Once Again, the Democratic Leadership Has Failed Us All
Once Again, the Democratic Leadership Has Failed Us All
In 2016, we warned that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was not resonating with Americans. In 2024, we warned about Kamala Harris, and we were ignored again. Now, the worst has happened. So, what do we do? A leftist analysis can help us chart a path forward.
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Kamala Harris truly is Hillary Clinton 2.0.
Many of Harris’s mistakes were similar to those Hillary Clinton made in 2016. Like Clinton, Harris cozied up to billionaire donors. Mark Cuban, for instance, said he was delighted that Harris was abandoning Democrats’ commitments to progressive principles and letting the business community propose the policies it wanted. Like Clinton, Harris and Tim Walz made hubristic campaign stops in solidly red states like Texas and Kentucky rather than spending the final days laser-focused on crucial battlegrounds. Like Clinton, Harris emphasized celebrity endorsements while failing to successfully court unions. (Most notably, the Teamsters declined to endorse her after she refused to pledge that she wouldn’t break a national railway strike.) Like Clinton, Harris focused too much on the danger of Donald Trump (which is very real) and not enough on the reasons why she would be good at being president herself.
I’ll just say that all the policies she proposed seemed entirely uninteresting to me. Credits for first time home buyers and something about building new homes seemed like her main talking point. This is great for all the people that don’t currently own a home and want to but does nothing for most people that also need help.
It benefits you by reducing homelessness and poverty in general which has a much higher cost for society in the long run. Holy fuck you guys are so self centered.
That was not her message. So get off your high horse. It was “I’m going to build houses and it’ll save money for some people that probably aren't you”. Periodt
But the exit polls showed that most people felt they were worse ofd today than 4 years ago. You expect all those people to read between the lines to figure out this will help make things better for them eventually? That's not how politics works.
Which saves you money in the long run, that's what you can't get into your head, helping others get out of the shit they're in helps everyone and saves money for everyone in the long run.
It’s the job of the campaign to explicitly make this argument. They did not. They failed. It is not our fault for their failure. You making this argument is the first I’m even hearing this.
I get so frustrated at the poor messaging. Glen younkin stood on stage against mcauffee and straight up lied about crt in school, and no body called him out in it.
Blaming the campaign for your ignorance 👍 You have the right to continue educating yourself once you're out of school.
Lol, this has to be the most naive and hilarious bs I’ve seen in a while. Harris did nothing wrong. No notes. It’s 100% the people that are wrong. Keep living that fantasy while the rest of us try to autopsy this corpse of a campaign and see what the cause of death is.
Never said she did nothing wrong but yes, the majority of electors are.
Well my only point is that most voters are not going to do the homework you require them to do in order to vote for a candidate. She failed in that respect and that is not the voters fault. Fix the party or become irrelevant.
Do you really expect everyone to vote in the name of altruism? How naive can you be?
Is it altruism to help others if the end goal is to help yourself in the long run?
Holy fuck you guys are so self centered.
You're awfully preachy defending a campaign message that was such an abject failure.
after she refused to pledge that she wouldn't break a national railway strike
JUST LIE my god youll already be in office and can make up some nonsense why you had to break the strike (Im not antiunion, Im just saying)
JUST FUCKING LIE or were all the existential threats you wouldnt shut the fuck up about (instead of actually having a platform) not worth doing whatever you needed to get into power!?
... sigh
But that would be gud politik.
You're right that she was Hilary 2.0, but for the wrong reason.
It has very little to do with policy.
The difference between winning and losing was almost certainly just people who preferred a man over a woman as president. Whether they will say it or not, America is still not ready for a female president.
"In 2020, men were almost evenly divided between Trump and Biden, unlike in 2016 when Trump won men by 11 points."
This election, Trump won men by 10 points again.
Democrats have got the largest share of women's votes in every election since 1988.
Losing 10 points of the male vote isn't caused by support for Israel, or a lack of progressive policies.
This is the sad truth.
I’m not going deny that there were certainly sexist people that wouldn’t vote for a woman. But I don’t think I can agree it was the difference between winning and losing.
I think it’s much, much more likely that the progressive voting bloc that was able to start winning the primaries in 2020 and was railroaded by the party (twice) that’s been completely shunted off to the side in favor of some mythical swing Republican voter is very much the reason.
They think putting a woman of color up as the candidate would be enough to win that bloc. Which goes to show the root of the problem. It’s the rainbow capitalist issue. “If we slap a pride flag on the person of color we got as our new representative and change our single bathroom signs to say ‘all gender,’ we’ll be in the right! We’ll fool those hippies and socialist dirtbags yet!”
This has failed them. Over and over. The most thinking people of the entire country (biased opinion, I grant) aren’t easily appeased. Things were so bad in 2020 that bloc mostly held their noses to vote for Biden. And they figured running against trump was the only ammunition they needed to lock down that bloc and they could hold them no problem while also courting the neocons!
They are funding a genocide. Basically perpetrating it. They were going to have to bend over backwards to get anyone left of Biden to vote for them. And they unquestionably didn’t. They basically told us to go fuck ourselves. Again.
And they fucked themselves by doing so.
Your reasoning doesn't explain the male vs female vote difference. Kamala won essentially the same percentage of the female vote as Biden, but lost because she didn't capture male voters. Why would only male voters abandon her based on the policies you mentioned?
Kamala actually retained more male Biden voters than female.
It's the economy. They can scream the economy numbers are great but the people are feeling it differently at the grocery store, gas station, paying rent, etc.
Right, economy. Both candidates ran on fixing it. But one wasn't a black woman.....
"It's broken because of Biden and she should have fixed it during the last four years." It's stupid logic but that's what it came down to for some.
Women didn't buy that logic, but men did?
Harris won essentially the same percentage of women as Biden did, but lost entirely on the fact that fewer men voted for her (by a wide margin)
I'm pretty sure the simple explanation is right here, and it had nothing to do with the economy.
but lost entirely on the fact that fewer men voted for her (by a wide margin)
it had nothing to do with the economy.
Thats not true at all-- its just what you wish was true.
She lost in every single demographic besides white college educated women. She especially lost amongst the poor voters. She lost amongst nonwhite women and not college educated women.Gender and race certainly had a part in it, but the facts dont match your conclusions. Lies dont become anyone -- even someone dealing with a hard loss.
We have enough lies to sort through already and your adding to the pile will not help matters. How about we make some effort to get to "the truth" not "your truth".
I'm not talking about who lost vs won each demographic, I'm referring to changes to percentages which you don't seem to understand.
Harris lost more male votes than female, far more. It simply doesn't make sense that she would lose such a massive difference in men if the economy was the primary reason. Men don't care about the economy significantly more than women do, it's an issue that both genders put at the top of their priorities.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Harris being female cost her at least some votes, and she didn't lose by very much. Only 3 people changed sides this election out of every 100 voters(net of course), that's it. It's not hard to think that may be due to her gender or race.
thereasonAnother reason