That was my point – everyone in US politics needs big backers at some point, because elections cost billions.
No. Let’s look at some of the objective facts:
<ETA I’ve put this in a spoiler box now, as I realized how off-topic this is>
On Musk
He has a social media platform where he doesn’t just platform fascists but repeats and retweets their views daily to his 200 million followers. If you’re on Twitter, it’s hard not to hear his views as they go directly into your home page (or whatever it’s called…I don’t partake myself).
He shuts down anyone critical of him or MAGA, and internationally he enables authoritarian governments to block criticism too. Including blocking criticism of Modi in India.
He directly has a role in government now, and has pledged to swing the axe to government spending in ways that may impoverish tens of millions.
Arguably his lottery stunt in the election was illegal, basically buying the election out in the open with an illegal lottery, and which is devastating for the conduct, and perception, of fair elections.
He’s started getting involved with international politics too, pledging support for the far-right AfD and only slightly less far-right Reform party. He has also campaigned for Tommy Robinson to be released in the UK, who is the far-right hooligan who played a pivotal role in a wave of riots in the UK last year.
He has also insinuated that the current UK prime minister ignored grooming gangs, and so far the government has not hit back because, frankly, they are afraid of Musk and his influence.
Musk is among the most powerful men on the planet right now, and is using that power to spread hate and division. Yes we’re right to see him as a massive threat and problem.
So, is Newson a second cousin twice removed (by marriage) of a Pelosi?
And why is that a bad thing anyway?- Nancy Pelosi was a great Speaker, one of the best we have ever seen. The only people I know that hate Pelosi are died hard MAGAs- are you a Republican?
Also- since Gavins father was a Judge, not an elected offical- how does that make Gavin a “nepo baby”. Not to mention the “Getty oil money” link is tenuous.
Harris and Newsom are friends, and I think either would be happy to see the other succeed- Harris as Governor and Newsom as president.
I would agree. Without getting into the weeds of whether she ran a good campaign or not, clearly this combination of campaign & candidate wasn’t enough in 2024. The only way you could expect her to do better in the next election is if you have concrete evidence of exactly what went wrong in 2024, or if somehow you know things about the year 2028 that nobody else knows. Starting with: will a normal election even be an option in 2028? Will Kamala be in jail in 2028?
None of us can agree on what the voters wanted in 2024, so it seems like a pretty bold stretch to know what they’ll want in 2028. For now, all we can do is start building the bench, and try to prevent Republicans from wrecking voting rights forever.
It fell off the tongues of everyone from Fox news commentators to my own relatives like a directive from the central committee, too pat and too glib. It was always an excuse for…
I’m not saying that inflation was NOT an issue for voters, and it may even have been a major issue for voters, however:
Polls of people who DID vote obviously can’t tell us anything whatsoever about the motivation of people who did NOT vote. Why didn’t Biden and Obama voters turn out in the same numbers for Harris, why did they stay home? Exit polls can’t capture that.
Even if inflation was the problem, it wasn’t the problem. The media (including social media) presented voters with overexaggerated pictures of how bad it was, did not correctly represent when it was under control, or what that meant, and most importantly they grossly overrepresented Biden’s responsibility for it.
Media distortion was the real problem. Last time inflation was the most-distorted story, followed by the border. Next election it will be something else. Or maybe not. We may be facing another high-inflation environment in 2028 and there is a very real chance that Republicans will successfully paint it as “we’re still facing headwinds from Biden’s inflation”. The issue of who gets blamed for inflation and how bad it’s portrayed is far, far more important than what the actual numbers were.
Kamala should not run. Social media is such a big factor that it will demand new faces every four years. The voters do not hate their country or even the government on some level. But they passionately hate politicians.
the large masses (outside MAGA hat folks) just do not care, and are too impatient to follow any actual issue. Price of eggs can be the issue, if it is on social media. But WHERE the voter comes in every four years is just “I’m sick of so and so.” They do not want the candidate or party anymore. They vote for the other party.
Let’s get used to four year presidents and congress going back and fothe every two years. The Senate is set up to favor the GOP, so that will occasionally swing on presidential election years.
I would see it like this: social and mainstream* media are just foghorns for right-wing talking points now, and that’s the #1 problem here. It’s because of both the RW being more savvy on this stuff, and having absolutely no scruples about lying and bad faith actions. Any talk of how Democrats adjust their messaging has to first confront how they get their message out.
It’s also true that inflation has hurt a long of people.
And it’s also also true that the majority of people, not just Americans, apparently have a poor understanding of the causes and effects of inflation (most still want prices to return to pre-covid levels and/or don’t understand why central banks target inflation above 0%). Hence why inflation hurt incumbents around the world.
* I know many will balk at me suggesting that mainstream media is owned by the right, given that a common meme is the exact opposite. I have given my reasoning for thinking the opposite in numerous other threads. For the sake of this one, let’s say if you disagree with me about the MSM then just remove that part from my argument here; it’s not a critical part of my point.
This is a strong statement, and it is 100% justified. Anyone who doubts otherwise can look at the past few days of NYT and other outlets sane-washing Trump’s absurd ideas about annexing Greenland and the Panama Canal.
In this kind of information environment, there’s no point in Kamala running again. Even a brand new candidate will be strongly disadvantaged by the bias. Kamala’s not a brand new candidate, the right-wing captive media has already cooked her narrative, permanently. If she couldn’t overcome it in 2024, she won’t overcome it in 2028, not without a wholesale revolution in the media environment (which is not happening).
I was probably the only person on this board that said Biden should not have chosen her as VP in the first place.
That said, she did way better than I thought, with only about 100 days, and I even liked her message at first.
But here is the main point of why she should not and cannot run in '28.
She is either a typical corporate Democrat or has no backbone to stick to the message. Her “we won’t go back” thing was good. Waltz calling Maga wired was good. That’s how you make people vote for you in '24.
Then they walked all that back and started campaigning with a Cheney, which I said was a huge mistake and of course was attacked here.
She still only lost by like 200k votes in the swing states, but nobody is going to vote for her in '28 assuming that we still have elections then.
Yeah what happened there? The ‘weird’ thing was working because it aptly described awkward freaks. They talked about policies which would help people, then they just stopped.
You have to think democrats are happier to lose than do anything to tip the balance of power and money in favour or ordinary people. Just addicted to the system.
Really? I haven’t spoken to anyone that thought campaigning with Cheney was a good idea.
There are a lot of people like me that thought it added nothing; and therefore was a waste of time. While I wouldn’t have gone as far as “huge mistake”, I would hardly have attacked you over it.
ETA: Other than this nitpick, agreed on other points…the weird thing was great. The MAGAs were spiralling into ever more weirdness as they tried to defend against the claim.