Talk:2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination/Archive1
Nomination v. primary[edit]
It's called a "primary", friend, "nomination" is what you get from winning it. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:42, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
- But 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination? — Dysk (contribs) 16:50, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
- I now disagree with the past itself. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:55, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
- Ok but whatever title you decide on will need to be consistent between the past and present. — Dysk (contribs) 17:03, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
- I now disagree with the past itself. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:55, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
Format[edit]
Instead of putting them in boxes and listing what we think are their advantages and drawbacks, why not just describe their policy positions? Nerd (talk) 15:34, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
- I'm in favor of advantage/disadvantage because there are other things to a candidate besides policies, like people who like/dislike them, prior experience (which we sort of have already but we could go more in depth with), fundraising, national profile, etc.@Nerd ClintWayne (talk) 20:04, 3 February 2019 (UTC)ClintWayne
- @ClintWayne There is of course more to each candidate than their policy positions. But whether or not such information is relevant is a different story. In-depth coverage can be done on their own RW pages. But here, only policy positions and political views should be included, specifically, what they support or oppose, and whether they have changed their minds. Nerd (talk) 21:24, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
- lol, you could, but half of them just have policy positions of "do good sounding things, not bad sounding things, we're stronger together". ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:38, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
- Ah, but what constitutes a "good" thing or a "bad" thing depends on who you ask a lot of the times. Politics can be a bit like that Rorschach test; people can and do draw different conclusions even when presented with the same information. Furthermore, different people will choose to emphasize different things (and that is why a collaborative writing project such as this one comes in handy). Nerd (talk) 15:46, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
- Yes, sure. But I meant hyper-generic good things "we're going to make the economy better, by increasing bipartisan reform in Washington" or "We're going to build a better tomorrow by applying new innovations to government." Positive buzzwords that mean nothing. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:06, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
- I agree with you there. This is when we need to be specific. Nerd (talk) 16:08, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
- This is a good idea. — Dysk (contribs) 11:01, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
- But, if we’re just going to make a “shopping list” of candidates and their policy positions, why not simply have a redirect to 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries?
Or, for that matter, to On the Issues or Vote Smart? Not to mention the problem of candidates suddenly taking positions completely at odds with their prior political record; should we then list their “official” stance or highlight the discrepancy? ScepticWombat (talk) 11:08, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
- Btw, I’m looking forward to see which (kinds of) perennial/joke candidates and/or one trick ponies will join the Democratic fray this time around. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:29, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
- But, if we’re just going to make a “shopping list” of candidates and their policy positions, why not simply have a redirect to 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries?
- This is a good idea. — Dysk (contribs) 11:01, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
- I agree with you there. This is when we need to be specific. Nerd (talk) 16:08, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
- Yes, sure. But I meant hyper-generic good things "we're going to make the economy better, by increasing bipartisan reform in Washington" or "We're going to build a better tomorrow by applying new innovations to government." Positive buzzwords that mean nothing. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:06, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
- Ah, but what constitutes a "good" thing or a "bad" thing depends on who you ask a lot of the times. Politics can be a bit like that Rorschach test; people can and do draw different conclusions even when presented with the same information. Furthermore, different people will choose to emphasize different things (and that is why a collaborative writing project such as this one comes in handy). Nerd (talk) 15:46, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
We could and should mention whenever they change their minds. We have already done that here. Nerd (talk) 15:46, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
- What’s the point of this article, really? As I pointed out in February, I honestly don’t see the point of having an article on the Democratic primaries that consists of nothing but a more or less arbitrary laundry list of policy statements/proposals by the candidates. Who are we writing this for? People can find these lists either at dedicated political sites, such as On the Issues or Vote Smart or get an actual article on the primaries, candidates and campaigns on That Other Wiki.
- RW’s “coverage”, such as it was, of the last Elephant & Donkey ShowTM in 2016 at least had the grace to be fairly entertainingly written, while this is just a slog fest of “candidate X claims to support/oppose Y” in some form of bizarre attempt at NPOV.
- I really don’t think this format works in terms of either NPOV (since what gets included the list is inherently selective and it is prone to either explicitly or implicitly taking campaign slogans at face value), readability, or even dissemination of knowledge, as the list simply keeps meandering out of control with uninformative snippets of avowed support/opposition presented out of any broader context (e.g. what does it actually mean? Is it coherent/in character? Is it feasible? Is it simply bandwagoning? Etc. etc.). ScepticWombat (talk) 11:25, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
Main space v. draft space[edit]
@Dysklyver Why do you keep moving this page around? I don't understand. What's going on? Nerd (talk) 01:36, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
- I created the page in mainspace by mistake, moved it to draft, then the page was histmerged with another draft, and moved back to mainspace once finished to a reasonable standard. — Dysk (contribs) 10:45, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
Tulsi[edit]
She is basically the worst kind of anti-LGBT TERF. I don't think this apology equates to support for the LGBT community one iota. — Dysk (contribs) 10:25, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Hillary 2020?[edit]
I thought the consensus after the 2016 election was that she was not running in 2020 (or that she should somehow know better than to), and that she said so herself in 2017. Then about a week ago CNN reported that she had not ruled that out, which other outlets then echoed. Her former campaign chair then went on CNN the next day to remind everyone she's not running. There might not be any hurry to remove her from the list of potential candidates, but are there better reasons to keep her on it? Chrstphrchvz (talk) 09:56, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
- Lots of people still seem to think she might run. I don't honestly know. — Dysk (contribs) 10:35, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Reformatting[edit]
I hate to bring this topic up yet again but I think it would be more convenient for readers and editors alike if we were to reformat the table of declared candidates as individual sections, one for each candidate. Each category of information would be written in bold. See the example below.
Candidate X[edit]
Age: 66.
Background: Drafted order 66.
Policy positions: Whatever Bernie Sanders supports.
Thoughts? Nerd (talk) 20:36, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
- I can do that on a sandbox, and if it works out well I'll copy and paste the whole thing to the article. TheUmbilicalCordGuy (talk) 20:49, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
- This is a good idea, not least because tables are fiddly and have accessibility issues. — Dysk (contribs) 22:40, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
- This is what I have of the reformatting so far. Any suggestions for improvements? TheUmbilicalCordGuy (talk) 04:07, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
- @TheUmbilicalCordGuy It looks great. The only problems were that section titles should not be links and that photo captions were missing. I took matters in my own hands. Everything is now easier to navigate. We should wait for a few days. If no one objects, this is the way to go. Nerd (talk) 05:02, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
- This is what I have of the reformatting so far. Any suggestions for improvements? TheUmbilicalCordGuy (talk) 04:07, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
- This is a good idea, not least because tables are fiddly and have accessibility issues. — Dysk (contribs) 22:40, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
- @Dysklyver @TheUmbilicalCordGuy Thank you both! Nerd (talk) 15:01, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Andrew Yang[edit]
Supposedly has an anti-Israel stance, but so far only neo-Nazis and /pol/ seem to be spreading this view, based vaguely on sometime he said once about how the US "should be less involved" in supporting Israel. I can't tell if this is accurate or not tbh, with the huge amount of fake news around nowadays. In any case, these people like him. [2] — Dysk (contribs) 10:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
- This take doesn't help much either. — Dysk (contribs) 00:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- Maybe not what he wanted. — Dysk (contribs) 23:54, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Yang as Forbes 2.0?[edit]
Yang gives me a sort of flashback to 1996 and 2000 when Forbes tried for the GOP nomination. I think the reason for this déjà vue vibe is due to both styling themselves as sort of a genius outsider entrepreneur technocrat with a brilliant panacea (Forbes’ flat tax, Yang’s basic income) that will fix everything. Both come from a business/venture capitalist background and both seem to me to represent the “Silicon Valley ethos” of scrapping a lot of existing welfare to be replaced with some “simple fix” in order to “prepare the US for the future.” I’ve never been entirely comfortable with these kinds of “messianic technocrats” and I’ve noticed them in other political systems as well.
My uneasiness stems mainly from two factors: The first is “entrepreneurship fetishism” in which The EntrepreneurTM is revered as the solution to complicated socio-economic problems, because, apparently, if we just replace politicians with entrepreneurs, they will quickly put things right (I’ve seen this in a leftist version where the word “creativity” was used a lot). The second is the way they seem to attract a very particular audience of basically the kind of well off creative class types that seem to be either more or less Randian technocrats or those from a more liberal arts’ish background who are seemly drawn to the “thinking out of the box”-messaging. What these segments have in common seems to be their general quite yuppie background and that they want something “new” and certainly not something that smells of old school workers’ rights, redistribution etc.
This leads me to be rather suspect of these kinds of political programs since they seem to me to be more about fad’ish “tech fixes” and creating engaging spectacles for the “in crowd” and less about genuine, political convictions beyond a bedrock belief in a sort of “creative destruction” view of politics. I also suspect, that if they actually gain power, we would see more of these kinds of theatricals laid on top of what will likely be neoliberal economics on (even more) stereoids as these kinds of candidates don’t even have to pay lip service to more traditional voter bases and mainly speak to those for whom the neoliberal version of economic globalisation has been fairly benign.
Okay, ‘nough ranting for now... ;-) ScepticWombat (talk) 08:49, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Enter Seth Moulton[edit]
Seventeen declared candidates the fuck man.. -RipCityLiberal (talk) 23:56, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
- That's eighteen at the time of writing. Let them join the race and let
Godthe voters sort them out. May the best candidate wins. Nerd (talk) 00:39, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Search engine results[edit]
I tried typing the name of this article into multiple search engines but in all instances, this Rational Wiki page did not come up. Despite being fairly up-to-date and reliable, we are not even visible. Contrast this with, say, the "childfree movement," where the quoted key words will get our page for it not far from Wikipedia's. Nerd (talk) 20:52, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
- That's expected; we've always had a more niche role of examining crank ideas that most mainstream sources don't bother analyzing. Of course we aren't going to be the top search result in one of the biggest upcoming events in American politics, because several other, larger organizations already do. RoninMacbeth (talk) 20:58, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
- Oh, bugger! We're a bunch of nobody's yelling at the keyboards, then. Nerd (talk) 21:42, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
- In a sense, yes. But hey, maybe someone will notice this page. After all, Wikipedia editors are a bunch of nobodies, but Wikipedia as a whole is a valuable resource. RoninMacbeth (talk) 22:16, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
- Oh, bugger! We're a bunch of nobody's yelling at the keyboards, then. Nerd (talk) 21:42, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
Bias Against Moderates[edit]
Seems to be a bit hyper critical of Biden and Harris as well as giving a whole host of positives for Sanders.--RipCityLiberal (talk) 18:41, 27 August 2019 (UTC)