I disagree. Traitor is a bit of an exaggeration, but there are fair criticisms to be made about Gabbard, and I think we should be allowed to make them colorfully. Are we not allowed to call Biden a corporate drone either? Because if it's okay to be cynical and dismissive of centrist candidates as corporate drones and other such "insults", then it should be okay to be cynical and dismissive of Gabbard as being to authoritarian friendly. Sanders gets "insulted" for being a socialist, or extreme, or whatever. I don't take issue with it. Where I start to get sick of the thread is when we get nasty towards each other, which Darth was being, honestly. Comparing us to Snoopy? Calling us trolls? Claiming every criticism about his favored candidate is us personally attacking him? Calling us "Trumpian"? Backseat modding? Calling us xenophobic bigoted idiots? Who exactly is the uncivil one here? All I see the people he accuses of being "trolls" doing is voicing a valid opinion about a candidate they don't like. I never called Moren or jason or cycycychris or haxxiy trolls just because they're not progressive, or say socialism is bad, or even when Moren said some mean stuff about Sanders because he called the recent events in Bolivia a coup. I didn't call them bigoted, or accuse them of being Russian bots like that one guy did, I just accepted their opinion, and their right to be snarky sometimes, or even offended at times by my favored candidate's positions. I don't appreciate the self-righteous accusation that we're all "uncivil" for making snarky comments about the candidates when we've had to endure personal insults hurled from various sides, disingenuous Trump fans trying to waste our time, and complete strangers randomly popping in to call us government bot accounts. And really, come on, derisive insults are "uncivil"? Then what are we doing to Trump? The Trump fans on this forum would absolutely love your little statement there. There's nothing wrong with adding a little snark to your criticism if the criticism is valid. 

And I do wish to add - the only time I took issue with personal attacks against moderates is when I got called out for attacking Gabbard, so yeah.

Plus, (per the NYT), all this rhetoric about Gabbard is well within the mainstream.

Certainly he can gain a good boost from Iowa. But he is also already getting a boost from the good polling in the early states. This gives him media attention which in trun converts voters.

And I want to point out one thing: Buttigieg is the mayor of a city with 100K people in Indiana. And he currently is among the TOP 4 in the democratic nomination and is considered having serious chances. He started out in the 1% club. He either has a pretty great campaign strateist in the team, or he is a pretty great campaign strategist.

#National @YouGovUS/@BrownUniversity Poll (10/10-11):
Biden 25%
Warren 23%
Sanders 13%
Yang 11%
Buttigieg 6%
Gabbard 5%
Harris 4%
O'Rourke 3%
Bennet 1%
Booker 1%
Castro 1%
de Blasio 1%
Delaney 1%
Gillibrand 1%
Klobuchar 1%
Moulton 1%
Ryan 1%
Bullock 0%
Gravel 0%
Messam 0%

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) December 3, 2019

I'm not counting Pete out yet, not completely, but I think his main obstacle is that there's no way the establishment will rally behind a small town mayor. Senators and governors can win nominations, but mayors do NOT. And this isn't a big city mayor, it's a small town mayor. It's not going to happen, the establishment will not allow it. Think I'm crazy all you want, but they'd sooner (reluctantly) allow Sanders the nomination than give it to a small town mayor. They're trying to look different from the Republicans and pick candidates with experience, candidates that look like serious presidential material. People underestimate how big an obstacle this is. Buttigieg, whether you like it or not, will probably have a long and prosperous career as a Democratic politician. But he will NOT be the nominee in 2020. If the math becomes that inevitable, sure, I guess history will be made, and not just for his sexual orientation, but for being a mayor of a small town, but barring the establishment floundering for the entirety of the primary like the Republicans did in 2016 (and you can be sure the Dem establishment won't make that mistake after seeing the results), Buttigieg will be easy enough for the establishment to manufacture consent away from. If Biden truly collapses and Buttigieg starts to run away with his base, the establishment will somewhat reluctantly back Warren (they're already showing signs that they're trying to make peace with this), and that will be enough.

I think you're definitely crazy. The Media and the DNC has been pushing the hell out of Pete. They had him as part of the stop Bernie meetings for a reason, they've buried his south bend scandal and they're even burying this latest fake black people endorsement that he just did. Pete is the establishment's golden goose now that they're original one is gone. They Had Kamala, then Beto, then Pete.. there's a reason for that. Sorry bro, I definitely think you're wrong on this one, by a mile. They'd faster get behind Pete than anyone else in the race and you can tell cause that's exactly what's happening right now.

Two presidents have EVER been mayor in their ENTIRE political careers. Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge. Both went on to be governors of their states before running for president. That's not blind chance. You don't just go from mayor to president. It does NOT happen. They'll find some way around it. If they don't, we'll have another primary just as bad and crazy as this one the next time there's no Democratic incumbent, which would in all likelihood be 2024 if Buttigieg gets the nom. At least by then AOC will be eligible. House Reps do occasionally become president.

Idk HylianSwordsman... Of course there's room for snark but that traitor bit and the constant ill-intentioned personal attacks on a candidate can get annoying and draining, even to people outside of the conversation. And this is coming from someone who doesn't even like Gabbard. Snarky criticism is fine but constant personal attacks on a candidate need to be addressed, especially when it's actively discouraging constructive debate. The same thing can be (was) said when Uran constantly went after Warren.

I disagree with this for 1 simple reason. You said personal attacks on a candidate, when I didn't(for the most part). The most I did was call her a Snake and a fraud and I only did that the first few times (and I even went on to explain how what she says doesn't line up with actions and that's she trying to fool the electorate). Everything else I posted was simply "Here's Warren saying something that's not progressive, here's an article explaining her record, here's an article / video about how bad her M4A and other proposals are". That's not attacking the candidate personally that's going after their flawed policy, record, character and more than that, that's letting the candidate sink their own ship. I only exposed Warren's lying to this threads audience and everything I said besides the snake and fraud (which tbf is the conclusion I've come to along with a hell of a lot of people) is backed up and supported by actual evidence

On the other hand, Moren and Jaicee when it comes to Tulsi are throwing around smears that cannot be proven and peddling establishment talking points about Tulsi being a traitor to her country or a Russian Asset. Do you want to know how hypocritical both of these users have been especially the former for how they've gone after Tulsi? They go with the Modi and the go with the Assad but one of them certainly loves Pelosi who has done the exact same thing as Tulsi and met up with these 2 individuals and taken pics with them. Why is it fine for Pelosi and other top dems who have done the same exact thing but when Tulsi who also happens to be on the foreign affairs committee does it its wrong?

There's nothing wrong with being critical of a candidate, however that depends on what you're doing. If you being critical is smearing her instead of going after her policies, it doesn't matter who the candidate is I'll defend them cause that's wrong. However, if its legit criticism I accept it. When I saw Jaicee go after Tulsi on somethings, I pointed out her hypocrisy with how her support of Warren comes from Warren's evolution but for Tulsi who has evolved on her LGBQT stance and has a 100% voting record on it, she's still using it as an attack point which her record has proven isn't the case.

I dislike this kind of blanket statements where if someone says something that would hurt a candidate its an attack, or trying to tie Moren's legit personal attacks to my breakdowns of Warren's policies and actions. Does Moren have any proof that Tulsi is a Russian Asset or a traitor to her country? Hillary implied this and is getting sued for it, Hillary was asked about this and couldn't provide any evidence to back it up, she just left these implications there. I'm just saying, one of these things is not like the other. One is actually attacking the candidate the other is going after their Policy and record. I've said it numerous times before, but Its not my fault Warren lied about her teacher job and heritage, Its not my fault Warren waffled on M4A, Its not my fault she endorsed hillary in 2016, Its not my fault she's a bad candidate. I posted some contrasts between her and Bernie to show Bernie was more progressive, then I posted her record and lies for the people in this thread to see. If she never did any of these I wouldn't have had them to share. That's the difference.