He’s had yet another horrible week. The old tricks aren’t working. Kamala Harris does not fear him. And it’s showing in the numbers.
I have to admit when I’m wrong.
I was all for Joe staying in the race, because I didn’t think the Dems would coalesce around one candidate without a shit-show convention.
Now I’m glad I was wrong. Just putting it out there.
You know what the cool thing is? Those of us who were wrong for one reason or another will actually about it. We don’t pretend we were right the whole time. We don’t pretend it just didn’t happen.
Hindsight being what it is, I’m almost wondering if the timing was planned in advance. Biden already told us he’d be a one term president. If in 10 years they came out and said “Yeah, that was the plan from day one but we couldn’t tell anyone” I would absolutely believe it.
I threw an idea out in response to a comment here right after Biden backed out and the more I think about, the more it seems likely to be right.
My theory is that the DNC likely timed Biden stepping aside so it would be late enough they couldn’t hold primaries for the nominee. It came out in 2016 that the DNC was basically rigged for Clinton to win, regardless of what voters wanted. The 2016 primaries caused dissension with voters leading to lower turnout, and I think that was also somewhat true in 2020. By waiting as long as he did to back out, Biden took voter choice out of it and helped rally everyone behind Harris.
I could absolutely be wrong, but every time I run it through my head it feels more likely to be true. And if I’m right, it is a bit sleazy. However, I have to admit I’m surprised and impressed by how it’s turned out. I didn’t expect people to rally so strongly behind Kamala, and I’m excited to be a part of it!
I think you’re underestimating the effect power has on the psyche.
Sure, Biden said he would be a one term president. Sure, the DNC will do anything including breaking its own rules to avoid allowing anyone left of center to be the nominee.
But when you’re in the most powerful position in the world (Biden’s donors), you want to keep going.
I think Biden really is just too old and his brain is not working properly and he has health issues, which I believe is the only reason he stepped down, and if those in power beside him did not threaten to force him out of power in an embarrassing way, he would have been happy to have the chance to lose the election and end democracy.
Even right up to the debate, people were repeating ad naseum the absurd lie from the DNC and cable news, that Biden is the only candidate who can beat Trump.
Same here. What a pleasant surprise this whole turnaround has been. I was certainly pesimistic that the Democrats would somehow make the situation even worse, like perhaps bring Clinton back.
The Democrats will nominate George Clinton before they nominate Hillary again.
Hey now, we’re only halfway there. Between Biden, Hillary and likely protesters for Palestine it can still be a shit-show convention.
Though fiercely hope not.
I love how Trump’s treatment of the Kurds gets a free pass from those protesters.
Or, you know, this? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna141905
I would bet my next paycheck that most of them probably could not even explain what he did to the Kurds.
Most of them didn’t know (or knew and did not care) about what Israel has been doing to Palestine for decades now, and were told that this is somehow Joe Biden’s fault or some shit.
I love how Trump’s promise to deport those protesters gets a free pass from those protesters. My brother is one of them, always ranting about “Genocide Joe” and hating the Democrats passionately despite being (ostensibly) liberal. It’s like in his universe the Republicans don’t even exist, and I just can’t understand his viewpoint.
Absolutely none of those protestors believe Trump would be better for Palestine. They believe genocide is criminal, and immoral — and can’t in good conscience stand behind anyone who supports or enables it, regardless of the threat of something worse.
It may not be diplomatic or cunning, but it isn’t rocket science. It’s called morality and conviction. Don’t be disingenuous.
Don’t forget boogaloo fellas and local cops who have been taken in by some kind of propaganda and left-wing useful idiots who got all spun up on internet nonsense to think that the best way to help the Palestinians is to make sure Trump gets elected. I hope not, but the convention has the potential to be a fuckin atom bomb of colliding toxic forces.
left-wing useful idiots who got all spun up on internet nonsense to think that the best way to help the Palestinians is to make sure Trump gets elected.
I said it before about Biden and I’ll say it again about Kamala: the one thing that could sink her chances will be to burn the bridge with pro-palestinian protestors.
It’s not up to protestors if Kamala looses, it’s up to Kamala.
Biden seems to be going all in for Harris, but according to the AP, the DNC still hasn’t updated their paperwork to reflect Biden dropping out, so it could very well end up a shit show.
I think Biden will be alright to be honest, even should he stumble through his speech it’s not too bad given he’s not running anymore. Just look at the joint Harris/Biden adress the other day about the pharmaceutical prices. Not a great speech by Biden, but everyone is sort of in “alright grandpa, let’s get you to bed” mode.
The protests can get ugly, though I truly pray they won’t. But another unfortunate reaction/statement about Palestine from Harris would be bad, and worst case the protests get violent and actual fights break out - which would be bad bad.
I also don’t see why we’re opening the Hillary box again even though it’s just a speech. But what do I know.
I got plenty of flak for suggesting Joe needed to go. The thing is, Kamala isn’t a perfect candidate either but holy hell the (perceived) difference in voter attitudes is absolutely palpable. With Joe we’d have had people voting Trump just to avoid falling asleep (not supporting that at all, but the average voter operates on extremely simple heuristics).
Just another voice in the crowd to say “Same”. Herein lies one of the major differences I see with “R” vs “D”. One side sees learning and admitting mistakes as the ultimate sin, whereas the other generally embraces learning and changing a viewpoint as new information comes to light.
I remember writing that the Vietnam was was a terrible mistake and someone came to tell me that it was a noble cause and a moral victory.
Just to remind everyone in 2016 people had pretty much already planned their Clinton victory parties and everyone “knew” that Trump was going to lose, the polling was so clear and Trump was such a joke. Perhaps some even took care of “more important” stuff than voting because it was so sure.
So keep your excitement to take you to the voting booths rather than letting it make you complacent.
Yea while Kamala is ahead in the polls , a frighteningly large amount of people still support 45
Even then, the error % on polls is high enough that Trump could be ahead instead.
Polls post their calculated error %. If they could be off by like 5% in either direction, then that’s what they say. And if the poll shows Trump losing by 2%, with a 5% error, that means Trump could win by 3%.
Every single reputable poll that has been published shows a Trump victory within the margin of error.
I don’t know a single person that has been polled. They are all guesswork.
Thanks for saying this. It’s Mid-August. There are two whole months in which things can go wildly off the rails. Rather than celebrating polls in mid-August, let’s take this happy energy and make plans to go to the only poll that matters – the actual election – and make these mid-August hopes turn into January certainty. Plan the celebrations after we win in November, to coincide with Harris taking the Oath in January.
There are two whole months in which things can go wildly off the rails.
It’s astonishing how long the US election cycle is. There’s longer until the next US election than the entire campaign here in the UK, yet it’s all I’ve heard about for the past three years.
Can you guys not just chill the fuck out?
Can you guys not just chill the fuck out?
I used to go years between worrying about politics before Trump was president. I’m hoping those days can return somehow.
Obviously not. If people would chill out it would have to be about judging and responding to actual policy decision, instead of watching GoT political drama.
The longer the election cycle, the more politics are a show and bad policy can be justified with “election tactics”.
The mainstream media just doesn’t reflect/represent the majority of Americans anymore and hasn’t for quite some time, actually.
This would suggest that the polls indicated that Hilary was more popular despite Trump going on to win the popular vote. This did not happen. The majority of Americans dislike Trump and he lost the popular vote and never had an approval rating over 50%.
However, there’s a lot of reporting on polls that operate like the popular vote, despite the popular vote not really mattering.
The actual assessment is that the electoral college just doesn’t reflect/represent the majority of Americans, and it never really did.
and there’s plenty of time for the propaganda machine to find a server, laptop or some other bullshit to give people an excuse to not vote for her.
Unfortunately I don’t see Kamala winning just yet, nothing is certain, there’s a lot of Trump supporters in the wood work, and the establishment liberal media play a game of “maybe if we pretend they’re losing, they’ll lose”.
…which is wishful thinking that destroys people’s grip on reality, and causes a lot of voters to not bother to show up.
I think it’s pretty obvious that if that guy gets elected, it’s going to be a shitstorm, and that isn’t good for the establishment.
Are you kidding? The “establishment” (mainstream) media is extremely left. They don’t like trump and do all they can to hurt his campaign.
Where do you live?
I love this for him.
Trump: “she doesn’t like Jewish people. You know it, I know it, and everybody knows it, and nobody wants to say it.”
Yeah, probably because she loves them, and everyone else as well.
If she loves Jewish people so much then why doesn’t she marry 'em?? 🤪
Oh wait…
I think Trump is accustomed to thinking his spouses are lesser beings that exist only to bolster his image and serve at his pleasure, and he probably harbors deep feelings of disdain for all of them that he can’t express publicly.
So for him it totally tracks to be married to a type of person that you hate.
So for him it totally tracks to be married to a type of person that you hate.
Women, for example
And Trump’s wife, mother, and grandfather are and were immigrants, but it doesn’t stop him from hating immigrants. That type of inconsistency isn’t an issue for him, so I imagine calling Harris an antisemite is perfectly reasonable to him.
Great point. Same with openly gay Peter Thiel who hand picked weirdo JD Vance, completely behind Project 2025, which is staunchly anti-gay.
As much as I’d like to celebrate, I can only think about how the attitude was the same regarding Hillary, and we all saw how that turned out. Fingers crossed.
People hated Hillary though. I know everyone who liked her wanted to say it was sexism but the Clinton’s are fucking crooks. I don’t like that Kamala put a bunch of people in prison for weed but there isn’t any evidence that she killed people for political gain.
Hell, Hillary even kept Henry Kissinger around while campaigning Somehow thinking that was a good idea? Basically a hello America, look at this war criminal I am good friends with, let me talk at length about how amazing this war criminal is. To say she was out of touch would be a bit of an understatement.
It’s the truth, though… If trump could beat out Hillary, Kamala stands no chance in hell.
Edit: Quit reading into this. It’s an opinion based on observation. It’s fine if you disagree and want to tell me why I’m wrong. I welcome that. But assuming I’m pro-trump or anti-harris because of this comment is an assumption you shouldn’t be making. I said nothing to indicate support for either.
The energy around Clinton was different, even most dems weren’t thrilled with Hillary and she was unpopular with undecided voters, meanwhile we know and have seen the threat that is Trump, and Harris is fairing better so far.
We’ll see of course, but it’s not as similar as it might seem if you’re just saying “Woman vs Trump is the same”
I agree. Doesn’t feel the same at all to me. Kamala is a likeable person and candidate.
100%. I was so disgusted with how the democrats shoved Bernie under the rug that I voted 3rd party. I also had a small glimmer of hope that Trump would tack left on at least a few things. I won’t be making that mistake again.
Wouldn’t be sure:
- Clinton suffered from an overconfident base, that might not have shown up at the voting sites as they assumed it was in the bag. After 2016, some of those voters hopefully learned a lesson
- Clinton suffered from a lot of bitter Sanders supporters. This time there was no big ‘other’ candidate people considered to have been cheated out of.
- I know at least some people not crazy about any ‘dynasty’, and Clinton was mostly remembered by her relationship to Bill. Sure she was Secretary of State (no one cares) and NY senator (which was seen as weird, out of nowhere she was suddenly a NY political figure despite no particular affiliation with NY before).
Circumstances are different, and I don’t think people were specifically excited over Hilary. I think some were excited about “a” woman candidate, but not really Clinton in particular.
Clinton suffered from a lot of bitter Sanders supporters. This time there was no big ‘other’ candidate people
considered to have beenwere cheated out of.
FTFY
Overconfident is an understatement. I remember people thinking that Trump was the end of the Republican party, some people actually said that the party would be forced to disband after their crushing defeat in 2016.
Even many Democrats didn’t like Hillary, but the idea of Trump winning was outright laughable to many. I think that combination of “I don’t want to vote for her” and “there’s no way she can lose” left a lot of people at home twiddling their thumbs instead of going out to vote.
Hilary lost because she sucked major ass. I didn’t vote in 2016 because fuck political dynasties, and the DNC did everything it could to prevent Bernie from getting the nomination, which unfortunately worked. Being less young and stupid, I probably would have voted for her if I were in 2016 again. I would have hated it though, just as I would have hated voting for Biden but would have done so. I’m not particularly excited about Kamala but she’s definitely a lot more palatable with SO much more appeal than Hillary or Biden had.
Hilary lost because she sucked major ass. I didn’t vote in 2016 because fuck political dynasties, and the DNC did everything it could to prevent Bernie from getting the nomination, which unfortunately worked. Being less young and stupid, I probably would have voted for her if I were in 2016 again. I would have hated it though, just as I would have hated voting for Biden but would have done so. I’m not particularly excited about Kamala but she’s definitely a lot more palatable with SO much more appeal than Hillary or Biden had.
The stupid thing was that they didn’t need to do their dirty tricks. The things like what DWS in Arizona were well after Bernie was mathematically out of the running. I’m a Bernie fan and I voted for him in the primaries in California, but he lost on Super Tuesday (well before CA and AZ voted). He failed to capture the votes and was not really in contention.
I think Hilary lost for three reasons. 1. Republicans had their smear machine running on her for over a decade. Propaganda works. 2. Her public speaking persona was bad. I heard her speak in a more normal conversation and she sounded smart, articulate, and hitting all the right points. I was impressed. But her speech giving persona was bad and came across as snobbish. 3. Sexism. It’s not THE reason she lost, but I think there was and is a vein of that running through America. “What if it’s her time of the month and she has her finger on the big red button?” “Blood coming out of her whatever”, etc.
I think time has proven out that she would have been a 10x better president than Trump. Just like Gore would have been 10x better than Bush. So much less death, so much better policy. If they’d been elected, the world would be a different place today. (Stupid undemocratic electoral college system)
The vast right wing conspiracy literally had decades to create a false narrative around Hillary, though.
“Time” is the greatest clarifier. This narrative you’re talking about isn’t made from lies about Hillary. It is about things that were called called lies at first, but then, over time, were proven to be correct. But by they time they were proven correct, hardly anyone cared about it anymore, the focus had shifted to other topics, and the MSM hardly reported on it.
