The DNC hasn't had a real primary since 2008. That's the real problem.
Well of course they didn't, they got their asses kicked. From what I saw they ran the Hillary Clinton 2.0 campaign.
No shit?
A flawless campaign would have won.
Not necessarily, you can do everything right and still lose.
That said, the reason she was initially lauded as running a great campaign was picking up Biden's campaign from a cold start and making it much closer than map coloring makes it appear. She definitely did make mistakes in there too though, so not flawless at all.
That's not true.
A perfect campaign would address the issuers voters have, and not insist everything is fine and voters facing homeless or food insecurity are just "leftists insisting on purity".
That's why I said she made some mistakes, and it wasn't a flawless campaign.
There's so much cope out there. Sure she "only" lost by 2 million-ish votes, but when you disaggregate the data and see these votes came from almost exclusively the most embattled counties in the country, 2 million suddenly becomes a much more meaningful number.
Although, I am worried about Republican strategies moving forward. Frankly, Trump's policies will have some very strong negative consequences if he follows through on them. It will be interesting to see Republicans try to win using the "down with the system!" strategy of the past 8 years when Trump is gone and they have the incumbency advantage. If the Dems put someone good up, they'll win handily again.
Frankly, Trump’s policies will have some very strong negative consequences if he follows through on them.
Trump plans to destroy the United States governmental system and become a king, with the power to kill his opponents and remove anyone's ability to ever challenge his hold on power without bringing down the full weight of a multi-trillion-dollar punitive system down upon themselves. Probably he will imprison or kill anyone who tries to disobey him. Also, he's explicitly allied himself with violent foreign adversaries who view us as an enemy that needs to be exterminated.
I would call that negative consequences. It's not guaranteed that he will succeed, but that's what he's planning, and he has some powerful allies who are going to try to help him with it.
Every single staffer took their money and failed at delivering what was expected of them. In companies, board of directors would demand clawbacks
How could they try to gaslight people who refused to compromise their ethics into believing that it's their fault without pretending to have run a flawless campaign?
All she had to say was:
"Israel had a right to defend itself, however after their indescriminate attacks on civillians in Gaza, not just the men, but also, the women and children, an act that clearly and undeniably violate internation laws, Israel no longer have the right to defend itself. I will immediately call on President Biden to suspend any and all military aid to Israel. Futhermore, sanctions will be imposed on Israel until they cease their indiscriminate killings."
Then actually make Biden do it. Kneecap him if he doesn't.
And for domestic policy:
"As president, I ensure every American has access to healthcare by calling on Congress to pass legislation that would make Medicare For All a reality in America."
There, campaign saved. Just keep up the public appearances, talk to people, and win the election.
But unfortunately, that's a different timeline. This timeline is fucked.
I think far too many people see the price of groceries, fall for the GOP line that it's Biden's fault (and that deporting all illegal immigrants will help) and think Trump will save the day.
Like, yeah, post-covid recovery has been hard. Mostly stagnant wages don't help. People feel that. Unfortunately it's harder to feel the fact that other countries are feeling the exact same things, often worse than we are, so they vote for some weird nostalgia for the days when things were better under Trump.
Sanders said it perfectly in his open letter after the election.
While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right.
Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.
Democrats just didn't do enough to make people believe that their lives would change for the better from them. Continuing the status quo is not something they wanted to hear.
I can agree with that. People are so sick of things they want a disruptor. It's hard to present yourself as that when you're currently in office.
Going to the comment I replied to, most people don't really know or care enough about what's going on in Palestine right now. Not that that shouldn't, just that they don't (but admittedly those who do could be critical in Michigan). Medicare for all is certainly a disruptive idea, but it's only a piece of what makes a person a disruptor. One that I'd bet not everyone fully understands.
I think Palestine was a demotivating factor for a lot of people, Michigan was still a pretty incredible outlier, but Trump picked up Muslim and Arab American voters across the board. A deciding factor? No, but a factor.
Now immigration... I've talked to people who've voted democratic by rote for their entire lives who voted for Trump over immigration. It was an extremely effective talking point that was ignored by Dems early on, then ceded to Republicans.
but Trump picked up Muslim and Arab American voters across the board.
LIke Jews voting for Hitler.
I’ve talked to people who’ve voted democratic by rote for their entire lives who voted for Trump over immigration.
Because they liked Donald Trainwreck's Mass Green Card Policy? How idiotic can people get?
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-immigration-expansionist/
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fans-rebel-over-immigration-proposal-green-card-college/
I don't even think anyone thought that hard about it. Immigration scary, waves of immigrants coming into the country type rhetoric was enough. It's not even about taking jobs, these people don't engage with the fact that exploitation of mostly illegal immigrants is why they have available fruits and vegetables at all. Our entire food system is built on making immigrants do difficult, dangerous, and degrading work.
These people are worried about their taxes having to pay for illegals when they themselves are struggling. It's wild shit!
Only a vocal, very noisy minority care about Palestine. The rest pretend to care to avoid being "cancelled". And the narrow voting marging showed that.
People are hurting, economically, and a lot of those people chose the person who is NOT in office, ie they voted against the incumbent who is telling them everything is fine and to stop whining.
It's as simple as Harris said things would continue the same way, and Trump promised change. With grocery prices as they are, people voted based on that.
I think you overestimate how much Americans care about Palestine or foreign affairs in the wake of post covid inflation.
I don't think its that "Americans Care", but its the fact that it fuels propaganda that strengthens the "Both Sides Same" narrative which causes democrats to stay home.
About 8 million [Arab] Americans cared enough to stay home, from voting.
See: Detroit, Dearborn, and several other Midwest cities with large [Arab] American citizens who stayed home, and depressed the vote there.
Very few votes would be lost by shutting off Israel. Most Americans do not care. But there were votes to be won by supporting Palestine.
, Israel no longer have the right to defend itself. I will immediately call on President Biden to suspend any and all military aid to Israel.
The 2nd thing may or may not have helped. The 1st thing would be an absolutely stupid thing to say that would have been a major win for Treason Trump.
“As president, I ensure every American has access to healthcare by calling on Congress to pass legislation that would make Medicare For All a reality in America.”
This would have been a good idea.
Some of the stuff that's come out has been metaphorically criminal in it's negligence.
Biden had internal polls showing Trump would take 400 Electoral votes after his disastrous debate. Then it took a month for him to hand the race over to Harris. Outsiders figured this was a managed hand over with Harris being prepped and staffers reconfiguring the campaign behind the scenes. It turns out that's not true. There was no prep, it was a complete cold start. The sheer hubris of that is insane. A responsible leader would have had a team working on that the second they saw that data.
Then her advisors, Biden's advisors, turned out to be a who's who of the corporate country club. Which is why the campaign seemed so at odds with itself. Walz was picked and then sidelined. Progressive issues were bandied about until suddenly Liz Cheney is on board and nothing will change, everything was fine the last 4 years. Again outsiders thought they must have internal polling that showed already high support among all likely voters who lean left, and they had to bring in Republicans to get enough voters in key areas. Again, the outsiders were wrong because who would do that if they weren't forced to?
People worth millions of dollars who stand to benefit from a Trump presidency. I'm not saying this was a designated hit, I'm saying they seemed like Mitt Romney Republicans because it was run by people comfortable with those economic and justice policies.
And I haven't touched Gaza. Well I guess I just did, but we were all there for that discussion so I'm not going back over it more than to mention it.
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