Max Planck said, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
My nail lady said this to me: “There are times I want to throttle Trump, but I know this. My paycheck went farther, and we weren’t paying for other countries’ wars when he was president.” How does one counter this? I suspect she represents millions of Americans.
But I always return to this. If the members of this administration had upheld their oaths of office to defend and protect the Constitution, they would have charged Trump and his cohort with sedition. Instead, Biden declared that he wanted to run against Trump again. The Democrats reaped what they sowed. The only losers are the American people.
Inflation has crushed most incumbents historically and recently. The fact that Harris repeatedly put together a word salad response and no comprehensive answer on the biggest issue - the economy - is mind-boggling to me. Every day people (something none of us fit in reading this) never really got swept up in the “he’s a fascist” rhetoric no matter how true it potentially is. It doesn’t hit their day to day and it’s not as tangible of a fear as an illegal immigrant murdering your family (no matter how unfounded that fear might be). Polls routinely said economics (and the then immigration) were top issues, and the Harris campaign had no cognizant message or talking point on either. Sure, Harris had some built in disadvantage but they were running against a severely flawed candidate plenty of people did not want to vote for. But when you can’t or don’t tell people things are going to get better and here’s how you’re severely weakening your ability to pitch a hopeful future to the American people.
I'm not arrogant enough to think I know the answers. Biden was unpopular. How much of that was his fault and how much was circumstances beyond his control? Harris clearly thinks he was mostly doing the right things. If the 'right things' are unpopular what is a politician supposed to do? Do things that they think are wrong? Lie to the people and say that they will do 'wrong things'?
The working class people I know do not like it when someone sounds rehearsed. They want either a simple answer, or something that is kind of off-the-cuff. Trump is the second one. He feels...real.
Yes, he's said he's going to do awful stuff. But that's an appeal for some people! Because then he follows thru.
Harris, by teaming up with Cheney, managed to both prove that all complaints about the Uniparty are absolutely true while also wrapping up the entirety of the despised establishment in one neat package to flip off.
Maybe Biden should have done something about the transparent and completely obvious corporate price gouging.
Maybe he should have thought about maybe not delivering bombs to Israel to be used for ethnic cleansing, month after month after month.
Maybe they could have been half as concerned with North Carolina as they were with Ukraine.
Maybe bringing back the Red Scare wasn't such a good idea.
Or, maybe, just maybe, campaigning with Dick and Liz Fucking Cheney instead of Bernie and telling the base to go fuck itself might have been a losing strategy.
Agreed. I watched the Fox interview, and was stunned that Harris would neither admit specific mistakes Biden arguably made, nor defend those decisions. Worse, she refused to admit there was anything she would have done differently, but then insisted that her administration would not be a carbon copy of Biden's! "Great, Kamala, give us some examples of things you will change!" But no.
My takeaway: she is a follower, not a leader. I'm not sure whom she's following -- Biden personally, or the collective sentiments of polls and focus groups -- but she's saying what she thinks she's supposed to say, not what she actually thinks. "Come on, lady, take a position and own it!"
I'm no Trump fan, but I was not impressed with her either.
I hope that's including the same corporations and corporate lobbyists that egged and pushed the Democrats (and most especially the DLC and other centrists in the party) on and rewarded them (and were also rewarded) for their efforts on those businesses' behalf.
Eliminating outside funding for candidates or at least the $ amount needs to be capped (Bernie did very good with $20.00 donations).
There is no way a nonprofessional politician can win or even run for a national election unless you are a Donald Trump. The DNC and RNC are poisonous to fair elections, those two groups eat their own if one of their minions gets out of line. The public isn’t voting for any single candidate’s vision, the public is putting in office a automaton for the organization. Put a cap on political spending, this will at least level a tilted playing field.
Nothing will ever happen since Congress doesn’t want to be regulated and they have to vote for this restriction.
Ken, you, rightly, talk about how useless pollsters are. I can't argue with that. However, how do you know that Biden is unpopular? Why do you believe those polls?
Isn't anyone curious as to why Trump was whining about massive voter fraud last night and then suddenly, magically, all the swing states fell into line with no big delays, and he won them all? Anybody? It took us how many days last time to get through all the counts, but this time it all just lined up? I smell a rat. Or maybe a Muskrat, a Putin-adjacent Muskrat. We shall see.
Trump was whining about voter fraud because thats what he does. He’s been setting the table for months in case he lost (which they were concerned could happen).
As far as the delays go: between 2020 and 2024 most states changed their rules to allow them to count or prepare to count mail in/absentee ballots sooner/quicker this time around. The few states that didn’t were because the legislatures failed to pass those laws. So we had a better process. Then, it was pretty easy to call for the major callers (AP, etc) because of how much Trump gained in each incremental area and how much Harris underperformed. It wasn’t massive but Trump was up 1-2 points in most rural, which stacked up. Add to that voter turnout being down and some notable swings (Latinos, Arab Americans) and very quickly last night the math became pretty way to see where it was going unless something drastically shifted between 10-12. It didn’t.
Look, I’m not happy about it because I think Trump is an awful human being and an awful President, but this was about the Dems running a bad campaign that didn’t take on the key issue everyone complained about, the economy. And specially the economy for middle, lower middle, and lower class individuals in this country, not some Bond villain like Musk.
Surprise! The successor to “nothing will fundamentally change” has failed.
Let’s have Hillary have another crack at it 2028.
Probably meetings to discuss that already this week.
In this day and age of utter insanity, if this was in WaPo or the NYT, I would have assumed you were probably serious.
Dems need to get offline and start riding the bus.
is the dem establishment campaign manager collective capable of learning from this
Max Planck said, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
My nail lady said this to me: “There are times I want to throttle Trump, but I know this. My paycheck went farther, and we weren’t paying for other countries’ wars when he was president.” How does one counter this? I suspect she represents millions of Americans.
But I always return to this. If the members of this administration had upheld their oaths of office to defend and protect the Constitution, they would have charged Trump and his cohort with sedition. Instead, Biden declared that he wanted to run against Trump again. The Democrats reaped what they sowed. The only losers are the American people.
Literally using a groundhog looking for a shadow is equally effective as pollsters.
Inflation has crushed most incumbents historically and recently. The fact that Harris repeatedly put together a word salad response and no comprehensive answer on the biggest issue - the economy - is mind-boggling to me. Every day people (something none of us fit in reading this) never really got swept up in the “he’s a fascist” rhetoric no matter how true it potentially is. It doesn’t hit their day to day and it’s not as tangible of a fear as an illegal immigrant murdering your family (no matter how unfounded that fear might be). Polls routinely said economics (and the then immigration) were top issues, and the Harris campaign had no cognizant message or talking point on either. Sure, Harris had some built in disadvantage but they were running against a severely flawed candidate plenty of people did not want to vote for. But when you can’t or don’t tell people things are going to get better and here’s how you’re severely weakening your ability to pitch a hopeful future to the American people.
I'm not arrogant enough to think I know the answers. Biden was unpopular. How much of that was his fault and how much was circumstances beyond his control? Harris clearly thinks he was mostly doing the right things. If the 'right things' are unpopular what is a politician supposed to do? Do things that they think are wrong? Lie to the people and say that they will do 'wrong things'?
Genuinely the million dollar question.
It's difficult to argue with your statements about Harris's lack of appeal to the working class. What do you think Trump did to appeal to them?
The working class people I know do not like it when someone sounds rehearsed. They want either a simple answer, or something that is kind of off-the-cuff. Trump is the second one. He feels...real.
Yes, he's said he's going to do awful stuff. But that's an appeal for some people! Because then he follows thru.
Harris, by teaming up with Cheney, managed to both prove that all complaints about the Uniparty are absolutely true while also wrapping up the entirety of the despised establishment in one neat package to flip off.
I think they were low information voters who think “Biden=prices high, trump=prices low” + fans of Joe Rogan and hate immigrants.
Maybe Biden should have done something about the transparent and completely obvious corporate price gouging.
Maybe he should have thought about maybe not delivering bombs to Israel to be used for ethnic cleansing, month after month after month.
Maybe they could have been half as concerned with North Carolina as they were with Ukraine.
Maybe bringing back the Red Scare wasn't such a good idea.
Or, maybe, just maybe, campaigning with Dick and Liz Fucking Cheney instead of Bernie and telling the base to go fuck itself might have been a losing strategy.
Unlike the high information voters who voted for someone with no platform or experience because celebrities told them to.
Agreed. I watched the Fox interview, and was stunned that Harris would neither admit specific mistakes Biden arguably made, nor defend those decisions. Worse, she refused to admit there was anything she would have done differently, but then insisted that her administration would not be a carbon copy of Biden's! "Great, Kamala, give us some examples of things you will change!" But no.
My takeaway: she is a follower, not a leader. I'm not sure whom she's following -- Biden personally, or the collective sentiments of polls and focus groups -- but she's saying what she thinks she's supposed to say, not what she actually thinks. "Come on, lady, take a position and own it!"
I'm no Trump fan, but I was not impressed with her either.
You’re right to drag pollsters and pundits, though it’s impossible to observe the election results without also acknowledging the litany of failures by the corporate Democratic Party https://open.substack.com/pub/shahidbuttar/p/democrats-did-this-to-themselves?r=97w99&utm_medium=ios
The "corporate Democratic Party". How apropos.
I hope that's including the same corporations and corporate lobbyists that egged and pushed the Democrats (and most especially the DLC and other centrists in the party) on and rewarded them (and were also rewarded) for their efforts on those businesses' behalf.
Like the EFF, right?
Eliminating outside funding for candidates or at least the $ amount needs to be capped (Bernie did very good with $20.00 donations).
There is no way a nonprofessional politician can win or even run for a national election unless you are a Donald Trump. The DNC and RNC are poisonous to fair elections, those two groups eat their own if one of their minions gets out of line. The public isn’t voting for any single candidate’s vision, the public is putting in office a automaton for the organization. Put a cap on political spending, this will at least level a tilted playing field.
Nothing will ever happen since Congress doesn’t want to be regulated and they have to vote for this restriction.
thank you for the giggle. needed today
Ken, you, rightly, talk about how useless pollsters are. I can't argue with that. However, how do you know that Biden is unpopular? Why do you believe those polls?
Isn't anyone curious as to why Trump was whining about massive voter fraud last night and then suddenly, magically, all the swing states fell into line with no big delays, and he won them all? Anybody? It took us how many days last time to get through all the counts, but this time it all just lined up? I smell a rat. Or maybe a Muskrat, a Putin-adjacent Muskrat. We shall see.
Trump was whining about voter fraud because thats what he does. He’s been setting the table for months in case he lost (which they were concerned could happen).
As far as the delays go: between 2020 and 2024 most states changed their rules to allow them to count or prepare to count mail in/absentee ballots sooner/quicker this time around. The few states that didn’t were because the legislatures failed to pass those laws. So we had a better process. Then, it was pretty easy to call for the major callers (AP, etc) because of how much Trump gained in each incremental area and how much Harris underperformed. It wasn’t massive but Trump was up 1-2 points in most rural, which stacked up. Add to that voter turnout being down and some notable swings (Latinos, Arab Americans) and very quickly last night the math became pretty way to see where it was going unless something drastically shifted between 10-12. It didn’t.
Look, I’m not happy about it because I think Trump is an awful human being and an awful President, but this was about the Dems running a bad campaign that didn’t take on the key issue everyone complained about, the economy. And specially the economy for middle, lower middle, and lower class individuals in this country, not some Bond villain like Musk.
I want someone to investigate the Ann Selzer poll. Did she sell her reputation?