this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
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How do people not realize that Kamala Harris was wildly unpopular back in the 2020 election. She never won a single primary despite running for president twice.
Ronald Reagan came third in the 1968 Republican primary, didn't run in 1972, and came second in 1976. If you were writing this in the late 1970s you'd be arguing that Ronald Reagan was wildly unpopular because he'd never won a single primary despite running for president twice. Whatever you think of his legacy (and I think he's responsible for a lot of the worst parts of the last half century) he was wildly popular as president.
Was Harris popular? Not especially. But, the issue wasn't her laugh. Aside from being non-white and non-male, she was also running as a pro-establishment candidate at a very anti-establishment time. Trump's absolute destruction of the establishment will go down as history as the point at which the US really started to self-destruct. It shows how good the status quo actually was for a lot of things Americans take for granted. But, the message that "everything is fine, I'm just going to continue with existing policies" was the absolute wrong one to use.
I agree. Harris was a Glass cliff candidate who's entire purpose was to sacrifice herself to further the party line. Fascism didn't win the 2024 election, neoliberalism lost, just like it is losing across Europe where it is dressed up as cis-het white males like Starmer and Macron. But because an afro-indian woman was the face of neoliberalism here instead of her cis-het running mate, liberals can blame racism and misogyny instead of looking at their fundamentally evil and unpopular beliefs.
I don't think she was meant as a glass cliff candidate. This wasn't an election that they knew they were going to lose. I think they thought she was their best hope at that late stage in the election cycle. Maybe they were right, and there weren't any better candidates who had a chance given how little time there was. Maybe not. But, this isn't like the typical case like say the 1984 election where Walter Mondale was sent out to compete with an extremely popular Ronald Reagan.
Harris bowed out months before the votes were even cast, and was in something like 6th place at the time she quit. How is this at all comparable?
Are the goalposts on wheels so they can be moved more easily?
Is it really goalpost moving for 'she never won' to be elaborated on, into 'she gave up before the voting even began because she was that unpopular'?
Does that really change the comparison between her and someone who came third and second in primaries? The essence of your retort was 'neither did Reagan but look at him', but the fact is that 'they both failed to win primaries', while technically correct, is definitely not equivalent to saying they were on equal standing. This is basically the exchange that just happened:
Yes.
You see, in the first instance the goalposts were at "she never won".
Then the goalposts were moved.
Now the goalposts are at "she gave up before the voting even began".
The crux of "she never won" was to argue that she was not popular. Pointing out that not only did she not win, she gave up while in 6th place before the official voting even started, only serves to magnify the original argument. It's not a goalpost move.
Merc like the merc?
I guess so.
There is a streamer, former army vet, who streams protest coverage under the handle "merc'
https://m.youtube.com/@MercadoMedia
Guys, no matter whether your a shitlib or an Marxist or an anarchist or whathaveyou we're all left-"half" at least. You/the online left need to realize it really is that simple for everyone who isn't somewhere on the left half of the spectrum, and there are tons of closet/unconscious racists.
The other half of the entire spectrum votes and they get the results that they want even if there's an occasional fly in the ointment. They bully to get the most out of their engagement.
If you voted for Trump or nonvoted because of Kamala's laugh you're certifiably an insane person.
If you didn't vote on the candidate that was less right-wing than the further right-wing candidate, I sympathize, but that was a mistake. Enjoy your war.
So how do you explain Kamala Harris getting 6 million less votes than Biden and Clinton while Trump had the same number of votes in all e elections? The Democrats forced an unpopular candidate who ran on how great the economy was doing at a time when most of the voter base couldn't afford rent and groceries. Her missing voters weren't leftists, they were disenfranchised, apolitical, workers that thought no one was representing their interests and sat it out. You don't know how I voted, and even if you did, it doesn't take a genius to realize that I live in a state that she lost by over 10 points. The Democrats decided they would rather cater to non-existent "moderates" instead of helping people. You want to blame people for not voting how you wanted instead of blaming the Democrats for running a terrible campaign.
Really interesting stuff here. Let's see.
All 6 million of those people made an ego-driven mistake without real consideration of the lives that would be affected, and ended, by choosing wrongly. 800k deaths from USAID being cut alone for instance. Or how dragging minorities off the street is normalized now. I keep reading about concentration camps. Where I live. Did you or your 5,999,999 partisans and nonvoters even stop to consider their lives before you hit that Witcher-style no-such-thing-as-lesser-evil bullshit? Or were/are they just pawns to you? How about the picture I saw of Gaza that looks like the litter in a litter box because there's nothing solid left? You think Netanyahu didn't allow October 7th to happen when his intelligence knew it was imminent? Benjamin Netanyahu picked your vote for you, because the Israelis know swatches of American "leftists" are irony-poisoned stuck up assholes who don't consider human life valuable over engagement farming. You were played because you were gullible to put it mildly.
I don't care how you voted and neither do you. Our calculus for decision making is fundamentally different because you care about ideological purity and I care about human life and dignity. I also live in a state Kamala lost for what it's rhetorically worth. We were gerrymandered, so our vote never made a difference. The rest of you willingly relinquished yours.
"It's not the Democrats failing to win elections, it's the 6 million stupid voters!"
Unhinged shit
You've again attacked leftists while failing to address the fact thar Harris lost 6 million votes while running on the exact same platform as Biden..You again fail to understand that Kamala didn't lose because 6 million leftists felt she wasn't ideologically pure, she lost because 6 million people that voted for Clinton and Biden felt that she wasn't going to do anything to make their lives better, because the Democrats spent 4 years show they only cared about their wealthy donors. The average voter doesn't know shit other than how easy their life feels. And things have been hard for the past 5 years. The Democrats were saying everything was great and Trump was saying everything is awful and he would make it right. I think only the true believers actually took Trump at face value, but they could see that the Democrats had no intention of making their lives better so they sat it out. Voters only care about their own needs, and they know that the Democrats only care about their rich donors so they saw no reason to get out and vote. There are not 6 million electorial leftists in the US that sat out the election, it was 6 million apolitical workers who saw no reason to vote for either candidate that was going to make their lives worse.
And even if you are right and the Democrats abandoning all progressive policies the favor of gaining Cheney sympathetic Republicans lead to leftists not supporting Harris, doesn't that mean they made the wrong play regardless? Clearly the Democrats needed the left to win elections if that was the case, in which case telling their main voting block to go fuck themselves was a massive mistake. Almost as bad as telling 110,000 Muslims in swing state that they have to accept genocide against their fellow believers. And spoiler alert, Netanyahu started the action against Gaza because he knew Biden and the Democrats would support him. All Biden had to do was say he would cut all military aid and the genocide would have stopped the next day. But he wouldn't. And neither would his VP who ultimately lost the election. She was a Glass cliff candidate.
No matter how you slice it, the Democrats made the wrong play and demanding people fall in line and support atrocities and allowingbthe rich to get richer is the wrong move.
Edit: on top of that, the Democrats voted to give ICE billions more in funding last month. The Democrats support everything Trump is doing, they just wish he would do it quitly. If you still support the Democrats, then you support ICE, you support the US military actions in Venezuela and Iran, and you support the rich getting richer.
Also, Gerrymandering has nothing to do with presidental elections and the fact that Harris lost your state by a million votes. Please learn a single thing about how elections and political science works before responding to me again.