Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

T R E 4 5 O N

“But what about the lurkers?”

Bark louder, little dog.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

He really is that stupid.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Second rate reporter says what?

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Cold Grey Iowa Caucus Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Proof of Concept

Cold Grey Iowa Caucus Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Proof of Concept

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We are not a joke, people! (Well, not a *deliberate* joke… )

We devout Cynics were told not to badmouth the Bernistas’ proclivity to attack Democrats instead of the greater enemy, Trump. When the voting finally started, we were told, Senator Sanders and his closest aides would quickly pull his supporters into line, for the greater good. Because they were mature adults, not hobbyists nursing their adolescent fantasies of exclusion and revenge.

Yeah, well, Iowa — and the Iowa caucus structure the Sanders campaign fought so hard to preserve — certainly provided some valuable lessons, yes it did!


Reader Interactions

42Comments

  1. 1.

    Mike in DC

    They want to take over the Democratic party.  That’s normal for people aspiring to win the nomination.  But this is a hostile takeover, and those who aren’t on board will be purged from leadership.  Those who stray from the new orthodoxy will be primaried as an example to others.  If they win the nomination and lose the general badly, they will blame the establishment and centrist/moderate dems for undermining them.  It will never be their fault, nor will they have committed any tactical or strategic errors in their estimation.  So they will proceed to the next Bernie and the same inflexible approach until they “win”.  Even if Sanders wins the election, don’t expect this approach to broaden much.

  3. 3.

    Nelle

    As I mentioned before, at my precinct caucus, Bernie got about 25 on the first round. Needed 40 to be viable. Amy got 59, Pete got 57, Biden got 50 – those three were viable. Warren got 37. They held tight. Three who were for Booker and the only one for Boomberg (don’t ask. I didn’t get it either), and about 4 from Tom Steyer came to Warren and she became viable. No one was going to Bernie. They looked fairly upset. Ten or fifteen of them then left without making a second choice. The rest came over to Warren at the last minute. At first they seemed pretty upset, but they were greeted warmly and people started to connect with them. They seemed to relax a bit.

  4. 4.

    satby

    Funny how authoritarians on the left are pretty interchangeable with authoritarians on the right isn’t it? Vermont Trump’s people are MAGAts without the red hats.

  5. 5.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I liked the reforms, but I also said it wouldn’t change 79 year old Bernie, who spent his 50 year career undermining Democrats and not Republicans.   There’s something really wrong with him.

  6. 6.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Fun fact:  71.44% of the raw vote has been counted and out of 125,038 votes only 14 were cast for…. wait for it… Tulsi Gabbard.

     

    Frankly, 14 seems is high.  I had no idea there were so many Russian living in Iowa.

  7. 7.

    Gvg

    Bernie is not a good strategist. That is a drawback in a Presidential candidate. I am not myself but I can at least see the need.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    @Gvg:

    Bernie is not a good strategist. That is a drawback in a Presidential candidate.

    Even more so in a President. And if his followers want to own a party, why don’t they just start their own Wilmerista party?

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    Dear Elizabeth Warren,

    If you have been holding back on drawing the contrast between yourself and Bernie, hoping to get his supporters if he doesn’t get the nomination, I regret to inform you – that ship has already sailed.

    The ones who are gettable will not mind the distinction; the rest will be burning the house down.

    Regrettably, WG

  13. 13.

    Shalimar

    I’m kind  of happy with the Bernie people showing how horrible they are.  When they have asked me why I don’t want to ever have to support him despite agreeing with him on 95% of issues,  i have had to point back to his reprehensible behavior in the weeks before the convention in 2016.  He supported Hillary against Trump, you have to let that  go and focus on Trump, they say before down-voting my comments on Disqus.

    Now we have fresh horribleness to point to.  They’re cultists just as much as the MAGA fans, with the same eagerness to act as Brownshirts.

  14. 14.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid: and ironically, that guy “without any experience” other than running a small city put together the organization and ground game that enabled him to win out over all those more experienced candidates. With a message of inclusion and hope for the future. Reminds me of someone…. give me a minute, I’ll think of who.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    @satby:

    I liked Harris and I like Warren, but Pete was smart to exit Bernie’s orbit early on, especially on health care. Now Harris is out and Warren is having to make up ground.

    Chalk one up for McKinsey strategizing. ?

  18. 18.

    satby

    @Baud: well, I’ll be voting for Warren myself, but I’m not going to be unhappy at all that a smart, progressive young Democrat does well and upsets Vermont Trump’s applecart. Pete has been consciously modelling his campaign on Obama’s, and that fits his personality and his belief system. We could do much much worse than Pete.

  19. 19.

    JAFD

    Good morning, jackals !
    Am an old man with fond memories of going house to house for Eugene McCarthy waybackwhen, even shook hands with him a couple of times…
    Every few decades you need a candidate to lead a ‘forlorn hope’ of ‘we few, we happy few’, and Send A Message to the Establishment, or whomever. Takes a person with rare combination of vision, charisma, and the guts to ignore ‘conventional wisdom’.
    But when that message is heard and you need a candidate who can put together a majority coalition and organize a winning campaign – a combination of qualities, with those listed previous, not often found together.
    And these days we have foreign agents, false flags, and freelance ratfugers with immense megaphones spreading Fear Confusion Cynicism & Doubt…
    It’s February in New Jersey, the high temp yesterday was 60F – ‘unseasonably warm’ be gross understatement. Can we make ourselves a happy ending, or will the tides rise up to wash us away ?

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @satby:

    I haven’t been a Pete person, but I’ve never been on the anrt-Pete bandwagon by any means.  There’s some valid criticisms but a lot of the attacks on him have been Wilmeresque.

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid: 
    And if his followers want to own a party, why don’t they just start their own Wilmerista party?
    I think that’s the DNC’s big fear — a Bernie third-party run, which they’re concerned would give the Traitor-in-Chief a 400 EV win. A 3rd party candidate is the main reason the racist, fascist, all-around-dickhead Paul LePage was elected Maine’s governor, twice .
    [Yeah. you probably knew this already.]

  24. 24.

    SFAW

    If I hadn’t seen Menaker’s name in various places before now, I’d think he was a St Petersburg cutout. As Shakespeare said: Christ, what an asshole.

  25. 25.

    SFAW

    OT, but whatever: for the second time in less than 10 years, Fred Wilpon has screwed with the agreement/contract to sell the Mets, and so the buyer (actual billionaire Steve Cohen, in this case) has walked. Mets fans everywhere are likely thinking evil thoughts — even more than usual — about the Wilpons.

    I know there are terrible sports team owners everywhere — Snyder, for example — but NY seems to draw them like flies. The Wilpons, Dolan, Robert Wood Johnson — all belong in the Hall of Infamy.

     

    We now return you to your regularly-scheduled political discussion.

  26. 26.

    low-tech cyclist

    @satby:Pete has been consciously modelling his campaign on Obama’s, and that fits his personality and his belief system.

    What’s his belief system?

    I’m OK with his changing his mind on M4A. Sometimes that happens. But turning around and attacking other candidates for holding the position he only just abandoned – besides the loathsomeness of that behavior, what other major issues will he do a total 180° on?

    He’s a phony. When he could get away with it, he ran on his experience with billion-dollar deals at McKinsey, and when he couldn’t, all he did there was spreadsheets and PowerPoints.  He formed a PAC, allegedly to raise money for Dem candidates, but the main beneficiaries were consultants and the people who run his campaign now; hardly anything went to actual candidates. He talks a good game on race, but his actual record stinks. He talks about being from the heartland, but as his run for DNC chair demonstrated (not to mention his current campaign), he’s damned eager to get out of the heartland and into the corridors of power. And he does love those big wine-cave donors.

    We’ve already got a con man as President. We don’t need another.

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    @low-tech cyclist:

    I’m OK with his changing his mind on M4A.

    I started listening to Buttigieg early on, and as far as I know, he has supported “Medicare for all who want it”, from the very beginning.  Has he changed his position on that?

  28. 28.

    The Pale Scot

    @SFAW: Woody wasn’t horrible, he was just inept/unlucky. There really aren’t more than a few GMs in the league that I would say you can count on to consistently draft well. That is dependent on the quality of the scouts and coaching staff. Other than Pittsburgh and the Patriots, everyone else is sporadic.

  30. 30.

    WaterGirl

    @low-tech cyclist:

    He formed a PAC, allegedly to raise money for Dem candidates, but the main beneficiaries were consultants and the people who run his campaign now; hardly anything went to actual candidates.

    That is news to me.  Do you have a link for that?  I will gratefully look at any link that isn’t just speculation.  thanks.

  31. 31.

    chopper

    @Mike in DC:

    But this is a hostile takeover, and those who aren’t on board will be purged from leadership.

    worked for trump and the GOP, dinnit. god, the rest of this year is going to be straight-up shit.

  32. 32.

    Chris Johnson

    For what it’s worth, I WAS in Will Menaker’s audience, as a Chapo listener. They’re a comedy troupe. They were funny for a while.

    I stopped when I got sick of them, and I stopped when they started to double down and get REALLY stealth alt-right. I’m like, when did r/chapotraphouse become /pol/? What did it for me was seeing them push a ‘Russiagate’ narrative as hard as they could, completely denying that whole reality… and then seeing their subreddit be intensely stage-managed so that nothing contradicting that narrative would ever be seen.

    Happened to me, repeatedly. Anything suggesting the Russian social-media activity even existed, much less was as huge as it is, got insta-buried by that very Russian social-media activity. All you have to do is watch the ‘new’ tab and be quick and you can see which things get crushed below visibility with downvotes.

    It would be happening here if Balloon Juice used downvotes.

    Also, you can’t make much estimation of ‘audience’ on things like Patreon, when Russian oligarchs exist. Making Chapo dominate the Patreon system is extremely cheap in oligarch terms.

  34. 34.

    Chris Johnson

    Hahahaha!

    Are you sure you want to view this community?

    This community is quarantined.

    It is restricted due to significant issues with reporting and addressing violations of the Reddit Content Policy.

    As a visitor or member, you can help moderators maintain the community by reporting and downvoting rule-breaking content.

    Are you certain you want to continue?

    r/chapotraphouse has been behaving too badly FOR REDDIT. Wow. :D

    Soooo, that happened. I can’t say as I’m surprised. Even Reddit has standards? That just brightened my day. Turns out even a crappy site like Reddit has its own purposes and agendas outside of being a conduit for Russian trolling, and it’s NOT just me able to spot it.

    Well deserved.

  35. 35.

    Dupe1970

    @Nelle: The fact that all of Bernie did not join Warren always makes me think this is not about policy and universal healthcare.

  36. 36.

    Dupe1970

    @satby: I still don’t trust any McKinsey consultants. I don’t think he is evil but I always roll my eyes at most consultants. Perhaps Pete is one of the good ones.

  37. 37.

    Chris Johnson

    @Dupe1970: Thing is, you guys don’t go into the cesspools that are the dirtbag left. I started out a Bernie stan in all sincerity, and gradually caught on what was happening. So I know ’em when I see ’em and I know the /pol/ like places to see ’em talking amongst themselves (like /pol/, thinking they’re behind closed doors).

    They’re trying to ruin Warren every way they can, have focussed on Iowa, and are splitting the Left with her, and THIS is the best they can do with it. Knowing what I know, I’m amazed Warren did as well as she did (but pleased). They’re trying to hang ‘Hillary 2.0’ on her, and they’re completely failing to do that because she is simply not that. She stays Warren and the attacks aren’t properly sticking.

    A lot of the Bernie online contingent really have turned into /pol/. It’s actually a bit shocking. I thought they would be hiding their ‘power level’ more, but maybe they just can’t control themselves. They’re obviously /pol/. The calls to boycott the Dems blah blah, will be coming from obvious alt-right fascists. I think this weakens their effectiveness as adversaries.

  38. 38.

    SFAW

    @The Pale Scot:

    Woody wasn’t horrible, he was just inept/unlucky.

    I agree that he’s not as bad as Dolan or the Wilpons, but “inept/unlucky” might be a little too kind. He’s hired a string of lousy GMs, who have hired a string of poor-to-fair coaches (with maybe a few exceptions) over the last 20 years. But I’m sure Douglas and Gase will turn things around — Suzy Collins said they “learned their lesson.”

  40. 40.

    celticdragonchick

    Swear to God I’m blocking Berners today on twitter faster than I’m blocking Trumpers.

  41. 41.

    Freemark

    I always wonder how many real Bernie Bros there actually are and how many are plants to make the left side look bad. I know some are real and loud, but I stay in contact with a large number of Bernie supporters I met at college and on science internships (about 40 overall) and not one is Bernie or bust. I prefer Warren but not one has stated or even indicated they won’t vote for her in the general, Just the opposite. Bernie Bros seem like a Twitter phenomenon to me.

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