[politics]

i am simply Too Tired for a feud between my two favorite candidates

especially since it's my top favorite i'm side-eying more here tbh

which one are you side eyeing more?

I think people have been so desperate to see any conflict between them that they're blowing this up way more than it needs to be

^ agreed

i’m just not here for Bernie vs. Liz in general; i like having two candidates that i feel i could support wholeheartedly, and while there are of course differences between them/reasons why someone might support one more than the other, i really don’t see any reason why that means there needs to be a ~rivalry~

(i mean yes i know they’re both competing in the same primary for many of the same voters and so one’s loss is at least theoretically the other’s gain, but that doesn’t mean i have to buy into it)

STEPH 2.0🔪 side eying Warren more

i sincerely doubt that she’s lying about the conversation about as much as i sincerely doubt that Bernie actually doesn’t believe a woman could be elected president, but we’re talking about a single conversation that happened several years ago, not even a pattern of behavior

my guess is that it was a misunderstanding (he phrased something badly, she misheard something, idefk) that never got sorted out, but i don’t like that it’s suddenly being brought out now; it leaves a bad taste in my mouth

it's not that i think if she hears something sexist she should sit down and keep quiet about it, but the timing is weird and suspect

also i've seen occasional shades of BelieveWomen surrounding this issue and i don't like that either; "this guy said he didn't think America would elect a woman president" is not even remotely comparable to "this guy harassed and/or assaulted me"

not immediately saying "fuck Bernie, he's clearly a terrible sexist" is not the same thing as being on the wrong side of the MeToo movement ffs

I... don't even see how saying America won't elect a woman for president this election is necessarily sexist, sadly. I have a horrible feeling it's true.

Believing enough of the voting population is that sexist is not the same thing as saying a woman shouldn't be president or shouldn't run.

^ agreed

though some sources are saying he said "a woman can't be president" and others are saying he said "a won't can't get elected president" ; i'm not sure what the original accusation was

*a woman

Ah, I had only heard about the can't or won't get elected version.

my guess is that that's what it actually was, since that seems like the easier line to misinterpret

maybe he expressed concern about it and ended up coming off as more hardline than he intended? who the fuck knows, but we sure didn't need to spend ten minutes of the debate on it

someone more eloquent than me saying words that i agree with

Yeah I have the same feeling. Opining that a woman is unlikely to get elected (in whatever shade that was uttered) is not inherently sexist, but an observation about the electorate.

I think it's a valid opinion even if I don't like it and it's a dumb thing to fight about because I really do not believe Bernie would've just been like "women have uteruses so they can't lead" or something.

Yeah. I'm not all in for either of them, but this feels like a manufactured nonsense feud to me. Warren's own statement was that Bertie said that a woman couldn't win, which is a judgment on the electorate, not that a woman isn't capable.

it definitely seems like neither of them want to fight about it because they both keep emphasizing that they're friends. I think the media wants to see a fierce rivalry where there's a much more friendly one where they just disagree on some policy stuff and want to talk about what they want to do, not how the other will fall short.

I mean to be fair, the 2016 election is pretty grim evidence that it's currently difficult if not impossible for a woman to get elected.

Yes there were other problems there but the country voted in a neonazi pumpkin in a hairpiece over a slightly problematic but fundamentally perfectly qualified female establishment candidate

I don't necessarily agree that "a won't can't get elected president" but I see the evidence that hypothesis is being based on.

I'm pretty much right there with you on this only I side-eye Sanders a little more

I'm tired of men making stupid-ass statements like that in general because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in which part of the reason women can't get elected is because everyone's afraid they can't get elected

but I also think the whole thing's overblown and it probably WAS a badly phrased thing that didn't land how it was intended to that is now being dredged up for ??? reasons

Well. A woman DID win the vote. That's what's so dumb about this whole argument.

yeah I subscribed to the "electability" nonsense once and only once and that was the year Barack Hussein Obama became president so that shut my damn mouth up