2020 Presidential Election: let the jockeying commence

Dems want to lose honorably instead of backing a socialist.

 

If only that was true.

 

Ouch -- Kamala Harris now polling below Andrew Yang in her home state

IMO, this was the moment when it all went to hell for her

 

I still cannot believe Gabbard gets less support than Beta...that alone says how uninformed the Dems are...

 

No, they are all just secretly sexist but won't admit it.

 

Next up: Yang completes his self-stereotyping efforts by talking about kicking some butts using kung fu.

 

He can just reenact this scene.

 

As crazy as Yang sounds at this moment in history, he may be a man ahead of his time. If robots, computers, etc. take over most work, that would leave 100's of millions (or billions) worldwide without a means of support. Fortunately, this is probably a few generations away, if it happens at all. Nixon tossed around a similar idea re: guaranteed basic income decades ago.

If things go as Yang, and many other futurists, project, the alternatives would be much worse; things like (i) let billions starve, (ii) uprisings and civil wars worldwide, (iii) mass genocides to cull the human population to about 10%, or less, of current numbers (basically the radical environmentalists' wet dream), or (iv) some other awful alternative.

The difference between Yang and I is that I could see this sort of problem a few generations out. Yang thinks it's imminent.

 

So...Yang is Kung Fu Panda?

or are the Dems just...say it...Kung Fu Fighting

 

Chop, technology has never resulted in harming humans before. Instead it facilitates new types of jobs with new tapes of labor. Utilizing robots and AI will most likely make the average human more prosperous not less.

Wages are based on the productivity of each worker. That only increases with better and better technology.

 

That’s how it has always worked in the past. That does not mean it will always be so. I think the past trend will continue for a few more generations. Then at some point, the robots and computers will be very smart and capable of doing almost all work. The need for labor will then dramatically decrease. This will happen with a much higher population than the world now supports. Fixing and designing new robots and computers can only absorb so many, and many will not be capable of doing those jobs.

I hope this is 100+ years off, but I think that it will someday come to pass.

I don’t know the solution, but something like Yang proposes may have to be implemented (in the distant future). There may be two classes that emerge: a welfare underclass of 90% and a wealthy class of 10% who can and do perform the very high value jobs still available. Of that 10% around 1% will just own and not work (we’ve always had that situation). The wealthy must keep the welfare classes well enough fed and housed (and entertained) to stave off revolutions. Robot and drone armies wouldn’t hurt either.

So many futurists and assorted egg heads support Yang. He’s hopefully way ahead of his time--like a hundred years or more.

 

In 100-200 years, population will dropping like a rock anyway so it may work out.

 

That's a rosy scenario, but maybe it will work out that way.

I think it's probably 100+ years before robots and computers can truly think on a human level. The brain is immensely complex. It's a long time before the machines catch up. I'm not sure when global population will peak, but it needs to happen long before machines can do almost all of the work.

Another even rosier scenario is that the machines will be so efficient, they will create so much wealth and bounty that there's more than enough for everybody to live well. Work would all be charity or public service done from altruism. Equally likely is that we'll screw it all up somehow and blow ourselves to bits in endless major wars (including nuclear) and end up somewhere around our level in the Dark Ages.

 

Whether Yang is right or not, he's way too sensible and politically incorrect to be a Democrat today

 

Those 2 words to not belong in the same sentence.

 

Can Beto use all this blackface jibba jabba to boost himself out of 0%?
At least he only dressed up as a furry rabbit (or something)

 

I don't know, his history of dressing up thus far is sub-par and haphazard. He made a rather ugly and unconvincing girl when donning a dress for his band.

 

And here he is as an inebriated vaguely rockabilly-looking character:


While this is much more convincing than his girl outfit, his dressing up skills still need some work.

 

Seriously, this guy is a lightweight in politics. I'm talking a featherweight. His "success", which was actually a failure, was mainly due to Ted Cruz being so very unlikable. Add in some personal charisma and a media-hyped 'rock star' vibe to his campaign, and he gave Cruz a run for the money. In a general election, people will see right through him. Then again, perhaps I overestimate the majority of our population...

IMHO, if Biden wins the primary, he should look to Klobuchar (moderate, female, Midwestern, intelligent) to round out his ticket. Not this joke of a candidate (Beto).

 

On Monday, Warren released her plan to ban lobbyists from making political contributions, bundling donations or hosting fundraisers for candidates.

On Thursday, she hired a lobbyist who worked for Planned Parenthood to run her Florida campaign.

Reality is better than fiction

 

"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has received plenty of contributions from the healthcare industry over the years despite her endorsement of Medicare for All and her call to send executives to jail for their role in the opioid crisis. Between 2013 and 2018, she took $428,395 from healthcare-related industries. Although the Massachusetts senator has eschewed traditional fundraisers during her presidential run, she has received $44,000 in contributions from the same industries this cycle."

Which 2020 Democrats Are Taking Money From the Healthcare Industry?

Even Bernie is in on the action...

 

He is a featherweight - one of the most superficial political figures I've ever seen. There's truly nothing there. By far the biggest asset he had was the media. They licked his nut sack 24/7. It was more favorable than what Obama got in 2008.

And this will show how stupid the electorate was and is. Beto is a joke - just a dumbass with no accomplishments to his name, and he almost defeated Ted Cruz.

Six years earlier, Ted Cruz's opponent was a guy named Paul Sadler. Sadler wasn't "intersectional" and didn't pretend to be like Beta did, and he didn't make women horny. However, he was a man of real accomplishment. He spent 12 years in the Texas House, and he had a comprehensive knowledge of the issues. (I know, because I worked there and saw the guy in action. The hair on his left nut has more brains than Beto O'Rourke does.) Furthermore, he carried some of the most important and complicated education and tax legislation of the decade. He leaned Left but was overall a moderate and wasn't very partisan. He worked very well with Democrats and Republicans and generally had a reputation of honesty. In other words, he was a statesman. Despite all that, nobody threw money at him. Nobody got excited about him. Nobody gave him much of a chance, and no surprise, he lost by 16 points.

I'm not saying that people should have chosen Sadler over Cruz. Texas should elect conservatives. However, by any objective or mature evaluation, Sadler was 100 times more deserving of someone's vote than Beto O'Rourke was. If you didn't vote for Sadler but did vote for Beta, you're pretty much a dumbass and probably shouldn't have the right to vote at all.

I doubt that he will choose Klobuchar. She brings in moderate Midwestern appeal, but Biden is fairly good at attracting that himself. Furthermore, though she is everything you say she is, she is also boring and won't inspire young voters and leftists who will want someone young, intersectional (more so than Klobuchar who might be the whitest woman in America), or hard left. Biden will need to make overtures to them if he wants his base amped up. He could get someone who's intersectional - Harris (kinda black), Booker (also kinda black and maybe gay), or Buttitgieg (very white but very gay), or he could get someone who's less intersectional but hard left like Warren (hard left and very white but at least pretends not to be and is also female).

 

I think the healthcare industry learned its lesson from HillaryCare. They used to give very heavily to Republicans, and in 1993, they had to deal with a unified Democratic government that tried to pass a bill that likely would have destroyed the health insurance industry and would have kicked the hell out of healthcare industry in general. They were able to defeat the bill, but it was a close call.

I think they realized that they had to bankroll both sides to protect their industry and started throwing cash at Democrats. It worked. ObamaCare was bad legislation, but the main thing in the bill that would have really stomped on the industry was the public option. Because the industry had dumped a ton of money on Democrats, they were able to kill that part of the bill and without great effort.

 

The Dems are railing against private health insurance now anyway. Expensive bill for only 25 years.

 

Well at least she’s hot.
(Amy K)

 

I think Chop has Amy confused with Tulsi

 

I don’t doubt that Ted had the not being likable thing, but I think it was more of two things. One the people in Texas really didn’t know him all that well and the millennial (girl) treated him like a rockstar. The other is he got a ton of money from outside of Texas like from California with the Hollywood liberals. He spent 4X more money on his campaign than Cruz did. He still didn’t win.

 

They have indoctrinated the insurance companies into believing policies can basically only be written in a particular window of time.

I was curious whether any cheaper plans showed outside of the 'market' appearing on the government website. Unless I met the criterion for special enrollment, I could not get a quote on sites like BCBSTX. So, even if I wanted to acquire one of those over-priced, high-deductible, do nothing plans, I cannot get one right now...