I mean, trying to scrape in some conservatives by shifting rightward probably didn’t help. They could have put forward a candidate that actually felt like movement.
Fwiw, yes I voted for Harris, but it wasn’t a happy vote. It was a “I have to so that my loved ones aren’t demonized.”
I happily voted for Harris because it was a better outcome for everyone. If Democratic voters were even slightly receptive to the fact that we swapped our candidate with about 3 months to spare so that age wasn’t a concern, I think things would have gone differently. Evidently age was not the problem.
Biden was primaried along with Harris. Harris was the only choice after that, because picking any other candidate would be cramming someone forth that even fewer people agreed to support.
There is no excuse for this kind of behavior from Democratic voters. The above argument suggests Harris is not competing against Trump, but competing against the ideals of the Democratic voters. If this was really a matter of candidate vs candidate, on the issues, Trump would have lost. But this time Democratic voters fucked themselves because everything on their list wasn’t met. And now nothing on their list is met.
And how many elections are you (and DNC leaders) willing to lose by insisting that you’re correct and everyone else is the problem? That running as a “diet Republican” is the correct strategy instead of appealing to the left? Liberals have spent the last 8 years (and more) attacking leftists and spouting Republican rhetoric and now you want to blame those same leftists because your strategy failed yet again (for nearly the third time in a row)? That’s rich.
There is no excuse for this kind of behavior from Democratic voters. The above argument suggests Harris is not competing against Trump, but competing against the ideals of the Democratic voters. If this was really a matter of candidate vs candidate, on the issues, Trump would have lost. But this time Democratic voters fucked themselves because everything on their list wasn’t met. And now nothing on their list is met.
I never said leftist.
So who are you referring to, the right-wing neoliberals of the party whose ideals align perfectly with people like Biden, Harris, George W. Bush, and Reagan?
Maybe appealing to right-wing ideals isn’t a winning strategy for a party who’s supposed to be representing the left, but maybe they need to lose a few more elections over it just to be sure.
It wasn’t just his age, his policies were shit too, people just hoped someone less geriatric would actually support a progressive agenda instead of the political equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs. Kamala was a smart choice if you paired her with good policy. Instead we got the exact same losing policy Biden was running under. Younger Biden wasn’t what people were asking for.
The Democrats lost not because they’re as bad or worse than Trump, they’re objectively the better option, but because they completely and utterly fail to motivate the public. They’re at best boring. They keep insisting on ignoring any attempts to push for progressive policies in favor of dangling conservative talking points in front of people in some vain attempt to steal votes from conservatives rather than trying to motivate progressives.
You know the last Democrat that actually motivated people? Fucking Obama. Biden just barely squeaked by because people were so god damn sick and tired of Trump’s shit, and Harris thought the same trick would work twice. Well it fucking didn’t, and now we’re all suffering for it.
The election saw the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1900. Biden received more than 81 million votes, the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a U.S. presidential election.
Because the presidency isn’t a fucking popularity contest or beauty pagent. People always vote for the policies. The Democrats policies were at best milquetoast, while Republicans were promising their base that they’d make all their wildest dreams come true. Of course the policies were the important thing.
And what part of Trump’s policies, in comparison to Harris’, made him the better candidate?
Remember, this has to be phrased in a way that purports to weigh Trump against Harris directly, not in a way that shows how people weren’t jazzed enough to vote for Harris, otherwise my points stand.
For his supporters his talk about attacking “liberals” his racist remarks about “illegals” and wanting to deport not just them but actual Hispanic citizens as well. His claims that he’ll “fix” inflation and improve the economy. All those things greatly motivate his supporters.
The only thing Harris was promising was “not Trump”, which is certainly an improvement but isn’t very motivating. Then she self sabotaged by supporting Biden’s massively unpopular Israel policy, claiming she would be tough on border security, and downplaying concerns about the economy. Making people hate you slightly less than the other guy is not the way to handle a disenfranchised and depressed base.
You know why Republicans just won’t go away? Because their supporters are motivated. They reliably show up to the polls time and time again. Trump took that and threw gasoline on the fire. Sure he’s lying through his teeth and a lot of the people he’s motivating are the worst people in the US, but their votes count all the same.
Democrats lose when they fail to motivate. Election after election they struggle with voter turnout while Republicans can reliably count on their supporters to show up.
All of this proves that Harris was better on policy by every metric compared to Trump. In a policy vs policy showdown, Harris wins, and thank you for confirming that with the short list you provided.
Listing policies that a Harris admin would perform better on compared to whatever lies Trump peddled does not further the idea that Harris was lacking in policy. It reinforces my points that they are not compared against each other. To say she was unpopular for her stance on the economy or Israel or whatever does not compare her to Trump, he would do worse. It compares her to ideals. Like I’ve been saying.
They aren’t compared against each other, that’s the entire point. For progressive voters Trumps policies don’t matter because they’re not voting for him anyway, the only ones that matter are Harris policies. Likewise for conservative voters Harris policies don’t matter, she isn’t getting their votes. The ones Harris had to convince were the progressive voters and she spent her entire campaign trying to convince conservatives that she wasn’t that progressive.
The fact Harris lost is literally the only proof necessary to demonstrate her policies weren’t good enough. If they were she would have gotten more votes.
You seem to have things completely backwards. It isn’t the voters responsibility to vote for a given party or candidate unconditionally (even though in practice that’s exactly the way Republicans operate). It’s the party and candidates responsibility to convince voters to vote for them. When a politician loses an election, barring complicating factors like gerrymandering and voter suppression, it’s the politicians fault. Full Stop.
I mean, trying to scrape in some conservatives by shifting rightward probably didn’t help. They could have put forward a candidate that actually felt like movement.
Fwiw, yes I voted for Harris, but it wasn’t a happy vote. It was a “I have to so that my loved ones aren’t demonized.”
I happily voted for Harris because it was a better outcome for everyone. If Democratic voters were even slightly receptive to the fact that we swapped our candidate with about 3 months to spare so that age wasn’t a concern, I think things would have gone differently. Evidently age was not the problem.
Biden was primaried along with Harris. Harris was the only choice after that, because picking any other candidate would be cramming someone forth that even fewer people agreed to support.
There is no excuse for this kind of behavior from Democratic voters. The above argument suggests Harris is not competing against Trump, but competing against the ideals of the Democratic voters. If this was really a matter of candidate vs candidate, on the issues, Trump would have lost. But this time Democratic voters fucked themselves because everything on their list wasn’t met. And now nothing on their list is met.
And how many elections are you (and DNC leaders) willing to lose by insisting that you’re correct and everyone else is the problem? That running as a “diet Republican” is the correct strategy instead of appealing to the left? Liberals have spent the last 8 years (and more) attacking leftists and spouting Republican rhetoric and now you want to blame those same leftists because your strategy failed yet again (for nearly the third time in a row)? That’s rich.
I never said leftist. I’m not engaging further. The anatomy of a straw man…
So who are you referring to, the right-wing neoliberals of the party whose ideals align perfectly with people like Biden, Harris, George W. Bush, and Reagan?
Maybe appealing to right-wing ideals isn’t a winning strategy for a party who’s supposed to be representing the left, but maybe they need to lose a few more elections over it just to be sure.
It wasn’t just his age, his policies were shit too, people just hoped someone less geriatric would actually support a progressive agenda instead of the political equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs. Kamala was a smart choice if you paired her with good policy. Instead we got the exact same losing policy Biden was running under. Younger Biden wasn’t what people were asking for.
The Democrats lost not because they’re as bad or worse than Trump, they’re objectively the better option, but because they completely and utterly fail to motivate the public. They’re at best boring. They keep insisting on ignoring any attempts to push for progressive policies in favor of dangling conservative talking points in front of people in some vain attempt to steal votes from conservatives rather than trying to motivate progressives.
You know the last Democrat that actually motivated people? Fucking Obama. Biden just barely squeaked by because people were so god damn sick and tired of Trump’s shit, and Harris thought the same trick would work twice. Well it fucking didn’t, and now we’re all suffering for it.
Once again proving my point that this is not a competition between Harris and Trump. Nothing I said had been proven wrong.
Inflation reduction act… Chips…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
Just lies… Barely squeaked by…
Because the presidency isn’t a fucking popularity contest or beauty pagent. People always vote for the policies. The Democrats policies were at best milquetoast, while Republicans were promising their base that they’d make all their wildest dreams come true. Of course the policies were the important thing.
And what part of Trump’s policies, in comparison to Harris’, made him the better candidate?
Remember, this has to be phrased in a way that purports to weigh Trump against Harris directly, not in a way that shows how people weren’t jazzed enough to vote for Harris, otherwise my points stand.
“I’ve got concepts of a plan…”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/republicans-celebrate-project-2025-trump-win-1235155322/
For his supporters his talk about attacking “liberals” his racist remarks about “illegals” and wanting to deport not just them but actual Hispanic citizens as well. His claims that he’ll “fix” inflation and improve the economy. All those things greatly motivate his supporters.
The only thing Harris was promising was “not Trump”, which is certainly an improvement but isn’t very motivating. Then she self sabotaged by supporting Biden’s massively unpopular Israel policy, claiming she would be tough on border security, and downplaying concerns about the economy. Making people hate you slightly less than the other guy is not the way to handle a disenfranchised and depressed base.
You know why Republicans just won’t go away? Because their supporters are motivated. They reliably show up to the polls time and time again. Trump took that and threw gasoline on the fire. Sure he’s lying through his teeth and a lot of the people he’s motivating are the worst people in the US, but their votes count all the same.
Democrats lose when they fail to motivate. Election after election they struggle with voter turnout while Republicans can reliably count on their supporters to show up.
All of this proves that Harris was better on policy by every metric compared to Trump. In a policy vs policy showdown, Harris wins, and thank you for confirming that with the short list you provided.
Listing policies that a Harris admin would perform better on compared to whatever lies Trump peddled does not further the idea that Harris was lacking in policy. It reinforces my points that they are not compared against each other. To say she was unpopular for her stance on the economy or Israel or whatever does not compare her to Trump, he would do worse. It compares her to ideals. Like I’ve been saying.
They aren’t compared against each other, that’s the entire point. For progressive voters Trumps policies don’t matter because they’re not voting for him anyway, the only ones that matter are Harris policies. Likewise for conservative voters Harris policies don’t matter, she isn’t getting their votes. The ones Harris had to convince were the progressive voters and she spent her entire campaign trying to convince conservatives that she wasn’t that progressive.
The fact Harris lost is literally the only proof necessary to demonstrate her policies weren’t good enough. If they were she would have gotten more votes.
You seem to have things completely backwards. It isn’t the voters responsibility to vote for a given party or candidate unconditionally (even though in practice that’s exactly the way Republicans operate). It’s the party and candidates responsibility to convince voters to vote for them. When a politician loses an election, barring complicating factors like gerrymandering and voter suppression, it’s the politicians fault. Full Stop.