politics

I still think Biden's refusal to let go of the reins until way way too late is what doomed her primarily. As VP, she had to hold and defend Biden's exact policies and positions, even the unpopular ones, while he was running. By the time he finally quit, she was basically stuck inside the rotting corpse of his campaign, having painted herself into a corner on every issue.

So... the Dem strategy was... run an insufferable, stuffy, haughty narcissist to counter a more bombastic, less classy, insufferable narcissist...???

Imagine not voting for the black lady because she has to prove herself worthy while a criminal senile pedophile can go on insane demented rants for a year and win by default.

There's a lot of cope happening in America, and everyone is pointing fingers, but the fact is 2/3 of the electorate either voted for fascism or didn't bother to vote against it.

But go ahead and blame everyone and everything other than the fact that American culture is fundamentally rotten and most people either want fascism or at least don't care about whether it happens.

People are missing your /s unfortunately lol

When a team loses a basketball game by 1 point, literally every missed shot or turnover (or blown defensive coverage leading to an easy basket for the other side or foul leading to made free throws) could be pointed to as the "cause" of that loss.

So yeah, if she were an actual better politician she probably would've won with the cards she was dealt. But there were also dozens of other causes that would've made her (or an alternative candidate) win, all else being equal.

And it's hard to see how a better politician would've ended up in that position to begin with. The circumstances of how Harris ended up as VP probably wouldn't have happened if not for the specific way that her 2020 campaign flamed out.

Oh she never in 100 years would have won a primary. She was like rank 8 of 10 in the 2020 primaries, people do not like her

It's hard to blame the voters in the light of recent events.

Voters just handed the Democrats an insane mandate. Ignoring the voters and caving in to the fascists a week later sends a very clear message, "We don't care about your vote."

Actions speak louder than words.

I’m gonna be devil’s advocate here for a moment. I followed Mamdani’s campaign closely and I think he nailed it on the spot. You had two politicians running whereas one lied that he’ll reduce prices and make America great again and the other.. did nothing for the most part. From the eyes of the average voter Kamala promised nothing but the status quo, and they wanted change. That’s how Dem strongholds flipped red during this election and how a lot of them went back to blue for the mid term elections. If she told her donors to get stuffed and worked for the working class instead of exploiting the working class she would’ve won.

What a mess we live in. Both options will fuck you over, only one of them will do it with lube.

Of course there were many foolish voters out there but it's not good enough for a candidate to be not Donald Trump. The reality is that many people will stay home when they see dirty corporate politicians running for office. And you can blame the people all you want, but that doesn't change reality, and they'll still stay home.

I think what's embarrassing is your approach. You saw 2016 and 2024 and you still haven't learned from either of them. It turns out that people vote or don't vote for a variety of reasons, and a simplistic approach like yours is a failed approach.

This is a perpetually idiotic take.

All the statistical evidence that we have, is that once Kamala was the candidate, her polling rose meteorically. Until she started to define herself as a candidate, when all we had were her words as former candidate to base her policy positions on, she was heading towards blue-wave-of-epic proportions territory. She named Walz as running mate and people thought they had someone to vote for herself

Then, during the convention, the definition began as a continuance of a corporate, Biden-esque, more-of-the-same, Democrat. They silenced Palestinian voices and shunned the progressive vote, while embracing Republicans and hawkish dem's.

And her polling rapidly stagnated, then began to slide. As she slid further and further right, so did her polling.

Harris' loss was not an inevitability, and to present it as such is to both misunderstand the political moment then, as it happened, and to misrepresent the ongoing political moment.

If Harris' had ran on her 2020 campaign platform with Walz as vice, she wins. Hands down. The political pressure desperately seeking an outlet on issues like M4A, and so many other leftwing polciies isn't new. Bernie got it started in 2016 and it never stopped growing. All she needed to do was step left and ride the wave. But she chose to make losing decisions. Her loss was not an inevitability and to present it as such is a form of lying.

But she never stood a chance with, what, a three month campaign

That was half her strength. Trump's entire team was geared around shitting on Joe Biden. And then Joe Biden stops being on the ballot, sending oodles of oppo-research and Hunter Biden smears and god even knows what kind of October Surprise they had cooking down the toilet.

Biden dropping out and throwing up Harris in his place meant she was free to pummel Trump with negative ads while he had to fully reconfigure his campaign to attack someone who'd spent four years as a backbencher. And - early on at least - Harris capitalized on this well. She came in with a moderate Dem - Tim Walz - who defused some of the Zionist image built up around Joe. She spewed negative ads at Trump and Vance, leaning on the "they're just weird" talking point that got plenty of mileage both on and off-line. She was a prodigious fundraiser, unlocking a ton of cash that Biden had left on the sidelines because he was too senile to call the mega-donors and ask for it.

And, as a tabula rosa, she (initially) ditched all of Biden's first term baggage - his failure to secure student loan relief, his endless efforts at compromising with far-right Republicans, his pull-out of Afghanistan and dive into Ukraine, his just being a gross old fart who couldn't talk good.

But then Harris had to take on a bunch of Hillarycrat advisers and tack to the right. She ditched Walz for Liz Cheney and Cindy McCain. She sucked up to the Silicon Valley Techbros as they lined up to knife her in the back. She repeatedly defended Joe Biden's least popular policies. She undid everything that Biden dropping out was intended to accomplish.

If anything, it speaks poorly of her leadership potential that she was willing to be saddled with that mess of a non-campaign.

She never really had a choice. But that's been the hallmark of her entire political career. Harris always just kinda blew where the wind took her. She shouldn't have been VP to begin with, taking the job only because Biden confusedly promised a black woman VP when he was asked about his plans for a next SCOTUS pick.

But then she surrounded herself with some of the most abysmal neocon reject advisors $1.5B could buy. And she tanked her chances at becoming the First Woman President by running the Clinton Playbook that had cost her predecessor so two prior electoral defeats.

The campaign came out of the gate punching and dominated the news cycle. Then they took pelosi's advice and tacked right and immediately began to flounder.

Im not convinved the technofascists wouldve allowed a democrat win, but i don't think it's because kamala only had 3 months. Thats how long election campaigns are in civilised countries.