politics

I’m pretty far left of Harris ideologically and never really liked her or thought she was worthy of these powerful offices. I also never really expected that much from her. That being said, I was passionate about dropping Biden and supporting her campaign even at that late hour, given the immense implications of electing trump for a second term. I donated money, and rallied friends and family to get on board. Then she did that DNC speech and talked about the ‘strongest military’ yadda yadda yadda. All of that energy and enthusiasm instantly evaporated. Nothing she or her campaign did after that motivated any active support from me and I had to really fight off the urge to not vote for her. I’m entirely done with the Democratic Party as run by the current regime. Unless that party reforms, the US is absolute toast.

I was so excited after she picked Tim Walz. It was starting to look like the most progressive ticket in decades, she was ahead in the polls, and then she turned around and started campaigning with Republicans and CEOs. Total betrayal.

And yeah, she disappeared. I hear more from Biden and Obama than from her.

I never felt Harris actually stood for anything. This is easily the first election where I felt all the decisions made by the DNC were hard wrong - and I already thought the DNC fucked everything up when the turned on Sanders - but this time they really chose every bad option they could. A senior citizen that was absolutely having problems (outside the debate performance) and choosing an inclusivity* candidate that really had a checkered past of making climbing the ladder a priority while having no real policy gains or stances. Even in the lead up to everything, the other candidates were all but brushed aside. No real debate over policy or where the country was going.

She said whatever middle of the road thing needed to be said to appeal to enough people while leveling mealy criticism at best for the real problems, from Israel’s shitty war to attacks worker’s right in the US. We went from a candidate that should have never run again to a candidate that hadn’t given anyone a reason to want her to run at all at the last minute. And that’s awful, especially to lose against trump.

• I hate to even say it, but the fact is that the DNC wanted to run a black female. They banked on the (I can’t think of the word/name for it - people who want to do things for a minority community, but do so cluelessly, remove agency of the group, disregard the actual needs and culture of the group. Usually modestly wealthy white people making “programs” for minority communities) people to vote for the feel-good of voting a minority person up while not actually thinking that people would have needs and policy concerns that would influence their vote, or their willingness to vote at all. The DNC already had “protect the rich white people” as a top priority. They didn’t think people were smart enough to sense that, and everyone really had a feeling that the Democrats didn’t care about them anymore.

Edit: found it. It’s “white saviorism” or “white savior complex.”

Billionaires chose Trump, so Trump won. That's how US politics works

He is 100% right like always

i wish bernie won in 2016 :(

I see a lot of these postmortems and I don't know what combination of them is the actual truth, but I wasn't the slightest bit surprised when she lost. As soon as she got the nomination I thought it was likely.

For what it's worth, here is my take on her as one Californian that's had to deal with her since before 2010 when she ran for attorney general:

• Even before she ran for attorney general, I was constantly hearing about all kinds of awful stuff the SF district attorney's office was doing under her leadership even though I'm not from SF county.
• I was very disappointed when she got the nomination for attorney general because I didn't want her policies applied statewide. I voted against her in the primary but of course I held my nose and voted for her over the R in the general.
• I don't recall who I voted for in the 2016 primary for Senate but it wasn't her, or blue dog Sanchez. I think I barely tilted toward Sanchez in the general but I honestly can't remember. I was so disappointed in those choices that I didn't really give a shit. I thought we could do better in California than two conserva-dems, especially with the top-2 primary system.
• Never even considered voting for that cop in a presidential primary.
• Didn't like that she was the bottom of the ticket in 2020 especially considering Biden's age, but the alternative was clear.
• Of course, due to the alternative I voted for her in 2024 but without one iota of enthusiasm. I think I may have been more enthused to vote for John fucking Kerry, but that was a long time ago, it's hard to remember my feelings for a block of wood.

A small silver lining to her losing is I'll never have to hold my nose and vote for her ever again.

She lost because she just sucks. Whether an individual's reason for thinking she sucks and not being excited about her was based on misogyny, racism, her record of public service, her policy goals, or her personality doesn't matter. I didn't know anybody excited to vote for her. I knew some people excited to vote for a WOC, but not her as a person. A little enthusiasm was what was needed to turn the tide in the three states that mattered this time.

As soon as Biden dropped out too late for an actual primary, we already lost.

i hate the dnc but my perspective is mostly dont vote for the fascist

She tried to dance to the middle when Trump had a stranglehold on his cult of voters. Really stupid.

Yeah, but Trump does the same. Kamala had better taxes planned for the working class and the poor. Trump also has a very poor track record. You can blame Kamala for not doing it right, but imo the issue is mass disinformation and people being extremily dumb.

I don't have a ton of confidence the working class would choose someone who did choose them. Bernie is that candidate, and shenanigans aside from the dem primary, he didn't swing a landslide.

A few posts down in my feed is a photo of children zip tied in immigration court and it is fucking disgusting. There would be other problems in a Harris admin. But maybe we wouldn’t zip tie little kids.

And wow Bernie is right again.

Yeah. The DNC either don't realise, or refuse to realise, that electing Trump is not in approval of him, but expression of disapproval of the Democratic Party.

Yes, the Democratic Party is more subtle in regard to their support for oligarchs and corruption. With exception to Senator Sanders, the old coots should fucking retire. The election loss proved the AmeriKans are sucking down the Orange Kool-Aid and want the US Constitution to burn.

I wish I could believe that.

I mean, don't get me wrong - it would've been a better route to take in any case, whether it delivered the campaign from defeat or not.

But I have no faith in my fellow Americans to choose politicians or policies that represent their best interests.

I don't dislike Kamala, and Trump is a sociopath. I realize Joe Biden probably had cancer before he dropped out and that's why he dropped out. But I have to also say that voters probably didn't like the bait and switch approach where they suddenly felt they had to support her simply because she appeared as the candidate in the last legs of the campaign. I think diversity and female leadership is important, but probably asking undecided voters to go for a POC woman when that's not who they started out supporting probably didn't help. Old white centrists don't like that, and she didn't have time to build a campaign and show her skills like Obama did. Probably a good chunk of people straddling the line vote wise didn't love that. We had this happen in Canada recently with our new prime minister Carney, but he's an older white centrist dude, and we were clearly ok to hold our noses and do it to keep out the conservatives, but I think if it was someone like Kamala they might not have won.

It is perfectly fine, in fact it would be incredibly refreshing & welcome, to admit...she was a shitty candidate. Fuck, she was so terribly bad. And Tim Walz was a bad pick, too.

Everything was fake. Every day it unraveled more. She was caught saying things like, "I am different than Biden, I am not Biden, do not let his presidency reflect on me." What would you do differently? "Nothing, I wouldn't change anything." Okay....so....how are you different if everything Biden did was totally great & you wouldn't do anything differently?? 🤡 Heavily paraphrased, of course, the convos were more detailed (which only made it worse).

It's fine to say Kamala Harris was a cringe candidate. Completely unwanted, unelected, unqualified. Biden bowed out & the DNC shoved her in; there is no logical reason to continue to own her as your candidate & representative. You don't bring dead babies to Passover. This is an opportunity to rebrand the Democrat Party, to refocus on issues that actually matter. That is to say....if anyone still gives a goddamn about the issues that actually matter.

And Bernie would be right. I hope to god that Kamala sits out the next election.

It's not just Kamala Harris, it is democrats in general. I get that they want the first woman president ... but its not going to happen in this political environment. Many Hatian immigrants that voted for Trump just because they don't think a woman can be president. Copy that ... Trump said these people are eating cats and they still voted for him. Hispanics? News flash, they are predominantly Catholic ... so Pro Choice doesn't go over well for them. Then people got angry because Kamala skipped the whole nomination prosses. Stuff like this is why she lost. Biden should have ran, then resigned after he beat Trump again.

First time I don't 100% agree with him. I partially agree with Bernie here. Had Harris stuck with a more progressive ticket, she'd have stood a better chance; however, that doesn't explain the millions and millions of Americans that voted for a convicted criminal, rapist, kleptocrat, that claims to be for Jesus.