I’ve often assumed Harris didn’t want to insult her boss by going against him, because I got the impression she was planning to give Netanyahu what for once she took over - especially with him escalating things further and further. Did anyone else get that vibe, or was it just wishful thinking on my part?
Lovely, well as far as I know, the genocide in palestine will stop under Trump…
…when all the palestinians have been wiped out
Why did they think Trump is going to help Palestine? He’ll give Israel a black cheque to end Palestine completely.
They don’t think that at all. It’s Trump by default and Harris has to convince to switch. It’s an unfair emotional battle. All of these opinions were “Harris not good enough, therefore Trump”, and Trump never had to clear the ‘good enough’ bar.
Harris not good enough, therefore Trump
For many people it was never trump, but it was a choice between Harris or leaving the presidential vote section blank, or voting third party. Just because you (@Randelung) equate any lack of vote for Harris as a vote for trump doesnt mean the rest of us think like that.
That’s kind of how it ended up working out though, innit? Harris actually lost the popular vote.
Fair enough. I didn’t consider not voting (or third party for that matter) as an option, but, as you say, that’s my subconscious bias.
Despite the best economy in the world AND Netanyahu backing Trump.
The stupidity is off the charts.
The problem is the term.
Politicians and pundits talk about the economy referring to the stock market.
Citizens talk about the economy referring to the supermarket.
The US government can only directly affect the former, and most of our nation just can’t comprehend that.
Nixon attempted to freeze grocery prices for 90 days with an Executive Order. It resulted in emptying grocery stores and record inflation when the order expired. It was called the “Nixon Shock.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock
If you want the government to control the price of food, then you should probably move to a communist nation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/business/worldbusiness/07iht-controls.4.11735373.html
If you want the government to control the price of food, then you should probably move to a communist nation.
Don’t threaten me with a good time. /s
JK. The US being the US they’d immediately turn into north Korea before adopting real communist policies.
Uh, North Korea is very much not a communist country. It’s a totalitarian state whose name says they’re a “democratic republic”, and whose leadership claim is a flavor of communism, but it is absolutely nothing of the sort.
Edit: yeah whoops, I munged the semantics of your comment
That was my point. Most countries that try to become communist start off as soviet and then collapse into totalitarian dystopias because they consolidate too much power into the state and don’t have enough safeguards to prevent overreach. Russia did the same after the revolution. Enacting democratic votes and then ignoring them because communism wasn’t popular for the masses. It’s a fundamental problem.
The cognitive dissonance required for the economy being both the "best " and yet also people can’t afford bread is a privilege that people living pay check to paycheck simply can’t afford. Child poverty hit its all time low under Biden. Then it doubled under Biden . More American’s are living paycheck to paycheck than ever before: now a majority. Look at the memes and conversation happening in the memes here on lemmy. The struggle to afford basic goods and services is a constant theme.
When you gaslight people, telling them to ignore their lived experience and to “trust” an analysis of economy that clearly only serves billionaires: What do you expect that does to their trust in your rhetoric?
Just so everyone knows. Child poverty went down because Dems had enough power to expand the child tax credit as part of Bidens American rescue plan. The expanded credit then expired and Republicans have blocked passage of the renewed expansion. This is another thing where Republicans will do anything to harm Democrats including voting against extremely popular programs. I agree that it sucks the poverty went back up, but Dems reduced it and Republicans increased it.
The deciding vote on ending that tax credit was Joe Manchin.
He not only is literally not a Democrat anymore he was only one in name only when he claimed to be. (See: Sinema). Assholes.
Yes, but to be charitable to the people out there, they are specifically targeted by mega corporations to hole them up into a conservative-affirming digital content feed.
They are victims just as much as they are stupid.
Yeah bruh, your head is completely fucked if you think that tariffs, labor shortages, and selling $8 trillion in bonds is going to help you out at the fucking grocery store. Idiots gonna learn, I tell you what. Pardon my use of the general “you”, I don’t mean you in particular.
I totally agree with you. People are just plain stupid, and right wing politicians are really good at grifting idiots.
Harris and Biden both knew they’d take a hit for taking AIPAC money and they decided they were ok with that risk. That seems pretty stupid to me considering how close elections have been and how 88% of Americans are against the gaza war crimes.
Yeah bruh, your head is completely fucked if you think that tariffs, labor shortages, and selling $8 trillion in bonds is going to help you out at the fucking grocery store.
Many people don’t believe that Trump will actually do the things he said he’d do, because it wasn’t that bad his last term and they see the reactions to his first election as hysterical in retrospect. Those that believe he will do the things he said – a minority in his coalition I think – are wingnuts that are in favor of those things.
It’s all stupid, and leaves out that the “deep state”, institutions, and moderating voices in his administration – which Trump is looking to eliminate in his second term – constrained him and kept the country largely business as usual despite his shenanigans. The adults in the room had the effect of saving us from a lot of Trump’s worst impulses, and for people who do not pay attention to politics this made the Trump-Pence administration retroactively palatable.
By that logic nazi soldiers in WWII would be victims.
I don’t think the result of ignorance and stupidity are permissible.
It’s on an entirely different level today. Propaganda has always been useful for swaying public opinion, but we live in a world where an entire generation of the world’s most brilliant minds have been set to the task of optimizing ad revenue. And they certainly succeeded.
Unfortunately it turns out that “increasing engagement” virtually requires pigeonholing people into an ever-increasingly-radical echo chamber.
Psychology was a burgeoning field during the Nazis’ time. Now psychology is much more mature as a field and applied psychology is used in software to turn everything around us into a casino for the benefit of those at the top.
They weren’t necessarily victims, but you can’t just write them off as evil monsters.
We need to understandwhy people could go along with it so that we can prevent it from happening again.
It’s like saying global warming is because we pissed off Almighty Zeus, and not doing anything else to address climate change.
It’s good you’re upset about it and admit it’s a problem, but we need to actually take steps to stop it.
For decades what non voters have said for the reason they don’t vote is “both parties are the same”. They’re obviously not, however both parties moving to the right isn’t differentiating them enough for enough voters.
The solution is Dems moving left so the difference is more obvious.
Why not both?
I completely agree that we should better understand the communication and behaviors that led to this divide, but entertaining another’s ideals in no way requires acceptance of them.
The solution is Dems moving left so the difference is more obvious.
The solution isn’t for the “the Dems” to do anything. Just as AOC and Bernie constantly say, the solution is to build an actual movement of the people.
Good luck in this country though, even supposed leftists and supposed anarchists waste all day everyday chirping that the dnc did this wrong or that wrong when the reality is that if we as a country were actually doing the work the dnc and maybe even the Democratic party would be irrelevant.
Electoralism (especially in a first past the post system) is going to get you exactly as far as we are right now.
If this is the best economy in the world I don’t blame people for wanting to blow it up.
We’re still in recovery from covid, as is everyone else. As much as everyone likes to pretend it never happened, or it is ancient history, it’s effects are still being seen.
Right? Like, four years ago we had to shutdown big chunks of the world, inject trillions of Dollars of money into circulation to keep things vaguely moving, millions of deaths, logistical and manufacturing delays galore, and people are pissed that we’re not better off than we were before. So pissed that they want to take control from the people who have been turning it around and give it back to the people who fucked it up in the first place.
“But gas prices were lower in 2020” Yeah, because most people where under lock down, laid off, or sick, you dumb fucks.
I’m an essential employee, and a lot of my hobbies are solo outdoor activities. so things were pretty much business as usual for me. But I remember the first few weeks of lockdown, I already commute at kind of a weird time and in a not too congested area, so I never dealt with much traffic to begin with, but there was basically no one on the roads then, and I don’t think people realize how big the difference was because everyone was just stuck at home.
My car actually averaged a whole mile per gallon better than usual just from the lack of my already light traffic.
Same. I was installing equipment at shut down schools 30+ minutes away for months in 2020. Roads nearly empty, schools completely empty, restaurants either boarded up, or only doing delivery and takeout, sometimes out of makeshift windows where the front door used to be, stores deserted (except for Home Depot because everyone was doing DIY projects during shutdown so they had dozens of people waiting outside like they were at a night club except everyone was standing 6 feet apart). People didn’t go out.
Which explains why every party that held power during COVID has lost elections since then.
Trump was in power at the start of the Pandemic and is widely held to have made things worse at the time. Whatever you think of Biden’s handling of Covid related issues since then, anyone that thinks that Trump was better or will be better is a fucking moron.
And since it’s a global phenomenon then people everywhere must be fucking morons.
Glad we can agree on that.
Yes a great deal of people are morons. Not most, but a fair deal more than 25 percent. The swing to the right is a global phenomenon because the pandemic and its recovery is a global phenomenon. The fact that the entire world struggles after Covid means you should understand that there is NO WAY to have made it all good immediately, else SOMEONE would have done it. But you can compare how well administrations handled it in part by how quickly they have and are recovering in comparison to other countries The US had recovered very well under Biden, which is why we are doing among the best economically among all nations now. But you and other void skulls are under the impression that if it wasn’t perfect or we aren’t completely back to normal after less than 4 years, the administration failed and should be kicked out even when we have done better than nearly everyone. You lot want to have the reins given back to the guy who already demonstrated he could not do the job competently even when he had a decent staff of intelligent and experienced people behind him. Now we are going to let him fuck it all up with a new band of neo nazi sycophants because your eggs and gas WERE expensive, are now LESS expensive, but aren’t YET less expensive enough fast enough. Remind me to collect your thoughts on the economy (and health, polution, international trade and relations, war, etc.) in 4 years.
You lot
Don’t lump me in with them. I voted for Kamala even though I hate this economy and knew she was going to be more of the same.
Don’t think that me pointing out that the economy sucks for most people and that’s why people didn’t bother to vote means I agree with them.
Have people been keeping up on the news? Like privately Biden has been feuding with Netanyahu for months. It’s not like Biden is on board with what Netanyahu is doing. He’s been trying to change the course, but publicly attacking Netanyahu would have drawn a ton of fire from the right, which he was trying to avoid during the election season. It shocks me that people really think Biden is cheering this on.
Election season is over, why is he not going public?
It shocks me that people really think Biden is cheering this on.
Probably because Biden’s support of Israel is completely unconditional and not contingent in any way on their conduct. Yeah he may disapprove of their conduct, but this won’t affect material American support at all - that would be antisimetic or whatever. Because of this Biden’s tacit disapproval doesn’t matter. It can be ignored which is what Netanyahu has been doing. Stop sending arms and Israel’s government’s dreams of conquest will collapse within a week, probably along with this government. But that’s unspeakable, apparently, and the Israeli lobby in the US needs to keep it that way.
Now a government is about to take power that won’t offer any disapproval and could probably be talked into direct military action in the region. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see American aircraft bombing Gaza and the West Bank within 6 months. Embroiling the US even deeper into this is in Netanyahu’s interest and the trump government won’t mind going along .
So let me get this straight: I’m supposed to vote for someone who thinks it is too politically inconvenient to be publically against an ongoing genocide? Who is sending arms and aid to a nation committing genocide??
There were snipers on the roof of my college because of the pro Palestinian protesters. Pro Palestinian protesters get lumped in with antisemites due to just having human empathy. The voters needed something more than what we saw in the news: furrowed brows, hand wringing, and money sent for bombs. Palestinians die wretched deaths even if you feel real bad about it.
I can imagine the energy that we all could have felt if Harris/Biden had actually did the right thing.
I voted for Harris by the way. Not because I expected she’d end the genocide, but because Trump isn’t a statesman and can’t be trusted if we get dragged into war.
Who is the fucking superpower here? The US could flex it’s muscles and Israel would have to obey. Biden actively chooses not to.
Yeah because last time that went oh so well
People will believe what is convenient for them to believe.
We don’t even have to think the dems are morally better overall and above supporting genocide. They just don’t want a full on war with Iran and increased tensions with Saudi Arabia and for this reason would harden on Israel before letting them annex the west bank which will inevitability lead to regional war. Thing would not be going this way with Kamala as president. Anyone who did vote for her out of protest is very privileged not to live in the West Bank. It’s time to call our representatives to push back on Trump expansionism in Israel. But I don’t have much hope at all.
He’s been trying to change the course, but publicly attacking Netanyahu would have drawn a ton of fire from the right,
Thank goodness they avoided pissing off the right, else Trump might have won.
Biden continues to approve arms sales to Israel, in violation of both domestic & international law. And Harris openly declared her intent to commit the same crimes.
I don’t really give a shit if he privately wagged his finger at Netanyahu.
Why do people have this idea that the economy will do better under Trump? Where did this come from?
I think whats missing from many analyses is the general unhappiness people have with the current system. People are suffering now under establishment politics and they don’t believe that more of the same will improve their lives (citing, justly, at least the past 16 years as an example). They are hungry for something radically different. Trump appeals to that sense of radical change on the right. The democrats have blocked their own left wing alternatives and stuck with running establishment candidates.
I don’t believe the economy will do better under trump. I don’t believe people will do better under trump. He is a fascist and his populism is all based on dangerous ideas and lies. However, I am also terminally online and politically engaged. I can easily imagine how someone less engaged can be duped by his lies. It is therefore essential that the democrats provide an alternative left-wing populist candidate that also promised genuine changes to the economic system. So that these voters have someone to turn to who isn’t trump or the inevitable future trump clones. But they’ll never allow that to happen. It threatens their donor class too much.
Peoples lived experiences under Trump turned out to be better than their current ones under Biden, pretty simple. It’s all vibes.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” -George Carlin
But people were freaking the fuck out about the Covid restrictions. Trump opposed them but also made them more necessary for longer. I guess that’s what the average person doesn’t understand.
I’ve read, oh, a dozen ‘pretty simple’ explanations that claimed to explain what has happened. All of them had merits.
I don’t believe things are ‘pretty simple’ anymore.
From propaganda and ignorance.
That’s one of the bullshit things republicans have propagandized people about for decades. Wealthy people do better under them, and then generally republicans run some sort of scam that ends up in economic disaster and a bailout.
Generations of propaganda that “Republican = good economy” is my guess.
Trump inherited a great economy from Obama, but ran it into the ground. (His 2018 tax cuts, etc …) Trump got out just as the consequences of his actions started to happen, just as Biden became president. This left Biden with a crashed economy which he worked hard to improve during his election (the US is considered the best and strongest economy after COVID).
Now, just because it’s doing the best, it doesn’t mean everyone is in the best shape. So people are just remembering that the economy on the surface looked better during Trump ) because of Obama) and looked worse during Biden (because of Trump) and assumed that the surface was the same underneath.
What will be really interesting is that the economy isn’t as solid this time for Trump so he’s most likely going to do even more economical damage to the US that will cause it to take even longer to fix for the next president(s).
Apparently a multiple time bankrupt “billionaire” businessman knows more about finances than the average person.
This thought process really concerns me. We really are surrounded by some truly ass ignorant people.
At least they will suffer right along with the rest of us.
Or that Trump cares for the working class?
Harris went from: The genocide in Gaza must be stopped at all costs
To: Israel has a right to dEfEnD iTsElF
Someone with a lot of money or influence got to her. I don’t think she was going to changed position back, no.
I don’t see why both those statements can’t be true.
We all know that when someone says “israel has a right to dEfEnD iTsElF” they intend for the statement to be a thought terminating cliche that supports maintaining the current status quo. That is, a genocide in Gaza.
You can say Israel has the right to defend itself and mean it as long as you’re talking about the immediate retaliation (even then, as a nation with access to high level intelligence and technology, the responses civilian death was still unacceptable).
You CANNOT say it in relation to the months that came after. Israel isn’t ‘defending itself’ anymore, their borders aren’t in dire need, their citizens as a whole are not in danger. But, similar to Russia prior to Ukraine’s successful long range strikes into their territory, Israel will spout nonsense about protecting it’s citizens that see danger on a scale 1/10000th of that of the occupied territory of Gaza.
Isntreal doesn’t have a right to “defend itself” from problems that it created in the first place by being shitty Nazi neighbors.
This is such an incorrect take. But disinformation is what the internet craves.
I’ve often assumed Harris didn’t want to insult her boss by going against him, because I got the impression she was planning to give Netanyahu what for once she took over - especially with him escalating things further and further. Did anyone else get that vibe, or was it just wishful thinking on my part?
Wishful thinking. There’s no guarantee this happens. You would have just removed the most powerful motivator for her to do something about gaza while simultaneously demonstrating to her that she had no reason to do so. All the while AIPAC and the ADL are breathing down her back and offering her bribes not to. It would be like expecting me to build you a house after randomly sending 1 million dollars into my bank account. Why would I? I have the money now and have given you no guarantee that I would do so in the past. You’ll just see me chilling in the Bahamas.
You mean she wouldn’t want a next term?
If she could win without budging on gaza then she would have just learned that she doesn’t need the antigenocide vote for her re-election campaign. The issue would most likely be completely dead to her.
“We can’t push policies that cause deflation! That will cause people to put off buying things and cause a economic recession, which will cause more deflation leading to a neverending ending spiral! Lets just hold inflation to 2% per year and hope people’s jobs eventually given them raises.”
We have been putting off buying things for years! Houses, cars, cloths, food - if the price goes down, no one will go ‘oh, I’m going to wait a bit longer and see if it goes down more’. No, we will buy like crazy! Every administration that ruled over this inflation spike - be them left wing or right wing - has seen their electoral chances tumble. But god forbid we see even a hint of deflation.
The main problem is that people don’t understand that the Vice President does not set monetary policy. Neither does the President. The Federal Reserve is supposed to be completely immune to political pressure. Fortunately, King Donald will do his best to put an end to that.
I happen to believe that the current policy was correct, and averted even worse problems - but that does not happen in a matter of months. If Trump somehow fails to fudge up the trajectory we are on, he will get to take credit for policies enacted during Biden’s presidency (again, not by Biden, but nobody will care).
Deflation just doesn’t happen in a bubble though.
From my understanding the primary lever that can be pulled for this is the Fed interest rate. With a high interest rates you’re trying to decrease the amount of money institutions spend and rather increase the amount that they invest/save. As it becomes easier to make money by buying bonds than by reinvesting into your business. This in effect removes money from the economy.
The problem here is this means businesses also spend less on salaries, thus triggering layoffs. This then also has a downward pressure on inflation as the working class ends of being layed off as unemployment rises. This puts more and more pressure on businesses to cut costs as more and more people have less disposable income to spend.
This is the downward spiral that’s being referred to here.
In effect you can’t create defationary policies without causing high unemployment, at least in a capitalist society.
Take a look at the history of the Great Depression and the New Deal that helped the U.S. get out of it. Effectively the government had to create jobs to stimulate the economy as businesses couldn’t or wouldn’t shoulder that cost but the government could. As disposable income rose, so did spending and in turn inflation turned positive again as unemployment fell.
I see a lot of comments that basically summarize the constituent feedback as “well I guess they’re just stupid then, can’t wait til the leopards eat your face.”
First, keep alienating these voters, sure. See how far that gets you in the next election. We need to be listening to and understanding these voters now more than ever if we are ever going to get out of this. Whether you like it or not, their vote carries as much weight as yours (maybe more depending on what state you’re in).
Second, responding to economy concerns with “well actshually, the economy is amazing. What you mean is inflation” is about the worst response you can give. It’s incredibly dismissive. When someone is scared that they can’t afford a house, can’t see retirement, can’t buy groceries, they don’t care about GDP or stock market numbers. Whatever Biden tried to do to alleviate their concerns wasn’t enough. Inflation stopped but wages didn’t catch up enough. Trump promised to fix it. He is a charlatan but desperate people will cling to anyone who gives them hope. What they experience is a system so incredibly slow to respond to their needs that the "Fight for $15“ really should be the Fight for $30 at this point.
The reason Trump and AOC are popular is that they directly speak to these concerns, whether they have a plan to fix it or not. Both speak of systemic change to make it happen. Establishment candidates don’t.
What this election has taught me is that until the Dems learn to actually prioritize working class needs over identity politics they will lose. Every time. Look at how even women’s reproductive rights was not enough to get them to vote Harris, and yet on states Trump won where there were proposals to protect abortion access, those efforts were successful.
Yes, amen, thank you. Abortion beat Harris by 20 points in my state! Clearly there are a lot of Trump voters who are with us on some things and we need to find to common ground to build a bridge and connect us so we can fix this. That common ground is pretty freaking obvious since 99% of us have one thing in common. But Nancy Pelosi has already said no so you need to fall in line and do what she tells you.
First, keep alienating these voters, sure.
Fuck 'em. What are they gonna do, elect a dictator?
Being the loudest dickheads in the room has been the maga brand since at least 2017 if not slightly earlier. The fuck your feelings party. The party full of the folks no one wants to spend a family get together with or talk to about anything of substance because of their unmitigated ignorant racist and bigoted bullshit.
I’m getting a little sick of being told we need to mollycoddle them while they continue jamming their fingers in everyone’s eye at every opportunity.
Edit-
Yelling at voters doesn’t help, neither does educating them.
These things only affect individuals, and there’s hundred of millions of voters out there, in a constantly shifting cohort.
You may as well try to bail out the rising tide with a teacup. You can expend unlimited resources on the task, and you’ll achieve precisely dick.
It doesn’t matter how wrong people are, how stupid people are, or how fucked-up their reactions to things are. You cannot effectively change that at scale, except via constant, persistent social engineering over years or even decades.
If the opposition is offering free pizza, then it doesn’t matter how much healthier and better your free salad really is. Don’t waste your time on trying to convince people, don’t waste your energy on it, don’t waste your emotions on it. People are going to choose the pizza, and you damn well know it.
If you want them to take your offering instead, you need to come up with something that hundreds of millions of people will think is tastier than pizza.
Now sure, you can try and sell people the idea that the pizza guy doesn’t wash his hands after taking a shit. You can put up giant posters of the cockroaches crawling all over the stall, and sure you might make a dent.
But when the alternative looks like a bunch of dry bitter rabbit food to them, no matter how tasty it actually is, you’re fucked.
You need to address the actual concerns of the voters (no matter how stupid), and you need to show them that you’re addressing them, in a way they’ll actually notice and appreciate.
Not ‘ought to’. Will.
What it needs is some angry people who will get up on their hind legs and fight for the working classes. It needs people who are loudly and visibly sick of the status quo, tired of the bullshit and ready to rip the face off anyone who gets in their way.
Not the fucking charity-auction Moira Schitt ghouls schmoozing up to $LARGE_CORPORATION while laughing about the dirty poors, or smirking about how bombing Palestinian children is the only moral choice.
(Seriously, Trump ought to hire Matt Miller and Vedant Patel - they did more to undermine the Dem campaign than anyone else. The optics were an unmitigated disaster.)
Those voters are a lost cause.
Anyone who votes Trump is too stupid and brainwashed to ever be fixed.
The responses to Ocasio-Cortez from split-ticket voters included:
- “It’s real simple… Trump and you care for the working class”
- “Trump is going to get us the money and lets men have a voice. You’re brilliant and have amazing passion!”
- “I feel like Trump and you are both real.”
- “I know people that did this and it was bc of Gaza.”
- “You are focused on the real issues people care about. Similar to Trump populism in some ways.”
- “Because of Gaza”
- “I voted Trump and dems because he reached out to Muslims”
How in the fucking hell did Trump reach out to muslims?
And now Gaza has a snowball chance in hell to continue to exist.
Either these people are ultra dumb, or they gave bullshit answers.
He met with Muslims group in Michigan. She refused to speak with undecided voters, allowed Israeli family on stage to speak about “October 7” and refused Palestinians family to speak about the war crimes in Gaza.
Either these people are ultra dumb, or they gave bullshit answers.
They purportedly voted for Trump and AOC, they’re practically braindead. Ultimately though, that’s the electorate we have.
The final days and weeks the Trump campaign hit the swing districts saying all the things people had been asking Biden and Harris to say.
Biden made sure there was no question there would be 0% chance of course change. Trump, being Trump, could shrug his shoulders one day and decide to change course. Higher than 0% but still probably 0%.
Dishonest politics, but that’s how campaigns use issues to win elections. It sucks and we’re all in for the very preventable ride now.
I’m skeptical she would have done anything differently than Biden in terms of Gaza. There was plenty of polling out saying that voters, especially potential Democratic voters, overwhelmingly would favor her more if she differentiated herself on Gaza. Once she got the nomination locked, there was nothing really stopping her from making some changes. Yeah, Biden would not have liked it, but what was he going to do, endorse Trump? Plus, he didn’t actually spend that much time campaigning. And as unpopular as Biden was, his endorsement really didn’t mean much.
My point is that Kamala had everything to gain and nothing to lose by changing her Gaza stance. She chose not to because she didn’t want to offend some very wealthy conservative donors. In the end, it didn’t matter. She still massively outspent Trump, just like Hillary did. What Democrats can’t realize is that fundraising dollars are less important than actual appeals to voters. Yes, fundraising is critical. But passed a certain point, ads lose their effectiveness. Once you’ve already spent a billion dollars, everyone has already made up their mind. At that point, it’s more about getting out your base. And the problem for Democrats is that the same policies that will make them very popular to wealthy donors also make them unpopular to the voters they actually need to win over to win at the national level.
Democrats should just focus on appealing to actual voters and forget the donor class entirely. They have proven that they can raise more than enough money in small-dollar donations to produce all the messaging they need.
Kamala wouldn’t have changed Biden’s positions because the only logical time to change your policies to appeal to voters is when you actually need to appeal to voters. I could see Kamala telling voters she’ll confront Israel, then turning her back on that plan after the election to appease donors, but there’s no reason she would change her policies after the point such a policy shift could actually help her. Donor dollars can come in at any time, but voters are only important during the campaign season.
What Democrats can’t realize is that fundraising dollars are less important than actual appeals to voters.
trump: “I’m going to fix everything for you and lower all you costs without any knock on consequences to you of the working class.”
DNC: “It is not nearly that simply, but I’m going to do what I can to improve your lives”
A GOP lie is cheaper than a DNC truth.
Then you run on:
“I’m going to establish national single-payer healthcare!”
“I’m going to break up the big grocery stores that are responsible for all the inflation!”
“I’m going to reign in and break up big tech!”
“My opponent wants to exterminate the Palestinians, and I will save them!”
“My opponent is a trans porn addict and is obsessed with them because of this. That’s why he’s always talking about trans people! It’s weird as fuck!”
As a politician, exaggeration and making promises you know are a stretch are fine. You are a politician, not a journalist. It’s OK to claim things that are aspirational.
This is what’s killing modern democrats. Trump is not afraid to state his ideal vision for the world and promise to fight for it, knowing full well he won’t even achieve half of it. Meanwhile, Democrats come up with these convoluted, slimy, meek programs that are dense tomes of policy papers only a few beltway consultants know or understand.
trump presented no concrete approaches except “tariffs”. Its easy to promise when there’s few to offend.
Then you run on:
“I’m going to establish national single-payer healthcare!”
And now you’ve alienated the powerful healthcare lobby
“I’m going to break up the big grocery stores that are responsible for all the inflation!”
And now you’ve alienated the powerful agribusiness
“I’m going to reign in and break up big tech!”
And now you’ve alienated the powerful tech companies
“My opponent wants to exterminate the Palestinians, and I will save them!”
And now you’ve alienated the powerful Pro-Israel groups
You could do all of this if you run as a powerful populist with a very engaged electorate. This last election showed that the electorate wasn’t engaged.
This is surrendering before the fight has even begun. And that surrendering is why centrist democrats lose. Those powerful interests can bitch all they want. Will it cost you donors? Sure. But Kamala and Hillary both massively outraised Trump, and look at what good it did them.
What centrist muppets fail to recognize is that fundraising isn’t everything, especially on national races. Or more precisely, there is such a thing as marketing saturation. At some point, you’ve convinced everyone that can be convinced, reached everyone that can be reached. And the level of fundraising necessary to achieve that saturation is a level that can be achieved with small dollar individual donations.
Trump ran on, and won on, a promise to deport 20 million people. You think the businesses that profit from illegal immigration might put up some resistance to that? Take a look at Trump’s platform
Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion
That would doubtlessly anger the industries that depend on migrant labor.
Carry out the largest deportation operation in american history
See above.
End inflation, and make america affordable again
That would require price controls or anti-monopoly actions, which big retailers would oppose.
Make america the dominant energy producer in the world, by far!
The electric car and renewable power companies aren’t going to like that at all.
Stop outsourcing, and turn the united states into a manufacturing superpower
Those jobs were outsourced in order to make high profits; the companies doing the outsourcing will oppose this.
large tax cuts for workers, and no tax on tips!
Why give dollars to workers, when you could give them to wealthy and powerful interests? This is going to make some wealthy people mad.
I could go on. Trump ran on the message of a populist, and he won. He ran on things that would anger a large number of very wealthy people and corporations if implemented. His number one issue, illegal immigration? Aside from a the Border Patrol union, what powerful interest will actually benefit from mass deportation? Maybe the private prison companies will make some cash, but there are far more wealthy donors who benefit from illegal immigration than would benefit by mass deportation.
Trump promised all sorts of things. He promised things that his base wanted and that many corporations oppose. They’re things that I find abominable, but it’s what his base wants. And that is ultimately why he won.
And that surrendering is why centrist democrats lose.
Weren’t both Obama and Biden both Centrist democrats? If they lose how do you account for 12 years of the presidency. Even if we count the new trump presidency, that still means 66% of the last 24 years (counting until 2028 now) has been Centrist Democrats. If anything, your logic says that Centrist democrats win more often than not using this method.
Obama campaigned on a platform of change. He promised healthcare and (very importantly at that time) to pull troops from Iraq/Afghanistan. His campaign was very aspirational, even if his first term in office was not. That campaign won in Indiana and Ohio, to give an idea of the popularity of these ideas. Biden won by a very small nr of voters in the swing states running against a (at that time) very unpopular president.
Worldwide, we’re seeing electorates that are rejecting establishment candidates. It’s been that way since at least 2016, and really since the start of and response to the Great Recession. Obama ran as an outsider. He governed as a centrist, but he didn’t really run as one initially. And Biden only won because of the pandemic. If it weren’t for the pandemic, Trump would have won in 2020.
Agreed. Bidens history as a legislator is actually pretty loathsome. Its some sort of miracle that he was elected the first time.
I find your fear of alienating monied groups to be troubling considering the outcome of standing with them was losing the election and the electorate longer term.
Also some of those groups like the “powerful Pro-Israel groups” are ethically indefensible, and standing with them should have been a no-go from the first milisecond based on principle.
If you think the DNC is doing what it can to improve people’s lives then you either live in a different universe or haven’t been keeping up with politics the last few decades.
The ACA, IRA, the largest gun control bill in 30 years, DACA, CARD act, Fair Pay act, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Juneteenth Nationally Act, Honoring out Pact Act, Respect for Marriage Act, Student Loan relief
All of these in the last 2 decades by DNC. Which one of those are you saying shouldn’t have been passed?
thats a pretty meager list for 20 years. They also Lost abortion, lost the courts, lost on progressive taxation, committed war crimes, expanded the police state, and faild to improve the minimum wage, and expanded the number of working poor.
That’s not an exhaustive list, just long enough to show that “Dems never improve anyone’s life” is just nonsense. And further, most of the things you go on to complain about them not doing are things they tried to do that got blocked by obstructionist Republicans.
I’m skeptical she would have done anything differently than Biden in terms of Gaza.
Likewise, but I also think there is a reason why we are seeing Israeli politicians talking about potentially annexing North Gaza and the West Bank now, after the election, and not 6 months ago.
Despite the multiple “lines in the sand” that have been crossed, I feel like Harris and Biden still had a breaking point with Israel, and maybe that breaking point could be moved closer to reason with continued pressure. I don’t know, I hate working in maybes.
But there aren’t even any maybes with Trump. He simply couldn’t care less what Netanyahu wants to do. Had he not been elected, and had Israel felt their ongoing support was a bit more conditional, I’m not sure we’d have these same sorts of plans being made by them. At least not so overtly
The timing of all this, as well as multiple conversations with Trump right after the election, can’t be coincidence. It suggests a green light was given, which would mean there was still caution while it was uncertain who would be in office.
We’ll never know now.
Likewise, but I also think there is a reason why we are seeing Israeli politicians talking about potentially annexing North Gaza and the West Bank now, after the election, and not 6 months ago.
But they were openly talking about annexing North Gaza and the West Bank 6 months ago
nothing to lose by changing her Gaza stance
Except publicly undermining foreign diplomacy and presenting a national security risk by contradicting the President while secret negotiations are taking place. Which isn’t nothing.
By that logic nobody would be allowed to run on foreign policy.
Nobody in the administration who’s actively engaged in diplomatic negotiations during wartime, no.
I didnt say she couldn’t discuss foreign policy. She just can’t publicly condemn her boss while his surrogates are negotiating to end a conflict.
They really aren’t negotiating an end to the conflict though. That’s the problem. Biden wasn’t seriously trying to end the conflict, as he isn’t using to use a single ounce of US leverage to force Israel to the table. The Gazans are being massacred; they have plenty of incentive to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. The Israelis currently have zero incentive. Their territory is expanding while their adversaries are being exterminated; they’re doing great by this conflict. Israel has zero reason to come to the table, and the talks are just stall tactics and charades.
You state things unequivocally that you cannot possibly know and have no evidence to support, so it would be futile to try to evidence you out of that opinion. If you know everything about what’s happening in secret, then your powers are truly impressive.
I’m not claiming things I have no evidence for. The Biden administration has repeatedly and explicitly refused to make any US aid to Israel contingent on any improvement on the situation in Gaza.
The Biden administration has openly refused calls to use US aid as leverage against Israel, and all you can do is wave your hands and say, “hrr, umm, actually, you can’t know what went on behind the scenes, so maybe Biden did do that, but we just have no evidence of that.”
You are asking me to prove a negative. You are demanding that I prove that Biden HASN’T secretly used US leverage to rein in Israel. That is not how this works. If you want to claim that the US actually has tried to put the screws on Israel, YOU need to produce some evidence of that claim. So far, a least according to everything publicly available from all sources, Biden has given Israel a complete blank check. If you want to claim something contrary to all evidence, then you need to supply that evidence.
After all, it’s also possible that the Gazans aren’t being killed by Israel at all. Maybe the Martians are just coming and abducting all the Palestinians to Mars. And we don’t see the Martians, because they’re invisible. You have no evidence that there AREN’T Martians killing all the Gazans, so I guess it would be foolish to write off the idea.
She didn’t have to condemn him, she could have just said “I feel we should be doing more and take a firmer stance saying that genocide is not ok”. Something as simple as that would have rallied a lot of the Arabs to her side.
I read this as almost exactly the same thing:
“And as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure, and ensure the Palestinian people can realise their right to dignity, freedom, security and self-determination,”
Something as simple as that obviously didn’t work. I’m skeptical that your version would have moved the needle, and I’m sure she’s under strict orders not to call it a “genocide”, which is still and order from her boss, even if it’s wrong.
The problem with it is that it was more or less the same thing Biden said and it’s been abundantly clear Biden does not care for a ceasefire. The Arabs wanted more than that. They wanted her to admit that what Israel was doing in Gaza and Lebanon was wrong. They wanted her to say that she would take a firmer stance than Biden would on Israel. They didnt want her to say that she supports Israels right to defend itself, or for Tim Walz to say he supports Israels right to expand its borders, or even to campaign with Liz Cheney. The icing on the cake was Bill Clintons very stupid attempt to justify Israels killing of civilians a day or two before the election. What she said clearly wasn’t enough and she repeatedly ignored them as well as the DNC actively trying to silence them.
I believe she did end up taking a slightly firmer stance a few days before the election, which is likely due to her not polling so well. I’m not sure if your quote is from that time or from before. But I think a lot of Arabs saw it as “too little, too late” kind of thing.
You’ll get no argument from me there. She tried to thread the needle and wound up pissing off both sides she was trying to court, albeit for very different reasons. Given the dynamic, I’m not sure there’s a message she could have put out that would have satisfied everyone, but I firmly believe she said as much as she could possibly say, and as delicately as she could possibly say it, to telegraph that she’d take a different approach once she was sworn in. It wasn’t convincing to a huge swath of voters who’ve made clear they prefer Trump, but coming from someone whose job requires a lot of delicate public diplomacy even when I’m talking about something I disagree with to people I don’t support, I saw the subtext very clearly. I’m sure she sees it the same way, but until we read her memoirs many years from now, I guess we’ll never know.
which is still and order from her boss
This is complete nonsense. The vice president isn’t duty bound to never contradict the president, especially when running to succeed him. When a boss orders you to do something that’s wrong, you can say no, particularly when you don’t need the job anymore and are already applying for a better one.
Harris didn’t say more on Gaza because she didn’t want to, whether due to personal beliefs or because she for some reason thought it was a better electoral stance, not because of all-powerful orders from Joe Biden.
I love the world you guys have concocted in your heads where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter, so the VP can go rogue. This is a fascinating view into the civic literacy of the average American.
secret negotiations
wishful thinking on your part.
I wonder if it would have been better for her to step down as VP when accepting the nomination. As a VP she couldn’t distinguish herself at all.
Sure she could have. VP cant be fired by the president and has no official duties beyond tie breaking in the senate. She didnt need to follow Bidens directions at all. Worst thing that could happen is that Biden could mean-girl it and ask some of his donors not to fund her. Thats about it.
You can be skeptical all you want, the votes speak for themselves and are all publicly available for you to look at. Biden was an anomaly going against his party.
What do you mean? Biden was an anomaly in his party by supporting a genocide. Harris was the same anomaly, as she stated she would continue Biden’s policies with no changes whatsoever.
No she didn’t? I do love me some revisionist history, though I think it’s a bit soon for that.
What planet are you living on? This is the entire reason she lost. When asked what she would do differently from Biden, she responded:
“There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of – and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact, the work that we have done,”
https://www.cnn.com/politics/harris-2024-campaign-biden/index.html
She didn’t want to change any of Biden’s policies when it came to Israel. Do you have any evidence that she intended to? Because she certainly never stated as such as far as I’m aware.
In March 2024, she called for an immediate ceasefire, citing the immense suffering of innocent Palestinians and urging increased humanitarian aid to the region. Whitehouse.gov
Harris has also advocated for a two-state solution, envisioning a unified Gaza and West Bank under the Palestinian Authority, with Palestinian voices central to the peace process. She outlined five guiding principles for post-conflict Gaza: no forcible displacement, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, no reduction in territory, and no use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism.
She also called for an immediate ceasefire and hostage deal on Colbert Vanity Fair and in Vogue.
What of those are actually new policies? Has Biden ever come out in favor of Israel annexing the West Bank, or in favor of forced displacement? Of course not. They’re liberals, not Republicans. Centrist liberals like Biden and Harris want to talk, but that’s all they want to do. There is nothing you cited there that hasn’t been happily endorsed by liberals for decades, all while Israel tightens the screws on the Palestinians ever-tighter.
It’s all meaningless words and platitudes. While she’s SAID things that would be great to do, she has refused to actually use US leverage to DO any of those things. The Biden administration also talks about endorsing a two-state solution and all the things you mention. Again, Biden talks in fluffy glittering generalities when it comes to saving the Gazan people, but he refuses to actually back those words with actions.
What precisely, did Harris propose to actually achieve any of those things she’s laid out? What leverage would she use to force Israel to accept these?
No, I also felt like Harris felt she wasn’t allowed to veer too far from Biden since she was his VP, but had plans to change course more once she took over.
I had the same suspicion, but I feel that’s just as unreasonable as Trump voters saying, “I didn’t think he would actually XYZ.”
We really need AOC to step up and run in 2028, then pivot to the Senate for the rest of her political career.
There’s nothing left for republicans to say about her that they haven’t said about Hillary, Biden, or Kamala.
At least this way we actually energize our base and if we win we actually make progress. Keep up the momentum and we might finally be done with this shit show.
DNC in 2028: We’re finally ready to learn our lesson from 2016+2024 and listen to our base. We hear you loud and clear: “No more female candidates.” We will be reallocating AOC’s delegates to Chuck Schumer.
That was effectively the whisper campaign against Warren in 2020. Sure, she’s popular, sure, she’s pulling in plenty of money from small-dollar donors, and sure, she’s literally leading in the primary (for a very short period), but every single newspaper and pundit suddenly wanted to JAQ off about whether a woman could win. The answers started off “of course”, but if you ask people that question enough times, they’ll start to think it’s something they should be asking themselves.
No.
Giving Netanyahu ‘what-for’, in my understanding, would be …
… stating that the US would immediately cease all further shipments of any military materiel and financial aid to Israel that can be used offensively (ie, not Patriot Systems or Iron Dome)…
… and that if Netanyahu does not cease his expansion into Lebanon, withdraw from it, withdraw from Gaza, allow food, medical aid and journalists into Gaza…
… and resign from his position as President and his dismiss his entire cabinet, and agree to face at least the numerous domestic charges of corruption against him in court, in Israel…
Those last two parts have a 60 day timeframe.
If those aren’t met, cut off everything, freeze Netanyahu and high up Likkud party member’s personal finances the way we did with Russia.
… Something like that would be giving Netanyahu what for.
That was obviously never on the table.
Kamala just would have continued running propaganda defense for Israel as Biden had done, watching more and more ‘red lines’ get blown through and giving some meaningless bs explanation why, if even acknowleding it at all.
Maybe she would be slightly more vocal about allowing aid in. She would not actually do anything to make that happen, but maybe she’d make a tiny bit of a show of it.
She said it herself. No meaningful differences from Biden’s approach.
So yeah in that regard, you have ludicrously wishful thinking. You must not know very much about bog standard corporate mouthpiece flavored Democrats.
Would this have been better than Trump?
Yes. Despite his extremely dubious public claims to want to end wars, he will obviously greenlight even more military aid to Israel, probably directly provoke Iran publically, either conduct or help the Israelis conduct a wave of air assaults on Iranian nuclear infrastructure, probably more than that.
Basically he’ll demand all the stuff we’ve given to Ukraine back, give it to Israel, and heavily pressure if not outright demand Ukraine surrender by the end of April.
I don’t know why anyone thought Harris would change course on Israel beyond mere wishful thinking. She made it abundantly clear numerous times that she was going to stay the course.
Lucky they got Trump then. Much better.
