The U.S. has a different relationship with its President than other countries have with their chief executive. In many countries, the President/PM is just the “head politician”, the person in charge of running the government, but not much more than that. They’re important, but it’s still an administrative role, and usually a “first among equals” with other members of the government. It doesn’t matter who they are so long as they do their job. The President of the United States, OTOH, is the King of America. They’re supposed to be an inspiration and a role model, someone you worship and admire. For a large number of Americans, that means “Man”.
Publicly. Do you really think they’ll admit they are racist misogynists?
Those are in the GOP, Not the Democratic party.
And the 6 millions Democrats that voted for old white guy Biden but didn’t vote for Harris.
The disconnect with your idea as a response to mine is that I was only discussing habitual D voters. They weren’t going to vote for trump anyway. They either voted for Harris, stayed home, or voted 3rd party. IMO almost all of them who didn’t vote for Harris stayed home.
I certainly agree with you that many R and “centrist / independent” = R-lite voters forgot trump lies and happily voted for round 2 of the all-trump-all-the-time show. And duly got rather more trumpliness than many of them, especially the “centrists / independents” expected. Witness the very active leopards eating faces thread.
This reminded me of something I read a few weeks ago and could do an eBook search for:
IMO, “because she’s a black woman” will forever be a nonfalsifiable causality statement. We will never be able to isolate that with certainty.
ISTM, in that sense to a great degree the issue in the US case was that that whole “inspirational figure” thing was basically for the purposes of the public while the office-holders themselves still mostly viewed their job as being Chief Executive or, in wartime, CinC. One does wonder, how it would go if the USA like many of its allies separated Head of State from Head of Government.
Not so much forgot as probably expected it to be generally a retread of Term 45, but without Covid. Late night social network blasts, unpredictable directionality, but still somewhat regular Republicans doing the day to day running of the system. Not top-to-bottom Chaos Goblins.
Are you sure? Not independents?
And remember, Obama cruised into two wins.
Newsom is almost certainly going to run in '28. Schumer will be 78 and I have heard nothing to indicate he is even considering a run. Not sure where you are getting that idea.
And millions of independents who voted for Biden in 2020 either voted for DJT in 2024 or sat it out. Same as happened in 2016 when independents who voted for Obama stayed home or shifted to DJT.
Kamala getting the D nomination in 2028 is a recipe for disaster for both the country and the Democrats in my opinion.
You and I may not agree on the why (I can’t tell), but I agree w your conclusion.
Rightly or wrongly, Kamala is damaged goods. That won’t work in a must win election. Assuming we have a real election.
I think we agree. I just felt it should be pointed out the shift in the independent vote was just as responsible for her loss.
Appealing to them will be similarly important for Democrats in 2028.
And he’s a woman? If not what’s the point of that?
Sure, Kamala should run for president if she wants to. But hopefully the Democrats can find someone with a greater chance of winning. The fact she is a good candidate and accomplished person is not the most important criterion. The Democrats need fresh blood, even more charisma, new plans and platforms, providing a real response to events, and moving beyond past limits.
To me, the point is that being from a group that has historically suffered from severe discrimination is not a tremendous barrier to becoming President of the United States.
It seems to me that racism is a bigger historic barrier than sexism (once women had the vote), but I guess that’s a judgment call.
Another judgment call is whether the challenges of being female + Black + Indian-American are additive when it comes to a U.S. presidential general election. I don’t think so, but have no idea of where to find evidence.
If I was a point to a Harris identity characteristic that hurts Harris a bit in national politics, it is – Californian. True, only a few Americans are anti-Californian. But the number of swing state voters who will vote for you because of being Californian is zero. By contrast, there are at least a few Americans who will vote for you if you are female, Black, or Indian-American.
It is also possible that Obama’s presidency was an aberration. According to a Steven Levitt podcast, there is a tendency in traditionally racist or sexist clubs that admit their first token member that it is easier to be racist/sexist after that because they believe they have proven they are not sexist/racist. So of course it was inflation Mr. Surveyer, not the fact she’s a black woman. I voted for Obama.
I also wonder if people voted for Obama as being raised by his white mother he was perceived as an “oreo” i.e. the right kind of black guy by those that are only kind of racist. Harris certainly does not fit that profile.
I think there’s more animosity towards black people, but I think there’s probably less confidence in a leader for a woman. I have no difficulty believing that a lot of racists would still prefer a black man than a white woman as a leader.
Of course, Kamala being both is not great.
Trump tried really hard to convince “kind of racist” voters that Obama is the wrong kind of Black. That’s partly what the claim of Kenyan birth was about. Also, Obama’s name was another turn-off for this kind of voter Then there’s Obama being a Democrat. It seems to me that the kind of white racist who makes a rare exception to vote for a few Black candidates only makes the exception for Republicans.
This is old, and just from one state, but the concept is worth thinking about:
What I get from the above is that gender affects electability, but not in a predictable way.
I didn’t vote for Hillary in 2016. I voted for Tim Kaine. I just liked everything about him, and still do.
MHO: A lot of Democrats sat it out, because they assumed she was a shoo-in.
I just knew the verdict with less than 5% of the votes in.
There another point that I feel a little dirty making but I think applies.
Harris is also mixed race. So being Indian-American could actually help her with skin-color-focused racist voters who hesitate to vote for a “real” Black. So could being married to a white man. And I’m sure that that some Indian-American voters would vote for her because of her identity there.
But this kind of identity based voting, besides making Democrats look bad if it gets out that we are doing it, is IMHO just plain wrong.
There is another kind of identity-based voting that is fair and makes sense. Welcome Kamala running for president again. Then – unless Harris becomes unexpectedly popular with independents – vote, in the presidential primary, for someone who is from a swing state and likely to carry it.