Kamala Harris Pulled Off a Miracle | The fact that the election is a toss-up, rather than a Trump landslide, is a testament to the vice president’s political skills
Kamala Harris Pulled Off a Miracle | The fact that the election is a toss-up, rather than a Trump landslide, is a testament to the vice president’s political skills
The fact that the election is a toss-up, rather than a Trump landslide, is a testament to the vice president’s political skills.
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.
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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 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.
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."
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 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.
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.
No we're watching the same candidate. You're just willing to paper over a genocide for the other bits. And thats a you decision.
I, and many others were not okay with it. And that was our decision. Its not our responsibility to support a candidate just because the other candidate is a shit stain.
your candidate was the ones taking the risk. You dont get to demand peoples votes for a candidate or lay blame on others because of anothers candidates behavior.
You need votes to win which means convincing people to vote for your candidate. Harris definitely knew what the deal was and she made the decision to risk it. Trump also understood this, clearly better than Harris his campaign started courting that group immediately after she left them.
This conversation is done. you're not bringing anything new to the discussion. Accept the loss that harris received because she was unwilling to move on a genocide.
Learn from this from the next election: a candidate does not get to demand votes from people because the other candidate is trash, demand your candidate move to accept positions that dont conflict w/ yours. As an example i was more than willing to accept the border policy and firearms policy shifts. I was not okay with cheney, but i would have ignored it for a win. I was not okay with arming israel while a genocide was occurring, i was not okay with how she treated the arab Americans begging for help by her campaign.
Prepare for Gaza to be handed to Israel under Trump. Same with Ukraine to Russia. And we’re only talking about the tangible situations without even considering the soft power impacts of putting him back in power. That’s the world order risk, and you can choose to “win” the battle (spoiler: you won’t) but it will forfeit all future ones (e.g. Korea, Taiwan, who knows what else domestically). You can’t choose to criticize one platform by one measure yet use a different measure for the other. Trump is objectively worse if you care at all about genocide, and therefore yes you as a candidate do demand the vote of others who think the other is worse. FPTP demands strategic voting. You vote for the person that aligns closest with you. You do your neighbors poorly when you decide to vote based on a single issue, so I think your observations about her campaign say more about you than it does about her.
like i said you're not bringing anything new to this conversion. I'm well aware about whats currently and going to continue happening in the middle east, and elsewhere. stop assuming people don't know whats to come just makes you look foolish. we did this entirely eyes open. not our fault harris and people like yourself thought it was a bluff. it mostly just demonstrates the supreme lack of empathy harris (and those like her) have.
The gall telling people to begging for their friends and family to not be murdered to 'stfu, and vote for the lesser evil' when the lesser evil is literally the one murdering them.
If you want to know a secret, I would have voted for harris if she was at risk in my state, but 1) she wasnt, 2) the arabs community wouldn't, 3) they needed all the support they could get.
I was happy to help them attempt to push harris and the DNC, as you should have been. if more people took my stance and tanked harris' campaign even harder earlier maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. sometimes a little empathy is all you need.
You're assertion about FPTP, again you're assuming I don't already understand FPTP. I apparently understand it better than you do. Since I know when I can break with the theory based on contextual conditions in my state. I also know I can lie to my candidates/pollsters/you about my positions leading up to the election in order to get more than I really need to commit my vote.
I also understand FPTP theory doesn't account for human behavior and that murdering peoples friends and family will naturally be such a stressor they won't give a shit about its theory. I know I fucking wouldnt. so next time be more empathetic towards people being murdered and maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.
There is an industry built on lies my guy. A literal lie industry. Industrial lies
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
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.