Every time some ridiculous shit like this happens, I remember when Howard Dean yelled a little too loud and that invalidated his entire political career.
Been thinking this thought a lot lately. IIRC he was a decent man and likely would have been a decent president - but god forbid he get a little excited at a rally. Meanwhile, Trump has proven that literally nothing he could do or has done would change the mind of his voters. He could start and end every speech with a Howard Dean scream, and no one would even bat an eye.
(And I seem to also recall hearing that the isolated microphone of his scream that we’ve all heard a hundred times did not reflect how it even sounded at the event.)
Because Trump is energizing his base with lies and propaganda designed to get them angry and motivated, while Kamala has squandered the enthusiasm her base had for her by pursuing disaffected center-right never-Trumpers. It’s basically the same strategy Hillary Clinton ran in 2016 and it’s terrifying to watch the Democrats gamble on it yet again.
The Harris campaign must pursue those voters in order to win. They are the voters who live in battleground states. Pursuing a hard-left strategy the way everyone on lemmy wants is a guaranteed loss.
This is the problem with the non-proportional EC makeup. Unfortunately it’s not going to change any time soon because the party who wins got there on the old system.
Thank you, this is a spectacular example of how Democrats use faulty logic and bad faith arguments to defeat themselves. I’m going to break it down for everybody so we can all understand why they keep losing.
The Harris campaign must pursue those voters in order to win. They are the voters who live in battleground states.
This is confidently stated as fact, but not only is there no evidence to support this statement, there’s strong evidence against it. This is, at its core, the same statement that Chuck Schumer made when predicting a Democratic sweep in 2016:
“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
Not only did this strategy fail spectacularly in 2016, we’re watching it fail in 2024; Harris has recently dropped in all crucial swing states. The only thing backing up this argument is its proponents’ self-confidence (or self-delusion).
Moving on:
Pursuing a hard-left strategy the way everyone on lemmy wants is a guaranteed loss.
Here, we leave behind false assertions and move into bad-faith arguments. Notice how the user completely ignored the voters I mentioned (her base) in order to pivot to what they think is an easier target: Lemmy users. Sure, if Kamala Harris came out in support of the abolition of capitalism, she’d lose, but no (or at least no one serious) is saying she’d win if she did.
What people are actually saying is much more tangible and and reasonable: sharpen your criticism of Israel and increase your Palestinian outreach if you want to win Michigan; don’t just talk about the middle-class, get your working-class base out with transformative social programs (like Biden proposed in 2020; stop hanging out with Liz Fucking Cheney, for Christ sake. These are all criticisms the user sidestepped by creating a false dichotomy between the, “hard-left,” and Harris’ current strategy.
Finally:
This is the problem with the non-proportional EC makeup. Unfortunately it’s not going to change any time soon because the party who wins got there on the old system.
This is unrelated, but incorrect. The Democrats have won the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 elections; they would abolish the Electoral College in a heartbeat, but it would require a constitutional amendment, which they’ll never get passed. It has nothing to do with the fact that, “the party who wins got there on the old system.”
Anyway, this is how the Democrats continuously fail. First, they convinced themselves that the only way to win is to get centrist voters, even though evidence doesn’t bear that out. Next, they dismiss criticism of this strategy as, “far-left.” Finally, if they lose (which is looking alarming possible this election), they will blame leftists for not supporting them strongly enough, thus allowing them to continue the same strategy next election without self-reflection…assuming there is a next election, which no longer feels like a given.
Ok.
This is confidently stated as fact, but not only is there no evidence to support this statement, there’s strong evidence against it.
i agreed with all of the other statements in your comment and this one’s the most fascinating to me: can you share some of this evidence, please?
Well, first, let’s look at the last 6 elections. In 2000, Al Gore ran a centrist campaign and lost. 2004, John Kerry ran a centrist campaign and lost. 2008, Barack Obama ran a very progressive campaign, promising universal healthcare, Wall Street reform, homeowner bailouts, closing Guantanamo…he wound up governing from the center, but he ran far to the left (by American standards). Even in 2012, the center of his reelection campaign was dealing with wealth inequality, and he won despite being called a communist. In 2016…well, we all know what happened there…and 2020, Biden, ran on a very progressive platform and strong support for labor (and he was actually surprisingly committed to it, especially student loan forgiveness).
But election results have many factors and are open to interpretation, so let’s look at some data, specifically from 2016. Clinton and the Democrats’ strategy was to go to the center to pick up moderate Republicans, but the data shows they failed spectacularly. Clinton picked up about 4% of voters who identified as Republican by going to the center, while Trump picked up 5% of Democrats by going far-right. Clinton got 42% of Independents, Trump got 43%. Even in the target demographic, people with mixed political views (AKA moderates), she got 42% to Trump’s 48%. And even if she’d won the center, it’s not clear that it would have helped much, as there’s relatively new data that shows that moderates are less likely to get involved in politics, including voting. In short, 2016 is a case study in why centrism is a losing strategy.
It’s also worth noting that, overall, Americans are not centrist. Sure, if you ask them if they like socialism, the results are pretty devisive, but if you ask them about progressive policies, they’re all for them: raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, single-payer healthcare, and even Universal Basic Income enjoy widespread support across the country. Shrinking away from these policies in favor of more moderate positions simply doesn’t make sense.
Those semi-con swing voters are deciding this election though. Nobody else is “on the fence” right now.
Jesus christ, we saw two assassination attempts on Trump and it didn’t change polls. While polls are trash and not to be trusted, they still would have changed if there was some large amount of moderate undecided voters.
And lets not forget H. Clinton won the popular vote by millions of votes. Yes, the Dems are addicting to losing and make the worst decisions in order to appeal to the most useless people, but they’re also playing against a stacked deck here.
I broke this down in another comment, but there’s really no evidence that this moderate strategy will work. Democrats win when their base turns out, and they lose when their base isn’t motivated. Watching Harris campaign with Liz Cheney doesn’t motivate the base. They may pick up some moderate voters in PA (though, again, it didn’t work in 2016, so there’s no reason to think it will work now), but it’s not going to matter if she loses Michigan because of a hard-right position on Israel.
but they’re also playing against a stacked deck here.
that they’re helping perpetuate.
this race…
this race?
The past three Republican presidents saw a job growth of 1 million, the past three Democratic presidents 51 million. Now sure, the president doesn’t define every aspect of the economy, but my god that big a discrepancy is not accidental. As someone not from America, I don’t understand why this race is so close, but why any race involving the Republicans, even outside of Trump, would be. I’ll consider Romney an exception though, but he doesn’t seem representative of the Republican Party before or after him.
nearly all republicans rig elections to their favor and make decent education an expensive luxury to help maintain their control over poorly educated & informed voting masses and democrats let them since it makes their job easier and they know that there’s no viable alternative.
the icing on this shit cake is that most democrat voters will shame you if you don’t participate and blame you if you can’t because of voter suppression.
Have you seen some of the wishy-washy mouth breathers in the “undecided” focus groups? I’m embarrassed to admit we’re the same species. The Trump cultists might be insane, brain-poisoned, sociopathic, fundamentalist idiots but at least they have the capacity to make a bad decision. The independents can’t seem to make any decision. It if they do, it’s based on some random nonsense or impulse. I dunno if they’ve got learning disorders or are just sad windsocks, but the fact that they are the ones who get to decide if America dies next month is terrifying.
wishy-washy mouth breathers in the “undecided” focus groups
This website is deteriorating into Democrats insulting non-Democrats constantly.
You’re party is simply unpopular as it caters to “moderates” and then has to spend an absurd amount of money to convince regular folks that the Democrats are the best those folks are allowed to have. No amount of memes and insults is going to change this simple truth.
If you’re claiming to be undecided on Trump in 2024, you’re full of shit. If you claim to be a moderate but still can’t decide between Trump and Harris, you’re not a moderate, you’re just full of shit
I haven’t claimed to be any of those things.
Edit: On a second reading, I think you are talking about “moderates in general.” I truely don’t understand how either party plans out their platform, nor what attracts people to them. (Outside of perhaps Sanders, who made too much sense I guess.)
This is a website?
No, this is Patrick.
Pretty sure it’s the economy. Despite the fact that the US economy has been reasonably well managed, by international standards, people are hurting – which is the perfect recipe for changing the governing party. Telling people that things aren’t as bad as they think they are makes you sound out of touch.
Most people are poorer today in the day-to-day than they were 4 years ago.
That’s why. It’s that simple.
In addition to all the things said elsewhere in this thread, younger demographics are less likely to engage with polling, which is likely effecting the outcome of the polls. The emails/texts/phone calls/etc just get ignored, so that leaves the older generations as the only ones who actually answer.
I know the polls try to take that into account, but it’s never going to be possible to do so perfectly.
So tldr: fuck the polls go vote, and make sure your friends/family votes
As John Stewart would say: well I’m still undecided… Cause a horse kicked my head.
why is this race so close?
Two words: Electoral College.
One word: stupidity.
Pam_from_The_Office.jpg
he barely danced because he knows he’d bust his ass trying.
Aww, no virtual hand-job boogying?!
It’s close because humans are stupid
Because the people who own everything want him to win. It’s that simple.
Because one side wants to own the libs and that’s all they want to do. While one side is just as bad, they want to own the population to get away with crimes and the other side is never taken seriously as it’s full of gas huffing paint-chip addicts.
The electoral collage an years of disinformation and latent bigotry plus corporate greed screwing us all over…did I miss anything?
Because the material conditions of late stage capitalism that lead to fascism are inevitable.
