Cenk has some explaining to do

Cenk seemed determined to take his case all the way to the SCOTUS. What happened?
I’ll grant you, the SCOTUS doesn’t have to hear the case but at the very least he could have gotten to an appeals court.
He spent a lot of time and money in this fight. WTF happened?!

It was an obviously dumb idea destined to fail from the moment he announced his intentions.

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So @sciguy24 you mean you spent a post going tit for tat with me regarding minutiae of his case, and now you admit you didn’t follow his campaign?

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I see how you could think that but you seem to ignore the fact his goal from the get go was driving the establishment to the left. Not to win.

So if you understand the context (which I have explain to you at length) he won. Do you really think Biden didn’t move to the left due to Cenk and other candidates exercising their civic duty to run for political office?

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Yes, I really think the liberal establishment didn’t give a shit about Cenk’s candidacy. Even in discussions of fringe candidates like Williamson and Phillips on other media outlets, the name Uygur wasn’t even mentioned. All his ill-considered run for the presidency did was confirm for them even more (as if they needed it) that he, and by extension his audience, is discreditable and worthy of their continued marginalization.

The thing that moved Biden to the left recently has been the backlash to the contemptible role he’s played in furthering the genocide in Gaza. Cenk’s stunt was entirely impotent, as was predictable when he first announced it. Even Ana thought it was a dumb idea, though you had to read her position through her oblique comments since she’d never be completely honest with the audience about her true opinion of Cenk’s hare-brained schemes.

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I love this about them. If your adversary makes a mistake do not correct them.

All the progressive candidates that ran in the Democratic party exposed the despotic behavior of the DNC. If you don’t see the value in that, I understand your position. Just know I don’t hold it. Also know many found value in knowing thy enemy.

I think your reading more into Ana’s position than she holds.

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For my own two cents, I largely agree with @enduser here. In fact, I previously had ignored this thread, because of my perception of how much ground I would need to cover to bridge the perspective gap, and because of how minimal a benefit such an effort would yield.

But to clarify further, I think @cbickle has voiced a position I see as speaking in terms which are frankly not critical. For instance:

I couldn’t disagree more. No one thinks the establishment ignored @cenkuygur accidentally; not only did they indeed give a shit, they calculated and pushed their shit. Cenk forced them to make that play, and it was not insignificant. Further, the odds of wide-bounded social outcomes were never certain (and neither was the narrow-bounded electoral outcome, though I think the odds here were nearly certain); and so, the significance of Cenk’s gamble could even have been at least marginally greater still. Cenk was playing to our outs, in a high stakes game, with poor odds. That said, I do wonder if Cenk invested too much into the gamble, though, maybe this type of play warranted such a stretch.

And that said, of course I welcome people to feel free to disagree. :turtle:

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Did you hear Cenk’s candidacy discussed on any other political shows? I listen to Chapo, Pod Save, Slate political Gabfest, Ezra Klein, and Majority Report. MR briefly mentioned his running and then ignored it. The others never even acknowledged his presence in the race. Even when they touched on Williamson and Phillips, they ignored Cenk.

Why? It’s not because there’s some great conspiracy to tamp down the grassroots power of TYT. It’s because Cenk and Ana have rendered themselves toxic and irrelevant by railing against not only the establishment but also anyone they consider less than sufficiently belligerent.

At one point, I was open to their argument that this brand of politics could succeed in left coalition politics. I was the first state director of Wolf-Pac in Ohio back in 2012. But in order to maintain belief in a leader’s call to action, you have to see the wins beget more wins and the movement behind them grow. Unfortunately, TYT’s brand of activist journalism has fizzled. And Cenk’s amping up the volume, vitriol, and outlandish fliers on extreme long-shot gambits has become part of the problem.

There is some accuracy to some of your critiques, especially regarding how TYT can be less than inclusive, (despite the irony, regarding your own toxicity in this thread). Perhaps you might consider being constructive about your concerns, (eg, how might TYT be more inclusive?).

That said, you’re simply and consistently inaccurate regarding real efforts made against Cenk’s run, and thus far you seem focused and insistent on projecting cynicism.

Anyway, I’m no longer interested in entertaining this topic. Peace :turtle:

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I totally agree. I’ve felt this way from the very beginning. I can’t believe he thought it was a good idea either. Cenk is a lawyer, you’d think he’d know how to read the constitution.

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I’m all about being constructive but I’m not going to live in an alternate reality. Cenk’s candidacy was a waste of time from the start and if you can’t see that then you need a reality check.

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A cultist is someone who, when you question their beliefs, retaliates with personal attacks instead of defending their position with solid reason.

There was no reason to give a shit about the candidacy. It wasn’t going to go anywhere which was very predictable. Even if there were no legal issues, there’s no way Cenk gets 80 million votes to defeat Trump.

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Maybe he did it for the money.

What exactly is your point here? If you want an explanation perhaps go straight to the source. It seems like you’re trying to be confrontational for absolutely no reason and feel for some reason you are owed something. If such entitlement is due can you please explain?

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From what I understand this run put Cenk into debt. So he definitely didn’t do it for the money, he did it because someone needed to raise the alarm that Biden is a weak candidate who’s very likely going to lose to Trump.

Some people, including James Carville, finally started saying this — and there was talk for a while about a brokered convention where Biden would drop out and other candidates would try to get enough delegates too win — but imo too late and Biden’s performance at the State of the Union seems to have quieted down the very legitimate concerns about Biden’s chances of winning.

I think Cenk did what he honestly thought was best for the country, and I supported his campaign. He also moved the needle on allowing naturalized citizens to run for president. I think he deserves a lot of credit for that.

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Well all know Biden’s political flaws. We didn’t need Cenk to tell us that.

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The irony is so fucking funny right now.

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You are coming off as a very narcissistic person at best. I’m not trying to be be mean at all. I’m just trying to express how you are talking to everyone and how you communicate. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can have a conversation about the same topic just in a much different manner and it would actually be much more productive.

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This almost sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself. If you really believed it, you wouldn’t feel the need to keep reasserting the same tired points.

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