I’ve never been as impressed as many people are of Bill Clinton as a great speaker or deep thinker, but he shoved his food so far down his throat there that it must have come out the other end. I don’t know that this is actually what caused Harris to lose the election—I’m coming to the view that enough Americans are willing to embrace fascism that this was inevitable—but she didn’t do any favors by distancing herself from the Biden Administration policy on Israel and Gaza. Of course, if she had, she’d have lost the AIPAC support and a large amount of American Jewish vote, so she was probably fucked either way on that issue.
Well, I sort of had the benefit of having to move between my online bubble and my real-world counter-bubble so I never got from “really think CAN win” to convincing myself “really think WILL win”. Even the Dems and unsatisfied Republicans in the latter were quite clear in that the default advantage was to him and what Harris brought in was the perception of a real contest when combined with his homestretch veer towards extra derangement, but it was still his to lose and hers to work at hard.
probably intended: More Americans fear not making the rent than fear persecution.
I was keeping up with the news and on election day, I told myself it could go either way.
The next day, I realized that I had actually believed deeply that she would win, because I didn’t really believe any significant numbers could vote for Trump knowing who he is. I was wrong.
I do think that Democrats need to analyze the weakening Middle Class: they don’t seem to understand that the problem is precisely because the economy is doing so well, but we’re nevertheless struggling. Maybe take a serious look at how this can be, and what has changed in the last generation.
Right, and inflation looked hopeless too. No-one could have protected the US from the supply-shock inside and outside the country. No-one can bring prices back down.
All government could do is ensure wages keep up with inflation and that the rate of inflation is brought back down to ideal levels. Biden and Harris did both (obviously with some caveats, I’ve put in the spoiler below). But the average American simply doesn’t understand this; and yes, I know I am an elitist jerk for saying that, but from people’s responses in interviews and polls, this does appear to be the case.
Caveats
Some might debate how much credit to give the Biden administration for high wages. Certainly there’s an indirect effect, as the rescue plan, chips and science, IRA etc helped keep unemployment low. The cause and effect might be clearer if they had managed to pass an increase to the minimum wage.
But this is often the issue with the economy and how much can be directly attributed to the leaders. In the context of people praising Trump for 2017-2019 and blaming Biden for inflation, for sure Biden should get credit for salaries beating inflation.
Inflation isn’t yet at the target rate, but it’s pretty damn close, and in a world where many countries are still battling unsustainable inflation. Also, most countries put their target rate at something like 2-3%, the Fed’s target rate of 2% is on the low side, so not quite hitting it is not really indicative of things going wrong.
More specifically, some part of the electorate that the big-jostling-tent Dems need to win. The GOP, especially in its modern bloodthirsty Trumpian form, has no such dilemma.
Inflation occurred for two reasons: the huge influx of stimulus money and supply issues. You could not have created a better text book example of too much money chasing too few goods. Harris should have accepted that the American electorate would blame Biden for that and come out with what she was going to do different …
Except she did and nobody listened.
Biden was horrible at messaging which is true of most ascended Veeps. Image matters a lot, if you want to win re-election that is.
The most similar electoral situation to Trump was probably Grover Cleveland, and well, Cleveland got back in as well.
Harris’ best bet was Biden dying. It worked for Truman and LBJ. Would have had a decent chance to get her a term at least.
I don’t think there was any way to make this work outside of Biden 2024. Even if he declares he’s out in 2022, support would bleed away one way or another.
Edit: Also, most people really don’t care if Trump is corrupt or has a shitty personality. They just don’t, if they think things are okay otherwise.
I heard Mark Cuban interviewed on Sam Harris’s podcast.
Cuban said [paraphrasing] – and this is a great state-the-obvious point – that Trump is an exceptional salesperson (for unethical cases of ‘salesperson’), while Kamala is just an average salesperson.
The stereotypical consummate salesperson can ‘sell ice to the Eskimos’ (we’ve seen Trump do that – not infallibly – but time after time).
A lousy or middling salesperson can struggle to sell bottled water to parched people.
It’s an exaggeration for effect, and excludes something I keep hammering on (ie, that Trump’s access to, and use of, both legacy and new media gave him 10X the eyeballs and ears, and 10X the reach of Kamala), but I think it’s plainly true.
And whoever mentioned that we simply didn’t know Kamala well as a VP, and that that has to be contrasted with Trump – of whom we simply could never be rid … I buy that, too.
…again, that’s not really my point. Its about how people were ignoring the flashing red warning signs that the Harris campaign was in trouble. When I visited the dope, it was like a completely different reality. People didn’t want to hear any dissenting opinions.
There was a debate about “character”, and that “Biden’s character over Trumps” should have been enough to convince anyone. I argued that this wouldn’t be enough. That you needed to give people something to vote for. And I didn’t think Biden’s character was that great anyway.
And it became a debate over Biden’s character. Which kind of missed the point, just as a focus on what I said about Gaza misses the point. Its about bubbles, and silos, and information systems, and people only hearing what they wanted to hear.
The right have near total control over the media ecosystems. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Linkedin. Arguably Tik Tok. They either own it outright or have mastered the use of the algorithm. They dominate the media. Not just Fox News, but the editorial slant of the Washington Post and the New York Times. They dominate the podcast space. My favourite trans creators on Youtube constantly have to battle anti-trans advertisements that get run on their channels.
They’ve locked in a segment of the population who are being fed a constant diet of low-information propaganda that almost everyone here isn’t seeing. This is the dystopian nightmare. Its here. As Max Headroom would say, we are now twenty minutes into the future. We gave up every opportunity to head this off at the pass. We’ve handed our souls over to the billionaire class.
So a lot of people were locked into an ecosystem that was convinced Harris was going to win. I was locked into an ecosystem that wasn’t. And much of America is locked into an ecosystem that is filling their minds with the “anti-woke mind virus.” And that latter group now control the executive, the senate, the supreme court, probably the house, the police, many of the States, the media and the social media, and the nuclear arsenal.
I never hear ‘close’ when I see the news. I only hear ‘decisive.’
312 electoral votes to 226 is not close
I’d venture that 50.3% to 48.1% of the popular vote in a modern day presidential election is a stretch to call it close. This is along the lines of Bush Jr. winning a second term numbers.
Even John Stewart called it “A bit of a thumping.”
I just didn’t think that in my lifetime a person who committed rape, was convicted of I don’t know how many criminal offences, tacitly endorses racism & led a coup against a democratically elected government, would have any prayer of getting nominated for president, let alone get majority approval by the people of the United States.
A great many, and I mean a LOT of Republican voters don’t even like him. So just imagine how tired of the Democratic agenda the majority of voters are to elect him.
I’m tired of what the RW claims is the left’s agenda, too.
But it’s important to check in with reality on occasion, and reality is … what’s true about Donald Trump is profoundly worse than the endless lies they’ve told the US about Biden and Harris.
RW demagoguery and propaganda is a fearsome, insidious, and powerful societal ill.
