If getting it to register would have helped Harris, she should have made a greater effort to get that point across. Instead, in her 60 Minutes interview she implied that the president controls grocery prices when saying, “part of my plan is what we must do to bring down the price of groceries.”
It is disturbing to see the number of Harris supporters who insist she ran a flawless campaign, as if they will learn nothing to improve next time. Maybe look at the how popularity moved up and down in the polls over time, and correlate that with the events occurring in both campaigns.
I’m not sure what the alternative was: “Eggs cost too much, but it’s not my fault and there’s nothing we can do. Sorry.” It may be true but it’s not a great way to win over voters.
One advantage Trump enjoyed that I haven’t seen brought up much is the fact that he’s been running for President for over ten years now. His name is everywhere. News outlets quoted him daily. I don’t think I managed to go a single day in the last decade without seeing his smug, pouty face.
Harris, on the other hand, had four months to run from office- and Vice Presidents are notoriously invisible during administrations. According to some Google search trends of the week leading up to the election, some voters didn’t even know that that she was running.
I think she ran the best campaign she could have, but the deck was seriously stacked against her.
Slight change of topic, but it looks like no-one has mentioned the line of “Goldman sachs say my economic plan is better”. This was a really bad line and was trotted out several times.
I agree with most here that Harris and her team ran a great campaign, that, in hindsight, was probably unwinnable, but this was among the missteps.
I think they should have let Walz be Walz more. The “weird” stuff was working, why give it up? The veep debate was far too civilized. I wanted Walz to get Vance ranting and raving, but they acted like they were having tea and crumpets.
The veep pick itself was a non-issue. Sure, Shapiro might have gotten PA but for the rest of the nation, a black/asian woman plus a Jewish man would be too much of an ask.
They should have hit back on the ad with the scary dark prisoner putting eye makeup on, railing about prisoners getting sex change on the public dime. That policy existed under the previous administration, Harris should have said so.
Long term, what presidents need to do is stop crowing about low unemployment numbers and low inflation when times are good. Presidents have jack shit to do with the economy, they need to stop acting like they do and maybe they’ll get less blame when things go tits up.
I don’t think not going on Rogan had much of an effect, but if the argument was that she didn’t have the time, go send Walz. That’s what you’ve got a running mate for. I suspect he would have done just fine for three hours.
“Brandolini’s law, also known as the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, is an internet adage coined in 2013 that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The law states the following: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.”
This is why the Democrats need a stronger proactive message and to play the long game of improving the thinking powers of the electorate.
They’re actually a centre-right party by international standards. Your point about people polling in favor of progressive measures is an accurate and very good point. The question then may be, why can’t/don’t/won’t the Democrats fight for them? Campaign funding from rich donors might be one reason?
Except according to Trump she was powerful enough as Vice-President to bring forth the downfall of America over the last four years and as a consequence was the worst Vice-President ever. I wonder how I passed Civics in school because I thought all the VP did was cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate which would have made her the most successful VP ever.
If you consider that the Democratic Party/Progressives are the party that’s generally pushing for change, and the Republicans are pushing to keep the status quo, it follows that the Democrats are essentially asking people for something- they want them to accept the changes, even if they’re for the better overall. They’re asking the public to buy more expensive light bulbs, pay more for gas, have cars/appliances that have a lot of complication for environmental reasons, and may not perform as well as the older versions. They’re asking that their kids be smaller fish in a bigger pond, etc… For good reasons, but this is still something the Democrats are demanding from people.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are saying in effect,that things were better back when, and all the proposed change and the uncomfortable change that’s already happened should be rolled back. You want a big engine? Go for it. You want incandescent lights? Go nuts. You don’t want your kids competing with kids of color, just like it used to be? We’ll hook you up.
I think that when you couple that with the fact that many people are either struggling to make ends meet or are just not finding that their wages go as far as they used to, and you have a situation where a lot of people aren’t going to choose the path of more change and disruption that the Democrats are promising. Especially if that change doesn’t directly benefit them.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
–John Kenneth Galbraith
Trump – like other RW demagogues – has tremendous appeal to the mouth-breathers, because he tells them that they shouldn’t have to care about less fortunate people, the planet, the environment, or minorities.
He doesn’t ask them to be ‘better people’ in any way, shape or form, the way that most past Presidents have. He encourages them to be proud of their baser instincts and worst qualities.
In short, he applauds them for their “religiosity” while simultaneously absolving them from any need to actually be decent human beings.
I think this is true, and would suggest that when people are frightened, isolated, feel their lives lack security and meaning, they are much more susceptible to calls to their baser instincts. Anger offers the false promises of catharsis, conviction, and control, and short circuits the brain. By strained analogy, supporting Trump is the political equivalent of road rage. The obvious ways to push back against the causes of fear, isolation, lack of security and meaning, and the resultant anger are “left wing” policies that the Democratic Party has no stomach, head, or heart for.
All this makes sense to me, but as you note, it’s bucking against Democratic Party trends. Since Bill Clinton the concept has taken hold that success comes from assuring giant corporations that they will do just great under Democratic governments. And that means, in effect, telling them they can exploit the mass of voters to their hearts’ content.
Mavericks like Elizabeth Warren with her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were tolerated by the party because such an initiative paid lip service to the old party ideals of standing up for the little guy. (And the CFPB has done a bit of good; it will be a shame to see it gone in a few weeks.)
But on the whole, Harris adhered to the 'don’t rile up the top 1%’ guidance the party has embraced for more than thirty years. Like Biden and Obama, she was willing to settle for incremental change.
I don’t disdain the idea of incremental change. Obama and Biden achieved genuine gains in fighting both social and economic exploitation. But it didn’t amount to enough to impress voters, who—as you indicated—put their faith in the empty promises of the demagogue.
(To add to the sunshine and rainbows: that demagogue is going to want to explain why, under his ‘brilliant’ leadership, prices are going to go UP and we are going to be less secure. And that explanation is going to be based on scapegoats.
And that is going to be very, very bad for those scapegoats.)
We are in substantial and substantive agreement here. I’d start the Democrats’ march to right from 1945 and Harry Truman, with big lurches under Carter and the march continuing after that.
I agree re small improvements but such gains rarely make for the kind of campaigns of vision and hope and class that might be better ways to stop the right.
Yeah. “Vision” may take something as radical as FDR’s New Deal. And that was pretty radical. (I do see what you mean about the post-WW2 period being a fair starting point for D-Party right-ward trends, but Clinton sticks more in my mind due to having lived through his Third Way approach.)