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.
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
Leftists - the “don’t vote” kind - definitely dropped the ball.
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.
It is the Democrats fault that there are so many cowardly, weak-minded losers in charge of the party though.
There is an industry built on lies my guy. A literal lie industry. Industrial lies
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
Anything to blame the Democrats, huh?
Did she win? No? Then it doesn’t fucking matter!
What? Should she be getting a participation trophy? Sorry, I can’t hear you over how Ukraine is being annexed by Russia.
Also it wasn’t a toss up. Trump won every single swing state. All of them. This article is some mad copium. Prepare to see more of it over the next few days.
I know right. They act like Harris was some plucky underdog. When in reality her party is only one of two that govern the most power country on earth.
The fact that it’s close is a testament to the idiocy and racism of the American public.
That and just a dash of sexism.
Voting is a two way street.
You can’t put all the blame on voters and none on the campaign. One of those groups gets paid millions and millions of dollars to get a D president.
When we ran a young charismatic candidate with a progressive campaign in 08, it was easy to get voters on board and red states became blue, it even carried over to flipping state governments
If we had a moderately sane Republican running, I’d agree with you.
But anyone who looks at Trump and thinks “Yep, that guy should have the nuclear football” is a fucking moron and I’m terrified that they’re allowed to operate motor vehicles.
But you can still make the argument the DNC seeing trump and using that as an excuse to run candidates more conservative than Dem voters are is also a dangerous thing…
That’s what I’m saying, you can blame 10s of millions of voters, or the handful of people at the DNC who get paid millions to get a Dem elected.
Both should do the right thing, and I get criticizing both. I even get criticizing the handful of wealthy unelected people running the DNC as the priority.
But I’ll never understand why so many people demand only voters compromise and insist the handful of unelected wealthy, powerful, and connected people running the DNC are above reproach
I don’t blame Democratic voters. I blame every voter. This should be a no brainer. Trump should be polling in the single digits.
Americans are fucking stupid. The ones who vote are stupid. The ones who run the parties are stupid. The ones who don’t vote are stupid.
I keep trying to hitch a ride off this bug infested mudball but even the aliens know to avoid it.
And in 08 a young charismatic candidate with a progressive platform got them to vote for him even in red states
The voters will vote if given a better option.
If the Republicans were running a sane choice, then Democrats holding to their ideals would be key. Voters would have an actual choice and candidates would need to better distinguish themselves
However we have a scenario where the Republicans candidate is not a sane choice for the future of our democracy, our country, our future, and are in some sort of bizarro world where half the population is fine with that. A bizarro world where saying the quiet part out loud is “telling it like it is”, where blatant corruption and fascism is somehow not just tolerated but even celebrated. Where it’s ok to be racist, sexist, and scapegoating is the strategy of the day
While I’m happy to be voting FOR Harris, it’s critical in so many ways to vote AGAINST Trump, his excesses, his corruption, his abuse of power, his signature for sale, his lackey for Putin, his willingness to sacrifice our future for more money today, his narcissism at the expense of the citizens a President is meant to serve
Or is a testament to how effective rich authoritarians have been at keeping much of the public uneducated and or fed misinformation.
Leave it to the modern journalist to spin a loss as a win. Comedic at best.
Panelist on pbs live election coverage was saying Harris ran a flawless campaign. They just dont get it.
Why is no one discussing Dems have lost the senate and given a bigger majority in the house to Republicans. Even without Trump they are bound to control house and the senate.
Stand by for nothing happening for the next 2 years or worse.
I yearn for your optimism.
I thot nothing will b accomplished when there was a chance Harris could have won but now it is in the worse category.
ABC thinks trumps lead is insurmountable in Penn. This shit is joever.
Since Trump seems to win I think a lot of things may happen in the next few years.
Thank that to even heavier Gerrymandering in part, which according to right wingers, is a “leftist conspiracy theory”.
Edit: If Kamala loses, and it looks like she might, I’m blaming her and her campaign. She could have swooned the beliefs of America if she had ran on something better.
Her political skills are trash.
Kamala gained the most approved points after Biden gave her the race.
Since then, her approval rating has plummeted compared to her early numbers, and I think this is because Kamala doesn’t really know what to believe.
You can see it with Tim Walz. There was a lot of momentum when Kamala took up the mantle, and that momentum was carried through once the Walz pick came out. Then, around the DNC, the campaign’s tone shifted, crawling back to the ethos of the Biden administration. I think this is because Kamala couldn’t decide to break away from Biden or not, and because she waited so long, she was around a lot of the same people in the Biden administration, and those people influenced her platform. You can also see this with marijuana and how she changed sides in her time between being DA and senator. Also, how she didn’t really have a solid platform to begin with, which should have been established right when Walz was picked.
I’m not here to call her out as a flip flopper. I’m pointing to how she could have steamrolled this election, but chose not to. It saddened me so much when the campaign had silence Tim for his views and policies when those views and policies were the key to victory.
Close, but no cigar does not preserve actual democracy, unfortunately.
Calling yourself a democracy, and being a democracy are two very different things. The first proper word in North Korea’s official country name is “Democratic”, and bear in mind Russia holds “elections” as well.
Only a small handfull of countries in the world dont at least claim to be democratic. Heres a map. https://www.reddit.com/r/Maps/comments/1b0md42/countries_that_dont_claim_to_be_democratic/?chainedPosts=t3_1cfr8lx
Lol what a spin.
What’s more amazing is that no one is saying “is America ready for a woman president?” this time around, like they were in 2016. It’s refreshing, but also sad that it took this long.Never fucking mind. At this point I decide whether suicide or applying for a green card is the easier option.
“Look, I hate women, but I hate Nazis even more” - Boomer men
I am not dismissing Kamala Harris here but the Democrats could have pitted a cold cut sandwich against Trump and the race would be just as tight. This is a race between fascism and not.
well that’s not true, Biden was definitely going to lose.
People: “We don’t want old!” Biden: “I still got this!” Debate. “Maybe I don’t.” Harris: “I’m not old!” People: “Good enough!”
That article has not aged well.
No it’s not, liberals tried the age old tactic of getting minorities and the working class to vote for neoliberals that have devastated their well being for 50 years because the GOP is racist, and for some reason it didn’t work this time.
Y’all took the wrong lesson from COVID and 2020. It wasn’t that voters were going to continue to put up with Democrat’s fealty to the right and corporate donors. It was that COVID was so unprecedented that they held their nose one last time. ,
The enduring fact is that our election cycles don’t have to last years. She did this in a little over 100 days.
The Primary system is fucking broken. It only exists to make some states “Princess for a Day” and guarantee some advertising dollars. It is only so long because some states want a week to themselves, or want to be “first in the nation” or some other bullshit like that. And the parties do whatever they can to tip the scales all the time.
If I were in charge, I would change it like this:
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All primary elections for President must occur within a four week span in May or June.
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12 or 13 states go in each week. The order will vary from election to election, so the same bucket of states only goes first once in 4 elections.
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there must be at least three candidates for any primary to happen. Less than 3 candidates = no primary.
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parties are free to ignore these rules, but then they should settle their candidate by some other method than a state-wide primary that taxpayers pay for.
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Are you fucking kidding? This campaign has been a fucking train wreck. There was genuine excitement behind her candidacy when Biden stepped down, and Walz actually generated even more enthusiasm. Since then, she has spent every moment of the campaign killing that energy. She alienated Muslim and Arab voters by refusing to allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC. She’s alienated her progressive base by campaigning with Liz Cheney and Laura Bush to court moderate Republicans. They’re literally rerunning the 2016 playbook and saying, “Yeah, but this time I’ve got a good feeling about it!”
I hope she wins, and if you’re reading this and you haven’t voted yet, please just vote for her, especially if you live in a swing state. But Jesus Fucking Christ, let’s not pretend she’d even have a shot of winning if she wasn’t up against a facist rapist.
Thank you for bringing attention to the incompetence of Kamala’s campaign. She and her campaign at one point even had to silence Tim Walz for his believes because they went against the platform.
Then the race after Republicans by uniting with the Cheneys just cucked them so hard.
Tim Walz was the key to this campaign’s victory. And Kamala dropped the ball.
Yeah trying to appeal to conservatives didn’t work for Hillary and I have no idea why they think it would have worked now. You aren’t convincing the cult to un-cult, this should have been a referendum on Roe v. Wade and a litigation of Trump’s failures in every decision he made, dancing on every issue to see if not offending christo-fascists would pull them to the center is insane.
Exactly, Harris has been mag dumping into her own feet on the final stretch to make this as close of a race as it is. It’s like she’s desperate to not win by too much. My inner conspiracy theorist is wondering if that’s not actually the case. If harris won by a landslide then that would neuter trump and the far right as a threat. That would mean the DNC couldn’t keep using them to push corporate moderates through by just saying “vote us or get the fash again”. But if the DNC just barely wins then they can keep using trump and those like him as a threat.
.
She’s alienated her progressive base by campaigning with Liz Cheney and Laura Bush to court moderate Republicans. They’re literally rerunning the 2016 playbook and saying, “Yeah, but this time I’ve got a good feeling about it!”
You missed the point of those actions. She’s campaigning with Cheney and Bush to court women Republicans. Its a good strategy. My guess, if Harris wins it will be largely thanks to women stepping up in the voting booth.
No, I get the strategy. It’s just bad. If abortion is your deciding issue, you’re going to vote for Harris. Suburban women may very well be the key to this election, I just don’t think that they were waiting for someone to give them permission to vote for Harris. I especially don’t think that any of them who might have gone for Trump would be swayed by anyone with the last name Cheney or Bush.
Also, the assumption had to have been that they could court these conservative women safely because progressive groups would turn out to defeat Trump. I think that’s a very dangerous gamble, especially without doing something to energize progressives. Breaking with Biden on Gaza, even just a little, would have done a lot, but they decided against that. I’m afraid that they’ve demoralized a large number of their core voting groups to court a small number of conservatives.
Likely voters is the key. The Never Trump crowd is part of the “likely voters” crowd. If the far-left voted, then Bernie would probably won the primary in '16 or '20. Let’s get through today, and I am right beside you to push to the left!
Well, I don’t want to re-hash the rat-fucking the Dems gave Bernie in '16 and '20, but yeah, vote Harris on '24, for lack of literally any other viable alternative to facism. This year, I’ve voted for the Democratic ticket for the first time in over a decade (My state is incredibly blue, but I wanted to show solidarity with some swing state friends who were reluctant to vote for Harris).
If that’s what they wanted they really should have been pointing out all the white women dying or going to prison in right wing states. White conservative women are 10x as racist as the men, you need to make it clear the gun is pointed at them if you want them to care at all.
