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2016 : Hilary Clinton - People felt that she was chosen because it was her turn 2020 : Kamala Harris - A candidate who never ever even did well in the primaries

2016 : Hilary Clinton - People felt that she was chosen because it was her turn 2020 : Kamala Harris - A candidate who never ever even did well in the primaries. I hope DNC learn from this and let people choose a candidate next time.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago
The real problem was Biden not dropping out early enough so that they could have a fair selection process. But tbh I’m not sure how much it mattered. With the high inflation levels it was always an uphill battle for the incumbent.
- theGnuMe 2y ago
  Inflation caused by Trump (Covid) and greedy corps. Stocks at all time highs baby.
- CWuestefeld 2y ago
  Underlying that problem were the Administration thinking they could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were unaffected. This was a two-edged sword because it also demonstrated that maybe it doesn't matter so much who is president, at least as domestic affairs go, because the administrative state runs so much on autopilot.
  - throw_that_away 2y ago
    That's the thing about the left, they think the "machine" could just run things. You actually have to have someone that fires people. Think about it, Even Kim Cheatle had to resign! Biden did not ask for ANYONE to do a good job. No one was in control of that admin, it was a complete mess. If there is an atmosphere of governance/leadership that no matter how shitty a job you do, but you get to keep your job, then no one will care about anything at the top.
    - tartoran 2y ago
      You may be right but short to remember the chaos in Trumps administration from 2016 to 2020. It really seemed like the country was about to burst. I hope it won't happen this time though...
  - lolinder 2y ago
    > thinking they could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were unaffected Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and lied to. Voters don't like being treated as less-than just because they're less educated, and uneducated doesn't mean stupid. They can see through it. My county went >75% for Trump, and the reason is because Trump is the only presidential candidate in most of our lifetimes who treats working-class voters as his equal. He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up.
    - tfehring 2y ago
      I think it is stupid to vote based on how a politician talks rather than the expected impact of their proposed policies, though of course I realize that that’s how elections have been decided in practice for as long as representative governments have existed.
      - astroid 2y ago
        The thing is, when you "talk down" to people, chances are pretty good those people's best interested aren't being represented by the one doing the down-talking. However, if you "talk to" them, you are in a much better position to actually hear and respond to their concerns - with the added bonus of seeming actually human. The way you frame it seems to imply that people are voting for him because he talks 'like them' while ignoring the 'to' them. I believe the hot leftist term for this is 'code-switching' which just means talking to your audience with language they understand and relate to -- and it's usually portrayed as a virtue, not a defect. In reality, these people voted for Trump because as a result of him talking to them like equals rather than down to like subjugated servants left many feeling that he was in fact advocating for policies that support their best interests and would be impactful in their day to day lives. Obviously personality matters more than it should - but in Trumps case the entire media apparatus was single-mindedly determined to make sure they dictate what his personality is, rather than his words or actions. So if anything this win shows that policy matters more than personality at this point anyway. Now of course, if you see his policies as wrong and evil and dictatorial and the embodiment of fascism, none of that will matter and no lessons will be learned from this absolute rejection of the democrats platform.
  - lenkite 2y ago
    [dead]
  - asveikau 2y ago
    I believe his faculties got substantially worse in 2024. He was a lot more present in speeches in 2021 for example. Mental decline isn't black and white, and you tend to see people as your mental model of how they used to be, so you can look at brief moments of clarity and declare him "well", so many did that. But it doesn't work that way.
    - itsoktocry 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - asveikau 2y ago
        I've followed politics for my whole life and watched tons of Biden speeches going back decades. I was seeing his old "spark" quite a bit well into 2024. The debate, he fell off a cliff, and his follow-up interviews were even worse. 3 months before he competently delivered a barn-burning SOTU address. IIRC a few months before that, he delivered a good NATO speech. He'd slip up minor points but he also did that in 2002. Back then they used to call him a gaffe factory.
    - asdasdsddd 2y ago
      He was cooked by 2022, Biden was stumbling over tele-prompted speeches.
      - asveikau 2y ago
        The gap between his last state of the union (March 2024) and the debate (June 2024) seemed pretty big, and I'm not the only one to say that. But again, it isn't black and white. Maybe the speech format suited him better.
    - anon291 2y ago
      Biden barely campaigned in 2020.
    - astroid 2y ago
      "you tend to see people as your mental model of how they used to be" Pot? Meet Kettle. I worked in an advanced Alzheimer's ward for about 4 years when I was younger. There is a look that happens in the eyes which is a sure-sign they are effectively gone - it's like a light has been turned off. (even if they have moments of lucidity, there is a clear switch that is talked about in exactly these terms if you work in these places and are close to them every day.) Biden clearly had 'the look' back in 2021, and was making enough gaffes for people who maybe aren't as familiar with the signs of mental decline could clearly see it. Just because you didn't, doesn't mean everyone else was wrong and saw what they wanted to see. If you are going to argue 'well, that's just like your perspective man' you have to at least see how that same argument can be turned towards you. You are absolutely right that it is not black and white - I fully believe that back in 2021 he had enough moments of lucidity (which generally are somewhat reliable, which appear to be tied to the circadian rhythm hence 'sundowners') -- so if all you watched were his scheduled speeches I could see how you may have been left with that impression. There were plenty of other opportunities to watch his decline in real time however.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    Plus with every iota of decrease in the government’s credibility, the relative credibility of candidate’s promises and proposed policies also matter less too in deciding between them…
  - 8note 2y ago
    Given Trump's current faculties, it might show that people are more willing to trust that he probably won't do much either. He'll be on a similar auto-pilot at this age
- asveikau 2y ago
  Inflation is a complicated topic that doesn't get adequately captured in the sound bites. I kept hearing clips of voters saying they want prices to go back down, but my understanding of the economics is that this would be terrible. Instead, IMO, what we need is for wages to increase while minimizing the inflationary effect of wage increases. That's not a catchy slogan, however. Parallel to this, I don't think the post COVID inflation is really due to politicians.
  - caeril 2y ago
    > my understanding of the economics is that this would be terrible Deflation is only "terrible" because we have collectively decided to build an economy on debt instead of savings (Keynesian instead of Friedmanian). In a different economic order, prices declining would be a good thing for everyone. But we're stuck with it, so inflation it is.
    - AlexandrB 2y ago
      Doesn't deflation especially disadvantage the young - since you're usually not born with savings of your own.
      - RpmReviver 2y ago
        Depends how much deflation there is with wages compared to everything else, there's a scenario that they have an opportunity to start saving The majority of the expenses for the disadvantaged young are housing, gas, and food. With housing being 4x more expensive than 4 or 5 years it basically puts all the disadvantaged from even buying a house and then puts them at the mercy of the renters market
    - atq2119 2y ago
      There are a number of issues with this comment. One of them is that debt and saving are just sides of the same coin. More importantly, everybody can see that debt for investment allows more growth. Just think about how many more people can afford to own their own home thanks to taking on debt. This allows them to pay a mortgage instead of rent, which allows them to build up wealth. Equivalent effects exist in industry. Debt is an extremely useful tool. We made the right choice here as a society.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  > The real problem was Biden not dropping out early enough so that they could have a fair selection process. This is why it's important for the media to hold politicians' feet to the fire - even if they agree with them. I think there was just a murmur[1] of Biden's problems before the catastrophic debate. Imagine if the media had been hammering the administration on this point 6 months prior. [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13102973/New-York-Times-doubles-scathing-opinion-pieces-criticizing-Biden-White-House-said-president-extremely-upset-liberal-leaning-paper-turned-him.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13102973/New-York-T...
  - nataliste 2y ago
    Dean Philips attempted to primary Biden on the basis of age and low favorability. The media shut him out.
    - mtswish 2y ago
      The media didn't shut him out, no one would have voted for that guy.
      - nataliste 2y ago
        The media and the party had many opportunities to deal with Biden's age. They didn't. And yes, they did shut out Dean Philips, on the basis of exactly this kind of "he's an unknown, therefore unelectable." Well, they went with a known, and now they're paying for it.
        dsubburam 2y ago
        Tip: It is Dean Phillips. Not Dean Philips. I made that mistake too recently.
  - xienze 2y ago
    > I think there was just a murmur[1] of Biden's problems before the catastrophic debate. Before the debate, anyone talking about Biden’s obvious decline was dismissed as a right wing troll parroting Russian propaganda.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  There was not enough focus on economy in a way that actually mattered, certainly - though it probably wouldn't have made a difference. Biden absolutely should have dropped out earlier. It made Harris look like a last minute sub (which she really was). It's telling (on a number of levels) that one of the most popular Google searches yesterday, on election day, was "Did Biden drop out?"
  - dehrmann 2y ago
    > There was not enough focus on economy in a way that actually mattered Between price controls, tariffs, and excepting tips from taxes, I had no confidence either candidate could pass Econ 101. The proposals can play well politically, but it leaves people who have a basic understanding of economics at a loss of who'd be better.
- JamesBarney 2y ago
  That mattered quite a bit for a three reasons. 1. Kamala isn't a great candidate shown by her poor primary results in 2020. 2. She has all the baggage of running pretty far to the left in 2020. (Like saying she was for performing gender affirming surgery on trans illegal immigrants, agree or disagree with the stance this is a deeply unpopular position) 3. She was tied to the current administration which meant she couldn't distance herself from the inflation issue or attack Trump on age and fitness as much as another candidates not tied to the administration.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  One of the more insightful things I heard in the last few days was this generation of politicians got a lesson in how toxic inflation is politically. And inflation wasn't even that bad, but it felt bad.
- philodelta 2y ago
  I think a democrat who could actually distance themselves from Biden, someone who had more leeway to criticize his policies without the obvious "if current policy is wrong, what's stopping you from changing it" question, would have faired better. Maybe not won, but done better. Certainly there was no way Biden would have won re-election and switching was a good choice, but too little too late.
kristopolous 2y ago
They won't. These candidates are aligned with the Democrats. That's what the party is. It's not a party of the left or liberals or whatever you imagine it to be. They've been extremely clear on this. Go over the historicals. I have. Many times. This is correct.
- adastra22 2y ago
  The Republican Party seems to be able to put forward a candidate the electorate want. What can’t the democrats?
  - mjamesaustin 2y ago
    The Democratic primary process is rife with superdelegates and other rules designed to promote candidates aligned with the party insiders. The Republican primary process doesn't have as many ways for party members to put their fingers on the scale.
    - kristopolous 2y ago
      Exactly. Also they've misappropriated words like "leftist" and "socialist" so much that in my interaction with Trump supporters, at Trump events, I hear plenty of actual left and actual socialist policies presented as new ideas or attributed to Trump. At a policy level, these people actually don't want neofascism, I've interacted with plenty. They really don't. The Democrats tried to appeal to the hard right voter who found Trump icky. For that they were called socialist so and I know this is hard, people I spoke with associated the word socialism with the policies of Harris
      - mrguyorama 2y ago
        >For that they were called socialist so and I know this is hard, people I spoke with associated the word socialism with the policies of Harris What the hell are the democrats supposed to do to oppose a party that gets to redefine language however it wants with seemingly great effect? America spent 100 years demonizing socialism. Not the policies, the word. And now republicans can just deploy it against whoever, because it doesn't have a meaning to US voters. What possible strategy is there against that? My "democrat for life" (because republicans wanted to fucking murder the french catholics in the area, lookup the KKK in Maine) would vote against "socialism"! The US is a uni-party state at the federal level. You either play with the republicans, or you will be labeled "socialist", no matter the objective reality, and you will lose.
honeybadger1 2y ago
[flagged]
- gosub100 2y ago
  I think this is the biggest reason she lost. There's a limit to how much hyperbole (and that's being generous) and lies you can tell about someone before the words lose their meaning and people stop believing everything else you say. Not just from democrats (involved in politics) but the media as well. They made up their mind about Trump (probably via corporate smear campaigns) and were so openly biased against him it was despicable. People (I believe) knew that at best the truth was somewhere in the middle, or knew his whole campaign was being jinxed by very powerful people. And I think this was enough to persuade the swing voters.
  - paul7986 2y ago
    indeed as independent i grew tired of the media and all poltical machines/their games in May 2020. Turned it all off and tuned it out as hard to believe and dechipher what the truth is from any side / media.
    - honeybadger1 2y ago
      most people are actually quite reasonable and the identity politics play now has no effect. i am a gay man that voted democrat my entire life until recently, however i don't feel my ideals have changed, i have been left behind by elite snobby people seeking power through division who have corrupted the democratic party. the republicans have their own problems too by fanatic religious and racists types, but it by no means is representative of the average conservative.
      - subsection1h 2y ago
        > republicans have their own problems too by fanatic religious [...] but it by no means is representative of the average conservative. 65% of the Republicans who participated in a survey by the Pew Research Center said that laws should be influenced by the bible, and 78% said that the United States should be a Christian nation: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/10/27/religion-in-public-life/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/10/27/religion-in-...
gosub100 2y ago
> let people choose a candidate next time. You mean like a democracy ? Surely you must be joking.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
[flagged]
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  > I hope the dems wake up and see that far-leftism/wokism isn't the future americans want. What do Americans want?
  - tayo42 2y ago
    free money for white people with "christian" values apparently.
  - snakeyjake 2y ago
    >What do Americans want? I'm a progressive guy. Bleeding heart, even. But I come from a long line of white trash, and I am intimately familiar with what they do and do not care about. They DO NOT care about gay, trans, minority people. At all. Ever. Every single syllable spoken about them only serves to enrage them. They DO NOT care about Palestinians, except to equate them with ISIS. Americans want low taxes, low inflation, a 400-foot wall surrounded by minefields on the US-Mexican border, and democrats to shut the fuck up about racism and LGBTQ+. Those sentiments are only getting stronger.
    - TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
      Are poor white Americans really as terrible people as you say they are? I would usually find that hard to believe, though the results do strongly imply that you're right. What a depressing thought.
      - themaninthedark 2y ago
        You have someone who refers to poor white people as "white trash", I would doubt they are a fair arbitrator of explaining their world view.
      - OvermindDL1 2y ago
jredwards 2y ago
[flagged]
- pixelatedindex 2y ago
  > a bloated corpse should have beaten Donald Trump. That’s the attitude that got us a second Trump term. DNC did not take this threat seriously, and here we are.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    Yeah, it's bizarre to watch the DNC on the one hand claim that Donald Trump is a once-in-a-lifetime threat to democracy and freedom and on the other hand fail to offer anything to "undecided" voters that might get them to vote Democrat. My takeaway is that I don't think they actually believe Donald Trump is uniquely bad - it's just messaging.
    - fuzzfactor 2y ago
      The only thing worse would be twice-in-a-lifetime ;)
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    There was a talking head comment last night. "The Harris campaign told us today that they are 'nauseatingly confident'. I don't know that I've ever heard nausea as a positive thing." The DNC are too much in their own bubble.
  - jredwards 2y ago
    They took it seriously enough to change candidates. But again: why is a "just okay" candidate from the Democratic Party not better than a "threat to the free world" candidate from the Republican Party? The double-standard is absurd.
    - pixelatedindex 2y ago
      I thought Hillary failing was a clear indictment that America is not ready for a woman to be president. I hate that it’s true, but too much of the American heartland is conservative and plenty of them vote against their own interest (see: abortion contention). To then go ahead with a woman of color, and then have celebrity endorsements that don’t do anything to increase voter turnout shows how out of touch with reality the DNC really is. What a shame, and it doesn’t help that Kamala never had mass appeal. Pete Buttegieg would have been a far better bet, personally speaking.
marcusverus 2y ago
By the time Primary season kicks off in early 2028, it will have been twenty years since the last time the Democratic Party membership selected a new candidate without direct interference from party bigwigs. Twenty. Years.
- encoderer 2y ago
  They held a primary in 2020. Kamala, Warren, Beto, Bernie and more all ran with Biden.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    That definitely feels like the forgotten primary. My best guess is that its because that primary was book ended by primaries that were heavily influenced and controlled by the DNC.
    - odo1242 2y ago
      I mean, primaries usually aren’t generally heavily remembered.
  - eschulz 2y ago
    Many believe that the party gave Biden and unfair advantage using their superdelegates. The Republican Party does not have such super delegates, and in fact in 2016 Trump won solely due to his ability to organize and rally a well-working campaign even as party elites were seething at his ascendency and insulting him in public.
    - admksx45v65uqpw 2y ago
      [dead]
    - 1024core 2y ago
      DNC was worried that Bernie would be nominated.
    - 2y ago
racl101 2y ago
Too bad they usurped Bernie. Now Bernie too old to run by next election. Dude was legit Bona Fide.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  How do you tell the difference between someone who would suffer a Jeremy Corbyn style catastrophic defeat, and a Keir Starmer who is the PM of the party by the same name but is basically completely different in every other way?
  - thorin 2y ago
    Correct, bernie and corbyn were both well meaning with genuine ideas and were lambasted by the press, opposition and even their own parties to never stand a chance of election. Tulsi had similar issues.
    - digging 2y ago
      Tulsi Gabbard??? She is completely different, she is an opportunistic cult follower without ideals or ideas of her own. Doesn't really matter much now though.
      - 0dayz 2y ago
        Because they believe in progressive populism.
  - cm2187 2y ago
    Agree with the Corbyn analogy, but let's not overstate Starmer's electoral appeal. He got less votes than Corbyn. What got him elected is that tory voters didn't show up to vote because of tory policies.
- modeless 2y ago
  I don't think Bernie could have won.
peppers-ghost 2y ago
The DNC will learn nothing from this just as they learned nothing in 2016. They will move further rightward and will lose again.
- pineaux 2y ago
  This true. They will keep playing this stupid game. Thinking they are on the right side of history, which might be true, or it might not be true; but in the end, the right side of history is decided by the winners. And their current strategy is to alienate as many voters as possible by powering through on issues nobody cares about and acting as if there are no real issues left to fix.
- tomjen3 2y ago
  This is interesting as others have asserted that they lost because they were still too leftists. What data would settle this?
  - cowboyscott 2y ago
    An election.
  - JamesBarney 2y ago
    Look at senate and governor candidates that over performed and underperformed vs Kamala in their state. People have studied it for years and the basic finding is the classic one. Moving to the center wins you votes. You'll find that moderate/centrist dems over perform and leftist dems underperform. They've studied this. And the cause is is the following. Yes you get your base to turn out more. But extremism motivates their base even more than your own, and switched vote from an independent is twice as impactful as an extra vote. A simple example is you get one more of your base to turn out. You lose an independent, and you get 2 of their base to turn out. And end up down 3 votes.
    - martindbp 2y ago
      Hotelling's law should apply, no?
Scarblac 2y ago
[flagged]
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  He has literally said, and not paraphrasing, to his crowds... "You need to get out and vote, and if everything goes well, maybe you won't need to vote again."
  - stonethrowaway 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - c420 2y ago
    "You know, FDR, 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don't know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?" also said
    - paganel 2y ago
      For those curious like I was, he actually said that last May [1] I think though that age is strongly against him, had he been 10 or 15 years younger he could have probably pulled it off. [1] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/18/trump-at-nra-convention-floats-a-three-term-presidency-00158786 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/18/trump-at-nra-conven...
  - kevmo 2y ago
    Another Trump quote taken totally out of context. He was encouraging people who don't normally vote to get out and vote this time. People who oppose Trump don't do themselves any favors by misrepresenting this stuff. The guy is a ghoul and says plenty of terrible things that don't need misrepresentation to make him look bad.
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      It seems like it has the necessary context and is without any sort of "misrepresentation". Your reply explains the "You need to get out and vote" part, but it doesn't explain the "and if everything goes well, maybe you won't need to vote again" part. What context do you believe makes the 2nd part alright?
kevmo 2y ago
The DNC's #1 goal is to stop socialism in the primaries. A distant #2 is winning general elections.
- anonfordays 2y ago
  >The DNC's #1 goal is to stop socialism in the primaries. "The DNC's #1 goal is to stop democracy in the primaries." FTFY.
- JamesBarney 2y ago
  Goal #1 is just an instrumental goal to goal number #2. Socialists underperform moderates in general elections. Hell even Kamala, a terrible candidate who just got trounced by Trump outperformed Bernie (who has literally everything going for him) in his home state by a slim margin. Where as a moderate like Dan Osborn without the backing of the party outperformed Kamala by almost 14%. Americans don't want to pay European style taxes even for European services. And our public sector is far less efficient than Europe's so we wouldn't even get European level of services for that taxation rate.
- kgwgk 2y ago
  Fun fact: Harris is the second-most liberal Democratic senator to serve in the Senate in the 21st century. “During this period, there were 109 different Democrats who served in the Senate and cast a sufficient number of roll call votes for a reliable analysis of their ideological position. Of these 109 Democrats, Harris has the second-most liberal voting record. This makes her slightly less liberal than Warren, but more liberal than all of the remaining 107 Democrats, and significantly more liberal than all but a handful.” https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4816859-kamala-harris-is-extremely-liberal-and-the-numbers-prove-it/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4816859-kamala-harris-i...
  - SturgeonsLaw 2y ago
    Liberalism and Socialism are two very different things. Liberalism is squarely in the Capitalism camp. There are no workers owning the means of production under Liberalism. The DNC's bread and butter are Liberals. Not Socialists. Not anyone even approaching Socialist. Bernie, AOC, etc are SocDems at best. There are no Socialists in office in the United States.
jmyeet 2y ago
> I hope DNC learn from this They absolutely will not. History shows us this. In 2016, the Democratic establishment forced Hilary down the voters' throats because, hey, it was her turn, despite her being a terrible candidate with huge negatives. America, thanks to the Red Scare has no viable leftist momentum. But even in the USA, the Democrats almost chose an open socialist (ie Bernie Sanders) as the Democratic nominee in 2016 rather than Hilary Clinton. I remember saying at the time that the DNC are missing how upset ordinary people are at the status quo. The DNC establishment couldn't care less. What did the DNC learn from 2016? Absolutely nothing. They blamed Bernie voters (even though Bernie voters overwhelmingly came out and voted for Hilary in spite of their reservations). Trump only really lost in 2020 because of Covid. Yet Biden's campaign did have a sprnkling of progresive policies that people got behind, so much so that it looks like he got 10-15 million more votes than Kamala got. There's a lesson in that but it won't be learned. I saw someone describe this election as a Republican primary between a moderate Republican (Kamala) and a far right Republican (Trump). It's accurate. Kamala's immigration policy was the Trump 2020 policy. She is to the right of Ronald Reagan on immigration. And that's before we even get to the Middle East policy, which is not only bad policy but it's bad politics. Why? Because it gains her zero votes but loses a bunch. Anyone who hard line suports Israel is voting for Trump (and did). This was foreseeable. People were screaming about it for a year. Ignored. So what lesson will the Democrats take from 2024? That they need to run even further right.
SoftTalker 2y ago
I had the same thought. When Democrats run a likable, popular candidate they win. Bill Clinton, Obama being the two most recent examples. Trump won largely because his brash, crude, swaggering demeanor appeals to a lot of people and Harris was a candidate that was defaulted in because Biden was just out of gas; nobody really wanted her. Not saying that the Democrats should look for someone like Trump but first and foremost they need someone that a lot of people find likable.
- glitchc 2y ago
  It was easy to do:Just run a proper election at the convention instead of parachuting in the candidate.
- 8note 2y ago
  I think Trump won more on him being not in the current administration, and that people want the current admin out. Overall the past couple elections have been about kicking people out more than putting people in, and Americans are unhappy with the state of their society. Trump has at least shown an ability to just ignore the law to get whatever he wants done, and no candidate on the current Democratic party is going to have that
  - sn 2y ago
    I'm not sure any party in office this last term could have won this election, given there was going to be significant inflation as a rebound from COVID.
  - lazyeye 2y ago
    You cannot be serious. The Democrats regularly ignored the first amendment.
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      How so?
- randomname11 2y ago
nineplay 2y ago
I hate to say it as a progressive woman, but the DNC has a non-minority problem. They need a good white/Hispanic Christian heterosexual male and they just don't seem to have one at this point. Gavin Newsom is the face of everything that is ( allegedly ) wrong with California. Mark Kelly is not a great speaker. They tried with Walz, but even I had a trouble imagining him going face-to-face with Putin. If there was a democratic Mark Rubio he would have mopped the floor with Trump. I wouldn't necessarily say that the country is not ready for a black female president, but I think a lot of people think that Democrats only care about minorities and I think Harris just enforced that belief.
- tim333 2y ago
  Josh Shapiro probably would have been a good candidate and quite likely would have been selected if there had been any competitive process to choose the best candidate rather than anointing Kamala. He may be jewish by birth but seems popular and competent. I think one of the problems with the Democrats and modern left is they have moved away from >I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character. And towards a DEI set up where Kamala is hired because she ticks the colored and woman boxes rather than because of competence.
  - nineplay 2y ago
    > And towards a DEI set up where Kamala is hired because she ticks the colored and woman boxes rather than because of competence. Biden said as much ~4 years ago and this election was probably doomed from that point on. I don't know how they are so tone-deaf.
    - Lord-Jobo 2y ago
      Because Biden won that election?
  - bbatchelder 2y ago
    > He may be jewish by birth but seems popular and competent. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but what in the hell man.
_vOv_ 2y ago
This. Kamala is a very weak candidate with no real platform of her own.
- joshjje 2y ago
  Yet Trump rarely articulates any policy, beyond incoherent rambling, except "I will fix it!". I guess it works...
  - indigo0086 2y ago
    he sat down on a podcast and talked for 3 hours about his policies
    - Lord-Jobo 2y ago
      "talked" and "policies" are both doing extremely heavy lifting here
  - oshout 2y ago
    On Trump's official campaign page there There are 21 or 45 'groups' of policies (each video contains a handful of policies or directions) https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47 https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47 All of these videos are from 2023, so, before Trump began working with Elon, RFK Jr, Tulsi, Vivek. I was introduced to these videos only recently on X- the videos about censorship, homelessness, and the deep state in particular are .. interesting. It's also interesting to see the refrain "Trump has no firm policy ideas" when these videos have been up since 2023
jeifneioka 2y ago
DNC has done as much for Trump as the RNC ever did.
error9348 2y ago
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
cryptonector 2y ago
Hillary Clinton won the primaries in 2008.
- rawgabbit 2y ago
  She also turned many working class voters into Republicans with her “déplorables” speech.
  - cryptonector 2y ago
    Ok, but she won the primaries and was denied the nomination. What's the use of complaining that in 2016 she only got it because "it was her turn"? As if being denied what she rightfully won eight years earlier was somehow fair.
    - rawgabbit 2y ago
      I agree. Instead of navel gazing about internal Democratic Party machinations. I would argue it is the policy platform and messaging is what wins. In swing states, the issue that dominated by far was the economy.
vvpan 2y ago
It's one unlikable candidate after another. How does one fire Democratic party leadership? How is it all democratic to leave the choice of the only "left" candidate be down to... who? Some boomers?
slibhb 2y ago
The idea that the DNC stole the 2016 nomination from Sanders is silly. Sanders had no path to beating Hilary.
crazygringo 2y ago
Kamala was, shockingly and as a surprise to all, an incredibly capable candidate in 2024. She didn't underperform yesterday relative to other Democrats. This year, it wasn't about the candidate. It seems clear there wasn't any Democratic candidate who could have won.
- rwyinuse 2y ago
  Nah, Harris wasn't an ideal choice, just like Hillary Clinton wasn't. Ideally for next elections democrats would need someone likable with plenty of charisma and moderate stance on social issues. Being male would be a plus too, unfortunately. I think Tim Walz would have done better than Harris.
  - dickersnoodle 2y ago
    I think so, too. He has a much more direct, down to earth way of talking to people.
- dbish 2y ago
  Charisma wins elections and she was not terribly charismatic https://paulgraham.com/charisma.html https://paulgraham.com/charisma.html
  - iamsaitam 2y ago
    Apparently being a clown and a liar wins elections ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - hackeraccount 2y ago
      Trump's a clown. Trump's a liar. Here's the thing. He sells. Always. He does that if he doesn't know about the issue. He does that if he doesn't care about the issue. Harris couldn't sell. Watch her talk about abortion. On some level that's one of the few things she manages to convey a sense of genuineness about. For everything else it's like she's saying "What do you want me to be for? I'm for that" it's fine if you're thinking that but when people figure out that's who you are it's more toxic then them thinking you're a liar or a clown.
supportengineer 2y ago
Gavin Newsom is up next
- FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
  I can see the idiotic thinking: "The public wants a straight white man, and they want something more conservative... I know, let's run Gavin Newsom on a pro-business platform!" It's like the very categories they use to interpret the world have blinded them. Jimmy McMillan ("The rent is too damn high!"), for example, was the opposite of several of those things, but, if he were still around, he'd mop the floor with Gavin Newsom in an election.
guluarte 2y ago
DNC: People aren't happy with the current administration, let's put the VP as our candidate!!
- Molitor5901 2y ago
  I think the DNC was caught between two kinds of politics: machine and identity. The party is very interested with controlling everything, but they couldn't take the nomination from the first black Vice President. Michelle would not run, and so it would presume that to keep dark horses and other members challenging The VP, something had to have been offered or promised. Also the optics of someone like Newsome, white, affluent, and male, challenging the first black woman etc. etc. It doesn't look good for democrats and could have been very messy. Kamala, for better or for worse, was their only choice.
  - a_victorp 2y ago
    I don't think that would have been the case if they had actually held a primary and someone else won
- HKH2 2y ago
  Well if they hadn't, they would've lost Biden-Harris money.
diob 2y ago
They won't learn because ultimately this isn't painful for them, just their constituents. They're fine.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago

The real problem was Biden not dropping out early enough so that they could have a fair selection process. But tbh I’m not sure how much it mattered. With the high inflation levels it was always an uphill battle for the incumbent.

theGnuMe 2y ago
Inflation caused by Trump (Covid) and greedy corps. Stocks at all time highs baby.
CWuestefeld 2y ago
Underlying that problem were the Administration thinking they could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were unaffected. This was a two-edged sword because it also demonstrated that maybe it doesn't matter so much who is president, at least as domestic affairs go, because the administrative state runs so much on autopilot.
- throw_that_away 2y ago
  That's the thing about the left, they think the "machine" could just run things. You actually have to have someone that fires people. Think about it, Even Kim Cheatle had to resign! Biden did not ask for ANYONE to do a good job. No one was in control of that admin, it was a complete mess. If there is an atmosphere of governance/leadership that no matter how shitty a job you do, but you get to keep your job, then no one will care about anything at the top.
  - tartoran 2y ago
    You may be right but short to remember the chaos in Trumps administration from 2016 to 2020. It really seemed like the country was about to burst. I hope it won't happen this time though...
- lolinder 2y ago
  > thinking they could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were unaffected Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and lied to. Voters don't like being treated as less-than just because they're less educated, and uneducated doesn't mean stupid. They can see through it. My county went >75% for Trump, and the reason is because Trump is the only presidential candidate in most of our lifetimes who treats working-class voters as his equal. He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up.
  - tfehring 2y ago
    I think it is stupid to vote based on how a politician talks rather than the expected impact of their proposed policies, though of course I realize that that’s how elections have been decided in practice for as long as representative governments have existed.
    - astroid 2y ago
      The thing is, when you "talk down" to people, chances are pretty good those people's best interested aren't being represented by the one doing the down-talking. However, if you "talk to" them, you are in a much better position to actually hear and respond to their concerns - with the added bonus of seeming actually human. The way you frame it seems to imply that people are voting for him because he talks 'like them' while ignoring the 'to' them. I believe the hot leftist term for this is 'code-switching' which just means talking to your audience with language they understand and relate to -- and it's usually portrayed as a virtue, not a defect. In reality, these people voted for Trump because as a result of him talking to them like equals rather than down to like subjugated servants left many feeling that he was in fact advocating for policies that support their best interests and would be impactful in their day to day lives. Obviously personality matters more than it should - but in Trumps case the entire media apparatus was single-mindedly determined to make sure they dictate what his personality is, rather than his words or actions. So if anything this win shows that policy matters more than personality at this point anyway. Now of course, if you see his policies as wrong and evil and dictatorial and the embodiment of fascism, none of that will matter and no lessons will be learned from this absolute rejection of the democrats platform.
- lenkite 2y ago
  [dead]
- asveikau 2y ago
  I believe his faculties got substantially worse in 2024. He was a lot more present in speeches in 2021 for example. Mental decline isn't black and white, and you tend to see people as your mental model of how they used to be, so you can look at brief moments of clarity and declare him "well", so many did that. But it doesn't work that way.
  - itsoktocry 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - asveikau 2y ago
      I've followed politics for my whole life and watched tons of Biden speeches going back decades. I was seeing his old "spark" quite a bit well into 2024. The debate, he fell off a cliff, and his follow-up interviews were even worse. 3 months before he competently delivered a barn-burning SOTU address. IIRC a few months before that, he delivered a good NATO speech. He'd slip up minor points but he also did that in 2002. Back then they used to call him a gaffe factory.
  - asdasdsddd 2y ago
    He was cooked by 2022, Biden was stumbling over tele-prompted speeches.
    - asveikau 2y ago
      The gap between his last state of the union (March 2024) and the debate (June 2024) seemed pretty big, and I'm not the only one to say that. But again, it isn't black and white. Maybe the speech format suited him better.
  - anon291 2y ago
    Biden barely campaigned in 2020.
  - astroid 2y ago
    "you tend to see people as your mental model of how they used to be" Pot? Meet Kettle. I worked in an advanced Alzheimer's ward for about 4 years when I was younger. There is a look that happens in the eyes which is a sure-sign they are effectively gone - it's like a light has been turned off. (even if they have moments of lucidity, there is a clear switch that is talked about in exactly these terms if you work in these places and are close to them every day.) Biden clearly had 'the look' back in 2021, and was making enough gaffes for people who maybe aren't as familiar with the signs of mental decline could clearly see it. Just because you didn't, doesn't mean everyone else was wrong and saw what they wanted to see. If you are going to argue 'well, that's just like your perspective man' you have to at least see how that same argument can be turned towards you. You are absolutely right that it is not black and white - I fully believe that back in 2021 he had enough moments of lucidity (which generally are somewhat reliable, which appear to be tied to the circadian rhythm hence 'sundowners') -- so if all you watched were his scheduled speeches I could see how you may have been left with that impression. There were plenty of other opportunities to watch his decline in real time however.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  Plus with every iota of decrease in the government’s credibility, the relative credibility of candidate’s promises and proposed policies also matter less too in deciding between them…
- 8note 2y ago
  Given Trump's current faculties, it might show that people are more willing to trust that he probably won't do much either. He'll be on a similar auto-pilot at this age
asveikau 2y ago
Inflation is a complicated topic that doesn't get adequately captured in the sound bites. I kept hearing clips of voters saying they want prices to go back down, but my understanding of the economics is that this would be terrible. Instead, IMO, what we need is for wages to increase while minimizing the inflationary effect of wage increases. That's not a catchy slogan, however. Parallel to this, I don't think the post COVID inflation is really due to politicians.
- caeril 2y ago
  > my understanding of the economics is that this would be terrible Deflation is only "terrible" because we have collectively decided to build an economy on debt instead of savings (Keynesian instead of Friedmanian). In a different economic order, prices declining would be a good thing for everyone. But we're stuck with it, so inflation it is.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    Doesn't deflation especially disadvantage the young - since you're usually not born with savings of your own.
    - RpmReviver 2y ago
      Depends how much deflation there is with wages compared to everything else, there's a scenario that they have an opportunity to start saving The majority of the expenses for the disadvantaged young are housing, gas, and food. With housing being 4x more expensive than 4 or 5 years it basically puts all the disadvantaged from even buying a house and then puts them at the mercy of the renters market
  - atq2119 2y ago
    There are a number of issues with this comment. One of them is that debt and saving are just sides of the same coin. More importantly, everybody can see that debt for investment allows more growth. Just think about how many more people can afford to own their own home thanks to taking on debt. This allows them to pay a mortgage instead of rent, which allows them to build up wealth. Equivalent effects exist in industry. Debt is an extremely useful tool. We made the right choice here as a society.
AlexandrB 2y ago
> The real problem was Biden not dropping out early enough so that they could have a fair selection process. This is why it's important for the media to hold politicians' feet to the fire - even if they agree with them. I think there was just a murmur[1] of Biden's problems before the catastrophic debate. Imagine if the media had been hammering the administration on this point 6 months prior. [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13102973/New-York-Times-doubles-scathing-opinion-pieces-criticizing-Biden-White-House-said-president-extremely-upset-liberal-leaning-paper-turned-him.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13102973/New-York-T...
- nataliste 2y ago
  Dean Philips attempted to primary Biden on the basis of age and low favorability. The media shut him out.
  - mtswish 2y ago
    The media didn't shut him out, no one would have voted for that guy.
    - nataliste 2y ago
      The media and the party had many opportunities to deal with Biden's age. They didn't. And yes, they did shut out Dean Philips, on the basis of exactly this kind of "he's an unknown, therefore unelectable." Well, they went with a known, and now they're paying for it.
      - dsubburam 2y ago
        Tip: It is Dean Phillips. Not Dean Philips. I made that mistake too recently.
- xienze 2y ago
  > I think there was just a murmur[1] of Biden's problems before the catastrophic debate. Before the debate, anyone talking about Biden’s obvious decline was dismissed as a right wing troll parroting Russian propaganda.
FireBeyond 2y ago
There was not enough focus on economy in a way that actually mattered, certainly - though it probably wouldn't have made a difference. Biden absolutely should have dropped out earlier. It made Harris look like a last minute sub (which she really was). It's telling (on a number of levels) that one of the most popular Google searches yesterday, on election day, was "Did Biden drop out?"
- dehrmann 2y ago
  > There was not enough focus on economy in a way that actually mattered Between price controls, tariffs, and excepting tips from taxes, I had no confidence either candidate could pass Econ 101. The proposals can play well politically, but it leaves people who have a basic understanding of economics at a loss of who'd be better.
JamesBarney 2y ago
That mattered quite a bit for a three reasons. 1. Kamala isn't a great candidate shown by her poor primary results in 2020. 2. She has all the baggage of running pretty far to the left in 2020. (Like saying she was for performing gender affirming surgery on trans illegal immigrants, agree or disagree with the stance this is a deeply unpopular position) 3. She was tied to the current administration which meant she couldn't distance herself from the inflation issue or attack Trump on age and fitness as much as another candidates not tied to the administration.
dehrmann 2y ago
One of the more insightful things I heard in the last few days was this generation of politicians got a lesson in how toxic inflation is politically. And inflation wasn't even that bad, but it felt bad.
philodelta 2y ago
I think a democrat who could actually distance themselves from Biden, someone who had more leeway to criticize his policies without the obvious "if current policy is wrong, what's stopping you from changing it" question, would have faired better. Maybe not won, but done better. Certainly there was no way Biden would have won re-election and switching was a good choice, but too little too late.

kristopolous 2y ago

They won't. These candidates are aligned with the Democrats. That's what the party is. It's not a party of the left or liberals or whatever you imagine it to be. They've been extremely clear on this. Go over the historicals. I have. Many times. This is correct.

adastra22 2y ago
The Republican Party seems to be able to put forward a candidate the electorate want. What can’t the democrats?
- mjamesaustin 2y ago
  The Democratic primary process is rife with superdelegates and other rules designed to promote candidates aligned with the party insiders. The Republican primary process doesn't have as many ways for party members to put their fingers on the scale.
  - kristopolous 2y ago
    Exactly. Also they've misappropriated words like "leftist" and "socialist" so much that in my interaction with Trump supporters, at Trump events, I hear plenty of actual left and actual socialist policies presented as new ideas or attributed to Trump. At a policy level, these people actually don't want neofascism, I've interacted with plenty. They really don't. The Democrats tried to appeal to the hard right voter who found Trump icky. For that they were called socialist so and I know this is hard, people I spoke with associated the word socialism with the policies of Harris
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      >For that they were called socialist so and I know this is hard, people I spoke with associated the word socialism with the policies of Harris What the hell are the democrats supposed to do to oppose a party that gets to redefine language however it wants with seemingly great effect? America spent 100 years demonizing socialism. Not the policies, the word. And now republicans can just deploy it against whoever, because it doesn't have a meaning to US voters. What possible strategy is there against that? My "democrat for life" (because republicans wanted to fucking murder the french catholics in the area, lookup the KKK in Maine) would vote against "socialism"! The US is a uni-party state at the federal level. You either play with the republicans, or you will be labeled "socialist", no matter the objective reality, and you will lose.

honeybadger1 2y ago

[flagged]

gosub100 2y ago
I think this is the biggest reason she lost. There's a limit to how much hyperbole (and that's being generous) and lies you can tell about someone before the words lose their meaning and people stop believing everything else you say. Not just from democrats (involved in politics) but the media as well. They made up their mind about Trump (probably via corporate smear campaigns) and were so openly biased against him it was despicable. People (I believe) knew that at best the truth was somewhere in the middle, or knew his whole campaign was being jinxed by very powerful people. And I think this was enough to persuade the swing voters.
- paul7986 2y ago
  indeed as independent i grew tired of the media and all poltical machines/their games in May 2020. Turned it all off and tuned it out as hard to believe and dechipher what the truth is from any side / media.
  - honeybadger1 2y ago
    most people are actually quite reasonable and the identity politics play now has no effect. i am a gay man that voted democrat my entire life until recently, however i don't feel my ideals have changed, i have been left behind by elite snobby people seeking power through division who have corrupted the democratic party. the republicans have their own problems too by fanatic religious and racists types, but it by no means is representative of the average conservative.
    - subsection1h 2y ago
      > republicans have their own problems too by fanatic religious [...] but it by no means is representative of the average conservative. 65% of the Republicans who participated in a survey by the Pew Research Center said that laws should be influenced by the bible, and 78% said that the United States should be a Christian nation: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/10/27/religion-in-public-life/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/10/27/religion-in-...

gosub100 2y ago

> let people choose a candidate next time. You mean like a democracy ? Surely you must be joking.

TacticalCoder 2y ago

[flagged]

toomuchtodo 2y ago
> I hope the dems wake up and see that far-leftism/wokism isn't the future americans want. What do Americans want?
- tayo42 2y ago
  free money for white people with "christian" values apparently.
- snakeyjake 2y ago
  >What do Americans want? I'm a progressive guy. Bleeding heart, even. But I come from a long line of white trash, and I am intimately familiar with what they do and do not care about. They DO NOT care about gay, trans, minority people. At all. Ever. Every single syllable spoken about them only serves to enrage them. They DO NOT care about Palestinians, except to equate them with ISIS. Americans want low taxes, low inflation, a 400-foot wall surrounded by minefields on the US-Mexican border, and democrats to shut the fuck up about racism and LGBTQ+. Those sentiments are only getting stronger.
  - TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
    Are poor white Americans really as terrible people as you say they are? I would usually find that hard to believe, though the results do strongly imply that you're right. What a depressing thought.
    - themaninthedark 2y ago
      You have someone who refers to poor white people as "white trash", I would doubt they are a fair arbitrator of explaining their world view.
    - OvermindDL1 2y ago

jredwards 2y ago

[flagged]

pixelatedindex 2y ago
> a bloated corpse should have beaten Donald Trump. That’s the attitude that got us a second Trump term. DNC did not take this threat seriously, and here we are.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  Yeah, it's bizarre to watch the DNC on the one hand claim that Donald Trump is a once-in-a-lifetime threat to democracy and freedom and on the other hand fail to offer anything to "undecided" voters that might get them to vote Democrat. My takeaway is that I don't think they actually believe Donald Trump is uniquely bad - it's just messaging.
  - fuzzfactor 2y ago
    The only thing worse would be twice-in-a-lifetime ;)
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  There was a talking head comment last night. "The Harris campaign told us today that they are 'nauseatingly confident'. I don't know that I've ever heard nausea as a positive thing." The DNC are too much in their own bubble.
- jredwards 2y ago
  They took it seriously enough to change candidates. But again: why is a "just okay" candidate from the Democratic Party not better than a "threat to the free world" candidate from the Republican Party? The double-standard is absurd.
  - pixelatedindex 2y ago
    I thought Hillary failing was a clear indictment that America is not ready for a woman to be president. I hate that it’s true, but too much of the American heartland is conservative and plenty of them vote against their own interest (see: abortion contention). To then go ahead with a woman of color, and then have celebrity endorsements that don’t do anything to increase voter turnout shows how out of touch with reality the DNC really is. What a shame, and it doesn’t help that Kamala never had mass appeal. Pete Buttegieg would have been a far better bet, personally speaking.

marcusverus 2y ago

By the time Primary season kicks off in early 2028, it will have been twenty years since the last time the Democratic Party membership selected a new candidate without direct interference from party bigwigs. Twenty. Years.

encoderer 2y ago
They held a primary in 2020. Kamala, Warren, Beto, Bernie and more all ran with Biden.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  That definitely feels like the forgotten primary. My best guess is that its because that primary was book ended by primaries that were heavily influenced and controlled by the DNC.
  - odo1242 2y ago
    I mean, primaries usually aren’t generally heavily remembered.
- eschulz 2y ago
  Many believe that the party gave Biden and unfair advantage using their superdelegates. The Republican Party does not have such super delegates, and in fact in 2016 Trump won solely due to his ability to organize and rally a well-working campaign even as party elites were seething at his ascendency and insulting him in public.
  - admksx45v65uqpw 2y ago
    [dead]
  - 1024core 2y ago
    DNC was worried that Bernie would be nominated.
  - 2y ago

racl101 2y ago

Too bad they usurped Bernie. Now Bernie too old to run by next election. Dude was legit Bona Fide.

doctorpangloss 2y ago
How do you tell the difference between someone who would suffer a Jeremy Corbyn style catastrophic defeat, and a Keir Starmer who is the PM of the party by the same name but is basically completely different in every other way?
- thorin 2y ago
  Correct, bernie and corbyn were both well meaning with genuine ideas and were lambasted by the press, opposition and even their own parties to never stand a chance of election. Tulsi had similar issues.
  - digging 2y ago
    Tulsi Gabbard??? She is completely different, she is an opportunistic cult follower without ideals or ideas of her own. Doesn't really matter much now though.
    - 0dayz 2y ago
      Because they believe in progressive populism.
- cm2187 2y ago
  Agree with the Corbyn analogy, but let's not overstate Starmer's electoral appeal. He got less votes than Corbyn. What got him elected is that tory voters didn't show up to vote because of tory policies.
modeless 2y ago
I don't think Bernie could have won.

peppers-ghost 2y ago

The DNC will learn nothing from this just as they learned nothing in 2016. They will move further rightward and will lose again.

pineaux 2y ago
This true. They will keep playing this stupid game. Thinking they are on the right side of history, which might be true, or it might not be true; but in the end, the right side of history is decided by the winners. And their current strategy is to alienate as many voters as possible by powering through on issues nobody cares about and acting as if there are no real issues left to fix.
tomjen3 2y ago
This is interesting as others have asserted that they lost because they were still too leftists. What data would settle this?
- cowboyscott 2y ago
  An election.
- JamesBarney 2y ago
  Look at senate and governor candidates that over performed and underperformed vs Kamala in their state. People have studied it for years and the basic finding is the classic one. Moving to the center wins you votes. You'll find that moderate/centrist dems over perform and leftist dems underperform. They've studied this. And the cause is is the following. Yes you get your base to turn out more. But extremism motivates their base even more than your own, and switched vote from an independent is twice as impactful as an extra vote. A simple example is you get one more of your base to turn out. You lose an independent, and you get 2 of their base to turn out. And end up down 3 votes.
  - martindbp 2y ago
    Hotelling's law should apply, no?

Scarblac 2y ago

[flagged]

FireBeyond 2y ago
He has literally said, and not paraphrasing, to his crowds... "You need to get out and vote, and if everything goes well, maybe you won't need to vote again."
- stonethrowaway 2y ago
  [flagged]
- c420 2y ago
  "You know, FDR, 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don't know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?" also said
  - paganel 2y ago
    For those curious like I was, he actually said that last May [1] I think though that age is strongly against him, had he been 10 or 15 years younger he could have probably pulled it off. [1] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/18/trump-at-nra-convention-floats-a-three-term-presidency-00158786 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/18/trump-at-nra-conven...
- kevmo 2y ago
  Another Trump quote taken totally out of context. He was encouraging people who don't normally vote to get out and vote this time. People who oppose Trump don't do themselves any favors by misrepresenting this stuff. The guy is a ghoul and says plenty of terrible things that don't need misrepresentation to make him look bad.
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    It seems like it has the necessary context and is without any sort of "misrepresentation". Your reply explains the "You need to get out and vote" part, but it doesn't explain the "and if everything goes well, maybe you won't need to vote again" part. What context do you believe makes the 2nd part alright?

kevmo 2y ago

The DNC's #1 goal is to stop socialism in the primaries. A distant #2 is winning general elections.

anonfordays 2y ago
>The DNC's #1 goal is to stop socialism in the primaries. "The DNC's #1 goal is to stop democracy in the primaries." FTFY.
JamesBarney 2y ago
Goal #1 is just an instrumental goal to goal number #2. Socialists underperform moderates in general elections. Hell even Kamala, a terrible candidate who just got trounced by Trump outperformed Bernie (who has literally everything going for him) in his home state by a slim margin. Where as a moderate like Dan Osborn without the backing of the party outperformed Kamala by almost 14%. Americans don't want to pay European style taxes even for European services. And our public sector is far less efficient than Europe's so we wouldn't even get European level of services for that taxation rate.
kgwgk 2y ago
Fun fact: Harris is the second-most liberal Democratic senator to serve in the Senate in the 21st century. “During this period, there were 109 different Democrats who served in the Senate and cast a sufficient number of roll call votes for a reliable analysis of their ideological position. Of these 109 Democrats, Harris has the second-most liberal voting record. This makes her slightly less liberal than Warren, but more liberal than all of the remaining 107 Democrats, and significantly more liberal than all but a handful.” https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4816859-kamala-harris-is-extremely-liberal-and-the-numbers-prove-it/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4816859-kamala-harris-i...
- SturgeonsLaw 2y ago
  Liberalism and Socialism are two very different things. Liberalism is squarely in the Capitalism camp. There are no workers owning the means of production under Liberalism. The DNC's bread and butter are Liberals. Not Socialists. Not anyone even approaching Socialist. Bernie, AOC, etc are SocDems at best. There are no Socialists in office in the United States.

jmyeet 2y ago

> I hope DNC learn from this They absolutely will not. History shows us this. In 2016, the Democratic establishment forced Hilary down the voters' throats because, hey, it was her turn, despite her being a terrible candidate with huge negatives. America, thanks to the Red Scare has no viable leftist momentum. But even in the USA, the Democrats almost chose an open socialist (ie Bernie Sanders) as the Democratic nominee in 2016 rather than Hilary Clinton. I remember saying at the time that the DNC are missing how upset ordinary people are at the status quo. The DNC establishment couldn't care less. What did the DNC learn from 2016? Absolutely nothing. They blamed Bernie voters (even though Bernie voters overwhelmingly came out and voted for Hilary in spite of their reservations). Trump only really lost in 2020 because of Covid. Yet Biden's campaign did have a sprnkling of progresive policies that people got behind, so much so that it looks like he got 10-15 million more votes than Kamala got. There's a lesson in that but it won't be learned. I saw someone describe this election as a Republican primary between a moderate Republican (Kamala) and a far right Republican (Trump). It's accurate. Kamala's immigration policy was the Trump 2020 policy. She is to the right of Ronald Reagan on immigration. And that's before we even get to the Middle East policy, which is not only bad policy but it's bad politics. Why? Because it gains her zero votes but loses a bunch. Anyone who hard line suports Israel is voting for Trump (and did). This was foreseeable. People were screaming about it for a year. Ignored. So what lesson will the Democrats take from 2024? That they need to run even further right.

SoftTalker 2y ago

I had the same thought. When Democrats run a likable, popular candidate they win. Bill Clinton, Obama being the two most recent examples. Trump won largely because his brash, crude, swaggering demeanor appeals to a lot of people and Harris was a candidate that was defaulted in because Biden was just out of gas; nobody really wanted her. Not saying that the Democrats should look for someone like Trump but first and foremost they need someone that a lot of people find likable.

glitchc 2y ago
It was easy to do:Just run a proper election at the convention instead of parachuting in the candidate.
8note 2y ago
I think Trump won more on him being not in the current administration, and that people want the current admin out. Overall the past couple elections have been about kicking people out more than putting people in, and Americans are unhappy with the state of their society. Trump has at least shown an ability to just ignore the law to get whatever he wants done, and no candidate on the current Democratic party is going to have that
- sn 2y ago
  I'm not sure any party in office this last term could have won this election, given there was going to be significant inflation as a rebound from COVID.
- lazyeye 2y ago
  You cannot be serious. The Democrats regularly ignored the first amendment.
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    How so?
randomname11 2y ago

nineplay 2y ago

I hate to say it as a progressive woman, but the DNC has a non-minority problem. They need a good white/Hispanic Christian heterosexual male and they just don't seem to have one at this point. Gavin Newsom is the face of everything that is ( allegedly ) wrong with California. Mark Kelly is not a great speaker. They tried with Walz, but even I had a trouble imagining him going face-to-face with Putin. If there was a democratic Mark Rubio he would have mopped the floor with Trump. I wouldn't necessarily say that the country is not ready for a black female president, but I think a lot of people think that Democrats only care about minorities and I think Harris just enforced that belief.

tim333 2y ago
Josh Shapiro probably would have been a good candidate and quite likely would have been selected if there had been any competitive process to choose the best candidate rather than anointing Kamala. He may be jewish by birth but seems popular and competent. I think one of the problems with the Democrats and modern left is they have moved away from >I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character. And towards a DEI set up where Kamala is hired because she ticks the colored and woman boxes rather than because of competence.
- nineplay 2y ago
  > And towards a DEI set up where Kamala is hired because she ticks the colored and woman boxes rather than because of competence. Biden said as much ~4 years ago and this election was probably doomed from that point on. I don't know how they are so tone-deaf.
  - Lord-Jobo 2y ago
    Because Biden won that election?
- bbatchelder 2y ago
  > He may be jewish by birth but seems popular and competent. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but what in the hell man.

_vOv_ 2y ago

This. Kamala is a very weak candidate with no real platform of her own.

joshjje 2y ago
Yet Trump rarely articulates any policy, beyond incoherent rambling, except "I will fix it!". I guess it works...
- indigo0086 2y ago
  he sat down on a podcast and talked for 3 hours about his policies
  - Lord-Jobo 2y ago
    "talked" and "policies" are both doing extremely heavy lifting here
- oshout 2y ago
  On Trump's official campaign page there There are 21 or 45 'groups' of policies (each video contains a handful of policies or directions) https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47 https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47 All of these videos are from 2023, so, before Trump began working with Elon, RFK Jr, Tulsi, Vivek. I was introduced to these videos only recently on X- the videos about censorship, homelessness, and the deep state in particular are .. interesting. It's also interesting to see the refrain "Trump has no firm policy ideas" when these videos have been up since 2023

jeifneioka 2y ago

DNC has done as much for Trump as the RNC ever did.

error9348 2y ago

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

cryptonector 2y ago

Hillary Clinton won the primaries in 2008.

rawgabbit 2y ago
She also turned many working class voters into Republicans with her “déplorables” speech.
- cryptonector 2y ago
  Ok, but she won the primaries and was denied the nomination. What's the use of complaining that in 2016 she only got it because "it was her turn"? As if being denied what she rightfully won eight years earlier was somehow fair.
  - rawgabbit 2y ago
    I agree. Instead of navel gazing about internal Democratic Party machinations. I would argue it is the policy platform and messaging is what wins. In swing states, the issue that dominated by far was the economy.

vvpan 2y ago

It's one unlikable candidate after another. How does one fire Democratic party leadership? How is it all democratic to leave the choice of the only "left" candidate be down to... who? Some boomers?

slibhb 2y ago

The idea that the DNC stole the 2016 nomination from Sanders is silly. Sanders had no path to beating Hilary.

crazygringo 2y ago

Kamala was, shockingly and as a surprise to all, an incredibly capable candidate in 2024. She didn't underperform yesterday relative to other Democrats. This year, it wasn't about the candidate. It seems clear there wasn't any Democratic candidate who could have won.

rwyinuse 2y ago
Nah, Harris wasn't an ideal choice, just like Hillary Clinton wasn't. Ideally for next elections democrats would need someone likable with plenty of charisma and moderate stance on social issues. Being male would be a plus too, unfortunately. I think Tim Walz would have done better than Harris.
- dickersnoodle 2y ago
  I think so, too. He has a much more direct, down to earth way of talking to people.
dbish 2y ago
Charisma wins elections and she was not terribly charismatic https://paulgraham.com/charisma.html https://paulgraham.com/charisma.html
- iamsaitam 2y ago
  Apparently being a clown and a liar wins elections ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - hackeraccount 2y ago
    Trump's a clown. Trump's a liar. Here's the thing. He sells. Always. He does that if he doesn't know about the issue. He does that if he doesn't care about the issue. Harris couldn't sell. Watch her talk about abortion. On some level that's one of the few things she manages to convey a sense of genuineness about. For everything else it's like she's saying "What do you want me to be for? I'm for that" it's fine if you're thinking that but when people figure out that's who you are it's more toxic then them thinking you're a liar or a clown.

supportengineer 2y ago

Gavin Newsom is up next

FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
I can see the idiotic thinking: "The public wants a straight white man, and they want something more conservative... I know, let's run Gavin Newsom on a pro-business platform!" It's like the very categories they use to interpret the world have blinded them. Jimmy McMillan ("The rent is too damn high!"), for example, was the opposite of several of those things, but, if he were still around, he'd mop the floor with Gavin Newsom in an election.

guluarte 2y ago

DNC: People aren't happy with the current administration, let's put the VP as our candidate!!

Molitor5901 2y ago
I think the DNC was caught between two kinds of politics: machine and identity. The party is very interested with controlling everything, but they couldn't take the nomination from the first black Vice President. Michelle would not run, and so it would presume that to keep dark horses and other members challenging The VP, something had to have been offered or promised. Also the optics of someone like Newsome, white, affluent, and male, challenging the first black woman etc. etc. It doesn't look good for democrats and could have been very messy. Kamala, for better or for worse, was their only choice.
- a_victorp 2y ago
  I don't think that would have been the case if they had actually held a primary and someone else won
HKH2 2y ago
Well if they hadn't, they would've lost Biden-Harris money.

diob 2y ago

They won't learn because ultimately this isn't painful for them, just their constituents. They're fine.