Having been with the site for over a decade now, I would say we have seen plenty of people evolve their position based on dialogue, myself included.

Agreed

I was really bummed to hear about her being a tyrant with her staff. As Jaybird pointed out, that might seem benign to some people but how you treat your employees matters a lot. She seems extremely likable otherwise and I'm positive I could get behind most of her policies. Still, I think Amy/Pete would be a fantastic ticket, even if it's a pipe dream.

I honestly cannot think of a single place where Trump picks up new votes, even if Dems run Satan himself. From my perspective he can only lose votes in 2020, but maybe someone else has a better analysis.

Another good point you raise about the VP spot. This is an odd scenario in that someone could actually be vying for the VP pick hoping that Biden doesn't opt for a second term and they become heir-apparent. For Pete, four years is a blink and he would get all of that experience in the meantime. Amy is only 59 so the same calculus would apply.

(I was also reading this morning that Klobuchar is focusing on farm policy ahead of Iowa. Those are definitely her people out there. She's my pick for the surprise over-performer of the caucuses).

Also, it's a super-boring comment in a post about Biden.

Remember how in 2004 60% of Americans were opposed to SSM so the SSM-advocates just gave up? And now, 61% of Americans are in favor of SSM.

Weird...

I wonder how Booker would do if he could somehow jump the line to the top 3? Surely he has more support in the AA community?

Yeah, it seems nearly impossible to separate them unless Obama threw him under the bus at some point. I really believe he did not want Joe to run and is probably unhappy about being faced with endorsing someone he knows isn't the best choice or appearing to betray his buddy. TR tried it and we got stuck with Woodrow Wilson. Barf...

Chip... The worst thing someone can be is predictable. I could have composed that reply for you fifteen minutes before you posted it.

You can do better.

I noticed a bunch of little tells when he was being engaged in the second debate. You could see him mouthing words as the other candidates were speaking directly to him. That's a think older people do to help themselves follow the conversation. My 80 year-old grandmother did it all the time. He also seemed like he was having trouble following complex questions.

Beyond his age though, he's just leaning so heavily into being Obama's heir and not his own person.

Try harder.

I assume we can contribute nearly all of that to his linkage with Obama. Question is how much Harris can bleed off between now and then.

Why do they need to be converts? What happened to building a coalition? This seems to be one of the biggest failings of our government verses a parliamentary system. Everyone has to pick a team and if they don't, they are viewed with suspicion by all sides.

On this site you have several right-leaning folks being open about how they want to vote for a Democrat but are struggling with certain things. We used to celebrate that kind of transparency of thought. Now they have you chirping in their ears and telling them it's all a game. What if you actually talked through those concerns with them instead of reminding them why they don't like liberals?

I keep going back and forth on Harris. I see one interview and she seems reasonable and I think, 'I could vote for her if she was the nominee." Then I see a video of her clearly pandering to a black church or looking like she wants to kill someone in another interview and I get turned off. Also, regarding SC... a black friend of mine told me he would never vote for Harris because she was the kind of black woman that terrified him. I really wonder how she will do down there. There is a perception (I think) even in the black community that maybe she isn't really one of them. And as many have pointed out, her record as AG will be problematic with some of those voters.

This is the link to the Quillette article I referenced:

https://quillette.com/2019/08/07/the-deadly-boredom-of-a-meaningless-life/

Some key points (bold emphasis mine):

“In 1897, French sociologist Émile Durkheim noted that suicides overall were increasing in society. But there were differences among the affected populations, he noticed. Men were more likely than women to commit suicide—though the chances decreased if the man was married and had children. Durkheim observed that social groups that were more religious exhibited lower suicide rates. (Catholics were less likely to commit suicide than Protestants, for instance.) Durkheim also noted that many people who killed themselves were young, and that the prevalence of such suicides was linked to their level of social integration: When a person felt little sense of connection or belonging, he could be led to question the value of his existence and end his life.

Durkheim labelled this form of suicide as “anomic” (others being “egoistic,” “altruistic” and “fatalistic”). Durkheim believed that these feelings of anomie assert themselves with special force at moments when society is undergoing social, political or economic upheaval—especially if such upheavals result in immediate and severe changes to everyday life.”

I’m certain some people, perhaps those inclined to see race and misogyny as the primary societal problems of our day, will likely read, “…little sense of connection or belonging…” and think that references feelings of white male superiority slipping away. I read it as a condemnation of our disconnected modern society. Want proof? There is a post on the site right now celebrating someone’s extreme introversion. Imagine if the author was a young, white male. Would we be more concerned?

Also from the Quillette piece (bold emphasis mine):

“…in a 2014 article titled The Socioemotional Foundations of Suicide: A Microsociological View of Durkheim’s Suicide, sociologists Seth Abrutyn and Anna Mueller set out to update Durkheim’s theory about how social integration and moral regulation affect suicidality. “The greater degree to which individuals feel they have failed to meet expectations and others fail to ‘reintegrate’ them, the greater the feelings of shame and, therefore, anomie,” they concluded. “The risk of suicidal thoughts, attempts, and completions, in addition to violent aggression toward specific or random others, is a positive function of the intensity, persistence, and pervasiveness of identity, role, or status-based shame and anomie.”

Again, it could be argued that failed expectations and shame again point to dwindling white superiority or toxic masculinity in the face of increased female equality…but I don’t see it that way. I think we have a generation of young men who don’t really know who they are because we have de-emphasized so many of the things that used to help build that sense of self. What does this mean? They are essentially dealing with the same issues one would be faced with if they had Borderline Personality Disorder. From one site about BPD:

”Having a sense of identity serves many different functions. First, if you have a strong identity, it allows you to develop self-esteem. Without knowing who you are, how can you develop a sense that you are worthwhile and deserving of respect? In addition, a strong identity can help you to adapt to changes. While the world around you is constantly changing, if you have a strong sense of self, you essentially have an anchor to hold you while you adapt. Without that anchor, changes can feel chaotic and even terrifying.”

Let’s repeat that…” Without that anchor, changes can feel chaotic and even terrifying.” We live in a world that is rapidly changing through technology and evolving social norms. I’ve heard anecdotally that if you want to get laid, Tinder is awesome, but if you want a relationship, forget it. Kids don’t know how to talk to each other. We ask our 20 year-old basic facts about her friends and she has no idea. Borderlines are extremely prone to lashing out. When we have a generation of men dealing with some of those same issues, some of them are going to lash out as well. What’s the solution? In the book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American Community the author offers up some ideas:

“These connections could be strengthened, Putnam argued, through improved civics education, more extra-curricular activities for youth, smaller schools, family-oriented workplaces, a more enlightened approach to urbanism, technology that reinforces rather than replaces face-to-face interaction, as well as a decentralization of political power.”

Not a bad place to start. What I am positive won’t work though is blaming this on the president or white nationalism or even dark websites. The problem is a generation of disconnected men that we need to reconnect with.

"My explanation is that white men are not taught how to accept injustice the way minorities have. There is no such thing as The Talk in white community."

Yeah, that's basically what I said. But I don't consider that misogyny or white supremacy. I view it as basic, emotional, impotent rage. It's usually not part of some larger narrative.

Because they have the lowest rate of suicide of any race/gender group.

There was a good article at Quillette this morning that talked about this very subject (I'll link to it when I get to my desktop PC). They make the point that nearly every mass shooting is intended to end in suicide. When you think of that as the driving goal all of that other nonsense drifts into the background.

Chip, you are seeing murder as the primary motivator and basing your conclusions on that. When you realize these people primarily want to kill themselves, you start to realize whatever reasons they tack on are secondary. It's similar to when a depressed person leaves a suicide note claiming they are doing their friends and family a favor. They might believe that but they really just want to die.

"If we’re in the realm of using popular votes to take the pulse of the nation – and Dems seem insistent upon doing so – I cannot and will not vote third party knowing that my voting 3rd party may be used to draw conclusions about my beliefs/desires that are not accurate."

This. Dems have this idea that the popular vote reflects some kind of collective will that we should feel beholden too. The only reason any of us are wringing our hands is because we know that if we don't vote Dem we'll certainly make the mistake of announcing it here and we also know how that will go with some of our Left-leaning fellow commenters.

I truly believe that if more Americans would watch the debates, Biden's poll numbers would drop. I've watched both nights with him and he just looks so...old. He looks confused at times and I just can't imagine him in the WH.

And I say this as someone who thinks Sanders, Warren and even Trump seem more lucid. If you Google Biden the second hit is 'Biden age'. He would be 78 when is sworn in. Reagan was 73 and I remember when we thought that was old. I seriously don't understand what the frack people are thinking.

Good point - maybe we should let them proceed. I do always get s kick out of seeing Diane Feinstein's latest list of problematic weapon features.

You answered your own question Chip, you just don't realize it. I would suggest you start here:

https://ordinary-times.com/2012/02/20/parenting-by-class/

Basically, it's a class thing. People from lower socio-economic statuses develop different coping mechanisms. Essentially they are better at dealing with life's bad moments because they see more of them. More affluent kids also have coping mechanisms but it's more based on mom & dad helping them and relying on the safety net afforded by their higher economic status. When they experience something that mom & dad can't fix (girlfriend dumped them, they get bullied, they flunk out of college, they get fired) they sometimes lack the mental coping mechanisms to deal with it and sometimes they snap.

That any of this has to do with race is the legacy of actual racism (not the bogeyman that keeps the SJ Left up at night). Blacks in general are more poor than whites. The fact that we have seen an uptick in suicides among blacks in recent years could actually be an ironically positive sign that they are also transitioning into a period where more of them have lives similar to their white counterparts and have the same lack of coping mechanisms. Weirdly, if we start seeing black shooters, it might mean we have started to arrive at true racial economic equality.

Yeah, i would substitute that because it means something totally different. If I get fired and I think it was bullshit, and I'm fired up, it's not because my rightful place in society was usurped. I'm going to be mad because I feel like I got fucked over. If I get dumped by my girlfriend, I don't feel my white male privilege flaring up, but I might be mad about the thought of her banging some other guy. You're making this some existential thing when most of the time it's just human emotions man.

The sister of one of my good friends murdered her ex husband, his new girlfriend and then killed herself. I also worked with a women whose boyfriend found her and her ex husband dead in her apartment in a murder suicide. People do really fucked up things when they are sad, angry, lonely, etc. My dad killed himself because my stepmom died and he couldn't stand the heartache. Some people become so distraught over their emotions that they also kill others. I don't know why you need to make this some kind of political statement.

I don't understand why the Left would want to spend the tiny, tiny bit of political capital they have on guns debating legislation that has pretty much been proven to be ineffective. is it just so you all can tell people you did something, even if that something was pointless?

i honestly don't know too many people in the Louisville area that like McConnell but bad legislation is bad legislation. On this item, he's making the right call. I would suggest you all go back to the drawing board, ask your Democratic politicians to talk to people that actually understand guns, and let's craft something that might actually help things.

Having spent 20 years on the Right, it's astounding how many meetings I attended where white supremacy never came up.