The deeply demoralizing comment section of this post
The mood of Blue MAGA is so far up its own ass they can look at the incineration of children and be like “I don’t think Harris promising to prevent this will poll well with the median voter”
I can't stop thinking about how this would play on the other side. Like if the GOP was courting scientists for votes (be it climate scientists or abortion providers) or even the children of immigrants (which they do in Miami, but not nationwide). I'm sure their xenophobic, older male base would feel used and taken for granted. When I see Biden and now Harris court the neocon / war criminal vote, how am I supposed to feel? How can I not conclude that the Democratic party is not for me, and doesn't really value my vote no matter where I live? I'm upset! This is not OK!
I mean, you could pay attention to the real world for just like ten seconds and see how trump is constantly talking out of both sides of his mouth about abortion and see how the anti-choice zealots realise he's obviously lying and still support him instead of crying about staying home and not voting "in principled protest" because they understand that in the real world you win elections by getting the most votes, not by being the best virtue signaler.
I was going to add to my comment that of course Trump needs the votes of both his qanon base and fools who are willing to give him a second chance to rule. The GOP has been happy to accept voters who vote against their interests. Trump fans laugh at those voters and appreciate the "sucker" vote. But for a Democratic candidate to respond to endorsements that not a single Democratic voter over 40 wants nor values is the opposite of that. The Democratic response is mainly, "no, we don't want the votes of billionaires, billionaire war criminals, and the few people left alive who think that Reagan and Bush 43 were good presidents. We don't want the votes from people who think they can whitewash their bios by endorsing Harris." Compare this the GOP, which needs millions of crossover votes. The Democrats don't need that many defectors. Why must the Democrats even think of courting those votes? We outnumber the GOP in living registered voters by about 8 Million. Maybe 10 Million. If Harris was more of an Obama Democrat and less of a Neocon, she might win this thing. It's incredible. We're seeing the Clinton 'Pied Piper' strategy play out again. The Harris campaign is not for me. It's for readers of The Atlantic and the Washington Post, the pundits, the editors, and the cable news producer class.
no, i would actually like the votes of all these people, i want as many votes as i can get.
I can also do math and if I can take away a hesitant trump voter, it'll actually count double because it'll be minus one for him and plus one for Harris, which is literally the best possible voting outcome. even if they don't vote for Harris, all these shithead republicans saying trump fucking sucks don't vote for him can hopefully move someone to say, well I'm never going to vote for Harris, but I don't want to vote for trump now either and that's still an outcome I will take because it's still minus one for him.
Exactly, for every progressive they might lose, they'll pick up two moderate republicans in the suburbs. Just like in 2016. There's no reason why Hillary Clinton style triangulating can't work a second time.
You don’t win elections in this dumb country by winning the most votes. You win by courting an extremely small sliver of the population in a few crucial states. Hence why you have Kamala about facing on fracking and essentially embracing Trump’s border policies.
What have the Democrats done, in any material fashion, to protect abortion rights in the past 35 years at the national level? Because from my vantage point, they've only done the following:
* Refused to even try legislating abortion rights
* Used abortion rights as a major (fund raising) issue each and every election cycle
* Talked a big game about stacking the SCOTUS and other stuff (see campaign fundraising)
* Materially? Nothing. It serves the corporate Dems better if abortion is 100% illegal.
Katherine Krueger has documented this her whole life it seems. I agree. But I fail to see how Wall Street prefers that abortion be illegal. After all, it was Nixon-era Republicans who made it legal in the first place. The mistresses needed medicine.
So I think you may be missing the stories on the falling birth rates (worldwide) and how not being able to control how many children you have drives down women's wages and makes for desperation/acceptance of worse working conditions. Wall Street isn't sitting in a cabal planning, but capitalism needs people in poverty and desperate to cheapen labor. They see that America's empire abroad, the thing that made the large middle class possible, is in decline. They know that abortion is always legal to those wealthy enough. Everything is legal if you have enough money--look at Epstein, look at Diddy.
Did Harris court Dick Cheney? Did she court Gonzales? I feel like that is an overstatement of what is happening. And your point on the scientists is a good one. But that is a cult right now so that is how a cult behaves - anyone not touting the exact party line is declared an enemy. A party contains a diverse set of views but a single set of goals (in this case preserve free democracy )
She didn't court them. But why did she respond? Not responding is a choice. And it would have put some pressure on the Neocons to explain their flip. Unless, Harris secretly agreed that she would respond if she got the endorsements. We don't know, but this could have been conditional.
It's just insane. I knew the corporate Democrats were irrational in their fear of Trump, but if anyone'd asked me 10 years ago, in the middle of Obama's 2nd term, even after he'd refused to investigate, let alone prosecute Bush administration war and domestic criminality (ya know, look forward and not backward), that the 2024 Democrat presidential ticket would not just have endorsements from those Republican criminals, but brag about them openly, I would have escorted them to a mental institution.
But here we are. They've done it. And they seem completely blind to the reasons that Hillary lost in 2016. Namely, war mongering, bragging about killing people, joking about droning Assange, not campaigning in certain key states, and all of it without a literal full bore Democrat backed genocide and major European land war happening concurrently. These people are, in fact, insane.
Not an original thought by me, but it really feels like this is an election run by two campaigns actively trying to lose. Alternatively, each party nominated the only person who could lose to their opponent. In other words, we’re reliving 2016. Again. As we apparently will be til the oceans swallow us whole.
And how’s that going? Statistically tied to a sociopathic racist, sexist antisemite (to name but a few) who tried to overthrow the government. And the Dems’ response is—as Katherine points out in the blog—to actively alienate critical portions of their base by antagonizing the left, the young, progressives, etc., by courting war criminals and loser never Trump gopers—who command no statistically significant percentage of the voting populace—and saying there’s apparently no daylight between Kamala and Biden when it comes to supporting a genocide. Brilliant strategy.
And supporting genocide is a talking point. The US aid orgs and Govt are providing 100s of millions in supplies etc to Gaza and Ukraine - you don’t do that if you support the elimination of those peoples. You may not like policies but that is not support for genocide(and what until they see Trump’s positions on those 2 - buckle up as it will actually be support for genocide
I am not. It is simple - if you care about any marginalized people anywhere in the world, it clear that one candidate consider them ‘scum’ , ‘vermin’ etc and will never help them. Many are desperate to ensure that person does not take over the most powerful nation in the world. Many are putting aside policy issues to ensure that doesn’t happen. Some are not willing to do so and they are risking things becoming much much worse on the very issues upon which Their objections rest so make their point. I respect their right do so it and it is a pincipled stand. But the above is not really in dispute is it?
The US is also supplying food, medicine, transport passages when possible, etc. Again - you may not like the policy but it isn’t genocide it is more complicated than that. Also - a lot of nations are supplying weapons so it isn’t like the US is solely enabling anything. The hard reality is that Israel is the only anchor in a part of the world that is both energy rich(see critical for all of those SUVS and cheap flights in the US) and US friendly - so the weapons are a reflection that Israel is much more likely to be attacked(and now have been) post the Oct 2023 attacks. The calculus is that Israel keeps Iran and others at bay so the US doesn’t have to do so - the policy has little to do with Gaza. Hamas and Israel are using Gaza as pawn in that game. As we recognized the 1 year anniversary of the invasion, mass kidnappings, mass rape, and mass murder I wonder what Hamas expected to happen and I realize it is exactly what is happening. They retreat behind 2MM human shields, Bibi overreacts, Iran, Hezbollah, etc engage and maybe they get a regional conflict off of the blood of the people they claim to be governing and protecting. A nightmare all around.
The US stopped pretending to supply aid to Gaza months ago. And yeah, it was window dressing. It was not serious. And today? Israeli airstrikes kill at least 40 in Gaza. When will the bombardment end? Didn't Israel collectively punish Gaza enough? We're approaching 200,000 dead.
It is only alienating for folks who prefer Trump’s fasicist plan to their specific issue list. Again - Cheney isn’t saying he loves Harris - he is saying people who love this country should vote only candidate under which the constitution republic is sure to survive. If it doesn’t then all of these folks specific issues won’t matter anyway - they will be fighting for their own local rights or declaring loyalty to the 1 regime.
Harris came out of the gate strong. But the last month has totally demoralized me. She is not even attacking Trump well. She just repeats that line that Trump is "unserious," but another Trump terms would have serious circumstances. She is yet to attack Trump for suggesting that the military be deployed on US streets during election day to cause chaos.
Well, that is on Biden and his family. If Dr. Jill Biden had recognized what I saw in the fall of 2021, and had been a rational adult and told her husband to announce he wouldn't seek re-election, we would have had a more democratic process. But as I am finding with my elderly parents, the process of dying is often made worse by the relentless denial by the family that someone is dying. Also see: Diane Feinstein, RBG.
What’s so very dumb about touting these people is, if you give it even a modicum of thought, it’s not an endorsement of you, it’s a repudiation of trump. If you’re elected, those people will be lined up day one trying to torpedo any kind of agenda that you have for the constituency of the party. It’s the most cynical of politics to convince moderate republicans to vote for you knowing they want nothing to do with you and will be counting down the days to be able to vote for Vance in 2028.
Ok - but if Trump is elected what happens? Already lined up against all negative media orgs, ready to guy all govt agencies and put in political loyalists, justice system ready to mobilize against enemies, Gaza gone, Ukraine 50% gone, women’s rights gone, IVF maybe gone, Gay marriage etc on the table. Attacks on ‘vermin’ reticent of 1930s Germany? 2028 is a nightmare but if they Trump wins in 2024 - they literally are already saying the won’t certify elections if they thing there are problems with them so there won’t be any more 2 party system - it will be a 1 party with loyalty demanded. Let’s not stand on principle while the place burns down
Or… you could make the argument that you should be elected based on who you are on not who the other guy is, it’s the problem Biden couldn’t get away from by framing it solely about trump. Make people want to vote for you, not against the other guy. They’ll be the ones who have to wait 8 hours to try and vote in Georgia or have to deal with armed people standing outside polling places in Arizona
Nature abhors a vacuum. The GOP has now retreated so far to the authoritarian Right that there's a blank void over the Reagan-centered Republican swath of the electorate, so the Dems are kind of just swelling into the space left over. Sure, there were conscious decisions on both sides that led to this happening, but the overall effect is of the space just being filled with the available matter. We all joke/fret/complain about the "uniparty," but if the GOP keeps this up there really will be one.
Dang, they need every vote they can get. Are you saying that Trump shouldn't go after democrat votes (which is what he's doing)? What is wrong with trying to peel off some staunch Republicans from the Red side?
Last time I looked, running for office was about winning, not "appearances."
We read it. - it suggests refusing support that comes with zero commitments required in demand, to risk plunging in 1930s Germany - no thanks. That is the same as the Hillary protest voters that gave us Trump in 2016 in the first place and his hand picked Supreme Court which is rolling back half century old rights
Couldn't disagree with "zero commitments" required more. As one example, accepting these endorsements is committing to continuing a genocide. Won't apologize for choosing the current genocide as my red line – is that not 1930s Germany enough for you?
Swallowing poison like Cheney and Gonzalez that demoralises vastly larger numbers of people than it attracts is a much greater risk of giving us Trump. People have been asking for a simple fig leaf at least to justify a vote against Trump when faced with a literal actual ongoing holocaust, aided and abetted by the biden administration. Even something like "we will enforce existing laws on both our allies and our enemies". But they can't even offer that. That *choice* is producing this nailbiter election after how good the numbers got just before the convention.
She isn’t swallowing that poison she simply isn’t disavowing them as the nation’s survival as we know it is on the line. If someone is willing to be demoralized by someone putting the survival of the nation over their specific issue, then maybe Harris isn’t the problem. The numbers before the convenient were a sigh of relief that Biden moved on- most people barely knew Harris really. Also - ‘existing laws’. The US doesn’t enforce laws on enemies nor allies, the laws of the US as constructed upon the US constitution are for US citizens and residents. I actually get your point, I do. But if you call the current state ‘an actual holocaust’ what the hell would you call what Trump and Bibi would do? And honestly - i read a lot of swing state voter polls - the inflation/economy, crime, reproductive rights, immigration - those are the top 4 issues and the drop off is pretty big after that and/or more localized to the state (energy issues in some, education in some, etc)
On 3 of those 4 issues, voters polled give trump the edge, despite this neocon heel turn from Harris. So what's the point of continuing to lean into it instead of trying, even a little bit, to shore up the center left/progressive vote?
Democrats have been courting the mythical "moderate" Republican vote since at least Bill Clinton. Every major election they tack further to the right, ignore their base and openly antagonize the left wing of their party potentially driving away voters who would turn out in their favor. In all that time, in 30 years, that strategy has never ever worked. At no point has going Republican-Lite lured any sort of statistically significant amount of "moderate" Republicans.
All those "moderate" Republicans publicly hem and haw and talk about not loving their guy then election time comes and they all dutifully vote for him anyway. The worry is not only does this not work, but it potentially dampens turnout from the left side of the party that would vote for them. It not only doesn't gain them votes, it potentially costs them votes.
As I’ve said many times, Dems are just happy to be here. With a voter base of 10MM more than Republicans, they seem to be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory repeatedly. The problem of the Electoral College could have been overcome if they put a plan in place fifty years ago. But they kept going to the same well of minority voters and identity politics. Now that Hispanics, Blacks and many women have switched sides, it’s their own damn fault that they are in the fix they’re in.
Obama going after health care in 2009 when Dems controlled the WH, HoR and Senate, when he ran on gun reform really pissed me off. Not getting Glass-Steagall reinstated or the assault weapons ban revisited pissed me off. Dems get the same money, perks and bennies of playing the game the other side does; they just don’t fight for themselves…or us.
The thing about that is that tacking to the right is not actually a winning strategy for democrats and it hasn't been for over 20 years. Republicans do not want to vote for a democrat over a republican. That's why they're republicans. Cowtowing to them is a waste of time that makes nearly any democrat look like a spineless flip-flopper to their base.
That wasn’t always the case. Up until Clinton was elected, independents voted the man or the issue, or both. Dems and Republicans changed allegiances often. Things started to change when Turdle McConnell decided to put a long-range plan in place to take back control of SCOTUS. Coupled with Newt Gingriches “burn down the mission” political strategy, Republicans started to fall in line. Look at them the last fifteen years or so: when the Senate Majority Leader or the Speaker of the House give a talk, they are all lined up behind him. The Dems are like a herd of cats; rarely do you see more than one on camera at a time.
With the Dems, whose behavior reeks of desperation, I may stop labeling that other party as "Rethugs." Both do appear to be of that ilk, particularly due to their foreign policy and practice in the middle east and long the US-Mexican border (not to suggest that their shenanigans do not attempt penetration deeper into that country). So, as some might utter, "I 'wasted' my vote on Cornell West."
This is 100% right! While I would love to see her swing more to the left and truly embrace some popular (and needed) policies on health care, climate, infrastructure, monopolies, etc, as you said even just a crumb on Gaza with all the other center-right policies would really help change my mind.
Last month, I wrote about how politicians at least used to try to gaslight us. That's not even happening now- they're openly embracing their awfulness:
Totally disagree. An equally plausible explanation - the other candidate has people convinced the economy is cratered, immigrants are vermin(i guess except his current and wives), he plans to withhold govt services based on political affliliations, crime is up everywhere, women will be much happier once he kills all remaining reproductive rights, and children are being surgical altered at school. - and he has made it clear that if he is elected there won’t be need for more elections as he will put political hacks in place everywhere and the courts will be stacked for him. So maybe Harris sees someone echoing 1930s Naxi rhetoric and sees the potential unwinding of all that is America, mostly at expense of anyone not a white wealthy landowner but especially women, monitoriities and the working class / working poor and she and her crew are just desperate enough to save the constitutional republic to accept support from anyone that can help(no promise of a single policy has been made to Cheney or anyone else - they are all just putting US interests ahead of their own to prevent a dictator in the making form taking over and making things much much worse for almost everyone (and i spoke of American issues - if you are worried about residents of Gaza (Trump promises support to help Bibi ‘finish the job’ or residents of Ukraine (Trump promises to achieve piece by giving Russia what is wants and promises to withhold support for remaining NATO nations) so the calculus while painful there as well, is breathtakingly obvious - many many more will die or. Be subjugated if Trump is elected and he isn’t subtle about it. So - they are promising nothing/ zero. to these right-wing ‘supporters’ but all are rallying around a potential existential threat both at home and aboard that will devastate anyone not part of the global financial elite.
Like all your comments here, this is incoherent. Your reply is grammatically bizarre and full of typos and incorrect punctuation, allergic to paragraphs, etc. You seem to have a serious problem cohering your thoughts in an organized way. Maybe your brain is bad at political analysis? That's probably why no one agrees with you here.
The deeply demoralizing comment section of this post
The mood of Blue MAGA is so far up its own ass they can look at the incineration of children and be like “I don’t think Harris promising to prevent this will poll well with the median voter”
a-fucking-men.
I can't stop thinking about how this would play on the other side. Like if the GOP was courting scientists for votes (be it climate scientists or abortion providers) or even the children of immigrants (which they do in Miami, but not nationwide). I'm sure their xenophobic, older male base would feel used and taken for granted. When I see Biden and now Harris court the neocon / war criminal vote, how am I supposed to feel? How can I not conclude that the Democratic party is not for me, and doesn't really value my vote no matter where I live? I'm upset! This is not OK!
I mean, you could pay attention to the real world for just like ten seconds and see how trump is constantly talking out of both sides of his mouth about abortion and see how the anti-choice zealots realise he's obviously lying and still support him instead of crying about staying home and not voting "in principled protest" because they understand that in the real world you win elections by getting the most votes, not by being the best virtue signaler.
I was going to add to my comment that of course Trump needs the votes of both his qanon base and fools who are willing to give him a second chance to rule. The GOP has been happy to accept voters who vote against their interests. Trump fans laugh at those voters and appreciate the "sucker" vote. But for a Democratic candidate to respond to endorsements that not a single Democratic voter over 40 wants nor values is the opposite of that. The Democratic response is mainly, "no, we don't want the votes of billionaires, billionaire war criminals, and the few people left alive who think that Reagan and Bush 43 were good presidents. We don't want the votes from people who think they can whitewash their bios by endorsing Harris." Compare this the GOP, which needs millions of crossover votes. The Democrats don't need that many defectors. Why must the Democrats even think of courting those votes? We outnumber the GOP in living registered voters by about 8 Million. Maybe 10 Million. If Harris was more of an Obama Democrat and less of a Neocon, she might win this thing. It's incredible. We're seeing the Clinton 'Pied Piper' strategy play out again. The Harris campaign is not for me. It's for readers of The Atlantic and the Washington Post, the pundits, the editors, and the cable news producer class.
no, i would actually like the votes of all these people, i want as many votes as i can get.
I can also do math and if I can take away a hesitant trump voter, it'll actually count double because it'll be minus one for him and plus one for Harris, which is literally the best possible voting outcome. even if they don't vote for Harris, all these shithead republicans saying trump fucking sucks don't vote for him can hopefully move someone to say, well I'm never going to vote for Harris, but I don't want to vote for trump now either and that's still an outcome I will take because it's still minus one for him.
Exactly, for every progressive they might lose, they'll pick up two moderate republicans in the suburbs. Just like in 2016. There's no reason why Hillary Clinton style triangulating can't work a second time.
You don’t win elections in this dumb country by winning the most votes. You win by courting an extremely small sliver of the population in a few crucial states. Hence why you have Kamala about facing on fracking and essentially embracing Trump’s border policies.
What have the Democrats done, in any material fashion, to protect abortion rights in the past 35 years at the national level? Because from my vantage point, they've only done the following:
* Refused to even try legislating abortion rights
* Used abortion rights as a major (fund raising) issue each and every election cycle
* Talked a big game about stacking the SCOTUS and other stuff (see campaign fundraising)
* Materially? Nothing. It serves the corporate Dems better if abortion is 100% illegal.
Katherine Krueger has documented this her whole life it seems. I agree. But I fail to see how Wall Street prefers that abortion be illegal. After all, it was Nixon-era Republicans who made it legal in the first place. The mistresses needed medicine.
So I think you may be missing the stories on the falling birth rates (worldwide) and how not being able to control how many children you have drives down women's wages and makes for desperation/acceptance of worse working conditions. Wall Street isn't sitting in a cabal planning, but capitalism needs people in poverty and desperate to cheapen labor. They see that America's empire abroad, the thing that made the large middle class possible, is in decline. They know that abortion is always legal to those wealthy enough. Everything is legal if you have enough money--look at Epstein, look at Diddy.
I'm an old, broken, traumatized New Yorker. It saddens me to encounter someone a lot more broken than myself.
Did Harris court Dick Cheney? Did she court Gonzales? I feel like that is an overstatement of what is happening. And your point on the scientists is a good one. But that is a cult right now so that is how a cult behaves - anyone not touting the exact party line is declared an enemy. A party contains a diverse set of views but a single set of goals (in this case preserve free democracy )
She didn't court them. But why did she respond? Not responding is a choice. And it would have put some pressure on the Neocons to explain their flip. Unless, Harris secretly agreed that she would respond if she got the endorsements. We don't know, but this could have been conditional.
just fyi, her campaign is courting them very aggressively, and she personally courted liz cheney. this is a very deliberate strategy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/29/harris-campaign-courts-prominent-republican-endorsements/
NOT respond? She fucking LEANED INTO these "endorsements" FFS.
It's just insane. I knew the corporate Democrats were irrational in their fear of Trump, but if anyone'd asked me 10 years ago, in the middle of Obama's 2nd term, even after he'd refused to investigate, let alone prosecute Bush administration war and domestic criminality (ya know, look forward and not backward), that the 2024 Democrat presidential ticket would not just have endorsements from those Republican criminals, but brag about them openly, I would have escorted them to a mental institution.
But here we are. They've done it. And they seem completely blind to the reasons that Hillary lost in 2016. Namely, war mongering, bragging about killing people, joking about droning Assange, not campaigning in certain key states, and all of it without a literal full bore Democrat backed genocide and major European land war happening concurrently. These people are, in fact, insane.
Not an original thought by me, but it really feels like this is an election run by two campaigns actively trying to lose. Alternatively, each party nominated the only person who could lose to their opponent. In other words, we’re reliving 2016. Again. As we apparently will be til the oceans swallow us whole.
Umm - one just replaced their candidate that was going to lose to the opponnent, just about 120 days ago. So. . . No
And how’s that going? Statistically tied to a sociopathic racist, sexist antisemite (to name but a few) who tried to overthrow the government. And the Dems’ response is—as Katherine points out in the blog—to actively alienate critical portions of their base by antagonizing the left, the young, progressives, etc., by courting war criminals and loser never Trump gopers—who command no statistically significant percentage of the voting populace—and saying there’s apparently no daylight between Kamala and Biden when it comes to supporting a genocide. Brilliant strategy.
Antisemite?! Where? Please show us! Last time I checked "antisemitism" aka criticizing Israel's genocide was almost a literal crime.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/12/donald-trump-anti-semitic-remarks
And he said the almost exact thing 5 years later
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-jews-vote-democrats-hate-israel-religion-rcna143988
And supporting genocide is a talking point. The US aid orgs and Govt are providing 100s of millions in supplies etc to Gaza and Ukraine - you don’t do that if you support the elimination of those peoples. You may not like policies but that is not support for genocide(and what until they see Trump’s positions on those 2 - buckle up as it will actually be support for genocide
Your responses show you are an unserious individual not worth responding to. Have a good day.
I am not. It is simple - if you care about any marginalized people anywhere in the world, it clear that one candidate consider them ‘scum’ , ‘vermin’ etc and will never help them. Many are desperate to ensure that person does not take over the most powerful nation in the world. Many are putting aside policy issues to ensure that doesn’t happen. Some are not willing to do so and they are risking things becoming much much worse on the very issues upon which Their objections rest so make their point. I respect their right do so it and it is a pincipled stand. But the above is not really in dispute is it?
They’re supplying the weapons!
The US is also supplying food, medicine, transport passages when possible, etc. Again - you may not like the policy but it isn’t genocide it is more complicated than that. Also - a lot of nations are supplying weapons so it isn’t like the US is solely enabling anything. The hard reality is that Israel is the only anchor in a part of the world that is both energy rich(see critical for all of those SUVS and cheap flights in the US) and US friendly - so the weapons are a reflection that Israel is much more likely to be attacked(and now have been) post the Oct 2023 attacks. The calculus is that Israel keeps Iran and others at bay so the US doesn’t have to do so - the policy has little to do with Gaza. Hamas and Israel are using Gaza as pawn in that game. As we recognized the 1 year anniversary of the invasion, mass kidnappings, mass rape, and mass murder I wonder what Hamas expected to happen and I realize it is exactly what is happening. They retreat behind 2MM human shields, Bibi overreacts, Iran, Hezbollah, etc engage and maybe they get a regional conflict off of the blood of the people they claim to be governing and protecting. A nightmare all around.
It isn’t more complicated than that
Israeli officials said “we’re going to wipe out everyone in Gaza” and now they’re doing that.
The US stopped pretending to supply aid to Gaza months ago. And yeah, it was window dressing. It was not serious. And today? Israeli airstrikes kill at least 40 in Gaza. When will the bombardment end? Didn't Israel collectively punish Gaza enough? We're approaching 200,000 dead.
No, dumbass. Literally supporting GENOCIDE.
It is only alienating for folks who prefer Trump’s fasicist plan to their specific issue list. Again - Cheney isn’t saying he loves Harris - he is saying people who love this country should vote only candidate under which the constitution republic is sure to survive. If it doesn’t then all of these folks specific issues won’t matter anyway - they will be fighting for their own local rights or declaring loyalty to the 1 regime.
Why do you think 2/3 of voters turning out in America in 2020 was record-setting?
LOL. And if Trump wins, Putin will get all the COVID tests as he decides to overrun and conquer all of Europe, amirite?
Harris came out of the gate strong. But the last month has totally demoralized me. She is not even attacking Trump well. She just repeats that line that Trump is "unserious," but another Trump terms would have serious circumstances. She is yet to attack Trump for suggesting that the military be deployed on US streets during election day to cause chaos.
"Came out of the completely unvetted, unprimary-ed, un-tested, un-chosen by her voters gates strong."
Fixed it for you. Maybe she should attack Trump for (not) stationing US military people in Israel. /sarc
Well, that is on Biden and his family. If Dr. Jill Biden had recognized what I saw in the fall of 2021, and had been a rational adult and told her husband to announce he wouldn't seek re-election, we would have had a more democratic process. But as I am finding with my elderly parents, the process of dying is often made worse by the relentless denial by the family that someone is dying. Also see: Diane Feinstein, RBG.
Agreed. He is vulnerable with this wild suggestions of late.
What’s so very dumb about touting these people is, if you give it even a modicum of thought, it’s not an endorsement of you, it’s a repudiation of trump. If you’re elected, those people will be lined up day one trying to torpedo any kind of agenda that you have for the constituency of the party. It’s the most cynical of politics to convince moderate republicans to vote for you knowing they want nothing to do with you and will be counting down the days to be able to vote for Vance in 2028.
Ok - but if Trump is elected what happens? Already lined up against all negative media orgs, ready to guy all govt agencies and put in political loyalists, justice system ready to mobilize against enemies, Gaza gone, Ukraine 50% gone, women’s rights gone, IVF maybe gone, Gay marriage etc on the table. Attacks on ‘vermin’ reticent of 1930s Germany? 2028 is a nightmare but if they Trump wins in 2024 - they literally are already saying the won’t certify elections if they thing there are problems with them so there won’t be any more 2 party system - it will be a 1 party with loyalty demanded. Let’s not stand on principle while the place burns down
Or… you could make the argument that you should be elected based on who you are on not who the other guy is, it’s the problem Biden couldn’t get away from by framing it solely about trump. Make people want to vote for you, not against the other guy. They’ll be the ones who have to wait 8 hours to try and vote in Georgia or have to deal with armed people standing outside polling places in Arizona
Nature abhors a vacuum. The GOP has now retreated so far to the authoritarian Right that there's a blank void over the Reagan-centered Republican swath of the electorate, so the Dems are kind of just swelling into the space left over. Sure, there were conscious decisions on both sides that led to this happening, but the overall effect is of the space just being filled with the available matter. We all joke/fret/complain about the "uniparty," but if the GOP keeps this up there really will be one.
“Then Bernie Sanders poops into Dick Cheney’s butt with the same poop. Pooping back and forth. Forever.” Politics in US, probably.
Its laughable calling Dems Dems. Its all about money and power and kicking as to the Arabs specifically and non whites in general.
The dems ate following the money not the people
Dang, they need every vote they can get. Are you saying that Trump shouldn't go after democrat votes (which is what he's doing)? What is wrong with trying to peel off some staunch Republicans from the Red side?
Last time I looked, running for office was about winning, not "appearances."
For answers to these questions may I suggest reading this blog post by Katherine Krueger? https://www.discourseblog.com/p/kamala-harris-deeply-demoralizing
We read it. - it suggests refusing support that comes with zero commitments required in demand, to risk plunging in 1930s Germany - no thanks. That is the same as the Hillary protest voters that gave us Trump in 2016 in the first place and his hand picked Supreme Court which is rolling back half century old rights
Couldn't disagree with "zero commitments" required more. As one example, accepting these endorsements is committing to continuing a genocide. Won't apologize for choosing the current genocide as my red line – is that not 1930s Germany enough for you?
Swallowing poison like Cheney and Gonzalez that demoralises vastly larger numbers of people than it attracts is a much greater risk of giving us Trump. People have been asking for a simple fig leaf at least to justify a vote against Trump when faced with a literal actual ongoing holocaust, aided and abetted by the biden administration. Even something like "we will enforce existing laws on both our allies and our enemies". But they can't even offer that. That *choice* is producing this nailbiter election after how good the numbers got just before the convention.
She isn’t swallowing that poison she simply isn’t disavowing them as the nation’s survival as we know it is on the line. If someone is willing to be demoralized by someone putting the survival of the nation over their specific issue, then maybe Harris isn’t the problem. The numbers before the convenient were a sigh of relief that Biden moved on- most people barely knew Harris really. Also - ‘existing laws’. The US doesn’t enforce laws on enemies nor allies, the laws of the US as constructed upon the US constitution are for US citizens and residents. I actually get your point, I do. But if you call the current state ‘an actual holocaust’ what the hell would you call what Trump and Bibi would do? And honestly - i read a lot of swing state voter polls - the inflation/economy, crime, reproductive rights, immigration - those are the top 4 issues and the drop off is pretty big after that and/or more localized to the state (energy issues in some, education in some, etc)
On 3 of those 4 issues, voters polled give trump the edge, despite this neocon heel turn from Harris. So what's the point of continuing to lean into it instead of trying, even a little bit, to shore up the center left/progressive vote?
What
Democrats have been courting the mythical "moderate" Republican vote since at least Bill Clinton. Every major election they tack further to the right, ignore their base and openly antagonize the left wing of their party potentially driving away voters who would turn out in their favor. In all that time, in 30 years, that strategy has never ever worked. At no point has going Republican-Lite lured any sort of statistically significant amount of "moderate" Republicans.
All those "moderate" Republicans publicly hem and haw and talk about not loving their guy then election time comes and they all dutifully vote for him anyway. The worry is not only does this not work, but it potentially dampens turnout from the left side of the party that would vote for them. It not only doesn't gain them votes, it potentially costs them votes.
As I’ve said many times, Dems are just happy to be here. With a voter base of 10MM more than Republicans, they seem to be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory repeatedly. The problem of the Electoral College could have been overcome if they put a plan in place fifty years ago. But they kept going to the same well of minority voters and identity politics. Now that Hispanics, Blacks and many women have switched sides, it’s their own damn fault that they are in the fix they’re in.
Obama going after health care in 2009 when Dems controlled the WH, HoR and Senate, when he ran on gun reform really pissed me off. Not getting Glass-Steagall reinstated or the assault weapons ban revisited pissed me off. Dems get the same money, perks and bennies of playing the game the other side does; they just don’t fight for themselves…or us.
The thing about that is that tacking to the right is not actually a winning strategy for democrats and it hasn't been for over 20 years. Republicans do not want to vote for a democrat over a republican. That's why they're republicans. Cowtowing to them is a waste of time that makes nearly any democrat look like a spineless flip-flopper to their base.
That wasn’t always the case. Up until Clinton was elected, independents voted the man or the issue, or both. Dems and Republicans changed allegiances often. Things started to change when Turdle McConnell decided to put a long-range plan in place to take back control of SCOTUS. Coupled with Newt Gingriches “burn down the mission” political strategy, Republicans started to fall in line. Look at them the last fifteen years or so: when the Senate Majority Leader or the Speaker of the House give a talk, they are all lined up behind him. The Dems are like a herd of cats; rarely do you see more than one on camera at a time.
I'm sick. Sick at heart.
With the Dems, whose behavior reeks of desperation, I may stop labeling that other party as "Rethugs." Both do appear to be of that ilk, particularly due to their foreign policy and practice in the middle east and long the US-Mexican border (not to suggest that their shenanigans do not attempt penetration deeper into that country). So, as some might utter, "I 'wasted' my vote on Cornell West."
These fuckers are going to demoralize me enough to stay home, even if it means mark fucking robinson wins the NC governor's mansion.
This is 100% right! While I would love to see her swing more to the left and truly embrace some popular (and needed) policies on health care, climate, infrastructure, monopolies, etc, as you said even just a crumb on Gaza with all the other center-right policies would really help change my mind.
Last month, I wrote about how politicians at least used to try to gaslight us. That's not even happening now- they're openly embracing their awfulness:
https://heathracela.substack.com/p/no-excuses
The bureaucracy is all about the business of war.
Trump for president.
Totally disagree. An equally plausible explanation - the other candidate has people convinced the economy is cratered, immigrants are vermin(i guess except his current and wives), he plans to withhold govt services based on political affliliations, crime is up everywhere, women will be much happier once he kills all remaining reproductive rights, and children are being surgical altered at school. - and he has made it clear that if he is elected there won’t be need for more elections as he will put political hacks in place everywhere and the courts will be stacked for him. So maybe Harris sees someone echoing 1930s Naxi rhetoric and sees the potential unwinding of all that is America, mostly at expense of anyone not a white wealthy landowner but especially women, monitoriities and the working class / working poor and she and her crew are just desperate enough to save the constitutional republic to accept support from anyone that can help(no promise of a single policy has been made to Cheney or anyone else - they are all just putting US interests ahead of their own to prevent a dictator in the making form taking over and making things much much worse for almost everyone (and i spoke of American issues - if you are worried about residents of Gaza (Trump promises support to help Bibi ‘finish the job’ or residents of Ukraine (Trump promises to achieve piece by giving Russia what is wants and promises to withhold support for remaining NATO nations) so the calculus while painful there as well, is breathtakingly obvious - many many more will die or. Be subjugated if Trump is elected and he isn’t subtle about it. So - they are promising nothing/ zero. to these right-wing ‘supporters’ but all are rallying around a potential existential threat both at home and aboard that will devastate anyone not part of the global financial elite.
Like all your comments here, this is incoherent. Your reply is grammatically bizarre and full of typos and incorrect punctuation, allergic to paragraphs, etc. You seem to have a serious problem cohering your thoughts in an organized way. Maybe your brain is bad at political analysis? That's probably why no one agrees with you here.