Yes, it has to get much much worse before it can get better. Another half-competent democratic presidency now would only result in an even worse republican one next.
So was Harris unintelligent, extreme or senile? Why can the Republicans run a candidate who is evidently dumb, extremist and senile all at the same time, but the Democratic alternative has to be perfect?
Harris to me seemed not very impressive to be president. Not dumb compared to the average person but not great for the top job. Also her voting record I think was the most far left in the senate.
It's a reasonable question. It seems like those who don't support Trump don't quite get yet that if they don't actually want him to be President, they have to show up to vote.
The turnout just didn't happen. Too many people are fine with it.
You're delusional if you think the reason Trump has support is somehow because of Biden.
He has support because he's a populist leader that's going to tell you the country is failing and we need to burn it all down and, of course, it's brown people's fault. And that type of populist messaging really resonates with stupid, poor white people. Which is a growing fraction of the US as people get poorer overall.
There's no "middle of the road" between neoliberals and outright fascists. The democrats need to shed their (literal) old skin and become a real left-wing party, with aggressive anti-corporate messaging.
That this gets downvoted shows that people have still not learned a single thing. You're spot on, it's tragic that so very few people understand this, based on how incredibly little I see it voiced online. In fact, you're the first I've seen voice it in ages.
E.g. if Harris (another, at best, incredibly mediocre candidate) would've won, the post-Harris Rep presidency would've been even worse than the current one. Until there's a competent non-Rep president, every single subsequent Rep government will be worse, until there will be no more fairish elections - and likely we're already there. Someone like AOC - not policywise, people don't vote on policy, it doesn't matter. Attitude-wise. It's abundantly clear the DNC hasn't learned (or more likely, doesn't want to learn), so the next president will be another Hillary/Biden/Harris candidate who will either lose or make the next Rep win even more decisive.
I think maybe it gets downvoted because it comes across as victim blaming and has echoes of abusive reasoning. The left must change what they want because otherwise the right will throw a hissy fit and start opening concentration camps?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. It could be helpful to point to actual policy failings of Harris rather than handwaving about mediocrity.
When Harris actually completed to be presidential candidate she came in fifth. She was on stage a couple of times saying 200 million Americans died of covid - you have to be fairly thick to not realize that isn't so - she'd misread 200,000. They had to keep her away from interviews to stop similar stupid leaking out.
I don't recall this ever happening and, if it did, it was not a big enough deal for anyone to care about it. Certainly not a single person I know who didn't vote for Harris said this was the reasoning.
The reality is she was much more intelligent, better spoken, and higher qualified than Trump. That's not the reason she lost, and anyone proclaiming otherwise is stupid. Yes, stupid.
The "word salads" were completely made up. It was always a hallucination.
The reasoning is that she's a black woman, so obviously she's stupid, and then we work backwards to word salad. That's how that happened.
In reality, she's very well spoken. 99.99% of all the stuff Kamala says is very easy to understand.
We can cherry-pick clips that represent 0.00001% of her speaking career all day. The fact is she's an educated woman who knows how to publicly speak, and she knows it well. Any other narrative is an alternative reality, sorry.
Yes? Consider the following, typical Trump speech:
> But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that—because, look, child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t—you know, there’s something … You have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.
As if Trump's word salads weren't 100 times worse?? I have no idea how someone can be this blind to the shit they say. Yes, Harris is better spoken than Trump, this is an absolute fact.
Misreading a number seems incredibly insignificant to the number of outright idiotic things Mr Trump says on a daily basis. Why the disparity in expectation/response?
The misread number was almost two thirds of the entire population. That's the sort of thing I'd expect someone to catch as they're saying it because of how absurd it is.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration claimed to have saved 258 American lives with their drug busts. In contrast to Harris, who I'm sure realised her mistake and would've corrected it if asked about it, the Trump admin actually believes their number and doubled down on it.
Harris misspoke. Trump believes the majority of the American population would have died in 2025 had he not been in office.
So misreading it and not immediately catching it is the issue? It seems incredibly human. And you really feel this is worse than the dumb things Mr Trump is on record as saying?
> I think maybe it gets downvoted because it comes across as victim blaming and has echoes of abusive reasoning.
Ah yes, rather downvote because it smells of victim blaming than actually coming to terms with the reality which has played a huge role in a superpower to spiral into facism. Seriously? Now's not the time for that.
> The left must change what they want
>It could be helpful to point to actual policy failings of Harris
You still don't get it at all, I literally stated it verbatim. It's not about policies, it's about candidates, attitude, messaging, narrative.
> The left must change what they want because otherwise the right will throw a hissy fit and start opening concentration camps?
As explained, this is not the case, there isn't a need to change the "wants" - that's the least of the concerns. But let's disregard that and imagine a world where yes, that is the case. Are we going to say "nuh-uh, we rather have concentration camps than change what we want"? If that would be the reality (which it isn't) then that's how things are. Start facing the reality we live in.
I understand why one might take my comment that way, but I'm advocating for the exact opposite: democrats should start acting as a real left-wing party, with aggressive messaging on oligarchy, healtcare, the depravity of the right, you name it.
The democrats, as they exist now, are almost "controlled opposition". There's much to wager that if they succeeded Trump II, they wouldn't undo 10% of the damage he's done. I fully believe Harris could have done a correct job at maintaining the status quo, but that's not what the people want or need.
The democrats should stop showing weakness and trying to build bridges with fascists, and instead speak 24/7 about how vile and stupid this entire circus is. Then they should start advocating for big changes that will hype Americans: free healthcare, extra taxes on billionaires, etc.
Fully agree that they should get back to their roots and start being actually pro-working class on economical matter. Alas, the establishment is too afraid of alienating their wealthy donor class to appeal to the "poor". Maybe after a democratic tea party?
But I don't believe that they need to be "centrists" on identity. What even is centrism anymore? This country has shifted so far right recently. I think the issue is that their "rainbow capitalism social justice" sounds hollow (because it is) if they don't consider economical class as an important matter. Start there and you can keep fighting against -phobias and -isms, just don't make them the center-piece of your messaging.
Centrism on identity would be a more modern version of don't-ask-don't-tell. When Republicans try and nail Democrats into corners about LGBTQIA+ issues... respectfully refuse to engage:
'I think all Americans that pay their taxes and contribute to our country deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'
Focus on multiculturalism and personal automomy as a star-spangled, patriotic American characteristic.
GOP: 'So you want to give trans people healthcare?'
Democrats: 'We want to give Americans healthcare. Why do you want to take it away from any citizen?'
Start throwing more punches, instead of being surprised every goddamn time the other side does.
That seems like a much more reasonable position, thanks for taking the time to clarify. All I can say is what a unspeakably massive pity it is that there hasn't sooner been a reform to the electoral system that would have allowed for a less reactive governance.
Indeed. I don't know how much comfort it could bring you, but know that almost the totality of western democracies are slowly succumbing to right-wing populism, not just the US. While flawed, I believe the current electoral system is only a minor part of a much deeper issue, that being the prevalence of money in our democratic processes.
