- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
Summary
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has criticized the Harris-Walz 2024 presidential campaign for playing it too “safe,” saying they should have held more in-person events and town halls.
In a Politico interview, Walz—known for labeling Trump and Vance as “weird”—blamed their cautious approach partly on the abbreviated 107-day campaign timeline after Harris became the nominee in August.
Using football terminology, he said Democrats were in a “prevent defense” when “we never had anything to lose, because I don’t think we were ever ahead.”
While acknowledging his share of responsibility for the loss, Walz is returning to the national spotlight and didn’t rule out a 2028 presidential run, saying, “I’m not saying no.”
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The old guard (both literal and figurative) need to get the fuck out of the way for the AOC’s and Crockett’s who will actually speak to power instead of cowering in the corners.
The other big problem is that politics have become such a negative impact on people’s lives in the US that regular people don’t want to run for office anymore, which is what we really need.
The old guard (both literal and figurative) need to get the fuck out of the way for the AOC’s and Crockett’s who will actually speak to power instead of cowering in the corners.
They sure as eff do!
Pelosi hated the left long before the left hated her.
It’s to the point that I might prefer either a direct democracy with no representatives at all or electing reps via a lottery system. Most of the people with the desire to run for office, and all but a handful of those with the characteristics necessary to wade through the muck of special interests and campaign finance to actually get in office, are the kind of people you want as far away from power as possible.
The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke has government by lottery.
Test potential politicians for mental illnesses and make sure they have empathy etc. Make them do mandatory counselling. I mean, counsellors and mental health workers have to do this because they’re working with vulnerable people, but politicians don’t??? Their decisions affect everyone, including vulnerable people.
Impossible. You can’t have tests like that for candidates or voters. You just end up reinventing literacy tests.
Not to mention the eugenicism this would ignite.
How so? Bad eggs would be simply rejected.
The eugenicism is because of the tests; not the politicians.
You think this would work because you assume we could write such tests with such accuracy as to evade bias (or that such requirement for testing wouldn’t be exploited by opportunists to place metrics much more aligned with whom said opportunists would like to eradicate).
I’d point out that you say the tests should test for empathy but Empathy Deficit Disorder exists and, as EDD people often point out, the lack of being able to feel empathy doesn’t stop them from wanting to help people and making choices based off that desire. They just don’t feel empathy when they do it.
Of course, you’re not using that word to mean literally understanding and relating to others’ feelings; sympathy would certainly qualify.
But how do you ensure that? Who gets to implement these tests? And what stops it from being someone who just sees Empathy Deficit Disorder and goes, “Eew…keeping them away from this….”
I always feel to like I sound like I’m being condescending but (and I mean this as genuinely as possible) you should try selling out writing and theory by disabled authors. Because of the way disabled people are erased from both culture and society as practically a matter of function, it can be really hard to even realize the ways in which our assumptions don’t factor them in. Stuff covering ability and autonomy are incredibly interesting in the ways they think about concepts due different lived experiences.
We already assess people for mental health issues. I’m saying that politicians should be under massive scrutiny to make sure that we’re not allowing people with deficits in the areas which would make them callous, self-serving and so on, to rule over people, particularly vulnerable people. Pathological liars and manipulators shouldn’t be given a platform or the respectability of office to brainwash people on a global scale. Its almost so basic and obvious as to be unspeakable, but we know now that we must structure our societies & create standards to keep these people out of power.
We in fact should select for the traits that we want/don’t want in leaders and only allow people into politics who have those traits. This testing is already happening in many professions, maybe even most. Even shitty customer service jobs use these tests - well, all I’m saying is that we need politicians to be tested as much as astronauts are. How can that possibly be a bad idea?
I don’t think the metrics and so on should be any different than what already exists. Respected people in the psychology field have already said that trump is mentally ill in such a way that he’s unfit to rule.
The problem is that now he’s manoeuvred himself into a position where he can’t be removed, and soon even us talking like this will be illegal.
I’m all for disability rights, just not to the detriment of public safety - which exists in every sensitive field. Politics is a sensitive field. Politicians should be strong in emotional, compassionate and cognitive empathy, as well as sympathy. They should also have a good track record of being moral and decent people. Stealing from cancer kids charities would be a no, no matter what disability that person had.
This could be summed up as ‘no tolerance for intolerance’ or ‘no kindness towards cruelty’.
People working in psychiatry are judged in this way, but not politicians? Politicians have way more responsibility over people’s lives. They should be under maximum scrutiny and we should be as sure as we can be that they’re the best of us, including morally. We already make them have health checks.
i don’t love the implication here that politicians are corrupt due to mental illness. they can be perfectly average mentally and still be corrupt because corruption is an innate and ever-present exploit of human psychology. empathetic people can be mistaken of where to place their empathy. mentally ill people can be a better option for a public office than someone else who is neurotypical, it all comes down to their platform and record of reliability. disability should not be mutually exclusive with ability to govern.
Power corrupts, yes, but you must see it in your life, and certainly if you’ve ever had dealings with the police or been mistreated by a teacher at school… Not all but some people in those roles are doing it precisely because they get a kick out of misusing their power, often when people are vulnerable and so can’t defend themselves.
This is a character flaw at a minimum but can be part of a mental illness. I don’t think the line is so definite between mental illness or health. People can have traits of illness without enough dysfunction to be diagnosed with the illness.
Disability which is incompatible with kindness, understanding, decency etc should not be allowed power over people, especially vulnerable people. Most people who were ill and were decent would not want to be in a position where they could harm people. Cluster B’s and such wouldn’t care. If they don’t care (consistently), then they shouldn’t be in a position of power over people. There are plenty of other jobs.
Looking at trump in particular the reliance on voters being good judges of character has to end, which means there must be a mechanism in place to prevent people like trump ever getting near power.
i think the second we open up the avenue for certain character traits to be banned from public office, it opens up a new avenue and mechanism for oppressive government bodies to prevent their opponents from gaining power against them. Who gets to decide what traits count as disqualifying? what measures do we use to identify who has met this threshold? where and how could someone be treated for these in order to gain back eligibility? how difficult would it be to change these rules if they were incorrect? how hard would it be for a bad actor to change these rules for their own gain? how much money would be spent on this and the lawsuits that return from it?
I’d guess a council of psychologists would administer their own tests under lie detector, perhaps a yearly lottery from an eligible pool of reputable and experienced specialists, maybe also other renowned experts. No positions being permanent could eliminate some problems. The difficult part would be deciding where the lines are drawn. Someone like trump should be easy to disqualify without any testing, just from his widely reported past record of scams, fraud etc.
Imagine a young Putin, whose service record is largely secret, not much other history to go off, who doesn’t give away much, surely has information about past testing and is very smart.
So it’s not going to be 100% reliable, just a tool to hopefully improve the situation. It could begin with disqualification being reserved for only the worst, and then record how candidates perform vs predictions and readjust as necessary.
As to treatment, its impossible to say, it really depends on the individual to know if it’s even possible. Also whether its a good idea to let candidates repeat what are essentially aptitude tests which they could cheat.
If anyone is subject to oppressive government scrutiny it should be politicians.
i think it would be infinitely simpler to just ban the actions you don’t want people to do and a better mechanism to enforce it than to try and police the amorphous qualities of their character and behavior. Like, our problem here is that the executive branch has been granted too much power by congress, corporations are treated like people and can vote with their dollars, and congress + the supreme court have no mechanism to enforce laws against the executive branch. If the system was actually segregated enough in duties and insulated from capital, it would be immune to the effects of someone even as bad as trump. It would also prevent all of the false positives and the mechanisms for abuse that would open when we start calling people ineligible for innate and immeasurable qualities.
More and more this monty python sketch was spot on. With the DNC as Arthur only caring about the lord of the castle, centrists carrying the bags and clapping the cocnuts together, and progressives as the peasants: autonomous colletcive
We have the technology for direct democracy. The reason we dont do it is that it would take the rich out of power. With direct votes we’d have universal health care and Israel wouldnt have gotten its war support. We’d have action on climate control. We’d have signed onto the ICC. We’d have much stricter gun laws. We’d hold police to professional conduct standards. We’d have term limits and codes of ethics. We’d fund our teachers and firefighters better. Our military would be much smaller.
Yep. Every time I hear Jeffries talk I am thinking “shut the fuck up and go fetch AOC”.
If by safe you mean ignoring your constituents and only listening to your wealthy contemporaries. Then yes you were too safe.
If you read the article, that’s EXACTLY what he means. They told him the reason for this is that they could avoid “Having any public gaffees”
The idea is that by just not being Trump they were “Ahead”, and any public misstep would put Trump in the lead.
Walz now believes he and Harris were “never ahead” and it was arrogance that lead to them thinking they were the “Default Choice” for America
Which makes the second time the Democrats lost to Trump by believing they were the default choice. Even after being roundly criticized for it the first time. I’m starting to think they may not be smarter than me.
Oh it gets worse, they thought they were teh “default choice” because they got the people behind Hillary’s campaign to “help”
Yeah. The corporate team. I swear middle America can smell it from am mile away now.
Plus the one time it didn’t abjectly fail, it took a worldwide pandemic and mass death to happen. Their hubris is at a legendary level.
Democrat politicians should level with you all. Politicians need a tremendous amount of money to stay viable. They only answer to their donors and they get donors only if they can accomplish their goals which they do with the support of their constituents. They don’t just support their constituents out of feel good stuff. Republicans give them a free pass to do whatever they want. So they get lots of donors. The left groups do not do what they want so they don’t get donors. We’re fucked.
Look into how many call centers are around Washington. They’re all call centers for the different politicians. They’re calling donors 24/7 trying to get more funding. All the time. The Reason leftist do not get anywhere, we don’t generate money
Look into how many call centers are around Washington. They’re all call centers for the different politicians. They’re calling donors 24/7 trying to get more funding. All the time. The Reason leftist do not get anywhere, we don’t generate money
Well yeah, most of them refuse to take corporate money and SuperPAC donations. They don’t do insider trading when in office because they have consistent morals and ethics.
Also helps when they corporations who own the media refuse to cover you and your wins, and then pay for the milquetoast candidates who won’t tax them to win more.
Democrat politicians should level with you all. Politicians need a tremendous amount of money to stay viable.
democrats massively outraised trump in 2024 and lost anyway. Turns out, you need votes too.
Leftists don’t generate money on the top line. The fact that actual leftist policy would create a utopian society where everyone is prosperous is completely an afterthought, and that’s because the economic system is run by a bunch of giant babies with zero impulse control or sense of delayed gratification.
One problem the DNC has is that they keep throwing boring ass lawyers into a game that isn’t about law. It’s about being a face the country knows to run the government.
You need charisma, you need to appeal to people, and you need to be human. Obama did this perfectly. Bill Clinton had it in him. Biden at least had such a long record in politics he could wing it his first term. I don’t know how he managed to win, but he did.
Clinton, while being a lawyer, had already been the governor of Arkansas. Meaning he had the experience being that executive. He could convince people to work beyond their own interests. Al Gore, we all know, won the 2000 presidential election, but the supreme court let everything get fucked up.
Kerry? Never stood a chance. Hilary? No chance. Kamala? As much as we needed her to win, she was unappealing to stupid people.
Lawyers, by nature of their career, have to read and understand the most boring ass shit and then convince others that the boring ass text supports their side of the case. That means a lot of them are boring people.
You wanna know why Walz is popular? He fucking loves football. He can connect to highschool students. IDK about you, but if you’ve ever met high schoolers, they aren’t the brightest, and bored easily. He’s progressive, but he won’t shove it in someone’s face to be more righteous. Not many people can do that.
To win an election, you have to excite people. Trump, despite his rhetoric clearly being terrifying, was, unfortunately, exciting.
Obama covered both lawyer and entertaining. He also had an appeal similar to Reagan, confident and comforting during uncertain times. The conservative media made politics entertaining, now we have entertainers as politicians and I can’t get on board with that
It’s not something we are going to change anytime soon. Far too many people to change to counter that.
Instead, we need candidates like Walz, who have a brain on their shoulders, and have a way to excite outside of putting on a show.
Bernie Sanders was another example of it. AoC is as well.
AoC is a TikTok clown. Dems running her is going to be a hard line for me.
And thus we see that “no matter who” always and only ever meant “shut up and vote republican-lite.”
That AOC. Lol. She’s a Neolib. You all are absolutely delusional of you think Neolibs are going to support progressive causes. You’ll elect another mini Republican, she’ll make some TikToks and you’ll have another fascist in four years.
Dems are traitors.
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I mean, I agree with you, but this is also a huge problem. This is why you have someone who pretended to be a successful businessman on TV as a president now. I really miss the days when boring but competent people could run a country.
It’s far easier to have a better candidate than change how 80 million people think.
Is this a problem of how people think, or is it a problem of what sells views in newspapers (and that media companies are too rich)?
Boring yet competent people don’t get elected in a country with mass media. They just don’t get coverage, so people don’t know they’re there.
As example, look at the first televised presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon. Kennedy was young and inexperienced, but let them put makeup on him for the debate. Nixon had more experience but looked like a sweaty mess on TV. This helped Kennedy a lot.
That ship sailed with the first TV debates, tbh. I watched the Carter-Reagan debate and it wasn’t a contest. I hate Reagan’s dumb fucking face, that bastard fucked America up for forty plus years and set us on the track we’re on, but he ate Jimmy Carter alive and went back for seconds. They weren’t even playing the same sport. Carter, a Nuclear Engineer, was up there delivering a university lecture about why he should be the president, and Reagan went up there, turned on the actor, and gave America the best cigarette ad it had ever seen.
This is pretty much all true. Except for…
One problem the DNC has is that they keep throwing boring ass lawyers into a game that isn’t about law
The DNC wasn’t making the decisions. The Harris campaign was.
Kerry? Never stood a chance. Hilary? No chance. Kamala? As much as we needed her to win, she was unappealing to stupid people.
Somewhat true. But Hillary could have won if she had simply mixed in a few bearded Biker types in the background crowd as prominently as all the Muslim women. But these candidates were the mistakes of the voters, not the DNC.
To win an election, you have to excite people. Trump, despite his rhetoric clearly being terrifying, was, unfortunately, exciting.
I change the channel whenever Traitorapist Trump talks so that he never gets a full sentence out. Still do. I don’t want to hear one more lie.
But you and I aren’t the person Trump is trying to excite.
It’s the 25% of Americans that equate critical thought with torture. That is the chunk of people you can’t reason with. So you have to have a way for them to care at all. Unloading garbage nonsense that has the occasional inflammatory rhetoric is exciting.
Talking about football? Not exciting to me, but these 25% of Americans? You better bet your ass they like it. They like beer and they like the idea of not having to worry about finances as well.
Unloading garbage nonsense that has the occasional inflammatory rhetoric is exciting.
Oh I agree that the #1 problem is that Harris needed to use way more aggressive rhetoric against Traitorapist Trump.
Maybe they should copy what Bernie Sanders is doing. He’s not even running and packing out town hall meetings. Who knew being against oligarchs, authoritarians, corporate cronyism and for the middle class would appeal to people?
Middle class is a term devised by the rich to divide the working class. The one thing they fear more than anything is class consciousness.
Looks to me like Sanders is in the recruitment phase for something. At least I hope he is.
Tim Walz should theoretically be good at that. While most politicians are well to do, he’s never made much money and has a reputation of being a regular person, for the regular people. But since he was running for VP he had to parrot Harris’ stance on everything.
If he could go out and speak plainly with a clear message like Bernie does, be himself and tell us what he really thinks, at least we’d be able to make a judgement call on whether to support him. I don’t know if he has that in him though. Unless he really did learn that “playing it safe” (i.e. acting like a Dem) does not work any more.
Exactly. I would like to see what he has to offer on his own terms. Maybe I’ll support him, maybe not. But it was obvious through the entire campaign that he was holding back. The one thing he did that got the most traction in the campaign was calling Republicans “weird”, and he was told by Dem leadership to stop doing that.
It’s really hard to decide if Dems are just that incredibly incompetent, or if they are actual controlled opposition. I think it might be a combination of the two.
If he was aligned with Bernie I think we would know by now. Problem is he doesn’t seem to share these opinions that make Bernie popular.
Walz has offered to do town halls in red states where Republicans have stopped doing them.
Offered to? Shouldn’t he just go ahead and do it?
He’s already done one in Iowa, with many more yet to come.
Except if they copied what Bernie is doing, it would include not making a presidential run. Part of the reason Bernie is able to do what he does is he only needs to keep his relatively smaller electorate happy instead of having to appeal to a whole nation, including people somewhat philosophically opposed to him.
This is a really good point. And yet, movements are started in the wings. It’s really hard to get people all fired up with some tepid centrism.
My heart seethes with neutrality
😂
if he’d stuck to calling them weird and attacking them, maybe it wouldn’t have been useless. but they dropped that, tried to buddy up with the fascists, and brought on insane endorsements like fucking liz cheney.
if they’d run sanders/walz, even late after biden convinced even party leadership that he couldn’t win, they would have crushed that shit with historic numbers.
if they had let a palestinian talk, or given the most mild ‘please tone down the genocide shit’ they might’ve had a chance.
it was like they were trying to lose at every step. truly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
If they had focused their campaign on helping the middle class, helping the poor, and acknowledged that Palestinians are people too, they would have a chance.
If they focused on environmental issues and the rights of individuals they would have had a chance.
If they had called Trump a criminal, because he is, at every stop, they would have had a chance.
If they did all of those things, and meant it, they would have won!
Instead they tried to appeal to business owners, Republicans who don’t like Trump, and people with money. That’s not what Democrats want. That’s not who Democrats are. That, is why they lost.
If they had focused their campaign on helping the middle class
I agree with most of that except this. They basically ONLY focused on the middle class. All the tax break incentives were great. But they never offered a damn thing for the working class. And that’s who they SHOULD have focused on.
No Dem has helped the Middle class the entire time I’ve been alive. There was no one on the ballot who was going to make my life better. I couldn’t even get Dem representatives to reply beyond a canned message about “hard times”. I’ve never seen such a disconnect from the Dem party. They’re not even trying. I bet they’re excited for fascism so they don’t have to pretend to care about us.
They basically ONLY focused on the middle class.
Be fair. They also focused on moderate republicans.
Combined, the two constituencies are like 7 people.
“the middle class” does not exist, they should focus on helping the homeless, jobless and working class.
It does exist and this is the exact mentality that lost the election. The Middle class isn’t going to vote for you if you’re campaigning on putting them into the wood chipper again.
Not only that, but they stuck to the corporate response on nearly every single question. They almost never went off script and it was just so fucking obvious and robotic. And for me, Tim’s complete lack of consideration for truth and evidence on its face and in a vacuum was nothing less than trumpian. In RL, I lie about being an OIF Veteran. At first it was shame, guilt, and self destructive tendencies but I’ve been to a LOT of therapy and I’m living better. But during that time I realized that there were others who would speak a bit more “freely” about things they may have done. If they assume you know nothing about the military then they can say whatever they want. Hearing someone mince words about their service is fairly common and IMHO - innocuous. It’s a nothing burger of exaggeration. Had Tim just admitted what was clearly on video and just said, “I was using more colorful language to affect the crowd, my bad.” I would have honestly commended him.
Instead, they lied. About the most mundane shit imaginable.
Oh man, I remember that lie, that was fucking cringe inducing. It’s always better to tell the truth, especially if you’re a bad liar, like Walz apparently is. The whole VP debate was pretty disappointing, because it felt like Walz spent the whole time pulling punches and playing softball, while Vance was his usual greasy self.
Lol, Vance. I swear his face reminds me of what a ken dolls face looks like when you try to fold it onto itself from the forehead.
How the fuck is this true? How did you even make this observation?! Outstanding.
I grew up with sisters. They were tricksters and knew that I would spend hours playing with their Barbie dolls on the empty promise to come into the woods and throw rocks at things. So their Barbie dolls always ended up marrying deformed ken. It was the only way I could cope with those dreadfully dull things. Folding his face over was my go-to move. My sisters hated that. Now he’s our VP. And I hate it. When I had enough I would put my thumb under kens chin and pop his head off like I was flipping a coin. Now I just flick my thumb at a screen when I see his dumb face on it. The mental imagery is euphoric enough to cope these days.
👍 Couch fucker
That’s not who Democrats are.
unfortunately, yes, it is
This and/or healthcare for all, and it wouldnt have even been close, they would have won easily
And you don’t even have to deliver on it, just say you will. It worked for Obama.
I’m going to shut down Gitmo! - Obama, 2006
And here we are almost 20 years later and GOP is sending Ausländers to expanding gitmo camps.
Harris did campaign on health care for all though, right?
Either way, I agree with everyone. I have a suspicion that Harris team started out the gate with very loud messaging around social economic programs they wanted to push.
Then they got reeled in by the donor class. There’s a distinct dampening on clear message a few weeks after the confusion was settled. This is just my little theory though. I think the messaging is vague on purpose to please the wealthy donors.
People on the left screamed this as soon as they took over from sleeping baby joe. We said “PLEASE put some OOMPH into it! Stop regurgitating Corporate Dems platitudes!”
They just don’t get it. The game has changed, people are used to high energy fast paced delivery from social media. A presidential candidate needs to be engaging and deliver a super condensed message that’s shareable. I don’t know anybody in my personal life that was excited Kamala was running and I’m from the bay area.
Granted Biden withdrawing so close to the election left them without much time to strategize, I don’t see them really playing it too differently. The legacy Dems are old and corrupt, they don’t understand that being cozy with corporations is gross and that we want fiery new blood. They’ll probably continue doing the same shit, playing the same old games until it’s too late.
They THOUGHT they were doing all the things you listed, because they paid “top dollar” for “top democratic strategists”. The whole system the Dems run on is rotten to the core. It all needs to be thrown out
Exactly, these clowns hired the same types of people who barely pull off wins despite being the majority party. They’re really good at collecting money and paying themselves, but really shit at winning.
The right has been stacking the deck, blatantly, for thirty fucking years. I’m a big fan of awarding electrical college points based on congressional districts. All of a sudden those cities in deeply red states get a voice.
Well, they tried social media with calling Harris a “brat” because some popstar did. Well turns out having millionaire and billionaire capitalist artists embrace you does not rally people. Turns out people are more sensible than thinking “hey this musician i like said i should vote for this one. Guess that is all i need”. Also i found this kind of endorsement seeking quite insulting as it shows how little intelligence they expect of their voters.
Yeah it’s quite weird how they just used a popular song of the same year as a brand.
I’m also still baffled how people said “You can vote Harris and not endorse her” and then another popular artist that said “I’m voting for Harris as it’s the only reasonable choice, but I’m not endorsing her as I’m not a fan of her positions of war and minorities” and people got mad at her for doing exactly what people have told progressives.
No wonder Showman, TV show host won elections, even Krasnov Trump’s FBI director is conspiracy theorist with a radio host and commentator as deputy director.
The legacy Dems are old and corrupt, they don’t understand that being cozy with corporations is gross and that we want fiery new blood.
They understand perfectly well. It’s just that being corporate hacks and cronies is more profitable.
And people in the republican-adjacent wing of the party told them to shut up.
Because they’re paid to be the opposition, and thats it. Anything more means trouble for them.
The DNC is pretty much always playing it too safe…
People really need to accept that the Democratic Party is the conservative party in the US. The Republican Party is the nationalist, authoritarian party. The US does not have a major progressive party.
The democratic party is a coalition. It has wings that range from progressive to conservative. The reason they play it safe is because candidates need to be palatable to enough of the constituents to pass their primaries. This is also why local democratic parties are much more likely to have more cohesion.
I understand they need to have a broad appeal to different groups, moreso than republicans do, but they could easily achieve that same broad appeal by actually fighting for the working class and not doing things like steamrolling Bernie. The out of touch nature of current leadership is effectively neutering the party.
It would be a good thing long term for progressives to finally split from dems IMHO, though I wish we would have a ranked choice type system in place beforehand, but either way it needs to happen.
Democrats in charge despise the progressive wing. They wish they didn’t have to listen to silly little ideas like Medicare for All or building high speed rail. They’ve gotten fat off the idea that we all know what Republicans will do when they get elected and vote for them, anyway.
This was never going to be stable in the long run. Republicans only had to win a few times to entrench themselves. That’s because they don’t see their far right wing as nutjobs. They see them as opportunities for driving things further to the right. For example, it took 50 years of planning to get the right people in the Supreme Court to bury Roe v Wade, and it all happened because they won just enough at the right time and then used that power to get what their base wants. What their base wants is horrible and cruel, but they know how to implement the plan.
Where this leads us now is a situation where ditching establishment Democrats has little downside. We’re fucked if we keep hanging on to them. Drag them to the left or leave them out in the icy cold.
The reason they play it safe
Hows that working out?
When playing it safe is never safe…
The democratic party is a coalition. It has wings that range from progressive to conservative.
It has conservatives and hostages.
They represent who votes for them.
Wanna change? Vote in the primaries. Hell, run in the primaries.
Wanna change? Vote in the primaries. Hell, run in the primaries.
Oof, got some bad news about those primaries…
They represent who votes for them.
Oh? Dick Cheney votes for them? More reliably than progressives?
Wanna change? Vote in the primaries. Hell, run in the primaries.
This is gloating about how democrats don’t do fair primaries, if they do them at all.
They represent who votes for them.
Hence Bidens “nothing will fundamentally change” pledge to a room full of rich donors. And Biden pushing an extremely unpopular right wing war down a partys throat where many of the memebrs like to think of themselves as leftists. Clearly they are a party who “represents who votes for them”.
What they did was court Republican voters instead of Democrat voters, and neither Republicans nor Democrats were amused.
You mean you didn’t appreciate Harris campaigning with Republicans and throwing more support behind fracking than universal healthcare? Damn, what are you, some kind of socialist?
What they did was court Republican voters instead of Democrat voters
She “courted Republicans” with the most liberal platform since LBJ? Taking a picture with Liz Cheney, WITHOUT CHANGING ANY POLICIES, was a good thing not a bad thing. Because far right republicans supporting Democrats is objective confirmation of the threat of Fascism. It proves that Dems weren’t making exaggerating the threat to democracy.
Politics is not about having white papers on your website.
I’m hardly breaking new ground in my assertion here, even if you personally don’t agree.
If you somehow don’t realize how progressive and working class interests were kicked to the curb in favor of courting those (still) elusive republican votes there are many, many opinion pieces out that that can detail it more eloquently than I.
Here’s but one paragraph from but one such article:
The Democrats’ sharp turn to the right can be mapped through their party platforms and political programs. In 2020, they offered a “new social and economic contract” of “shared prosperity” and racial justice. By 2024, Harris and running mate Tim Walz failed to directly or meaningfully mention the impacts of racism, police brutality, inequality or diversity in their 82-page policy platform.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/progressives-left-kamala-harris-election-2024-democrats-resistance
And look at all the good it did them:
By 2024, Harris and running mate Tim Walz failed to directly or meaningfully mention the impacts of racism, police brutality, inequality or diversity in their 82-page policy platform.
That is a very good thing for 2 reasons. (1) It would have sunk them in the election, and (2) Dems already so way too much identity politics which is what always sinks them in the elections.
It would have sunk them in the election
Oh would it have? Well it’s a good thing that didn’t happen, just think where we’d be.
I also think it’s now exceptionally clear that the right has always wanted to do exactly what it looked like they wanted to do to everyone not white male and cisgendered, proving those to have been important issues.
Gee who would have thought that completely ignoring the anti-war/genocide crowd and courting the CHENEYS “moderate Republicans” while keeping absolutely silent about Medicare for all and touting a “keep America lethal” platform would have backfired for one of the least popular politicians ever who was just anointed as the presidential candidate without any sort of primary at all. I’m so confused!
I wonder how many republicans they picked up by that move.
Why would anyone on the right vote for the “right-lite” party when they have a full on fucking Nazi party?
The thing is I actually know some “conservatives” that did appreciate seeing Republicans coming over.
However, as far as I’ve seen, the only conservatives that appreciated that had already decided to be firmly anti-Trump without any help.
I believe polling data said they got less Republicans voting Democrat in 2024 than they got in 2020. Republicans voted for Biden more than Harris.
Probably two.
That is just one of many many reasons the Democrats lost, too many to count or even list in this post. You might want to also update the platform to not gobble the balls of the billionaires and corporate class. Abolish the electoral college, gerrymandering (though there were efforts on this front; poorly executed), lobbying, and Super PACs. Should’ve expanded the Supreme Court or instituted term limits.
Basically put in any effort whatsoever to show they wanted to prevent the loss of democracy and they didn’t do it. At least SAY things that would prevent genocide in Gaza, even if you don’t mean it. Start playing by the same rules as the Republicans and there could have been a chance.
It’s too late for any of that now.
Dems never had the super majority to abolish the electoral college, gerrymandering or the other things you mentioned.
Even if its not possible, campaign like its the goal. Tell us what you’d do with full approval from everyone and people might get motivated enough to vote to make that happen.
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There was never the votes to give women the right to vote either, but it eventually got passed after a good solid fight.
Plenty of people were arguing back then that “there arent the votes to make this happen” and “we should only focus on very small incremental wins”.
Blaming dems for not doing something they can’t do is not the same as what you’re describing.
They cant fight? they cant play politics? No hard ball? No applying pressure? No speeches, lawsuits, threats? Those are all thing republicans seem to use, but the dems just…“cant”? Give me a break.
They can vote. If they do not have enough dems to vote they have to reach across the aisle to get votes from conservatives.
Conservatives will not help without getting something in return.
What you’re saying is dems should give conservatives concessions which will then be used as a talking point to blame dems more.
That’s what “fighting” means in this context.
only to the unimaginative. Or those that want excuses to do nothing. Consent can be steered and manufactured. If the centrists had any ideology at all they’d be pursuing the right things, not lounging about doing absolutely nothing.
What do the dems do lately that would make anyone vote for them? Do they profess to stand for… much of anything, besides Israels right to take land and exterminate the civilians on it? Tell me one thing they have made a strong stand on?
It’s a vote. You can’t win a vote with feelings or vibes or a “can do attitude”.
It requires votes.
The electoral college is not a problem, it’s a great system. Winner takes all is the actual problem.
They’re both problems.
No they’re not. Abolishing the Electoral college removes yet another barrier to populism and it could have unintended far reaching consequences down the line. I know MAGA is already a populist movement, but it can be so much worse. Just because the popular vote will get you what you want now doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt you in the future. Much like we’ve seen the damage that the reckless expansion of presidential power has done. The founding fathers created a good system and bipartisan politics have corrupted it, it’s restoration should be top priority.
The system works if used as intended. Winner takes all is not using it as intended, just like electors voting in the same way as the voters mindlessly is not using it as intended. Yes it’s elitist. Current state of affairs prove that the founding fathers were correct in their beliefs.
The founding fathers created a good system and bipartisan politics have corrupted itOnly when compared to monarchy, or the Soviet Union.
It was always going to be corrupted, and if you think the electoral college will ever prevent a demogoge from taking power, I have a bridge to sell you on Pluto.
yeah that’s one way to put it.
2024 was not an election to play it safe or take the high road, yet every chance the DNC collectively got, they did just that.
They should have slung mud and gotten nasty.
The Democrats always take the high road or the decorum path every chance they get. It’s one of the reasons why they loose the power struggle so much.
Democrats and playing chess by the rules and Republicans are moving the pieces wherever they want as long as they can get away with it.
The Democrats could have delayed ACB being put on the supreme Court untill election time but they actively decided not to do so.
The Democrats always take the high road or the decorum path every chance they get.
Not every chance. They run against progressives in primaries sometimes. Then the gloves come off.
DNC leadership genuinely hate Bernie more than Trump.
Yes, Sanders is progressive, while trump is more in line with dnc leadership’s positions.
The Democrats always take the high road or the decorum path every chance they get.
This theory that Dems don’t play dirty is such a bald faced lie. Its rooted in the mythos of the party as an organization of high minded intellectuals and squishy naive good-natured hippies. But anyone who has gone through the trenches of a Dem primary or even bothered to recall the fine details of a general election, know this to be utterly false.
Dems are more than happy to smear their opponents as anti-American, even to the point of accusing them of outright treason. Liberal media orgs and influencers regularly advance personal attacks on their opponents’ personal lives (Obama himself won his Illinois Senate seat on the back of the incumbent’s infidelity), parade around “body language experts” and other hockey pseudo-scientists to degrade the reputation of the opposition, and outright fabricate claims (the Steele Dossier “pee tape” being the liberal companion to the conservatives’ “Whitey Tape” from four years prior) for the entertainment of a gullible base.
The Democrats could have delayed ACB plbeing but on the supreme Court untill election time but they actively decided not to do so.
The Dems could have put a Senator at the head of the Judiciary Committee that wasn’t drooling her way through the hearing. But Feinstein’s cemented position as senior California Senator was the result of the exact kind of cut-throat politics that has entrenched horrifyingly corrupt and incompetent politicians from Henry Cueller to Joe Manchin.
The first link is about a pro Israel PAC spending money against the Dems, so I’m not sure how relevant that is?
Of the others, the newest article is from 2019.
This is pretty tame compared to what their opposing party does, I’m not sure this is supporting your argument to the extent you want. Even Watergate is tame compared to most of the shit republicans have pulled since Obama won. I suppose you could cherry pick metrics, but honestly none of this is even bad enough to be compared to what republicans have done this week. They’re not saints, sure, but if your waiting to vote for a saint you might want to get a job as a Cardinal.
Your second link talks about an anti-trump strategy from the Clinton campaign that literally tried to highlight how stupid and vulgar he was, which only backfired because that’s what his supporters like about him
The third link is attempting to conflate some random hoax videos with the rumors of a “kompromat” pee tape putin supposedly had/has an trump, which doesn’t really have much to do with the Dems that I can tell.
The fourth link is about two Hillary supporters in 2016 admitting they spread the birther rumor, which again has what to do with the Dem party?
Yeah, of all of these, I guess the Clinton one is relevant, and yeah, everyone has long since agreed that was a terrible strategy, but I’m not sure how any of this is a smoking gun that, what, Dems are as bad as Republicans? I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make.
The first link is about a pro Israel PAC spending money against the Dems
A Dem aligned group, in a Dem primary, to support AIPAC friendly candidates by running smears on progressive incumbents
an anti-trump strategy from the Clinton campaign that literally tried to highlight how stupid and vulgar he was
She used campaign resources to promote Trump during the GOP primary
attempting to conflate some random hoax videos
Propagated by Dem proxies to promote a liberally endorsed false claim
two Hillary supporters in 2016 admitting they spread the birther rumor
Two campaign staffers
Not even nasty, just play ads of Fatputin spewing his idiotic/fascist nonsense non-stop, that would do it. There’s practically a never ending well of content from the last decade they could have used to make some truly devastating ad (grab 'em by the pussy, on a loop??), and how about going back and talking about his 1st term that ended in a year so bad it was a running joke? Nah, let’s talk about joy and leave it at some vague notion of this guy sucks, but not going into why. A coup attempt? Meh, we’ll show a clip of J6, but not bother mentioning it was a fucking coup attempt. Twice impeached convicted felon? Meh, let’s just leave it at some vague “not going back” slogan. Fucking malpractice. Again. Dems are either breathtakingly incompetent, or in cahoots.
And beyond that, democrats should have blast ads every 5 minutes about how George bush and trump both left us with the greatest recessions since the Great Depression. Bust the weird, non factual myth that republicans are good for the economy. Flip the script, the facts are there, they just suck ass at messaging and propaganda.
For sure, the well is endless, but instead they insist on believing the fairy tale that what people REALLY want, despite voting to the contrary every single fucking time, is bipartisanship and a party that chooses “they go low we go high” as a rallying cry. Let’s instead try and help rehab GWB and Darth Cheney, the guys who had worst terrorist attack in US history on their watch, followed by lying us into a war that cost untold billions and lives, ending in the worst financial collapse in almost 100 years. I’m old enough to remember Harry “keep our powder dry” Reid and Nancy “impeachment is off the table” Pelosi being my first real awakening to just how unwilling dems are to actually fucking fight the fascists, instead choosing time and again to do nothing or even help them. Working great, just need MORE of it, then it’ll work for sure! Just like tax cuts and deregulation, has turned out just great, just need it a little bit more and it will start working, honest!
That’s a fantastic idea. I hope a future Democratic campaign uses a strategy like this.
They should have been doing that for 40 fucking years.
Shorter sentences, bolder statements, hell, they needed to say things that didn’t entirely make sense when you analyzed them, but sounded cool. Political campaigns clearly need to be more approachable, more relatable than what the Dems are doing. Look at AOC, Bernie, and JC, THAT is the messaging that resonates.
Also, way more calls to action. What are YOU doing and what should I do? And stop asking me for damn money - you can invoice me when the work is complete.
They still are being soft. Why would you think it would change?
Its just white noise. If you went back two months and addressed the KHive / Bidenbro block that was fanatically endorsing this campaign, does anyone seriously think “soft” or “safe” would be a term they’d use to describe the media appearances or the ground game?
No, of course not! Harris was Girl Boss. Cheeto Mussolini was the weak one. JD Vance was too busy fucking couches to answer the hard questions like “Why do you enjoy sucking Putin’s cock?” and “Why do you enjoy sucking Elon Musk’s cock?” and “Why do you enjoy sucking Peter Thiel’s cock?”
Meanwhile, Harris was out there punching illegal immigrants. She was making those effeminate cop-hating LGBTers eat Terf. She was out there dropping Facts And Logic on those stupid Iran-loving antisemetic ISIS students. She was bringing out the big guns with Liz Fucking Cheney and making sure every voter knew that America First A#1 City On A Hill sound of F-35s flying overhead we’re going to Beat Russia and Obliterate China and Nuke Far-Right Islamic Hate.
Nobody thought the campaign was “soft” in October of 2024. They were priding themselves on their BlueMAGA credentials.
Its only after they lost that we got to retcon the campaign as too squishy and liberal and egalitarian. Maybe next time they’ll bomb Dearborn Michigan or stage a full invasion of Tiajuana to prove they’re serious about being the most reactionary party in America.
I’m reading his “safe” comment in a bit of a different light. The Harris campaign was playing “safe” politics by ooh rah-ing about the military, guns, and the border. By throwing their full support behind Israel and shouting down and cutting out concerned for the Palestinian people. By running around with Liz Cheney.
Their campaign started off strong. Kamala was brat, Walz was calling Trump and his allies weird and joking about Vance fucking his couch. There was energy but they dropped the ball by switching to the “safe” Democrat campaign book. They didn’t go out to speak to the people where they were at town halls like Walz said in the article, they didn’t have firebrand Walz shining a flashlight on how bizarre Trump’s people are, they didn’t have a message that would excite the people and really shake up a statue quo that was slowly and inexorably draining Americans of their economic prospects. They just played the safe Democrat game of incrementalism and subservience to wealth and power rather than the people.
Obviously Walz didn’t say all this, but I think the “safety” he refers to absolutely refers to Kamala’s campaign adhering too closely to a traditional campaign style that was not going to win them much enthusiastic support.
Whereas I’m taking walz more literally. In my experience, they came out swinging, full of energy and novelty, getting that “weird” label stuck. I can even understand lack of policy or platform since apparently we no longer care about that.
… but then they started answering “no change”, the energy faded, they dropped out of the news. I don’t know if it’s just me, but they were invisible leading up to the election. Literally more concerned about not screwing up, playing it safe.
It’s not that Harris’ campaigne adhered too closely to a traditional campaign style, but that they let up on the gas approaching the finish line
They dialed it back to avoid upsetting their big corporate donors.
pretty much that, when they started courting right wingers it was over.
Well, good thing they did that, huh? This is so much better than that could have been. /s
Well, Trump and the GOP are working to make sure Palestinians aren’t going to be an issue any more. By helping Israel genocide them.
Trump and the GOP aren’t just helping, they’re investing in the Palestinian extinction and planning to build golf resorts on their graves.
Jared kushner, and trump already have real estate planned in the area.
Well they have a long way to go to eclipse Bidens support of racist genocide, but I’m sure they’ll try hard.
“A long way to go”??? Pretty sure removing Palestinians from Palestine is about as far as one can go.
I enjoyed your comment for a few reasons, but have one question. Did you pick Dearborn Michigan at random off a mental map, or was there some specific reason for that city in particular?
Dearborn is frequently spoken about in conservative circles as “being taken over by Muslims.” Maybe that has something to do with it.
Dearborn was also the center of the pro-Palestine movement within the Democratic party.
That’s why, yes. Big Somali ex-pat community. Sort of like how Columbus, OH got dumped on with the “They’re eating the dogs and the cats” line because older white residents were panicking at the influx of Haitians working the gradually renewing manufacturing sector.
michigan has a large muslim population, and dearborn is one of thier strongholds. i dont think michigan went to trump though. i said on reddit before coming here, that the gaza/ issue isnt that big of impact because most americans arnt that concerned about foreign policy, as they are about INFLATION, and social issues in the usa.
I think it is the city in the US with the highest percentage of Arab Americans. But also maybe there’s a bit of oil there.
I agree, Walz, start being unsafe. Show us what we want to see in a candidate.
Or, ya know, actually BE what we what in a candidate.
Okay Walz, that’s a start, but we’ve yet to see you go hard. Step it up or get out of Al Green’s way and let him cane the fuck outta these Nazi shitheads.
I wish Al Green were 20 years younger and wanted to be POTUS. He is the real deal. Visit his web site. He is totally devoted to his district and his constituents. I tried to send him some money but there is no indication he’s at all interested in any money out side his district. Unlike so many other Dem candidates and pols, I could not even find a place to send a donation to Rep. Green because I’m not in his district.
Al Green is the representative we all need in this time of national crisis. If every democrat in office was an Al Green I’d be feeling better for my life as someone Trump targets with his vitriol.
I have nothing but respect for him at this moment.
