What a time to be alive. As it seems now, I was entirely wrong, as was ‘conventional’ political wisdom. May I continue to be wrong. It’s a welcome failure, as far as I’m concerned.
I figured there was a 1% chance of Biden dropping out, but also thought that Kamala would be a better candidate than him, but was also skeptical that Kamala would be able to beat Trump.
So…basically wrong on the first, correct on the second… yet to be determined on the third.
I did not expect the Democrats to actually do anything that would actually help themselves, figuring that they are far too ossified and out of touch.
Currently the Trump and the Republicans seem to stun locked by the ‘they’re just weird’ angle… which is amazing to me in two ways:
One, that after basically 3 decades of spewing lies and hate and insults against their opponents in the form of coordinated talking points to respond to basically every political development, they cannot handle the mildest possible form of this being used against them.
Two, that the Democrats finally actually collectively did something ‘aggressive’ rhetorically. Years and years of ‘taking the high road’ and acting morally superior to their opponents… they finally actually did something (collectively) that makes them not seem like hoity toity cloistered intellectual snobs.
That, and Mike Tim Walz is actually surprisingly relatable and charismatic.
Yep, I was wearing that clown makeup too. Dems have not impressed me much lately with being able to deliver a coherent and effective message, so I was fully prepared for a shitshow of disarray if/when Biden dropped out.
It was very surprising to me how effectively they were able to leave Trump stumbling just as he seemed to be on the upswing. The utter lack of disorder around it almost feels like Biden was planning to drop out of the race all along, just waiting for the right moment… but that’s probably giving him too much credit.
What clown makeup? Biden was the presumptive nominee. I wasn’t pro Biden, I was pro Democrat in the Whitehouse. Trump in prison.
I still am, though I acknowledge I was wrong about who the nominee was gonna be.
I personally underestimated the support Harris would get. I remember lots of progressives being unhappy with her back in 2020, due to her background as a prosecutor.
Between that and the obvious reasons Republicans would go after her, I figured it would be an uphill battle.
Very happy to have been wrong!
That conventional political wisdom is getting less applicable with every year since the hell-date of 2016?
Yeah, unprecedented event after unprecedented event. Still you could’ve been vindicated if anything mildly unfortunate had happened before the DNC. Like if Harris picked a different VP, if Vance was actually in any way adept, etc. And hey, knock on wood, but you could still be right in the end – we probably shouldn’t count our chickens before they hatch.
Good on you though for being a good sport about your previous comments. I was on the “drop out” side (not that Biden would drop out, but I thought pretty much anyone else would have a better chance), but at the end of the day I kinda think we’re all talking out of our asses to a certain degree, because political science isn’t actually a science at all.
That’s actually really great! 1000 kudos to you
Why do you think political wisdom wasn’t applicable in 2016 and hasn’t been since?
I think that’s is really one of the most important things we need to try and understand and I don’t think it’s mainly due to the Internet being a factor.
My guess is it’s moreso due to the influence of money on political campaigns, the influence of mega-corporations on the job market, and all the offshoring of jobs in the last few decades. The terrible state of our education system really doesn’t help either
What’s to be learned? What is weak logic about the mainline, presumptive nominee, who is a sitting president, who one way or another was the only human being to beat trump in an election, would become the actual nominee and democratic candidate?
That is not a bad bet, or bad logic, if we are sitting in March or April.
Idk, I asked someone else in this thread that and they had a great answer. They mentioned how the way we predict elections has changed since 2016 (or something) and I thought that was super interesting and worth reflecting on. If I answered your question right now it might be something simple like age or someone with a better understanding of history might mention how the current level of wealth inequality compares to previous moments in history
That said, I’m not sure why this similar comment was seen as more offensive. This is literally something I try to do myself when someone I trust is wrong about something. I might not cancel em or whatever but I’ll try to understand what went wrong or maybe just stop listening to them about certain topics they’re consistently wrong on
For example, you could note that “only human being to beat Trump in an election” is a really small sample size. It’s equally true to note that so far, Hillary is the only Democrat to lose to Trump in an election. The performance post-switch would indicate Trump is not a uniquely dangerous and persuasive candidate, but that his opposition was uniquely weak so far.
Honestly, I had forgotten about Kamala when arguing that Biden was the best bet. My argument always lay in, “Needs to be familiar because Trump has this uncanny ability to swamp somebody without a track record”, and I completely forgot Kamala fit that exactly in the same way Biden did - By being a VP
SO glad I was wrong, too - It was a lot of me groaning, “Oh god Biden is our best bet dear fuck no…”
I think I let myself be misled about the urgency of having a candidate ready and the time for campaigning. Meanwhile, other countries gear up their elections in less than a month.
Many of us misled ourselves about the “obligation” or “strategic advantage” of there always having to be a two-term attempt. The fact that Joe chose Kamala as VP, and decided to retire after one term, speaks VOLUMES about why I trusted and trust him as president and as a fellow human, and how it pissed me off to hear people saying that both parties are the same.
Anyway… Joe Biden’s legacy will now most certainly be a positive one. As I knew it would be.
Yeah. He’s never going to be remembered as positively as Obama, Obama was a cultural phenomenon and remains one of the best orators alive, but he will likely be remembered as a man who genuinely held beliefs and cared about his country enough to grow and change with the times. Biden was the president we didn’t necessarily want but aren’t mad to have had anyways.
I wasn’t on board with Kamala until she picked Walz as her running mate. I was honestly going to vote for Vermin Supreme until then.
You’re still completely missing the point.
It could have been Tim Walz and no one knew his name before Biden dropped.
The “name recognition” is just bullshit.
99.99% of what neoliberals say they dont even believe, they just say whatever gets them what they want
They wanted Biden, so they just spewed diarrhea onto keyboards throwing everything at the wall hoping something will stick.
But they knew all along that Biden was the worst option, they were just willing to risk trump again than anything a smidge to the left more than Bidens 82 year ass.
Please learn the lesson this time, they’ve been doing it for decades, and show no signs of stopping
The most conservative wings of a political party almost never are on the same side of the rest of the party. Please, for the love of God stop fucking falling for it.
This is garbage discourse towards someone who literally said they are adjusting their perspective.
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched. The election isn’t over. This nations racism, sexism, and sheer stupidity might be too much to overcome.
And just because she wins doesn’t mean she wins either.
There are election deniers all over the country in important places and they’re going to act up after the election refusing to certify their election results. SCOTUS could end up rubber stamping a Trump win in a scenario where it’s up to them to solve a legal dispute…
They didn’t know about Walz. Seriously, wtf Democrats? It seems you have a treasure trove of untapped talent but you still wheel out barely alive corpses like it is the Imperium in WH40K. Let the next generation take over. The Old Ones should step back and turn into advisors and elder statesmen.
Dems can’t dig too much into their talented and passionate base. They have to find waffling liberals more interested in keeping the status quo.
Still so much better than anything the Republicans could muster but don’t be fooled.
Doing an “I told you so” on people who are happy to be wrong is pretty silly.
that’s why i gave kudos to those people instead last month https://lemmy.world/comment/11376547
the fears were wrong but understandable. if AOC wasn’t sure there was enough support behind Harris you’re allowed to be wrong too.
now there’s great and unified energy behind the democratic party for the first time since Obama. just enjoy it and try your best to keep it up. going for an “i told you so” right now is petty.
Yeah, the “I told you so”s feel like infighting just to fight your own side
i mean there was some infighting at the time, and i participated in it saying he should drop out. other people were saying he shouldn’t. that’s infighting and it makes sense. people were in disagreement about what should be done next.
but now it’s over. there’s pretty much unanimous consensus that it was the right thing to do. now that there’s no disagreement, bringing up the time where there was, just to feel better about yourself is silly and pointless.
It needs to be said. If we can’t acknowledge how contradicting narratives were fed to us within the same month, then it shows an alarming lack of cognitive dissonance on our part.
There are people on Lemmy who argued that Biden is not our best bet against Trump; they were told that Biden was the best that the party can do and that there was not enough time to replace Biden. Now, we’re all supposed to move on like that didn’t just happen.
That said, I am pleasantly surprised to see the community admitting the mistake. I assumed this post would be downvoted heavily but the post felt necessary for the reasons above.
