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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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I mean, voters, since Biden's approval is rightfully in the gutter, but she needed to come out of the GATE being like "We're changing everything" and even then, as you point out, she's been complicit with this for years. But at this point, they're just realizing they're toast waaaay too late and throwing shit at the wall out of desperation. I think the DNC brain trust thought they can just swap voter bases with the GOP by adopting the platform of a generic pre-Trump republican and getting the Cheney/W endorsements, and gain the same electoral advantage the GOP has. But the indie run in Nebraska shows democratic candidates pay a 20 point asshole tax in every state they don't unilaterally rule, so the smaller set of voters they traded the GOP for almost certainly cannot win 270 electoral votes. Nate Silver's blog had a piece about this recently.
It does appear to be an incoherent act of desperation. The obvious move if you wanted to coopt people that oppose Biden, as in genocide Joe, would have been to make purely performative gestures to triangulate despite her obvious complicity in the administration's policies. Easy wins.
I think their campaign decided to treat this as a typical "court the right, do what we wanted to anyways, and vote shame the left" strategy and have found out that none of those things are working very well, for various reasons. For one, the candidate having no charisma or sellable policies, being a career empty suit. Or the fact that their genocide is not just a "loony left" issue but also an ethnic and familial and basic decency one.
I have actually never met a single person that can name a major Harris 2024 policy promise off the top of their heads, lol. That is how little they think of anyone that is actually concerned about material outcomes. It's like the saw Hillary 2016 and were like, "we can do that but better because we have manic JOY".
I think their initial idea was to run the Carter '76 campaign, which was "The GOP isn't electable this cycle, all I have to do is propose nothing, so as not to anger swing voters and I will win" which I don't think CAN work post-Clinton and Obama, because at this point the DNC pays a 20 point asshole tax in every state they need to win. Additionally, even if you DO win it's a shit plan, because as Carter discovered, when you run on nothing, you have no mandate to do anything, and in four years the voters go "What would you say you actually DO here?" Every move this campaign has made has not only been terrible strategy, but betrays people who want to be in power for purely no other purpose than being in power in and of itself, which I suppose is better than the Obama/Trump motivation of wanting to be on TV and make money off the celebrity, but not by much...
There is really no better situation for a party that serves the status quo faction of the bourgeoisie to promise nothing and depend entirely on claiming, "but the other guy is worse". It isn't that different from promising policies you know you won't fight for and for which you can manufacture scapegoats (Congress, half-assing court cases, etc), not in terms of actual policy changes. But it does suppress consciousness that a better world is possible, for people to become disillusioned from the planned "failure". This is all consistent with Democratic political strategists doubling down on trying to cow and disregard its left flank, to prevent another Bernie. A revanchist position that is trying to create a base that fully serves the party regardless of what it does. They certainly envy the GOP.
The selection of Harris is of course a result of this. There was no last-minute primary, no opportunity for political struggle. No acknowledgement that Biden stepped down for a reason that should invoke the 25th amendment. Just accept this genocidal neoliberal ghoul we chose for you, swine. Embrace JOY. Are you not satisfied!?
It is your personal responsibility to vote for us no matter what we do - The DNC