Summary
Kamala Harris’s political skills have transformed a potentially disastrous 2024 presidential election into a competitive race.
Despite initial skepticism and a challenging campaign, Harris has improved her public image and closed the gap with Trump on key issues. Since Biden stepped aside in July and endorsed her, she has shifted from an unpopular vice president to a viable candidate, even matching Trump in polls on economic issues.
Her leadership has given Democrats a chance to prevent a Trump landslide and halt the rise of American authoritarianism.
Well let’s be real honest with ourselves here. Her platform was fine and her campaign was executed very, very well. But she had only, what, 107 days to pull it off? Economists agree that her platform would have the best impact on the country, but she or anyone who would have taken her place were all swimming upstream against inflation. And since we’re being honest here, we both recognize that the Fed, not controlled by the executive branch, are the ones responsible for righting the ship. And Biden did everything he could from his chair up to and including working across the aisle in GOP majority house, and only failed when Trump intervened for sake of an election year talking point.
The map is the outcome, but it’s not evidence of any campaign tanking. She is intelligent, empathetic, and very well spoken. But the settling dust is indicating that the outcome was driven by a number of factors beyond her control.
Her platform was not fine. The few policies she put forward were either limited to incredible minor subsets of the population (capping price of just insulin, a minor payput for first time how buyers in very limited areas, a tax cut that barely puts a dent in the rise of the cost of living due to inflation), or were things most states have already done themselves.
Not to mention speed running to the right. A genocide, etc.
The number of days was not the issue. It was her complete disregard for the plight of the middle class struggling on food/housing and arabs literally watching her and bidens admin murdering their families.
Never mind the fact that she was one of the individuals that was gaslighting americans over bidens mental decline.
She had plenty of time to plan her campaign if she hadnt been too busy gaslighting people.
Just to be super clear, yes we were watching different candidates then. The country needs to walk a very nuanced path if we want to continue the recovery started by the Fed (interest rates) and Biden (IRA and CHIPS). Don’t get me wrong: Biden deciding to run for reelection was the worst possible decision he could have made. The second worst: dropping out 107 days from the election. I’m sure the private discussions about his decision were passionate, but of course she’s not going to publicly lay her boss out like that. That’s not realistic to expect her to undermine any progress Biden. You privately disagree and publicly commit. You do that until the circumstances change. The DNC is absolutely to blame. Not Harris though. It was as good as it could have been given the duration.
And then there’s the elephant in the room: she does not exist in a vacuum. We had a front row view to a horribly misogynist, criminal, fascist wannabe since (checks notes) 2015. People comparing these 2 and selecting to risk the world order just to save their regressive social views are also to blame. Because remember: all economists agree how dangerous his plan is.
No we’re watching the same candidate. You’re just willing to paper over a genocide for the other bits. And thats a you decision.
I, and many others were not okay with it. And that was our decision. Its not our responsibility to support a candidate just because the other candidate is a shit stain.
your candidate was the ones taking the risk. You dont get to demand peoples votes for a candidate or lay blame on others because of anothers candidates behavior.
You need votes to win which means convincing people to vote for your candidate. Harris definitely knew what the deal was and she made the decision to risk it. Trump also understood this, clearly better than Harris his campaign started courting that group immediately after she left them.
This conversation is done. you’re not bringing anything new to the discussion. Accept the loss that harris received because she was unwilling to move on a genocide.
Learn from this from the next election: a candidate does not get to demand votes from people because the other candidate is trash, demand your candidate move to accept positions that dont conflict w/ yours. As an example i was more than willing to accept the border policy and firearms policy shifts. I was not okay with cheney, but i would have ignored it for a win. I was not okay with arming israel while a genocide was occurring, i was not okay with how she treated the arab Americans begging for help by her campaign.
