Summary
Kamala Harris’s political skills have transformed a potentially disastrous 2024 presidential election into a competitive race.
Despite initial skepticism and a challenging campaign, Harris has improved her public image and closed the gap with Trump on key issues. Since Biden stepped aside in July and endorsed her, she has shifted from an unpopular vice president to a viable candidate, even matching Trump in polls on economic issues.
Her leadership has given Democrats a chance to prevent a Trump landslide and halt the rise of American authoritarianism.
It’s not a testament to her abilities, it’s a depressing statement about the state of America that a convicted felon, rapist, fascist loudman can be neck and neck with probably one of the smartest, most highly accomplished presidential candidates we’ve had in quite a while
Yep, the truth is it shouldn’t even be this close, but Kamala has moved significantly right in the last four years.
The Dem party doesn’t try to get landslide victories, they want to give voters the absolute minimum they need to win. It’s the only explanation for why they keep moving right after Obama’s 08 landslide
Yep, the truth is it shouldn’t even be this close, but Kamala has moved significantly right in the last four years.
Actually, that’s probably why she’s winning. Because of the nature and makeup of the Electoral College, we can consider the Presidential election biased in favor of the GOP candidate.
It’s the only explanation for why they keep moving right after Obama’s 08 landslide
I’ve explained this in detail before, so rather than reposting, I’ll just point folks over to this, https://lemmy.world/comment/12409521
The Dem party doesn’t try to get landslide victories, they want to give voters the absolute minimum they need to win.
Well, I’m sure they would if they could. But see above - it’s not possible with the current structure. I’m still hopeful that we can get Harris elected, and then have a chance of getting the 127 DC states plan to pass - https://www.vox.com/2020/1/14/21063591/modest-proposal-to-save-american-democracy-pack-the-union-harvard-law-review
Which would allow Dems to pass the required constitutional amendments to address the systemic problems with the current, erm, system.
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In the country that very possibly going to vote Trump back in a party moving to the left would be a death sentence.
[…] cost the Wall-Street class anything significant…
And herein is your problem. The Wall-Street class is the most influential voting bloc in America. If you don’t bow to them, you don’t even make it onto the ballot, let alone into the oval office. The only way it is possible to get around this, in modern America, would be if you acted like you were going to play ball with Wall Street up until you’re sworn into office, and then pull the most epic bait and switch of all time on them.
To be clear, I don’t expect this from Harris. But if she were going to do it, exactly what she’s doing now would be the way you accomplish that. Let the megadonors believe that you’re on their side until you reach a point where they can’t stop you.
I am all but praying that Harris is pulling a bait and switch on Wall Street. It’s the only way I see fascism being actually stopped, instead of merely delayed or slowed by 4-8 years.
How on earth is Harris being tied with the worst presidential candidate in history spun as a good thing?
Yeah, how many of those votes are pro-Harris and how many are anti-Trump?
The enduring fact is that our election cycles don’t have to last years. She did this in a little over 100 days.
The Primary system is fucking broken. It only exists to make some states “Princess for a Day” and guarantee some advertising dollars. It is only so long because some states want a week to themselves, or want to be “first in the nation” or some other bullshit like that. And the parties do whatever they can to tip the scales all the time.
If I were in charge, I would change it like this:
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All primary elections for President must occur within a four week span in May or June.
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12 or 13 states go in each week. The order will vary from election to election, so the same bucket of states only goes first once in 4 elections.
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there must be at least three candidates for any primary to happen. Less than 3 candidates = no primary.
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parties are free to ignore these rules, but then they should settle their candidate by some other method than a state-wide primary that taxpayers pay for.
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No it’s not, liberals tried the age old tactic of getting minorities and the working class to vote for neoliberals that have devastated their well being for 50 years because the GOP is racist, and for some reason it didn’t work this time.
Y’all took the wrong lesson from COVID and 2020. It wasn’t that voters were going to continue to put up with Democrat’s fealty to the right and corporate donors. It was that COVID was so unprecedented that they held their nose one last time. ,
I’d argue the opposite.
The fact that Americans are possibly still voting for someone who will bring in the Fourth Reich if elected, over the first female president is a sign of just how badly Democrats have dropped the ball. ESPECIALLY after Jan 6th.
I think both can be true. That she cleaned up the situation is a testament to her skill as a candidate, and the fact this situation happened is in no small part an indictment of the Democratic party, in which she’s among its most senior leaders
no she didn’t. she had a window of positive energy she just tanked. jesus did we watch the same candidate running? lol
What evidence are you using to support your belief that she tanked? That’s a surprise to me and I’d like to understand more.
Gestures at map of results. Do I need more?
How about the fact her campaign was mired (sp?)not in what the her admin would do for Americans but instead of how shes not trump and how shes willing to silence a minority group just asking her to enforce american law? A group supported by a demographic thats very hard to turn out… Young folks.
How about the fact she repeatedly committed herself to doing the same shit as biden’s admin? An admin with historically low approval ratings?
Im sorry your candidate lost I truly am. America is officially worse off as a result. But her problem was turnout and the only shit she ran on was shit most people already have in their states that were possible wins for her.
Look at Pennsylvania weed legalization is basically assured. They have abortion peotections… Etc. so what exactly did harris offering voters in those states?
Look at Pennsylvania weed legalization is basically assured.
This is primarily because every bordering state has recreational and they’re losing tons of tax revenue.
But this did get me to check on my state election results and I found a tiny silver lining in that Democrats won both the state senate and representative races.
This is primarily because every bordering state has recreational and they’re losing tons of tax revenue.
yes and what did it bring harris’ campaign as an incentive? seriously think about this. every campaign issue she put forward were all things most states that care already have or were getting this election what voters would it bring to the table for her if they were going to get them anyways why show up for harris. fuck this isnt hard.
No disagreement on that, just giving some context.
Well let’s be real honest with ourselves here. Her platform was fine and her campaign was executed very, very well. But she had only, what, 107 days to pull it off? Economists agree that her platform would have the best impact on the country, but she or anyone who would have taken her place were all swimming upstream against inflation. And since we’re being honest here, we both recognize that the Fed, not controlled by the executive branch, are the ones responsible for righting the ship. And Biden did everything he could from his chair up to and including working across the aisle in GOP majority house, and only failed when Trump intervened for sake of an election year talking point.
The map is the outcome, but it’s not evidence of any campaign tanking. She is intelligent, empathetic, and very well spoken. But the settling dust is indicating that the outcome was driven by a number of factors beyond her control.
Her platform was not fine. The few policies she put forward were either limited to incredible minor subsets of the population (capping price of just insulin, a minor payput for first time how buyers in very limited areas, a tax cut that barely puts a dent in the rise of the cost of living due to inflation), or were things most states have already done themselves.
Not to mention speed running to the right. A genocide, etc.
The number of days was not the issue. It was her complete disregard for the plight of the middle class struggling on food/housing and arabs literally watching her and bidens admin murdering their families.
Never mind the fact that she was one of the individuals that was gaslighting americans over bidens mental decline.
She had plenty of time to plan her campaign if she hadnt been too busy gaslighting people.
Just to be super clear, yes we were watching different candidates then. The country needs to walk a very nuanced path if we want to continue the recovery started by the Fed (interest rates) and Biden (IRA and CHIPS). Don’t get me wrong: Biden deciding to run for reelection was the worst possible decision he could have made. The second worst: dropping out 107 days from the election. I’m sure the private discussions about his decision were passionate, but of course she’s not going to publicly lay her boss out like that. That’s not realistic to expect her to undermine any progress Biden. You privately disagree and publicly commit. You do that until the circumstances change. The DNC is absolutely to blame. Not Harris though. It was as good as it could have been given the duration.
And then there’s the elephant in the room: she does not exist in a vacuum. We had a front row view to a horribly misogynist, criminal, fascist wannabe since (checks notes) 2015. People comparing these 2 and selecting to risk the world order just to save their regressive social views are also to blame. Because remember: all economists agree how dangerous his plan is.
I 100% agree except why is it that “Democrats dropped the ball”?
Democrats aren’t voting for a fascist. Their politicians are not enabling a fascist. The Democratic voting base hasn’t been bamboozled by 30+ years of obvious propaganda pretending to be news.
Christians dropped the ball. Conservative immigrants dropped the ball. Legit news media dropped the ball. Large corporations and wealthy individuals dropped the ball… on purpose.
Democrats work on harm reduction because we don’t give them enough votes to make meaningful changes. A 1 or 2 vote margin isn’t enough to vote around the moles like Manchin and Sinema.
Christians dropped the ball. Conservative immigrants dropped the ball. Legit news media dropped the ball. Large corporations and wealthy individuals dropped the ball… on purpose.
There is a literal industry built on lies
To be fair, just being a corrupt industry full of scumbags is actually progress when it comes to religion. Go back 100 years let alone 500 and it was more like its own authoritarian political party. now it’s just hobby lobby with more private jets, and…well, that’s a good thing. I don’t ever want to have to expect the Spanish inquisition.
Leftists - the “don’t vote” kind - definitely dropped the ball.
It’s really tiring seeing you guys trot out the “it’s all leftist’s fault for not voting for us!” line again and again when the actions of your candidate give it away for the lie that it is. Leftists cannot simultaneously be the cause of every Democratic defeat, yet too insignificant a group to merit any consideration in party platform.
Go back to your handlers for better propaganda, this one doesn’t work on anyone with a pulse.
They actually can be the cause of defeat while still not having power in the party. There’s not enough leftists to win the primaries, but there are enough that if they don’t vote in the general it can cause a loss.
Then again, with the sheer number of Democratic voters who voted in 2020 but not 2024 I don’t think it’s just the leftists.
It’s not the Democrats’ fault that there are so many cowardly, weak-minded, brainwashed losers in this country who fall for every bit of propaganda the GOP puts out. Politics shouldn’t be about culture wars but that’s how the republicans get votes.
It is the Democrats fault that there are so many cowardly, weak-minded losers in charge of the party though.
The Democrats are responsible for 50+ years of neglecting working Americans that created the culture you’re complaining about.
You could certainly say the Democrats should have been able to come up with a better outreach plan rather than running the same old plan that hasn’t penetrated into this group for the last several elections. It’s not as though the culture war nonsense and insane rightwing elements of the party are novel factors, such that the Dems can shrug their collective shoulders and say “Hey, we did our best, be we were flying blind into the unknown.”
You are right about stupid people falling for stupid shit, but that’s not why democrats lost. Trump got less votes than he did in 2020, that 70 million who voted for Trump are just people who love what Trump says.
What made democrats lose are the 16 million votes Biden got that Harris didn’t get. The GOP didn’t magically make those votes disappear, those missing votes is the failure of the democratic party.
There is an industry built on lies my guy. A literal lie industry. Industrial lies
Anything to blame the Democrats, huh?
Look blaming the democrats is done not because the republicans aren’t to blame, but because blaming them is sort of pointless. It’s like blaming terrorists for the shit they do. Yes, it’s their fault. Yes, they’re morally reprehensible. So what? Are you going to spend time trying to come up with detailed arguments for what they could’ve done better? No, you look to the material conditions, people, and organizations responsible for fighting them, and for making sure people aren’t desperate enough to join them, because their job at least in theory is to do better. I blame the democrats because I believe they could have done better. I do not have even that small grain of hope when it comes to the republicans.
What exactly do you think would have won?
Humans are awful
Bernie Sanders
Pete Buttigieg
Or if they could have approached a very popular celebrity such as Dwayne Johnson or Taylor Swift and asked them to run.
Even Andrew Yang could have produced a better result if he made a better campaign pitch than focusing his solely on leftist pipe dreams that will bankrupt the country such as UBI.
Lol you’re funny
That article has not aged well.
Are you fucking kidding? This campaign has been a fucking train wreck. There was genuine excitement behind her candidacy when Biden stepped down, and Walz actually generated even more enthusiasm. Since then, she has spent every moment of the campaign killing that energy. She alienated Muslim and Arab voters by refusing to allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC. She’s alienated her progressive base by campaigning with Liz Cheney and Laura Bush to court moderate Republicans. They’re literally rerunning the 2016 playbook and saying, “Yeah, but this time I’ve got a good feeling about it!”
I hope she wins, and if you’re reading this and you haven’t voted yet, please just vote for her, especially if you live in a swing state. But Jesus Fucking Christ, let’s not pretend she’d even have a shot of winning if she wasn’t up against a facist rapist.
Yeah trying to appeal to conservatives didn’t work for Hillary and I have no idea why they think it would have worked now. You aren’t convincing the cult to un-cult, this should have been a referendum on Roe v. Wade and a litigation of Trump’s failures in every decision he made, dancing on every issue to see if not offending christo-fascists would pull them to the center is insane.
Exactly, Harris has been mag dumping into her own feet on the final stretch to make this as close of a race as it is. It’s like she’s desperate to not win by too much. My inner conspiracy theorist is wondering if that’s not actually the case. If harris won by a landslide then that would neuter trump and the far right as a threat. That would mean the DNC couldn’t keep using them to push corporate moderates through by just saying “vote us or get the fash again”. But if the DNC just barely wins then they can keep using trump and those like him as a threat.
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She’s alienated her progressive base by campaigning with Liz Cheney and Laura Bush to court moderate Republicans. They’re literally rerunning the 2016 playbook and saying, “Yeah, but this time I’ve got a good feeling about it!”
You missed the point of those actions. She’s campaigning with Cheney and Bush to court women Republicans. Its a good strategy. My guess, if Harris wins it will be largely thanks to women stepping up in the voting booth.
No, I get the strategy. It’s just bad. If abortion is your deciding issue, you’re going to vote for Harris. Suburban women may very well be the key to this election, I just don’t think that they were waiting for someone to give them permission to vote for Harris. I especially don’t think that any of them who might have gone for Trump would be swayed by anyone with the last name Cheney or Bush.
Also, the assumption had to have been that they could court these conservative women safely because progressive groups would turn out to defeat Trump. I think that’s a very dangerous gamble, especially without doing something to energize progressives. Breaking with Biden on Gaza, even just a little, would have done a lot, but they decided against that. I’m afraid that they’ve demoralized a large number of their core voting groups to court a small number of conservatives.
Likely voters is the key. The Never Trump crowd is part of the “likely voters” crowd. If the far-left voted, then Bernie would probably won the primary in '16 or '20. Let’s get through today, and I am right beside you to push to the left!
Well, I don’t want to re-hash the rat-fucking the Dems gave Bernie in '16 and '20, but yeah, vote Harris on '24, for lack of literally any other viable alternative to facism. This year, I’ve voted for the Democratic ticket for the first time in over a decade (My state is incredibly blue, but I wanted to show solidarity with some swing state friends who were reluctant to vote for Harris).
If that’s what they wanted they really should have been pointing out all the white women dying or going to prison in right wing states. White conservative women are 10x as racist as the men, you need to make it clear the gun is pointed at them if you want them to care at all.
Thank you for bringing attention to the incompetence of Kamala’s campaign. She and her campaign at one point even had to silence Tim Walz for his believes because they went against the platform.
Then the race after Republicans by uniting with the Cheneys just cucked them so hard.
Tim Walz was the key to this campaign’s victory. And Kamala dropped the ball.
That overcoat is clean af
I’ve seen some people argue that had Biden stayed in, we would be seeing the same numbers. Not sure if I agree with that. But it’s an interesting thought.
My guess is he’d be doing worse, that the advantage of being a white male wouldn’t be enough to overcome how his age is affecting him.
No. Biden wasnt getting WORSE numbers out of Republicans or centrist non party members, he lost all confidance from Dems. Flat out. You can’t show up sick to debate at 2am in the morning, at some point he should have said no, it’s going to make sense or we won’t, He had everything to lose in that debate, only his side gave a shit about it, the trumpers give zero fucks if Trump is deranged and unintelligible.
are you kidding me. how is someone like trump even able to get nominated much less win a general. satan I miss last millenium.
You could start by reading the article and actually responding to their arguments, as they explicitly address what you are stating here right at the beginning.
And the fact that there were so few months left before the Election when Biden had to step aside. She had to work and work she did.
Granted the polls right now, least estimating, aren’t looking great. I expect an upset though.
all gonna come down to turnout.
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Leave it to the modern journalist to spin a loss as a win. Comedic at best.
Panelist on pbs live election coverage was saying Harris ran a flawless campaign. They just dont get it.
Lemmy users have been repeating the same bullshit.
Why is no one discussing Dems have lost the senate and given a bigger majority in the house to Republicans. Even without Trump they are bound to control house and the senate.
Stand by for nothing happening for the next 2 years or worse.
Thank that to even heavier Gerrymandering in part, which according to right wingers, is a “leftist conspiracy theory”.
ABC thinks trumps lead is insurmountable in Penn. This shit is joever.
I yearn for your optimism.
I thot nothing will b accomplished when there was a chance Harris could have won but now it is in the worse category.
Since Trump seems to win I think a lot of things may happen in the next few years.
The fact that it’s close is a testament to the idiocy and racism of the American public.
Anti-Intellectualism, Anti-Abortion, The Ignorant .etc
Those also play roles.
Like I said: Idiocy
Or is a testament to how effective rich authoritarians have been at keeping much of the public uneducated and or fed misinformation.
That and just a dash of sexism.
TBH when her candidacy first was announced I was completely convinced that Trump had already won… A woman, AND black?
Voting is a two way street.
You can’t put all the blame on voters and none on the campaign. One of those groups gets paid millions and millions of dollars to get a D president.
When we ran a young charismatic candidate with a progressive campaign in 08, it was easy to get voters on board and red states became blue, it even carried over to flipping state governments
When we ran a young charismatic candidate with a progressive campaign in 08, it was easy to get voters on board and red states became blue, it even carried over to flipping state governments
See https://lemmy.world/comment/12409521 - but the TLDR is that 2008 isn’t comparable, since a major gerrymandering effort by the GOP took place in 2010 that took Dems by surprise - and this gerrymandering made the above virtually impossible to repeat (by design, I might add).
If we had a moderately sane Republican running, I’d agree with you.
But anyone who looks at Trump and thinks “Yep, that guy should have the nuclear football” is a fucking moron and I’m terrified that they’re allowed to operate motor vehicles.
But you can still make the argument the DNC seeing trump and using that as an excuse to run candidates more conservative than Dem voters are is also a dangerous thing…
That’s what I’m saying, you can blame 10s of millions of voters, or the handful of people at the DNC who get paid millions to get a Dem elected.
Both should do the right thing, and I get criticizing both. I even get criticizing the handful of wealthy unelected people running the DNC as the priority.
But I’ll never understand why so many people demand only voters compromise and insist the handful of unelected wealthy, powerful, and connected people running the DNC are above reproach
Bill Clinton, who won in 1992, was from the midwestern state of Arkansas. I think this trend started long before, and has to do with the center of the US shifting differently from some of the more populated areas of the US.
I don’t blame Democratic voters. I blame every voter. This should be a no brainer. Trump should be polling in the single digits.
Americans are fucking stupid. The ones who vote are stupid. The ones who run the parties are stupid. The ones who don’t vote are stupid.
I keep trying to hitch a ride off this bug infested mudball but even the aliens know to avoid it.
And in 08 a young charismatic candidate with a progressive platform got them to vote for him even in red states
The voters will vote if given a better option.
Well, this is a hurdle though: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/07/19/gerrymandering-republicans-redmap
If the Republicans were running a sane choice, then Democrats holding to their ideals would be key. Voters would have an actual choice and candidates would need to better distinguish themselves
However we have a scenario where the Republicans candidate is not a sane choice for the future of our democracy, our country, our future, and are in some sort of bizarro world where half the population is fine with that. A bizarro world where saying the quiet part out loud is “telling it like it is”, where blatant corruption and fascism is somehow not just tolerated but even celebrated. Where it’s ok to be racist, sexist, and scapegoating is the strategy of the day
While I’m happy to be voting FOR Harris, it’s critical in so many ways to vote AGAINST Trump, his excesses, his corruption, his abuse of power, his signature for sale, his lackey for Putin, his willingness to sacrifice our future for more money today, his narcissism at the expense of the citizens a President is meant to serve
it aint over til the black lady sings.
