand on the hot stove while arguing that putting your hand on a hot stove has never been tried correctly, would qualify as an insane person.

I come from down in the valley, where mister when you're young, they bring you up to do like your daddy done
 

Idk man, I think if all those creepy videos of biden being way, way too touchy with children start circulating like they should be, that could be it for poor Joe, I cant imagine seeing any of that and still deciding to vote for him. anyways here's a link

Gun rights activist
 

So a lot to uncover...not sure where to start this may be kinda stream of conscious but who cares.

1) Im not sure if Biden will continue his lead nor if he is the candidate that can trump Trump. From a political science lens there is no clear cut candidate on the left who has all the things which historically have appealed to the American electorate....but this is 2019 not 2003 or 1990 and desperate times call for desperate measures.

2) A lot of east and west coast Dems. Harris, Booker, Warren, Yang. The last coastal democrat to win was JFK in 1963(unless you count "your favorite president" who switched to a "republican" but I don't think anyone takes his political allegiances seriously). John Kerry and Hillary both lost running from coastal states as I do not think they could shake the elitist reputation of their careers.

3) Trump will win again in 2020. Protest all you want but he has achieved a cult of personality that no modern president has ever come close to. He is similar to George Washington and Andrew Jackson with regard to avoiding the symbolic role of the president and instead choosing to attempt to retain a self image of the rebellious citizen. Economy numbers are ridiculous. GOP long term will need to reinvent themselves but we shall see what the future holds.

4) Andrew Yang is interesting but unfortunately not electable.

 

My sister, who isn't into politics much and when she votes she votes leftward, came back from the US a week ago (exchange/PHD research/psychology).

In one of the seminars she attended as teacher assistant one of the students claimed that ''the Soviet Union failed because of sexism, racism, anti-semitism and homophobia''. My sister was asked not to correct opinions and encourage them instead.

You have no idea how fucked are you.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 
neink:
My sister, who isn't into politics much and when she votes she votes leftward, came back from the US a week ago (exchange/PHD research/psychology).

In one of the seminars she attended as teacher assistant one of the students claimed that ''the Soviet Union failed because of sexism, racism, anti-semitism and homophobia''. My sister was asked not to correct opinions and encourage them instead.

You have no idea how fucked are you.

Not surprised at all by this. The anti-American Left controls our universities, media, and cultural institutions. We are a nation in decline, and people who think everything is hunky dory are delusional.

 
FCFE:

Not surprised at all by this. The anti-American Left controls our universities, media, and cultural institutions. We are a nation in decline, and people who think everything is hunky dory are delusional.

When conservatives or the President says we are in decline and America isn't that great, it's fine. But when Democrats, or Congresswomen of color say it, they have to "love it or leave it" and go back to Africa. Do I have that correct?

Also Brady, I'm sorry you never got into HBS and still want to blame immigrants and liberals for your career path.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."
 

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Aliquam quia quo quidem quia. Voluptatem assumenda occaecati necessitatibus aliquid. Et quia reprehenderit ipsum corporis. Possimus esse labore id voluptate veritatis placeat. Reiciendis voluptatem saepe pariatur ut. Dignissimos voluptatem modi vel odio accusamus magni. Tempora quibusdam accusantium adipisci asperiores.

"Now you's can't leave." -Sonny LoSpecchio
 

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Nobis odio sed pariatur enim. Numquam tempore saepe tempora odio dicta quaerat libero. Dolorem et quis non et sint maiores. Adipisci non consequatur fuga. Ut molestiae et eos debitis. Nobis aliquam libero nostrum.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."
 

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Odio quo sapiente modi voluptatem error quam culpa. Enim quis adipisci facilis inventore ut quaerat praesentium.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 

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Quo assumenda corporis ea id harum iure beatae. Harum dolor commodi laborum consequatur molestias. Veniam voluptas vero natus corrupti delectus.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 

Consequatur velit ut sit architecto sit id. Eos maiores quo ratione voluptatem repudiandae perferendis cum beatae. Facere ut vel aspernatur velit quod odit dolorem. Placeat et velit ut sunt qui incidunt. Ut iusto omnis voluptas hic rerum earum doloremque. Molestias ipsum delectus consectetur eveniet perspiciatis rerum. Saepe beatae vel id aliquam aliquid quia. Quis dolores quia voluptas eligendi itaque adipisci temporibus.

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Betsy Massar
99.0
4
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
5
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
6
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
7
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
8
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
9
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
10
Jamoldo's picture
Jamoldo
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”