The level of shared media about KH from so many people has been overwhelming. People changing profile pictures to KH as Rosie the riveter, cat pictures, KH as a lotus, KH as the statue of liberty...SO MANY MOVIE STARS texting me to send money to the campaign. How many times can you text STOP before it ends? Voting should be a thoughtful experience, not a tsunami of trivia.
I find the volume and content of those texts to be so galling and utterly disrespectful. For what it’s worth, I think texting ‘stop’ has the opposite of the intended effect, as it provides the senders with a data point that your phone number is valid.
O, thanks for that tip. I will just report as junk. I used to donate to individuals but it seems the donation lists got sold to ACT Blue and other PACS so that seems to be the origin.
I once donated to a woman (R) running for some very low level position--soil board or something-- so I get a few state level WIN RED messages but only state level. The ACT BLUE people seem to be far more busy.
I subscribe in print to both left, center, and right-leaning publications. The mailers and text messages I get… Going to vote for my local DSA-adjacent councilwoman who talks about Turtle Island just as soon as I finish registering for online classes at Hillsdale College.
The way it used to work, back when it was humans manning the phones, was that you'd be issued a printed sheet of phone numbers, and throughout the day you'd call them one by one and then tag each number with a corresponding classification. Rude hang-ups and threats would remain on the list for the next round of calls; ditto numbers with answering machines and busy signals. Only calls that weren't answered at all and did not have an outgoing away message would be struck from the list (with one exception--see below). I can only assume that this is still the protocol despite the err, progress of telemarketing, only now it's done much faster. I never reply "STOP" because, as Nate Hahn suggests, this merely has the effect of confirming that there is in fact a human being on the other end of the line.
If you do for some reason receive, in 2024, a spam call from a human being, here's a pro-tip that usually doesn't fail: explain to the caller in the most incredulous tone you can muster that they've just dialed a children's hospital or a police station (be creative!). Back when I worked at a call center, that was an immediate DNC, even if we suspected it was a lie. I used to wonder why a greeting of "hello" wasn't a dead giveaway, but hey.
"Voting should be a thoughtful experience, not a tsunami of trivia." This is a feature and not a bug. They don't want you to "vote thoughtfully" because if you did you would see that you really have one choice in two slightly different flavors with cosmetic differences, and that understanding might lead to actual change, which would lead to 99 percent of politicians, including Harris and Trump, being out of a job.
This is generally a bad take but with Trump specifically it's just absurdly mistaken. How in the world could a belief that both sides are the same survive the Trump presidency? He completely overthrew the Republican party and reshaped it in his own image! And that image is... more the same as the Democrats? Somehow? That's what you're telling me?
So Trump didn't radically impact the makeup of the Republican party? And, in your own argument on your other poorly thought out response, also completely shift the democratic party to be completely anti-trump with no no nuance? Because if you're right about that, OR I'm right about Trump not being George Bush III, OR BOTH (which is correct) then I simply can't see how an argument that both sides are the same holds up. Both sides are radically different, not only from one another, but from themselves eight years ago.
No, Trump did not radically alter the makeup of the Republican Party. The fact that the working class and middle class felt left behind and ignored altered the Republican Party. Trump was the only one smart enough to pick up on the populist sentiment, and the Republican Party has been dragged kicking and screaming in that direction, but it has been moving that way (Sean O' Brien, the head of the *Teamsters* spoke at the RNC conference and he didn't mince words). Rather than pivot themselves, the Democrats have created this ridiculous campaign that really only appeals greatly to those stuck in an id-pol bubble. They could offer the working class and middle class something to vote for, but instead they've embarked on campaign of hysteria and shame while at the same time taking a totalitarian turn because they've decided that "democracy" is too precious to leave up to the voters. The situation is no more or less complicated than that.
So the republican party has been dramatically altered by circumstances (being left behind by both traditional parties). Fine, I don't really care how you think it happened. Your argument that both parties are the same still requires that, having been left behind by both political parties, the working class made the republicans more like the democrats who they felt disappointed in. Please make more effort to make sense if you're going to continue this discussion.
By the way, *your party* has spent the last four years screaming about "democracy," only to rig its own primary so that Biden, clearly already in decline and unpopular, would not face any significant challenge, and then, at the last minute, yank him out and within forty-eight hours replace him with someone no one voted for and who flamed out spectacularly in 2020 herself. You have the antithesis of democracy staring you in the face but all you can focus on is "OraNGe MaN BAD!!!" It would be utterly hilarious if you weren't dragging the rest of us down with you in your hysteria.
The Bull Moose party has done no such thing, dude. But I think you'll find it's actually *your party* which has done whatever you're talking about, since both parties are the same so you're the only Democrat in this conversation.
Bull Moose Party. So you're over a century old, huh? No, you have a party. Anyone that runs around with their hair on fire because "Donald Trump" has a party; now whether you're a Democrat or a Republican who can't stand the thought that the other Republicans let those dirty little workers have the floor for once, so now you might as well be a Democrat because that's who you're looking to, to save you . . . it doesn't matter.
And the one difference between the parties is that one actually still lets their voters decide who is the candidate whereas the other does this little game where they pretend the voters have a choice but meanwhile they pick the person they want: Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris. The Democrats screaming about "democracy" is the biggest joke.
Everyone's a dude. My chair is a dude when I stub my toe and say "dude, what the fuck?" Also you can't say 'no, you have a party, everyone who is mad about this has a party' a sentence after you, who are obviously melting down, claim that you don't have a party. I've claimed a specific party affiliation, anyhow. You're yelling at yourself. I don't really want this to devolve into the usual internet nonsense of owning someone with facts and logic but you're making it really hard not to, here.
So, to reiterate your argument: you and I are both democrats, because we're both republicans, because those are the same thing and if you care you're a democrat/republican. OK. That's dumb as fuck, dude.
Kind of important nitpick: It's not a violation of democracy for parties to select their nominee in some way other than primary voting. Democracy requires that the final election be done with votes, but having an election to choose your candidates isn't the only way to do things. We have shifted from smoke-filled-room selection of candidates to primary voters selecting candidates, and that's probably better in some ways and worse in others. But just having a party convention choose the candidate would be entirely acceptable, and it's how things used to be done and how they're still done for third parties.
No, that's an important point and the reason our electoral system is mostly illusion anyway, especially when you have two parties with such a stranglehold on the system. The hypocrisy comes in being a party that cries constantly about giving the people choice and then, well, doesn't.
I happened to watch Jan. 6 on television live. I watched news clips of his speech before they marched to the Capitol. I listened to the shaken Mitch McConnel and Kevin McCarthy.
The list of people in Trump's administration...true believers like Bill Barr and Mike Pence say he lost. Not to mention a swarm of his own appointees.
The Big Lie continued till it swallowed up the GOP, which is now pure MAGA.
I'm perfectly willing to call out the left on elitism, arrogance and stupidity...but there's a huge difference between the Democrats and MAGA. I'm not even willing to call the Republicans anymore.
I think this is one of those questions that depends on what issues you think are important. The big culture-war issues on which Rs and Ds differ are abortion and trans issues, with that ranging from "Can a transwoman use the womens' room?" to "Should we do irreversible-but-profitable surgery on mentally ill teens over their parents' objections?" On economics, Rs still tend to be more skeptical of regulation, but that seems to be shifting as the Rs realign under Trump to be a more populist party.
I'm so old, I remember when the Rs were the party of free trade and the Ds were the party of freedom of speech.
She's running against Donald f--king Trump, whose main legal issue is that he paid off his porn star mistress from the wrong slush fund. We are definitely in one of the dumbest possible universes.
There's even cringier shit on Twitter (never underestimate the cringe potential of Too Online Good Shitlib Male Feminists) but to Freddie's point, this is the kind of shit you get when the Acela Corridor Journo Establishment is acting like the key to a Harris victory is acting Too Online in real life, which is simply isn't.
Bombarding normies with this type of shit is the sort of thing I would be trying my damnedest to avoid if I wanted someone to win an election, but given both the partisanship and stupidity of the left leaning media establishment, I suppose it's inevitable.
It's because adult children are now running the economy.
Think about it. All the memes and emojis and tiktoks and endless posing over and over. It's in everything now, even grown ass adults who are way too old to have ever lived in it are acting like giving the heart-hands sign on a news broadcast is a perfectly normal and professional thing to do. Excuse me, a 'profesh' thing to do. It's everywhere and it's frickin' bizarre.
I used to think everyone is acting performative about absolutely effing everything was a means to an end - in order to get a point across about something...anything. But now I think being performative about everything is the point itself. Because that's how people communicate now; through pink hearts rising on your video screen, or executing and entire dance routine to sell a mop. Everything is a meme now because we can't be bothered with normal communication anymore. Because that's what the kids do, and they are the consumers that matter.
There used to be an old saying that went something like this: people act different in front of a camera. Which is true. But nowadays it doesn't make much sense anymore because everyone is assumed to 'be on camera' all the time, and act accordingly. Younger people are more and more performing at life because they all grew up in a world where there's an online audience at all times. And the oldies, instead of ignoring or downplaying it, are trying to mimic that to get on their good side - like that NYMag article Freddie linked.
YES. Decades of marketing have determined that teenagers are the Best demographic to market to (if they have money). So our culture venerates adolescence. On the other hand, there's no adulthood rituals. No religious, or cultural, or any other way to say "I am an adult," and be accepted as such. Even the commercial rituals (getting married, buying a house getting your lifetime job) have been largely eliminated. So our country lurches on in permanent adolescence, unable to develop into adulthood because no one showed us how.
But I want to point something out, which goes along with Freddie's point... I am a swing voter, a College Educated Suburban White Woman, a Never Trump Republican who voted for Clinton in '16 and Biden in '20.
And while I don't live in a swing state at the moment, I am *from* the Swing State of Swing States, and I lived my young adult years / have roots in the Other Swing State of Swing States. And in both I lived in the Swingiest of Districts (Elissa Slotkin's / Conor Lamb's stomping grounds.)
And so my Facebook feed is mostly white, middle aged Xennials, disproportionately but not exclusively married females, of varying levels of educational achievement and religious commitment, from the very swingiest parts of Michigan, Pennsylvania, (and also Connecticut, but that only matters to Jahana Hayes.)
I have not yet seen a single Kamala meme.
Not a one.
Lots of pics of baseball tournaments, beach vacations, swim meets. The Michiganders are all boats n' lake sunsets this time of year, of course.
Most political memes that cross my feed are of the snark-upon-both-houses genre, "Presidents are Temporary, Wu-Tang is Forever" and that sort of thing.
It's not a scientific poll, but considering my posse is right smack in the center of the Venn Diagram of "Demographics Harris Needs to Win" the complete absence of Kamalamania on my feed is interesting.
I share your concerns but you overlook the fact that 8 years later a majority of voters are tired of Trump and his rhetoric that they once found amusing. That's Harris's only advantage but its a big one.
Kamala Harris had the worst favorability rating of any VP since they started asking the question. You all are so easy to fool. It's like history is only ten minutes long.
Yes, I was just about to say that if you look at the polling NOW Trump has better favorability numbers.
The only reason Trump was polling ahead of Biden was that Biden was also despised. In fact, even more so. The only reason Trump is polling ahead of Harris now is that her approval ratings are even lower than his.
Biden wasn't despised by most swing voters; they were scared of his age more than anything else. They despise what the media and others around Biden did to hide or overlook his condition. They didn't really despise Biden himself.
Assuming it means anything, given the margin of error in polls.
Even if it's real, the Democrats need a much bigger lead than that to overcome Republican structural advantages in the Electoral College. Also consider that Trump substantially overran his polls last time.
For some mysterious reason all that is old history—the stans (new name for obsessive fan, from stalker+fan. I just learnt about stans today) are raring to go.
Nervous or not, he's right. People are. They might still elect him, but his victory would not be greeted with joy.
Even his strongest supporters lack the enthusiasm they once had. Their hatred of the center-left remains as strong as ever, but they no longer seem to think that Trump will actually save them. Electorally speaking that probably doesn't matter - a resigned vote is as good as an enthusiastic one - but it's striking.
I am guessing that you don't have friends who are Trump voters. Enthusiasm among his base is high according to the polling, but even absent the polling I would be cognizant of the fervor of his supporters based simply on friends and acquaintances. And that was even before the assassination attempt, which kicked things into overdrive.
Trump's base are fired up, and some are nearly rapturous after the attempt on his life.
But I suspect that swing voters are going to wake up in the fall and be tired of Trump's incessant demand for their attention. Some people like dull, and at least to me, Harris epitomizes dull.
A great politician once said: "Bland works". Most of the time, he was right. It certainly worked in 2020, and it might work again in 2024.
Trump is the opposite of bland, and that worked well for him in 2016 and almost worked in 2020. It may very well work in 2024, as well.
I don't think Harris can win on a "boring competence" ticket. Biden kinda could, since he'd been in Washington forever and had lots of reassuring gray hair, but Kamala doesn't have decades of experience in Washington or a long track record in politics.
I agree with this. Trump's too erratic, that's imo one of the main points against him because you can't really pin down what he, or the people he'll appoint will do, once he's in office. For example, take abortion. I strongly doubt Trump cares about Roe v Wade, but the people he appointed to the Supreme Court absolutely do and acted accordingly.
The shambles that the deep problems that spawned Trump are even worse now, and the Democrats are a complete shambles. Trump-haters should consider at least for a second or two what happens if those problems continued to be ignored or mismanaged by a Democratic Party that is incompetent and unmanageable, as it has shown itself to be.
Agreed. The campaign should be something like: Keep the Presidency Boring and Functional. Catchier and nicer than that, but, yes, I believe this is what most people want.
The problem is that relies on the economy of the last four years, the border control of the last four years, the crime rates of the last four years, etc. "Finish the job" as a campaign slogan didn't exactly do it for Biden over the last couple of months.
Look, the primary question about 2024 is why the incumbent has been losing since last year. Normally incumbency is a huge advantage in political races.
My guess? The economy, illegal immigration and crime.
I'm guessing that a majority of Americans don't want a boring and functional version of what we've got - not least because it's not functional. People want to break things.
Humpy Dumpty sat on wall...all the kings horses and all the kings couldn't put Humpy together again.
People who lead rebellions aren't usually good at running civil society. Revolutions usually fail spectacularly. The people who are comfortable using violence don't believe in democracy.
I believe in incremental change and change through persuasion, compromise and consensus.
My view of democracy is free and fair elections. What we have is imperfect. Some people have far more say than others and most people vote the same way they would vote in a reality show based on fleeting appearances and feelings. Still, democracy however flawed it is, does provide a safety valve for serious discontent. It provides the possibility for change over time without violence. When change is created through violence, the ruthless, cunning and evil get to run amok. It's very hard to restore civil society when it breaks down.
You're correct about how cringe a lot of this stuff is, but you know something? I'll take hope and optimism over yet another "heterdox" person going "I'm still a liberal. Now here's 50 articles I wrote exclusively attacking liberals/the Left. Subscribe and give me money."
It was fun to see Kat Rosenfield getting dragged for this very thing in "The Free Press", which basically exists for pro-Israel propaganda and to make fun of liberals.
It's a forum for centrist liberals to make fun of the far left. Read the comment section there sometime and watch conservatives freak out when they realize that Weiss et al. are not fellow travelers.
I find most of the comment sections at ostensibly liberal but not very liberal places (like FP and Taibbi) to be nearly unreadable, rather in contrast to places like this or Leighton Woodhouse's stack.
Having been accused of this myself, I will point out that I don't bother complaining about Republicans and the right because I am not interested in joining them. If you see me starting to critique the Repubs, its because they have earned my consideration.
People who do not like the direction their "tribe" has gone want to criticize that direction. They will be far more interested in that than they are in echoing the ongoing critique of "the other side" which already has ample platforms for criticism within their tribe.
Does it bother you that they claim to be liberal while criticizing liberals? Is there something wrong with them doing so?
While I understand your point about the "pitfalls" here, I'm not sure I get the "again." If you're referencing 2016, I think there's no question that Trump was running for the president of online. The meme game of the alt right was fire that year, and there really wasn't much of anything I remember in terms of pro-Hillary memes.
I think you're also missing the second thrust of Kamala's campaign - trying to make Trumpworld look like a bunch of weirdo losers. This is a big tonal shift from Biden, who kept making motions at the existential threat of Trumpism, but in such a way that made Trump seem big and important. In contrast, the statements lately (some of them coming directly out of the Harris campaign) focus on not just the dangerous things said, but the "cringe" things as well. Admittedly, lots of this comes from the self-own from picking Vance.
I think the focus on weird vs. normal is a winning way to go. Republicans have repeatedly won swing voters by presenting themselves as the party of normal people, and the Democrats as a bunch of freaks. But in cases like the 2022 midterms, where they underwhelmed, it can be seen as taking things like their crusade against trans teenagers a bit too far. Because yes, the median voter probably holds a view on trans rights closer to a Republican than a Democrat, but they just don't care that much. If you're a middle-aged male politician who is focused so much on what happens in teenage girls' locker rooms, it's damn easy to paint you as a weird, obsessive freak when the other guy is talking about kitchen-table issues.
I'll also give a halfhearted defense of the theme of "freedom." The right wing has rhetorically moved far, far away from the pseudo-libertarian messaging of the 1990s. When you think of legislative action by the right wing in recent years on the state/local level, you don't think of "slashing regulations" - or even the social safety net. You think of book bans, draconian laws which prohibit teachers instructing in the way they wish, banning local schools from having trans-inclusive policies, restricting or banning abortion, etc. With the turn of the right wing away from even a figment of a minimal state, the sort of largely apolitical folks who just wish to be left alone may be gettable. At the very least, there's a political vacuum to be filled.
I don't know if it will work but I've been watching Republicans close to Trump be weirdos for seven years now and I like the tactic. Which of these cats would you like to sit next to at a dinner party?
Only Kim Jong because he's a bona fide old-school foreign dictator. The depraved cult of personality behind that would be interesting to witness, but at the very least I might learn a thing or two about a different culture.
“I think the focus on weird vs. normal is the way to go.”
While I’m unclear on how it is playing out among people that don’t follow politics (assuming they even got the message), the way it has backfired on Twitter is highly amusing, with Republican partisans sharing pictures of red and green haired leftists, bearded transwomen, Queers for Palestine placard holders etc. all with the simple message “J.D. Vance is weird.” I think if you are a progressive Democrat, it’s just a word you have to steer away from.
Bearded transwomen are not on the presidential ticket.
Though this gets into what I've noticed for quite a long time in politics - Democrats tend to vilify mainly elected officials with political power, while Republicans mock rank-and-file supporters of the Democrats much more.
There's obviously exceptions out there. People do crack awful, classist jokes about the bible belt, Appalachia, etc. But except for edge cases like Charlottesville in 2017 where literal Nazis are involved, you don't see a focus on the scariness of the supporters of the Republicans.
I mean that if the goal is to find extremists and use them to tar the movement as a whole it makes sense that Republicans would find ample ammunition. There are more extremists on the left.
I must associate with very different people from you. And in this very article, Freddie basically called the voters Democrats have to appeal to "dumb." Democrats have been attacking everyday Republican voters for fucking decades, and since Trump, it's been far worse, calling them racists. I really don't know how you claim that Democrats go after politicians while Republicans go after individuals. I don't think that's a thing.
I have to disagree. The bigotry of people in progressive spaces can be astonishing, trading in gross stereotypes about Southerners, Christians and other Red people, with real hatred of people they never met.
"Republicans are the *real* weirdos" is going to meet the same fate as "Democrats are the *real* racists."
Normie voters will say "uh huh." They will just think someone's playing some game with them, even if they loosely identify as Democrat or Republican they'll admit there's something to the stereotype.
A strategy of "if only people knew that Trump said crazy fucking shit we will win" isn't a strategy at all.
Right! Everyone knows who Trump is by now, and the batshit crazy, provocative shit he says. Anyone who supports him, isn't going to change their mind because some people they already don't like, points out flaws that they already know everything about.
For every archetypal bluehair maniac on the left, there's a Punisher skull rightoid with a suspiciously undented truck that's more bumper sticker than paintjob and has never hauled so much as a 2x4. Most people are smart enough to notice that. So it comes down to whose leadership can pass as not crazy.
Nobody in their right minds wants to be president, but Harris is far more able to pass for sane than Trump or Vance.
...not that any of this memery will win the election, though, if Harris doesn't actually present a positive vision for America.
Pass the popular, bipartisan immigration bill Trump and his lot sabotaged. Carry on Biden's tradition of funding police and telling the Abolish the Police idiots to fuck off. As to economic policy, I've got no suggestions there.
(If you're about to say "but I took a walk in San Francisco and...", trust me, Harris doesn't give a shit about how California's government wet the bed there. That state's not exactly purple.)
What law did Trump have that expired after he left office that allowed him to keep illegal immigration numbers so low?
If people ignore all the PR and spin and focus just on the numbers then inflation is worse than under Biden, illegal immigration is obviously much worse and crime is much worse.
I think it's a matter of salience - the stereotypical fake good ol boy makes progressives grumpy, the teacher featured on Libs of Tiktok telling their students "fuck your parents, I'm your dad now" makes conservatives apocalyptically furious.
I think the Christian Nationalist stereotype gets the biggest reaction out of progressives. But IIRC in polling the population of extreme progressives is smaller but wealthier/more influential, while tbe population of extreme conservatives is slightly larger but much lower socioeconomic status. So you'll see more articles that don't motivate anyone outside the author's circle full of progressive ragebait, but conservative ragebait is more likely to move voters because it's higher salience and lands with a larger audience.
That's funny. Made me think about what a wild journey the word 'queer' has gone on: At first it meant 'weird'. Then it was a gay slur. Then a reclaimed badge of pride for gay people. Then it got watered down and just meant 'weird' again, and now it's evolving to mean 'normal'.
If the problem is that "normie" voters have defected from the Democrats en masse (see Ruy Texeira) the way to bring them back isn't campaigns on social media.
Once upon a time people thought that Donald Trump won the presidency because of his Twitter account. I don't. I think that what created Trump was NAFTA and MFN status for China. If you've got the wrong diagnosis you're going to try to apply the wrong cure.
Kamala is in her second week of candidacy here, obviously the goal for the short term is to try and jazz up the base to get $$$ and volunteers, which seems a massive success so far, given how unenthusiastic nearly everyone was about Biden.
But yeah, I do agree that looking at the reaction from Twitter isn't a good way to measure things. There are real pollsters working for the Democrats though, so I'm sure this stuff will be modulated. I dunno if the Harris campaign is using David Shor directly, but I do know he provided data which helped the congressional Democrats muscle aside Biden, so he's involved on some level.
I think my argument would be that Trump is the product of demographic change. That means massive and fundamental changes in the underlying social fabric. I don't see how memes or political campaigning reverses that.
Maybe the idea is to first fire up the base in this absurd meme-ey way and then redirect them to real political work addressing real issues to swing voters at the doors and on the phones. If that was the case, it would make a lot of sense. But that’s sort of a wing and a prayer hypothesis
The problem is that actually making progress on real issues in three months is impossible. You can tell people that you plan to have an impact in the future but for Harris the obvious question is what she was doing for the past four years.
Yeah but I think that could be overcome with savvy messaging that threads the needle without throwing Biden under the bus, which is obv a non starter. By all accounts, she was pretty sidelined. I think a sense of what she WILL do could go a long way, though voters are clearly wary of political promises (understatement of century)
I’m a libertarian now voting democrat precisely because of the points in your last paragraph. If neither party is going to cut spending, open the border, end wars, or shrink government all I’m left with is civil liberties where at least democrats are not too bad…
Sure, and to my point neither party has any intention of even toning down, much less abolishing our border enforcement. So yeah, not something the median voter needs to worry about!! The idea that democrats are somehow pushing for open borders is absurd, not that you said that here but conservatives say this incessantly…
I abhor nationalism because it is the biggest excuse for dehumanization in the modern world; border policy and wars demonstrate this consistently. The border policy of America strips the rights of people to live and travel where they want to or need to, based on the usually unspoken assumption that living in America gives us special rights that those living outside don’t deserve and we can take away.
And of course, the reasoning behind nationalism is largely inductive. Nations provide us important services like building roads. We need roads. Therefore, we need nations. Of course the nationalist never proves that roads couldn’t be provided without nations. Waving team colors is fun! You shouldn’t question these things!! Just support the troops and pledge your allegiances no matter how many millions suffer for it, and pretend we can’t have nice things without those colors.
OK, rant over.
I realize my politics are incredibly unpopular so I will continue to frustratingly vote for damage control rather than my actual values.
Except for the censorship of "misinformation." And the misuse of the legal system to handicap the political opposition and disenfranchise their voters. Not trivial things.
The last several weeks have told me that the Democratic establishment believes that they are the Saviors of American Democracy and have persuaded themselves that any means are justifiable for them to keep their power. This bodes ill for civil liberties.
The 'meme game' was beneath the surface in 2016. The word 'normie' still meant something, and if you were one, you had no idea it was happening. Today everyone can see this stuff, it's extremely in your face.
This whole tsunami of "weirdo" rhetoric is giving me real "high school forever" vibes. It is clearly designed to attract women voters, even without having to decode it into something substantive, it is a social appeal that says we're the normal ones and they're the people nobody wants to hang out with during lunch. C'mon, you don't want to be seen sitting next to THAT guy do you?
That's not to say there's nothing to it. Trumpworld has a lot of objectively eccentric people in it, largely as a result of the cultural hegemony that prevails in the professional-managerial classes being hostile to him, so his supporters from among that class are by necessity people who either lack social awareness or don't care about it. But I think the effort to recast this "weird" aspersion as some sort of real statement about their substantive beliefs is dishonest. This is nothing more than the cocktail party set and "Nerd Prom" crowd reacting to Trumpworld like they're the 3 Stooges crashing a black tie affair. But instead of dropping monocles into champagne glasses and saying "well I never!", which hasn't worked up to this point but at least feigned an appeal to dignity, they're doing this mock-and-deride-from-a-safely-superior-position attitude, which somehow comes off as even more conformist.
MAGA doesn't govern very well as evidenced by my local community. 4-H, Master Gardeners and libraries are bastions of liberality and must be gotten rid of. If you want to show your pig at the county fair you've got to join a Christian livestock organization.
My gut feeling is and has been that Harris can win so long as she, as you suggest, stays away from HRC style idpol/pop culture & celebrity cringe and carefully positions herself as the "just make things go back to normal" candidate. I live in what could at best be described as a purple neighborhood in the suburbs. It leans slightly conservative, but is a pretty even mix. What surprises me is that, unlike previous elections, there still isn't so much as a single lawn sign out for any presidential candidate, neither Trump nor Harris. My wife and I caught a glimpse of a Trump flag in a garage once while out on a walk, but if it were 2016 or maybe even 2020 I bet you that would have been proudly displayed on the front lawn.
I get the sense most people just want it to go away, and I have to admit I do to. It's still a longshot, but if she can thread the needle and make herself seem like she can just return life to what it was in like 2019 or 2015 it could conceivable get her acroiss the finish line. I think there's this sense that while many people may not have liked Obama or his political policies, at least things weren't this fucked up back then. If Harris can tap into the nostalgia for the relative normalcy of those years, she could get a long ways.
I don't know, the election was already cooked before this. I think Nate Silver summed it up in saying it's like watching a sports team losing game after game and then they make a change and for a while there's a shred of hope things might turn out differently. That's mostly what's going on with the Dems.
I'm significantly more sanguine than you. My running hypothesis for awhile has been that Biden had a form of what I can only call "anti-charisma." Possibly due to his age-related limitations, possibly just his presentation, but he was really unable to sell anything to the American people, and everything associated with him was dragged down as a result, from perceptions of the economy to perceptions of Harris. Now that he is fading into the background, that seems to be changing. Lots of polls have noticed Harris's approval rating spiking (one found her at +1 even over the weekend), and some early indicators suggest reported consumer sentiment is going to rise (though of course the actual economy remains pretty much as it was (fairly good).
Looking at the macro state of the race, Harris is probably about 1% behind in the PV, and probably 3% short of where she needs to be to win the electoral college. The good news is the polls of swing states which find her still slightly behind on the whole find that the Democrats running for senate (not even incumbents, even Democrats in open seats like in MI and AZ) are ahead, meaning the undecided are voting Democratic downballot. So it's not a major lift. And of course, unless she really fucks up the DNC, there will be a convention bounce coming out of it, with early voting starting only a few weeks later.
The question is can Trumpworld craft a narrative as damning around Harris as what existed around Biden? It remains to be seen, but so far, they really seem to be on their back foot.
I can't be that optimistic. There's hope, but she's still up against some pretty long odds. She definitely has more charisma though, but it's a low bar to clear.
I do, however, agree that switching candidates has thrown the Trump campaign off balance. They've spent 4 years getting their supporters hopped up on "Let's Go Brandon." A new makes things a little topsy-turvy. Trump's immediate reaction was to paint Harris as some kind of radical, which is laughable, and probably only works on those who were delusional enough to believe Obama was a "communist."
And I have nothing to base this on other than just vibes, but I also get the sense that Trump's schtick is getting really stale. People have seen this movie before, at it's like one of those inferior sequels where the laughs are more forced and nothing lands quite as well as the first time around. I think Trump as white rage and contempt made flesh just doesn't pack the same punch it once did. If they can make Trump's attempts to troll everyone seem like the actions of a desperate group of losers rather than the cool class clown pissing off the schoolmarm, it'll take most of the wind out of his sails.
I don't think the odds are long. Underdog, but not long.
If you look at the betting markets, they basically have Trump the 60/40 favorite to win right now, but are betting that Kamala wins the popular vote. Which means the median expectation is a Hillary 2016 redux, more or less. And Hillary was only 1% away from winning the electoral college in 2016. So it's not a bad place to be, now.
Again, I think Harris can be brought down. But the GOP has to figure out a simple narrative against her and drum it hard in September/October, because August is largely lost (due to disengagement from the Olympics and the DNC bounce).
Harris has been the VP for four years. She was the border czar in the first couple of years in the Biden presidency. She has absolutely horrific approval ratings.
She's the one that's got to try to redefine herself in a couple of months in an abbreviated campaign season and she has to do so by displacing public opinion that was formed over four years.
Her disapprovals are falling rapidly, for whatever reason. Just over this weekend, AP/Ipsos found Harris's approval rating at 43%, with 42% disapproval (she was 35%/46% just a week prior).
Not every poll has found this big of a swing, but most are reporting a change. It really does seem like Biden's anti-charisma was dragging her down, and now that she's seen as separate, she's converging on Generic D.
I admit the border stuff is her biggest liability, but it's somewhat easy to defuse, given Trump explicitly ordered the GOP in congress to kill a pretty conservative immigration deal to deny the Biden Administration a "win."
What law did Trump have that expired immediately after his term that allowed him to keep illegal immigration numbers so much lower than Biden?
The general nature of a "bounce" is that it's temporary. And again, it appears, at least so far, that her bounce cut into Trump's lead but didn't erase it.
Harris was the border czar. She's been the VP for four years. She's been in the public eye now for years and the reaction of the public has been overwhelmingly negative.
I'm not that negative. I don't think she's a uniquely bad candidate or that any of the attacks the GOP or anyone else are making necessarily have to stick. The people getting riled up about her being "border czar" were never, ever in a hundred years ever going to vote Democrat in the first place. Who gives a damn about what they think? Like really, if your number one voting issue is border security/immigration and you think Kalama Harris is a left wing radical, it's a lost cause. Don't waste your time. There is literally no version of the story where that kind of voter is going to pull the lever for someone with a D next to his or her name in 2024.
You don't know me from Adam, but when I canvass (these are supposed to be Dem or lean-Dem households, which isn't perfectly targeted so we get some conservatives too) the script is to ask people their most important issue.
Answers I've had repeated several times
* abortion or reproductive rights
* stop Trump or some variation of 'defend democracy'
* the border
* inflation
A few people who were insistent they were voting for Biden (when it was Biden) specifically offered that they didn't like what was happening at the border. Probably their number one worry on how Democrats are vulnerable.
Maybe I am underestimating how important border security is to voters who would at least consider voting Democrat. The whole framing of that debate is so favorable to the GOP that I'm not sure who the Democrats could run who would be "better" on that issue. "Build the wall and make Mexico pay for it" was always a signature Trump position (which of course was never, ever going to happen) so it would be exceedingly difficult to gain any ground there, even if you wanted to.
Like, if the Dems hypothetically ran someone with the exact politics on border security to that of Donald Trump, I think people would still prefer the GOP on that issue even if the stances were identical.
Inflation should be easier to tackle, just argue that inflation was largely a product of the policies Trump himself enacted during the pandemic, has declined significantly under Biden, and would actually increase if most of Trump's policies (such as tariffs, which you don't have to be an economist to understand would raise the price of any good they are applied to, and since most things are made in China it means most things) would actually be inflationary. Admit that it is a problem, but not one which Trump would in any way solve.
Bond yields actually went up after 6/27 when it looked like Trump would win, which is probably a little too technical for your average voter, but Wall Street definitely thinks Trump is more inflationary than Biden in terms of leaders.
I'm a Democrat, and I care about her failure on the border. The President assigned this to her, and she immediately wiggled out of it, because tending her position among the Democratic party factions was more important to her than helping the President to govern the United States. To be fair, she's not the only one. Susan Rice did it too. And others. They all betrayed him. To me, this is unforgiveable.
I also live in a purple/red suburban neighborhood, and I haven't seen any yard signs yet either except for the one Trump House, that's bedecked all year. And I totally agree with you on the point that normies are just tired of this. Honestly, the vibe I get from neighbors is that we all just want the return to normalcy and for everyone to stop being so damn angry. I've noticed a slight uptick in apolitical community participation around here. It's been nice, liberals and conservatives can both plant some flowers by the neighborhood sign or clean up litter off the sidewalks.
And therein lies Harris' path to victory. Twitter is gonna Twitter, and you can't stop New Yorkers from thinking they are the center of the universe. But frankly, back in normie world, we don't care. We don't even know that stuff. I wouldn't know the cover of New York magazine without y'all showing me. Why would I? (Though it is a cringe inducing cover). If Harris runs on: The economy is good! Crime is low! Then she's got a good shot, so long as Trump is babbling about whatever pops in his head.
Be boring, but not too boring.
Though I disagree about the election being cooked. It's JULY. The Dems haven't even had a convention yet. Forget over, the game is barely in the first quarter. To torture the analogy, Trump comes in as the favorite, and even scored an early touchdown, but the Dems are excited because they responded with a score and have benched their starting QB for the backup, always the most popular player on a losing team.
Hmmm I agree about the lawn signs but I think running on “the economy is good” will lose a lot of ppl for whom the economy is NOT good. I think she needs to thread the needle and take credit for the ways it’s moving in a good direction without overstating the point and widening the very real divide between ppl for whom that feels true and ppl for whom it doesn’t
As for direction, look at unemployment. It's been going up over the last few months. One more month at the same level as last month and a recession indicator called the Sahm rule will be triggered.
I think she needs to find some hope and optimism, and not get bogged down in the question of whether the past was good or bad. We're not living in 2022, but we will be living in 2026. She has to come up with something better than "I'm not Trump"
Crime rates took a historic jump after the pandemic and have yet to return to pre-pandemic (the first years of the Trump admin) levels. Inflation was obviously a huge issue and it's still much higher than the Fed's 2% target. What's more the Fed has jacked interest rates up to the highest levels in decades to try to combat said inflation. Illegal immigration has produced massive budget shortfalls in places like NY, Chicago, Denver, etc. No to mention elevated levels of homelessness, much higher numbers of overdose deaths, much higher numbers of kids missing school and so on.
Pollsters are talking about "Trump nostalgia" and it's not a phenomenon that benefits Democrats.
I agree with you on the homelessness issue, which is out of control, but isn't listed as one of the big voter concerns. Inflation is a mixed bag. Obviously, no one likes it and i's unpopular, but at the same time, the reason we have higher inflation is that Biden (and Trump) essentially poured a bunch of free money into the economy. Those loose money policies got us to near full employment and kept the economy chugging, and now inflation seems to be falling back under control, so much so that the Fed is recommending we lower rates again. Allison's point is well-taken.
Crime has gone down three straight years since the pandemic peak. I did a quick google search on the current levels, and the first hit was from the CCJ. I'll just quote but I can't say I've researched the numbers, so all caveats apply:
"Overall, most violent crimes are at or below levels seen in 2019, the year prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020. There were 2% fewer homicides during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2019 and 15% fewer robberies. Aggravated assaults and domestic violence incidents also are below levels seen five years ago. Gun assaults were 1% higher during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2019, and carjacking, a crime that is relatively uncommon but began to spike shortly after the onset of the pandemic, was 68% higher."
I don't do polling, obviously, but I don't see any Trump nostalgia from my experience. It's not even a policy thing. People are just tired of it, from both sides. Trump just required so much energy, both in support and opposition. Biden's big positive was that we didn't have to care about politics.
Larry Summers, Mohamed el-Erian, Joe Machine, etc. all warned Biden not to pass his stimulus packages because there was already too much liquidity in the economy. You can make the argument that Trump was responding to a recession but by the time Biden passed his measures that recession was in the rear view mirror and the country was well into recovery. It was gratuitous pandering and the inflation it jump started has proven to be devastating to low income workers.
The US homicide rate is currently the worst it's been in 30 years, since the bad old days of 1996/1997. I would pay attention to homicide rates because there are (essentially) two ways of measuring crime rates: police reports and victim surveys. The former has shown a decrease over the last few years. The last big victimization survey in 2022 showed the complete opposite, a massive increase. Usually the two measures track closely with one another. Why the recent divergence? One theory is that there is so much crime that people have stopped reporting it to the police because of heightened response times. On the other hand homicides are tough to ignore.
Using 1997 as the "bad old days" is misleading. Crime was already decreasing, and significantly so. The homicide rate was above 8 every year from 1985 to 1995.
The homicide rate, according to the FBI, peaked at 9.8/100,000 people in 1991. Even at the new high mark in 2021, it was 6.8 (yes, the same as 1997). And that has gone down every year since then.
The homicide rate in 2022 was 6.3. The homicide rate in 2019 was 5.0. That's still a 20% increase. Remember, the story about homicides in the US is that was really bad in the 1980's/1990's and then started to get better and better--until around 2014 when homicide rates started to rise again.
Locally, we're not seeing a many lurid murders in the papers as we did during the pandemic, but things like car theft and shoplifting seem to be institutionalized, as is general disorder like subway begging and fare-beating. People don't bother to report this kind of "crime" but we know about it through Citizen and Facebook groups, and it affects our opinions and sense of safety. We also see the slackness and indifference of the police and prosecutors that took hold in the riots, and that hasn't gotten better. So earnest presentation of "the numbers" isn't going to make one bit of difference to them.
Like many people, I snapped out of my white guilt and Trump Derangement Syndrome sometime after 2020. I sort of assumed most liberals had done the same, or at least recognized that it’s not working on the general public anymore.
So it’s really weird to see so many prominent people on social media talking like it’s 2020, as if “white women do better!!” will result in votes for Harris rather than a hearty “fuck off.”
Same with “Trump will literally end democracy.” People are sick of hearing it. To the extent that it’s true, like he really did try to pressure Georgia to change the results, it’s old news. And for gods sake, nobody cares about January 6th anymore.
Trump seems to be blowing it too, squandering the goodwill from the shooting on a VP who can’t stop insulting people. But it’s going to be close, and Democrats can’t afford the current strategy.
The threat from Trump is more that he's super lazy and unconcerned with details and will put in place people who will effectively "Jim Crow" liberal voters so we are hamstrung by uneven voting requirements, gerrymandering, and the ole thumb on the scale when necessary such that we wake up in a one party state that has the trapping of constitutional democracy without an effective opposition.
I think this is a GOP thing enabled by Trump. Look at what they managed to do in Wisconsin for a long time and in North Carolina still. Plus the SCOTUS is very accommodating of such actions
Gerrymandering, voting restrictions, and vote stealing are as old as the Republic and all parties have made use of them as a matter of course. Here in New York, the Democrats engage prolifically in all those behaviors, to the point that they have established effective one-party rule. I doubt that liberals have it worse. They should stop whining and try to get together with similarly disadvantaged conservatives to do something about it.
Oh, please. Please. We all know how the Daley machine elected Kennedy. That machine was a power into the 1990's, and all large (Democrat-run) cities even today are run by similar corrupt machines (the appearance of the members differ). Often (as in New York, which is run out of a clubhouse in Central Brooklyn) they also dominate state politics. They have invented a wide range of ways to keep opponents off the ballot and to disenfranchise their voters, and are successful to the point where many local races are unopposed. These are all abuses, but liberals should not complain that they are the special victims, or that it just never came into anyone's pretty little head until Trump came along. That's absurd.
Actual ballot-box stuffing is rare or nonexistent now, thanks to the restrictions we have in place that were developed over many decades. If we foolishly remove those restrictions, that practice will come back. Every one of the innovations (mail-in ballots, early voting) advantage some demographics over others: in those cases, motivated, educated Democratic voters (not the poor). It's reasonable for Republicans to oppose them on these grounds alone.
I have been skeptical of these complaints since I realized that the voting laws that the Republicans proposed for Georgia (billed hysterically as "Jim Crow 2.0") were more lenient than the laws in place in Kansas and Minnesota when I started voting there. And that was just fine. We showed up at the polls on election day, and we had our say. We had democracy. As opposed to now, where the politicians in my city want non-citizens to vote and were narrowly stopped by a pesky constitutional provision that was put in place in response to corruption in the 19th century. This, of course, devalues the concept of citizenship entirely. None of these perpetrators are Republicans or Trumpists. They are not crazy to be worried about ballot-harvesting or illegal voting.
Personally, I think we should have mandatory voting like the Australians. Make it a holiday, open up a lot of balloting locations, and let it rip. It's not much to ask for everyone to show up in a voting booth in person once every two years, and think for a couple of minutes about their duties as a citizen. If you're too lazy or disaffected to do that, pay the fine. Simple as that.
If you are saying that we should have laws that make it as easy as possible for as many voters to vote as possible, then I 100% agree. But unlike in Australia, we have in many locations elections every year or even more. In Florida we can have three elections a year. That alone is a problem
No, I'm saying that we should have laws that support the voters in having their democratic say while also maintaining the integrity of the system. That is not the same as saying "easy as possible." I don't think that a requirement to show up personally at the polls and to verify your identity is onerous or blocks democratic participation in any way. It is just a different (easier) means of getting done what we've done since 1900 or so. Anyone who wants to vote will find a way to do it, with the help of the helpful poll volunteers.
In my jurisdiction, elections are scheduled across the calendar to deliberately minimize turnout. This is one of those anti-democratic methods, as it makes the results more predictable and controllable by political operatives. The solution to that is to schedule them into a small number of days.
It’s hard to make the “we are the adults in the room” argument when you want to remake the courts for political reasons, have “White Women for Kamala” zoom calls, and your main slogan is “like, OMG, they are soooo weird!”
No, KHive is weird. Very weird.
I will always vote for the grown up over the non grown up, even with policy disagreements. This is why I voted, as a Republican, for Clinton and Biden.
But if everyone is going to be juvenile, I’ll go with the juvenile who at least shares most of my conservative policy inclinations.
And if everyone is going to act like we’re back in middle school, I will absolutely take the mildly dickish but funny dudes who sat in back and made fun of the teacher over the Cool Girl Bullies who put us not-cool girls in our place by calling us “weird” and were our first introduction to the sublime form of female cruelty that was, and still is, most definitely the point.
“…[sarcasm], which I’m sure is a great way to reach women married to laid-off-ironworkers-turned-Uber-Eats-drivers in the Rust Belt.”
It is a minor source of irritation to me that people in the salon and journal set still think this is some significant population. There’s less than 100,000 ironworkers in America, the number has been growing at about the rate of US GDP growth for a long time and unemployment in the sector is only slightly higher than manufacturing in general. There are four times as many ironworkers in Texas as there are in Ohio and three times as many in California. If you want to appeal to people employed or looking to be employed in the industry, you need to care about SME business issues. But Democrats - a long time ago - made their decision on this issue. They prioritize the growth of government bureaucracies and regulation over the employment of structural steel erectors. They prioritize the concerns of utopian environmentalists over makers of finned tubing. When Biden sent Gavin Newsom to stump for him in Bluffton SC, it told you everything you needed to know about what Democrats don’t understand about the manufacturing business in the U.S. They still think ironworkers are some sort of early 20th century population of industrial serfs.
"Iron-workers" was pretty clearly a synecdoche for blue-collar working-class citizens. Don't get hung up on the example.
I'm with you on the absurdity of sending Gavin-freaking-Newsom to stump in SC (or, frankly, anywhere besides maybe an investors conference).
As you rightly point out, iron-workers are not a significant demographic, and I'd extend that (contra Freddie) to say that using blue-collar labor as our mental image for "working class people" is very useful anymore. (So 20th century!) Service industries and workers are more significant by both population and economic measures.
This is my point. The only members of the working class that Democrats appeal to anymore are unskilled labor/hospitality workers and institutional serfs like hospital workers, so removed from the cash flows that they literally don’t understand where the money comes from. The Mike Rowe working class is now so solidly republican that it will be at least a generation before it is in play.
Which is... Ok? Electorally, at least, since there are so many more of them.
If you want to talk about the many, many real-world reasons Dems should do better with a blue-collar demographic, then I'll agree with you. Maybe there are marginal gains to be made? Culturally, though - yeah, they're gone.
Maybe, I’m not sure. I’m personally pretty agnostic about these things. I tend to believe that US political parties are much more efficient than observers wants to believe in terms of tacking and jibing to get to 50.5% (imagine believing we arrived at this state by sheer coincidence!). My own political tribe tends to rule (while suffering the odd indignity here or there), regardless.
I mean, if Harris wants to win, she could do what Trump has done (god forbid) which is stake out the most popular median positions on a number of issues and use them in her platform instead of dying on the hill of "we must do really unpopular shit now and always or else evil wins, or something".
I understand telling voters you will do the things they want you to do with political power is a reasonably good way to get elected.
It's too late for her to do this. Her problem is that very large number of people (including many Democrats) don't trust her or the Democratic Party she represents.
The corollary to your argument is that the swing voters in a handful of states won't encounter this online campaign and positioning and therefore can be separated from it. The online campaign will be important to raise money and volunteers which can then be directed to the handful of places where it can make a difference. Biden won Pennsylvania in 202 for some of the reasons you mention - but he also had a ground game there
Lifting the toxic cloud of doom and paralysis was Step 1 on any path to victory, and the winemom meme-ification has accomplished that and turned the money spigot back on. One thing at a time.
It doesn’t have to be either/or with online hijinks and addressing Rust Belt concerns. It can be both/and. It’s been literally one week since Biden’s announcement so I’m not alarmed yet (but would be if I didn’t see some gestures from Harris or her VP nominee in the coming weeks).
Also I don’t agree with some of the 2016 comparisons. Hillary Clinton was a uniquely despised singular figure - there was no shortage of polls showing her negative favorability ratings. I can remember a 90s Animaniacs cartoon where Bill was a likable oaf and Hillary was an icy bitch - that impression was widespread and hammered into the public consciousness for 25 years. Harris doesn’t have that same baggage, and people are still learning more about her. Also her favorability numbers just took a sharp positive turn, while Trump and Vance’s have quickly gotten worse this month. And the polls also show the people who’d previously been inclined to sit out this election and were dissatisfied with Trump and Biden are now leaning to vote Democrat again.
Agreed. A lot of the excitement now is because there is someone other than Trump or Biden to vote for. Even if some of it is silly, it had the effect of taking away Trump's momentum from the assassination attempt and RNC.
I truly feel there's a lot of Good Vibes that can be mined from Kamala that appeal to normie suburban people. She can crack an egg with one hand (but also was very proud of her ability to do so). She talks to children like they're people. She giggles with her sister. She seems to have mastered the whole blended family thing (even her husband's ex speaks positively of her!). She was an AG and so can make claims towards the law-and-order stuff. Drew Barrymore said she needed to be Momala to the nation and she had a very genuine but polite WTF reaction. She's kind of kooky and says meme-y things sometimes but can also rake someone over the coals. She seems...fun?
With JD Vance, I almost feel like "snob" would be a better put-down than weird. Seems like that's what really made Clinton unlikable -- she thought she was better than you with all the "deplorables" stuff. And Vance is a guy who left his hometown to go to an Ivy and then wrote a book about how the culture he grew up in sucks and it's their fault they're poor and he's so much better than them.
So, so close (and honestly more thoughtful than a lot of what I read, so I congratulate you). Now let go of the idea that there is a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the most important issues, and understand that what you're watching isn't a thoughtful process to determine the leader of the free world but a contest to pick a mascot because "democracy" in America doesn't mean choice; it means the illusion of choice.
Why do I say the "illusion" of choice? Well, let's just address one of the issues you brought up: have you looked at Kamala's record on "crime" lately? Do you know why she flamed out so badly in 2020? People got to know Kamala and when they got to know her, she couldn't place above fifth in the polling in her home state and dropped out before Iowa. If you think Kamala is an actual choice versus a giant "hate has no home here" sign to place in America's collective suburban front lawn, you've already missed the entire reason we're where we're at (and the real reason Trump got elected in the first place).
Oddly enough, this was my "conspiracy theory" in my Saturday compilation.
If I were Biden (or his family, more like), I'd be looking for a way to burn the party down. Kamala would be a good choice. She's the albatross around the Clintons and the Obamas necks.
Probably not technically right, but given that Kamala Harris jailed a bunch of black men for possession of marijuana and then went on The Breakfast Club and laughed about smoking it herself, or blocked evidence that would have freed a man on death row (he made it out despite her efforts) or delayed the release of prisoners because they made the California prison system money as underpaid laborers, the scare quotes seemed appropriate. All this information is out there. It's what sank her the first time. They're trying to bum rush the election so people don't get a chance to find it all four years later.
It was only five years ago. Have people really forgotten Tulsi Gabbard destroying Harris on the debate stage?
For that matter, have people really forgotten that Harris flamed out early in the primaries after wasting insane amounts of money? Or that she's polled as the most unpopular VP in the history of modern polling?
The level of shared media about KH from so many people has been overwhelming. People changing profile pictures to KH as Rosie the riveter, cat pictures, KH as a lotus, KH as the statue of liberty...SO MANY MOVIE STARS texting me to send money to the campaign. How many times can you text STOP before it ends? Voting should be a thoughtful experience, not a tsunami of trivia.
I find the volume and content of those texts to be so galling and utterly disrespectful. For what it’s worth, I think texting ‘stop’ has the opposite of the intended effect, as it provides the senders with a data point that your phone number is valid.
O, thanks for that tip. I will just report as junk. I used to donate to individuals but it seems the donation lists got sold to ACT Blue and other PACS so that seems to be the origin.
I somehow now get ACT BLUE and WIN RED spam. Possibly a psy op from an ex or something … and it’s working …
I once donated to a woman (R) running for some very low level position--soil board or something-- so I get a few state level WIN RED messages but only state level. The ACT BLUE people seem to be far more busy.
I subscribe in print to both left, center, and right-leaning publications. The mailers and text messages I get… Going to vote for my local DSA-adjacent councilwoman who talks about Turtle Island just as soon as I finish registering for online classes at Hillsdale College.
former call center worker here, can confirm that this is true
I'd love to hear more information about this.
The way it used to work, back when it was humans manning the phones, was that you'd be issued a printed sheet of phone numbers, and throughout the day you'd call them one by one and then tag each number with a corresponding classification. Rude hang-ups and threats would remain on the list for the next round of calls; ditto numbers with answering machines and busy signals. Only calls that weren't answered at all and did not have an outgoing away message would be struck from the list (with one exception--see below). I can only assume that this is still the protocol despite the err, progress of telemarketing, only now it's done much faster. I never reply "STOP" because, as Nate Hahn suggests, this merely has the effect of confirming that there is in fact a human being on the other end of the line.
If you do for some reason receive, in 2024, a spam call from a human being, here's a pro-tip that usually doesn't fail: explain to the caller in the most incredulous tone you can muster that they've just dialed a children's hospital or a police station (be creative!). Back when I worked at a call center, that was an immediate DNC, even if we suspected it was a lie. I used to wonder why a greeting of "hello" wasn't a dead giveaway, but hey.
"Voting should be a thoughtful experience, not a tsunami of trivia." This is a feature and not a bug. They don't want you to "vote thoughtfully" because if you did you would see that you really have one choice in two slightly different flavors with cosmetic differences, and that understanding might lead to actual change, which would lead to 99 percent of politicians, including Harris and Trump, being out of a job.
This is generally a bad take but with Trump specifically it's just absurdly mistaken. How in the world could a belief that both sides are the same survive the Trump presidency? He completely overthrew the Republican party and reshaped it in his own image! And that image is... more the same as the Democrats? Somehow? That's what you're telling me?
Because you choose between the best of the worst and hope for incremental change in a positive direction.
And you prove my point. You've not only drunk the Koolaid, my friend, but you've bathed in it.
So Trump didn't radically impact the makeup of the Republican party? And, in your own argument on your other poorly thought out response, also completely shift the democratic party to be completely anti-trump with no no nuance? Because if you're right about that, OR I'm right about Trump not being George Bush III, OR BOTH (which is correct) then I simply can't see how an argument that both sides are the same holds up. Both sides are radically different, not only from one another, but from themselves eight years ago.
No, Trump did not radically alter the makeup of the Republican Party. The fact that the working class and middle class felt left behind and ignored altered the Republican Party. Trump was the only one smart enough to pick up on the populist sentiment, and the Republican Party has been dragged kicking and screaming in that direction, but it has been moving that way (Sean O' Brien, the head of the *Teamsters* spoke at the RNC conference and he didn't mince words). Rather than pivot themselves, the Democrats have created this ridiculous campaign that really only appeals greatly to those stuck in an id-pol bubble. They could offer the working class and middle class something to vote for, but instead they've embarked on campaign of hysteria and shame while at the same time taking a totalitarian turn because they've decided that "democracy" is too precious to leave up to the voters. The situation is no more or less complicated than that.
So the republican party has been dramatically altered by circumstances (being left behind by both traditional parties). Fine, I don't really care how you think it happened. Your argument that both parties are the same still requires that, having been left behind by both political parties, the working class made the republicans more like the democrats who they felt disappointed in. Please make more effort to make sense if you're going to continue this discussion.
By the way, *your party* has spent the last four years screaming about "democracy," only to rig its own primary so that Biden, clearly already in decline and unpopular, would not face any significant challenge, and then, at the last minute, yank him out and within forty-eight hours replace him with someone no one voted for and who flamed out spectacularly in 2020 herself. You have the antithesis of democracy staring you in the face but all you can focus on is "OraNGe MaN BAD!!!" It would be utterly hilarious if you weren't dragging the rest of us down with you in your hysteria.
The Bull Moose party has done no such thing, dude. But I think you'll find it's actually *your party* which has done whatever you're talking about, since both parties are the same so you're the only Democrat in this conversation.
I don't have a party. I'm also not a dude.
Bull Moose Party. So you're over a century old, huh? No, you have a party. Anyone that runs around with their hair on fire because "Donald Trump" has a party; now whether you're a Democrat or a Republican who can't stand the thought that the other Republicans let those dirty little workers have the floor for once, so now you might as well be a Democrat because that's who you're looking to, to save you . . . it doesn't matter.
And the one difference between the parties is that one actually still lets their voters decide who is the candidate whereas the other does this little game where they pretend the voters have a choice but meanwhile they pick the person they want: Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris. The Democrats screaming about "democracy" is the biggest joke.
Everyone's a dude. My chair is a dude when I stub my toe and say "dude, what the fuck?" Also you can't say 'no, you have a party, everyone who is mad about this has a party' a sentence after you, who are obviously melting down, claim that you don't have a party. I've claimed a specific party affiliation, anyhow. You're yelling at yourself. I don't really want this to devolve into the usual internet nonsense of owning someone with facts and logic but you're making it really hard not to, here.
So, to reiterate your argument: you and I are both democrats, because we're both republicans, because those are the same thing and if you care you're a democrat/republican. OK. That's dumb as fuck, dude.
Kind of important nitpick: It's not a violation of democracy for parties to select their nominee in some way other than primary voting. Democracy requires that the final election be done with votes, but having an election to choose your candidates isn't the only way to do things. We have shifted from smoke-filled-room selection of candidates to primary voters selecting candidates, and that's probably better in some ways and worse in others. But just having a party convention choose the candidate would be entirely acceptable, and it's how things used to be done and how they're still done for third parties.
No, that's an important point and the reason our electoral system is mostly illusion anyway, especially when you have two parties with such a stranglehold on the system. The hypocrisy comes in being a party that cries constantly about giving the people choice and then, well, doesn't.
I happened to watch Jan. 6 on television live. I watched news clips of his speech before they marched to the Capitol. I listened to the shaken Mitch McConnel and Kevin McCarthy.
The list of people in Trump's administration...true believers like Bill Barr and Mike Pence say he lost. Not to mention a swarm of his own appointees.
The Big Lie continued till it swallowed up the GOP, which is now pure MAGA.
I'm perfectly willing to call out the left on elitism, arrogance and stupidity...but there's a huge difference between the Democrats and MAGA. I'm not even willing to call the Republicans anymore.
I think this is one of those questions that depends on what issues you think are important. The big culture-war issues on which Rs and Ds differ are abortion and trans issues, with that ranging from "Can a transwoman use the womens' room?" to "Should we do irreversible-but-profitable surgery on mentally ill teens over their parents' objections?" On economics, Rs still tend to be more skeptical of regulation, but that seems to be shifting as the Rs realign under Trump to be a more populist party.
I'm so old, I remember when the Rs were the party of free trade and the Ds were the party of freedom of speech.
Center of the target right here.
https://x.com/NYMag/status/1817878014396350802
I can't even with this fucking cringe. I just can't.
That moved me ever so slightly to consider voting Republican.
Is this a parody or are we in one of the dumbest possible universes
Not a parody. They're really going with that.
Oh, don't think for even a second it's parody. This is the PR industry shifting into 5th gear. And branding it as 'fortifying an election, etc
She's running against Donald f--king Trump, whose main legal issue is that he paid off his porn star mistress from the wrong slush fund. We are definitely in one of the dumbest possible universes.
I don't get it. Who thinks this is a good idea? I'm old and I hate it.
I can't see anyone that Freddy described as critical to winning liking this.
If any of the stans did even see this, they'd cringe.
100% garbage
There's even cringier shit on Twitter (never underestimate the cringe potential of Too Online Good Shitlib Male Feminists) but to Freddie's point, this is the kind of shit you get when the Acela Corridor Journo Establishment is acting like the key to a Harris victory is acting Too Online in real life, which is simply isn't.
Bombarding normies with this type of shit is the sort of thing I would be trying my damnedest to avoid if I wanted someone to win an election, but given both the partisanship and stupidity of the left leaning media establishment, I suppose it's inevitable.
“…bombarding normies with this type of shit…”
This is the problem: In my opinion, the people who run these campaigns don’t know jack shit about normies.
Jen Psaki come to mind anyone?
And they claim that JD Vance is the weird one.
It's because adult children are now running the economy.
Think about it. All the memes and emojis and tiktoks and endless posing over and over. It's in everything now, even grown ass adults who are way too old to have ever lived in it are acting like giving the heart-hands sign on a news broadcast is a perfectly normal and professional thing to do. Excuse me, a 'profesh' thing to do. It's everywhere and it's frickin' bizarre.
I used to think everyone is acting performative about absolutely effing everything was a means to an end - in order to get a point across about something...anything. But now I think being performative about everything is the point itself. Because that's how people communicate now; through pink hearts rising on your video screen, or executing and entire dance routine to sell a mop. Everything is a meme now because we can't be bothered with normal communication anymore. Because that's what the kids do, and they are the consumers that matter.
There used to be an old saying that went something like this: people act different in front of a camera. Which is true. But nowadays it doesn't make much sense anymore because everyone is assumed to 'be on camera' all the time, and act accordingly. Younger people are more and more performing at life because they all grew up in a world where there's an online audience at all times. And the oldies, instead of ignoring or downplaying it, are trying to mimic that to get on their good side - like that NYMag article Freddie linked.
Old man rant over.
YES. Decades of marketing have determined that teenagers are the Best demographic to market to (if they have money). So our culture venerates adolescence. On the other hand, there's no adulthood rituals. No religious, or cultural, or any other way to say "I am an adult," and be accepted as such. Even the commercial rituals (getting married, buying a house getting your lifetime job) have been largely eliminated. So our country lurches on in permanent adolescence, unable to develop into adulthood because no one showed us how.
I agree.
But I want to point something out, which goes along with Freddie's point... I am a swing voter, a College Educated Suburban White Woman, a Never Trump Republican who voted for Clinton in '16 and Biden in '20.
And while I don't live in a swing state at the moment, I am *from* the Swing State of Swing States, and I lived my young adult years / have roots in the Other Swing State of Swing States. And in both I lived in the Swingiest of Districts (Elissa Slotkin's / Conor Lamb's stomping grounds.)
And so my Facebook feed is mostly white, middle aged Xennials, disproportionately but not exclusively married females, of varying levels of educational achievement and religious commitment, from the very swingiest parts of Michigan, Pennsylvania, (and also Connecticut, but that only matters to Jahana Hayes.)
I have not yet seen a single Kamala meme.
Not a one.
Lots of pics of baseball tournaments, beach vacations, swim meets. The Michiganders are all boats n' lake sunsets this time of year, of course.
Most political memes that cross my feed are of the snark-upon-both-houses genre, "Presidents are Temporary, Wu-Tang is Forever" and that sort of thing.
It's not a scientific poll, but considering my posse is right smack in the center of the Venn Diagram of "Demographics Harris Needs to Win" the complete absence of Kamalamania on my feed is interesting.
Weird. I am so not a swinger, but I have been inundated with KHive memes, and it's not as if I go hunting for them.
Keep an eye out for people adding coconut or palm tree emojis to their profiles or messages. It’s the latest thing in the KHive.
FWIW I'm in west-central PA (CPVI R+25) and among my democrat friends all I see are Kamala memes all day.
I share your concerns but you overlook the fact that 8 years later a majority of voters are tired of Trump and his rhetoric that they once found amusing. That's Harris's only advantage but its a big one.
Yup. Can't forget that his favorability ratings aren't very good either. He only won because Hilary was so widely despised.
Kamala Harris had the worst favorability rating of any VP since they started asking the question. You all are so easy to fool. It's like history is only ten minutes long.
Yes, I was just about to say that if you look at the polling NOW Trump has better favorability numbers.
The only reason Trump was polling ahead of Biden was that Biden was also despised. In fact, even more so. The only reason Trump is polling ahead of Harris now is that her approval ratings are even lower than his.
Biden wasn't despised by most swing voters; they were scared of his age more than anything else. They despise what the media and others around Biden did to hide or overlook his condition. They didn't really despise Biden himself.
Maybe "despise" is too strong a word but his approval numbers were/are historically bad, worse than Trump's.
Yup, as long as she was seen as Biden's life insurance policy. Now she is seen as The Fresh Alternative, Obama 2,0.
I think it's more because she is the Venn diagram/coconut tree lady.
That doesn't explain the shift in the last week.
My theory for the "shift" in the last week is that Harris has as of yet not been accused of shitting herself.
Give her time though.
Assuming it means anything, given the margin of error in polls.
Even if it's real, the Democrats need a much bigger lead than that to overcome Republican structural advantages in the Electoral College. Also consider that Trump substantially overran his polls last time.
For some mysterious reason all that is old history—the stans (new name for obsessive fan, from stalker+fan. I just learnt about stans today) are raring to go.
"People are surely sick of Trump now" says increasingly nervous man.
Nervous or not, he's right. People are. They might still elect him, but his victory would not be greeted with joy.
Even his strongest supporters lack the enthusiasm they once had. Their hatred of the center-left remains as strong as ever, but they no longer seem to think that Trump will actually save them. Electorally speaking that probably doesn't matter - a resigned vote is as good as an enthusiastic one - but it's striking.
I am guessing that you don't have friends who are Trump voters. Enthusiasm among his base is high according to the polling, but even absent the polling I would be cognizant of the fervor of his supporters based simply on friends and acquaintances. And that was even before the assassination attempt, which kicked things into overdrive.
Oh, I see plenty of fervor. Like I said, the hatred remains as strong as ever. I just don't see much hope.
Van Jones said he hadn't seen anything like the RNC convention since the Democratic convention that nominated Obama.
What, you want me to believe him over my own eyes?
Actually, come think of it, I'm pretty sure you're a conservative. Are you enthusiastic? Excited? Seeing a new dawn for your beloved nation?
Trump's base are fired up, and some are nearly rapturous after the attempt on his life.
But I suspect that swing voters are going to wake up in the fall and be tired of Trump's incessant demand for their attention. Some people like dull, and at least to me, Harris epitomizes dull.
A great politician once said: "Bland works". Most of the time, he was right. It certainly worked in 2020, and it might work again in 2024.
Trump is the opposite of bland, and that worked well for him in 2016 and almost worked in 2020. It may very well work in 2024, as well.
I don't think Harris can win on a "boring competence" ticket. Biden kinda could, since he'd been in Washington forever and had lots of reassuring gray hair, but Kamala doesn't have decades of experience in Washington or a long track record in politics.
I agree Trump is the opposite of bland. But I wrote that bland works most of the time. Sometimes bland loses.
Notably, Trump has yet to win a plurality of votes, more voters chose the blander candidate when given the option.
I agree with this. Trump's too erratic, that's imo one of the main points against him because you can't really pin down what he, or the people he'll appoint will do, once he's in office. For example, take abortion. I strongly doubt Trump cares about Roe v Wade, but the people he appointed to the Supreme Court absolutely do and acted accordingly.
On most files, Trump is simply unreliable. That bothers a lot of voters, and he's not going to attract him.
But it also makes him a bit like a new politician too. New politicians are blank canvases upon which people project their own policy desires.
The shambles that the deep problems that spawned Trump are even worse now, and the Democrats are a complete shambles. Trump-haters should consider at least for a second or two what happens if those problems continued to be ignored or mismanaged by a Democratic Party that is incompetent and unmanageable, as it has shown itself to be.
Okay, fine. *I* am surely sick of Trump by now. I thought we'd seen the back of him in early 2021, and the f--ker is *still* hanging around.
Agreed. The campaign should be something like: Keep the Presidency Boring and Functional. Catchier and nicer than that, but, yes, I believe this is what most people want.
The problem is that relies on the economy of the last four years, the border control of the last four years, the crime rates of the last four years, etc. "Finish the job" as a campaign slogan didn't exactly do it for Biden over the last couple of months.
OK?
I'm not interested in a world in which the president has so little control over his temper that he taunts North Korea with tweets.
Like, I don't need that level of chaos in my life.
Look, the primary question about 2024 is why the incumbent has been losing since last year. Normally incumbency is a huge advantage in political races.
My guess? The economy, illegal immigration and crime.
Honestly, I think the perception that he was just not up to the job was also a major problem for him.
After the debate? Sure.
I'm guessing that a majority of Americans don't want a boring and functional version of what we've got - not least because it's not functional. People want to break things.
People *should* want to break things, it is the only rational response to a system that is rigged against them, but most people do not.
god, people have such a hard on for violence and destruction. You don't even know what you have.
I'm not saying you should be content, but please stop before you burn down the entire system.
I have lived much of my life outside the U.S.
Humpy Dumpty sat on wall...all the kings horses and all the kings couldn't put Humpy together again.
People who lead rebellions aren't usually good at running civil society. Revolutions usually fail spectacularly. The people who are comfortable using violence don't believe in democracy.
Sounds like you are arguing to be content with crumbs.
The people we have in charge now don't believe in democracy.
I believe in incremental change and change through persuasion, compromise and consensus.
My view of democracy is free and fair elections. What we have is imperfect. Some people have far more say than others and most people vote the same way they would vote in a reality show based on fleeting appearances and feelings. Still, democracy however flawed it is, does provide a safety valve for serious discontent. It provides the possibility for change over time without violence. When change is created through violence, the ruthless, cunning and evil get to run amok. It's very hard to restore civil society when it breaks down.
I disagree?
I think Trump voters do want to break things. I think Dems and swing voters do not.
I think that's exactly why people voted for Biden 4 years ago - less chaos.
You're correct about how cringe a lot of this stuff is, but you know something? I'll take hope and optimism over yet another "heterdox" person going "I'm still a liberal. Now here's 50 articles I wrote exclusively attacking liberals/the Left. Subscribe and give me money."
NOTE: I'm not saying this is you!
What does this have to do with the election?
It was fun to see Kat Rosenfield getting dragged for this very thing in "The Free Press", which basically exists for pro-Israel propaganda and to make fun of liberals.
It's a forum for centrist liberals to make fun of the far left. Read the comment section there sometime and watch conservatives freak out when they realize that Weiss et al. are not fellow travelers.
I would describe Biden and Harris as centrist liberals, but these terms are slippery.
https://www.thefp.com/p/bari-weiss-the-era-of-the-noble-lie
I find most of the comment sections at ostensibly liberal but not very liberal places (like FP and Taibbi) to be nearly unreadable, rather in contrast to places like this or Leighton Woodhouse's stack.
Having been accused of this myself, I will point out that I don't bother complaining about Republicans and the right because I am not interested in joining them. If you see me starting to critique the Repubs, its because they have earned my consideration.
Okay, but a fundamental issue there is that those attacks are directed against dominant factions of the left that aren’t actually liberal.
People who do not like the direction their "tribe" has gone want to criticize that direction. They will be far more interested in that than they are in echoing the ongoing critique of "the other side" which already has ample platforms for criticism within their tribe.
Does it bother you that they claim to be liberal while criticizing liberals? Is there something wrong with them doing so?
No, there's nothing wrong with critiquing your own side. And indeed we did get pretty nuts in 2020.
The problem is that when you do ONLY that and nothing else, you tend to slide rightward into Trump apologist land. Audience capture is real.
I have seen this happen countless times.
Audience capture certainly does seem to be real. Freddie seems to be one of the few who has decent resistance to capture.
Jesse Singal too. Bless his heart.
Amen!
While I understand your point about the "pitfalls" here, I'm not sure I get the "again." If you're referencing 2016, I think there's no question that Trump was running for the president of online. The meme game of the alt right was fire that year, and there really wasn't much of anything I remember in terms of pro-Hillary memes.
I think you're also missing the second thrust of Kamala's campaign - trying to make Trumpworld look like a bunch of weirdo losers. This is a big tonal shift from Biden, who kept making motions at the existential threat of Trumpism, but in such a way that made Trump seem big and important. In contrast, the statements lately (some of them coming directly out of the Harris campaign) focus on not just the dangerous things said, but the "cringe" things as well. Admittedly, lots of this comes from the self-own from picking Vance.
I think the focus on weird vs. normal is a winning way to go. Republicans have repeatedly won swing voters by presenting themselves as the party of normal people, and the Democrats as a bunch of freaks. But in cases like the 2022 midterms, where they underwhelmed, it can be seen as taking things like their crusade against trans teenagers a bit too far. Because yes, the median voter probably holds a view on trans rights closer to a Republican than a Democrat, but they just don't care that much. If you're a middle-aged male politician who is focused so much on what happens in teenage girls' locker rooms, it's damn easy to paint you as a weird, obsessive freak when the other guy is talking about kitchen-table issues.
I'll also give a halfhearted defense of the theme of "freedom." The right wing has rhetorically moved far, far away from the pseudo-libertarian messaging of the 1990s. When you think of legislative action by the right wing in recent years on the state/local level, you don't think of "slashing regulations" - or even the social safety net. You think of book bans, draconian laws which prohibit teachers instructing in the way they wish, banning local schools from having trans-inclusive policies, restricting or banning abortion, etc. With the turn of the right wing away from even a figment of a minimal state, the sort of largely apolitical folks who just wish to be left alone may be gettable. At the very least, there's a political vacuum to be filled.
I don't know if it will work but I've been watching Republicans close to Trump be weirdos for seven years now and I like the tactic. Which of these cats would you like to sit next to at a dinner party?
Don Jr.
Rudy
Sidney Powell
Peter Navarro
Kari Lake
Steve Bannon
Eric Trump
Ken Chesbro
Jenna Ellis
KimJong Un
Sean Spicer
Jason Miller
Steven Miller
Mike Pence
The My Pillow Guy
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Only Kim Jong because he's a bona fide old-school foreign dictator. The depraved cult of personality behind that would be interesting to witness, but at the very least I might learn a thing or two about a different culture.
The rest I would flatly decline.
I'd try to go drink for drink with America's Mayor.
“I think the focus on weird vs. normal is the way to go.”
While I’m unclear on how it is playing out among people that don’t follow politics (assuming they even got the message), the way it has backfired on Twitter is highly amusing, with Republican partisans sharing pictures of red and green haired leftists, bearded transwomen, Queers for Palestine placard holders etc. all with the simple message “J.D. Vance is weird.” I think if you are a progressive Democrat, it’s just a word you have to steer away from.
Bearded transwomen are not on the presidential ticket.
Though this gets into what I've noticed for quite a long time in politics - Democrats tend to vilify mainly elected officials with political power, while Republicans mock rank-and-file supporters of the Democrats much more.
There's obviously exceptions out there. People do crack awful, classist jokes about the bible belt, Appalachia, etc. But except for edge cases like Charlottesville in 2017 where literal Nazis are involved, you don't see a focus on the scariness of the supporters of the Republicans.
https://jabberwocking.com/if-you-hate-the-culture-wars-blame-liberals/
Is this meant to be taken as evidence that the right wing is correct to hate liberals as people?
I mean that if the goal is to find extremists and use them to tar the movement as a whole it makes sense that Republicans would find ample ammunition. There are more extremists on the left.
I must associate with very different people from you. And in this very article, Freddie basically called the voters Democrats have to appeal to "dumb." Democrats have been attacking everyday Republican voters for fucking decades, and since Trump, it's been far worse, calling them racists. I really don't know how you claim that Democrats go after politicians while Republicans go after individuals. I don't think that's a thing.
I have to disagree. The bigotry of people in progressive spaces can be astonishing, trading in gross stereotypes about Southerners, Christians and other Red people, with real hatred of people they never met.
"Republicans are the *real* weirdos" is going to meet the same fate as "Democrats are the *real* racists."
Normie voters will say "uh huh." They will just think someone's playing some game with them, even if they loosely identify as Democrat or Republican they'll admit there's something to the stereotype.
A strategy of "if only people knew that Trump said crazy fucking shit we will win" isn't a strategy at all.
Right! Everyone knows who Trump is by now, and the batshit crazy, provocative shit he says. Anyone who supports him, isn't going to change their mind because some people they already don't like, points out flaws that they already know everything about.
For every archetypal bluehair maniac on the left, there's a Punisher skull rightoid with a suspiciously undented truck that's more bumper sticker than paintjob and has never hauled so much as a 2x4. Most people are smart enough to notice that. So it comes down to whose leadership can pass as not crazy.
Nobody in their right minds wants to be president, but Harris is far more able to pass for sane than Trump or Vance.
...not that any of this memery will win the election, though, if Harris doesn't actually present a positive vision for America.
Take that to the logical conclusion though and people will vote on the economy, illegal immigration and crime. Does that play out to Harris' benefit?
Pass the popular, bipartisan immigration bill Trump and his lot sabotaged. Carry on Biden's tradition of funding police and telling the Abolish the Police idiots to fuck off. As to economic policy, I've got no suggestions there.
(If you're about to say "but I took a walk in San Francisco and...", trust me, Harris doesn't give a shit about how California's government wet the bed there. That state's not exactly purple.)
What law did Trump have that expired after he left office that allowed him to keep illegal immigration numbers so low?
If people ignore all the PR and spin and focus just on the numbers then inflation is worse than under Biden, illegal immigration is obviously much worse and crime is much worse.
I think it's a matter of salience - the stereotypical fake good ol boy makes progressives grumpy, the teacher featured on Libs of Tiktok telling their students "fuck your parents, I'm your dad now" makes conservatives apocalyptically furious.
I think the Christian Nationalist stereotype gets the biggest reaction out of progressives. But IIRC in polling the population of extreme progressives is smaller but wealthier/more influential, while tbe population of extreme conservatives is slightly larger but much lower socioeconomic status. So you'll see more articles that don't motivate anyone outside the author's circle full of progressive ragebait, but conservative ragebait is more likely to move voters because it's higher salience and lands with a larger audience.
That's funny. Made me think about what a wild journey the word 'queer' has gone on: At first it meant 'weird'. Then it was a gay slur. Then a reclaimed badge of pride for gay people. Then it got watered down and just meant 'weird' again, and now it's evolving to mean 'normal'.
Ouch, and accurate.
If the problem is that "normie" voters have defected from the Democrats en masse (see Ruy Texeira) the way to bring them back isn't campaigns on social media.
Once upon a time people thought that Donald Trump won the presidency because of his Twitter account. I don't. I think that what created Trump was NAFTA and MFN status for China. If you've got the wrong diagnosis you're going to try to apply the wrong cure.
Kamala is in her second week of candidacy here, obviously the goal for the short term is to try and jazz up the base to get $$$ and volunteers, which seems a massive success so far, given how unenthusiastic nearly everyone was about Biden.
But yeah, I do agree that looking at the reaction from Twitter isn't a good way to measure things. There are real pollsters working for the Democrats though, so I'm sure this stuff will be modulated. I dunno if the Harris campaign is using David Shor directly, but I do know he provided data which helped the congressional Democrats muscle aside Biden, so he's involved on some level.
I think my argument would be that Trump is the product of demographic change. That means massive and fundamental changes in the underlying social fabric. I don't see how memes or political campaigning reverses that.
Maybe the idea is to first fire up the base in this absurd meme-ey way and then redirect them to real political work addressing real issues to swing voters at the doors and on the phones. If that was the case, it would make a lot of sense. But that’s sort of a wing and a prayer hypothesis
The problem is that actually making progress on real issues in three months is impossible. You can tell people that you plan to have an impact in the future but for Harris the obvious question is what she was doing for the past four years.
Yeah but I think that could be overcome with savvy messaging that threads the needle without throwing Biden under the bus, which is obv a non starter. By all accounts, she was pretty sidelined. I think a sense of what she WILL do could go a long way, though voters are clearly wary of political promises (understatement of century)
I’m a libertarian now voting democrat precisely because of the points in your last paragraph. If neither party is going to cut spending, open the border, end wars, or shrink government all I’m left with is civil liberties where at least democrats are not too bad…
The obvious problem is that the vast majority of voters are opposed to open borders.
Sure, and to my point neither party has any intention of even toning down, much less abolishing our border enforcement. So yeah, not something the median voter needs to worry about!! The idea that democrats are somehow pushing for open borders is absurd, not that you said that here but conservatives say this incessantly…
I abhor nationalism because it is the biggest excuse for dehumanization in the modern world; border policy and wars demonstrate this consistently. The border policy of America strips the rights of people to live and travel where they want to or need to, based on the usually unspoken assumption that living in America gives us special rights that those living outside don’t deserve and we can take away.
And of course, the reasoning behind nationalism is largely inductive. Nations provide us important services like building roads. We need roads. Therefore, we need nations. Of course the nationalist never proves that roads couldn’t be provided without nations. Waving team colors is fun! You shouldn’t question these things!! Just support the troops and pledge your allegiances no matter how many millions suffer for it, and pretend we can’t have nice things without those colors.
OK, rant over.
I realize my politics are incredibly unpopular so I will continue to frustratingly vote for damage control rather than my actual values.
Except for the censorship of "misinformation." And the misuse of the legal system to handicap the political opposition and disenfranchise their voters. Not trivial things.
The last several weeks have told me that the Democratic establishment believes that they are the Saviors of American Democracy and have persuaded themselves that any means are justifiable for them to keep their power. This bodes ill for civil liberties.
The 'meme game' was beneath the surface in 2016. The word 'normie' still meant something, and if you were one, you had no idea it was happening. Today everyone can see this stuff, it's extremely in your face.
This whole tsunami of "weirdo" rhetoric is giving me real "high school forever" vibes. It is clearly designed to attract women voters, even without having to decode it into something substantive, it is a social appeal that says we're the normal ones and they're the people nobody wants to hang out with during lunch. C'mon, you don't want to be seen sitting next to THAT guy do you?
That's not to say there's nothing to it. Trumpworld has a lot of objectively eccentric people in it, largely as a result of the cultural hegemony that prevails in the professional-managerial classes being hostile to him, so his supporters from among that class are by necessity people who either lack social awareness or don't care about it. But I think the effort to recast this "weird" aspersion as some sort of real statement about their substantive beliefs is dishonest. This is nothing more than the cocktail party set and "Nerd Prom" crowd reacting to Trumpworld like they're the 3 Stooges crashing a black tie affair. But instead of dropping monocles into champagne glasses and saying "well I never!", which hasn't worked up to this point but at least feigned an appeal to dignity, they're doing this mock-and-deride-from-a-safely-superior-position attitude, which somehow comes off as even more conformist.
I hope you're right.
MAGA doesn't govern very well as evidenced by my local community. 4-H, Master Gardeners and libraries are bastions of liberality and must be gotten rid of. If you want to show your pig at the county fair you've got to join a Christian livestock organization.
The electoral version of Oscar Wilde's take on second marriage, "The triumph of hope over experience."
My gut feeling is and has been that Harris can win so long as she, as you suggest, stays away from HRC style idpol/pop culture & celebrity cringe and carefully positions herself as the "just make things go back to normal" candidate. I live in what could at best be described as a purple neighborhood in the suburbs. It leans slightly conservative, but is a pretty even mix. What surprises me is that, unlike previous elections, there still isn't so much as a single lawn sign out for any presidential candidate, neither Trump nor Harris. My wife and I caught a glimpse of a Trump flag in a garage once while out on a walk, but if it were 2016 or maybe even 2020 I bet you that would have been proudly displayed on the front lawn.
I get the sense most people just want it to go away, and I have to admit I do to. It's still a longshot, but if she can thread the needle and make herself seem like she can just return life to what it was in like 2019 or 2015 it could conceivable get her acroiss the finish line. I think there's this sense that while many people may not have liked Obama or his political policies, at least things weren't this fucked up back then. If Harris can tap into the nostalgia for the relative normalcy of those years, she could get a long ways.
I don't know, the election was already cooked before this. I think Nate Silver summed it up in saying it's like watching a sports team losing game after game and then they make a change and for a while there's a shred of hope things might turn out differently. That's mostly what's going on with the Dems.
I'm significantly more sanguine than you. My running hypothesis for awhile has been that Biden had a form of what I can only call "anti-charisma." Possibly due to his age-related limitations, possibly just his presentation, but he was really unable to sell anything to the American people, and everything associated with him was dragged down as a result, from perceptions of the economy to perceptions of Harris. Now that he is fading into the background, that seems to be changing. Lots of polls have noticed Harris's approval rating spiking (one found her at +1 even over the weekend), and some early indicators suggest reported consumer sentiment is going to rise (though of course the actual economy remains pretty much as it was (fairly good).
Looking at the macro state of the race, Harris is probably about 1% behind in the PV, and probably 3% short of where she needs to be to win the electoral college. The good news is the polls of swing states which find her still slightly behind on the whole find that the Democrats running for senate (not even incumbents, even Democrats in open seats like in MI and AZ) are ahead, meaning the undecided are voting Democratic downballot. So it's not a major lift. And of course, unless she really fucks up the DNC, there will be a convention bounce coming out of it, with early voting starting only a few weeks later.
The question is can Trumpworld craft a narrative as damning around Harris as what existed around Biden? It remains to be seen, but so far, they really seem to be on their back foot.
I can't be that optimistic. There's hope, but she's still up against some pretty long odds. She definitely has more charisma though, but it's a low bar to clear.
I do, however, agree that switching candidates has thrown the Trump campaign off balance. They've spent 4 years getting their supporters hopped up on "Let's Go Brandon." A new makes things a little topsy-turvy. Trump's immediate reaction was to paint Harris as some kind of radical, which is laughable, and probably only works on those who were delusional enough to believe Obama was a "communist."
And I have nothing to base this on other than just vibes, but I also get the sense that Trump's schtick is getting really stale. People have seen this movie before, at it's like one of those inferior sequels where the laughs are more forced and nothing lands quite as well as the first time around. I think Trump as white rage and contempt made flesh just doesn't pack the same punch it once did. If they can make Trump's attempts to troll everyone seem like the actions of a desperate group of losers rather than the cool class clown pissing off the schoolmarm, it'll take most of the wind out of his sails.
I don't think the odds are long. Underdog, but not long.
If you look at the betting markets, they basically have Trump the 60/40 favorite to win right now, but are betting that Kamala wins the popular vote. Which means the median expectation is a Hillary 2016 redux, more or less. And Hillary was only 1% away from winning the electoral college in 2016. So it's not a bad place to be, now.
Again, I think Harris can be brought down. But the GOP has to figure out a simple narrative against her and drum it hard in September/October, because August is largely lost (due to disengagement from the Olympics and the DNC bounce).
Harris has been the VP for four years. She was the border czar in the first couple of years in the Biden presidency. She has absolutely horrific approval ratings.
She's the one that's got to try to redefine herself in a couple of months in an abbreviated campaign season and she has to do so by displacing public opinion that was formed over four years.
Her disapprovals are falling rapidly, for whatever reason. Just over this weekend, AP/Ipsos found Harris's approval rating at 43%, with 42% disapproval (she was 35%/46% just a week prior).
Not every poll has found this big of a swing, but most are reporting a change. It really does seem like Biden's anti-charisma was dragging her down, and now that she's seen as separate, she's converging on Generic D.
I admit the border stuff is her biggest liability, but it's somewhat easy to defuse, given Trump explicitly ordered the GOP in congress to kill a pretty conservative immigration deal to deny the Biden Administration a "win."
What law did Trump have that expired immediately after his term that allowed him to keep illegal immigration numbers so much lower than Biden?
The general nature of a "bounce" is that it's temporary. And again, it appears, at least so far, that her bounce cut into Trump's lead but didn't erase it.
Harris was the border czar. She's been the VP for four years. She's been in the public eye now for years and the reaction of the public has been overwhelmingly negative.
I'm not that negative. I don't think she's a uniquely bad candidate or that any of the attacks the GOP or anyone else are making necessarily have to stick. The people getting riled up about her being "border czar" were never, ever in a hundred years ever going to vote Democrat in the first place. Who gives a damn about what they think? Like really, if your number one voting issue is border security/immigration and you think Kalama Harris is a left wing radical, it's a lost cause. Don't waste your time. There is literally no version of the story where that kind of voter is going to pull the lever for someone with a D next to his or her name in 2024.
The problem is that right now illegal immigration is a major issue for voters, as compared to say 2016 or 2020.
It's a major issue to GOP voters, people who under no circumstances were ever going to vote for Harris. There is a difference.
Go check out Pew.
According to Pew, immigration ranks as the 8th most important issue. Which is not nothing, but it's also clearly not the top priority.
As always, the economy is far and away #1.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/02/29/americans-top-policy-priority-for-2024-strengthening-the-economy/
You don't know me from Adam, but when I canvass (these are supposed to be Dem or lean-Dem households, which isn't perfectly targeted so we get some conservatives too) the script is to ask people their most important issue.
Answers I've had repeated several times
* abortion or reproductive rights
* stop Trump or some variation of 'defend democracy'
* the border
* inflation
A few people who were insistent they were voting for Biden (when it was Biden) specifically offered that they didn't like what was happening at the border. Probably their number one worry on how Democrats are vulnerable.
Maybe I am underestimating how important border security is to voters who would at least consider voting Democrat. The whole framing of that debate is so favorable to the GOP that I'm not sure who the Democrats could run who would be "better" on that issue. "Build the wall and make Mexico pay for it" was always a signature Trump position (which of course was never, ever going to happen) so it would be exceedingly difficult to gain any ground there, even if you wanted to.
Like, if the Dems hypothetically ran someone with the exact politics on border security to that of Donald Trump, I think people would still prefer the GOP on that issue even if the stances were identical.
Inflation should be easier to tackle, just argue that inflation was largely a product of the policies Trump himself enacted during the pandemic, has declined significantly under Biden, and would actually increase if most of Trump's policies (such as tariffs, which you don't have to be an economist to understand would raise the price of any good they are applied to, and since most things are made in China it means most things) would actually be inflationary. Admit that it is a problem, but not one which Trump would in any way solve.
Bond yields actually went up after 6/27 when it looked like Trump would win, which is probably a little too technical for your average voter, but Wall Street definitely thinks Trump is more inflationary than Biden in terms of leaders.
I'm a Democrat, and I care about her failure on the border. The President assigned this to her, and she immediately wiggled out of it, because tending her position among the Democratic party factions was more important to her than helping the President to govern the United States. To be fair, she's not the only one. Susan Rice did it too. And others. They all betrayed him. To me, this is unforgiveable.
I also live in a purple/red suburban neighborhood, and I haven't seen any yard signs yet either except for the one Trump House, that's bedecked all year. And I totally agree with you on the point that normies are just tired of this. Honestly, the vibe I get from neighbors is that we all just want the return to normalcy and for everyone to stop being so damn angry. I've noticed a slight uptick in apolitical community participation around here. It's been nice, liberals and conservatives can both plant some flowers by the neighborhood sign or clean up litter off the sidewalks.
And therein lies Harris' path to victory. Twitter is gonna Twitter, and you can't stop New Yorkers from thinking they are the center of the universe. But frankly, back in normie world, we don't care. We don't even know that stuff. I wouldn't know the cover of New York magazine without y'all showing me. Why would I? (Though it is a cringe inducing cover). If Harris runs on: The economy is good! Crime is low! Then she's got a good shot, so long as Trump is babbling about whatever pops in his head.
Be boring, but not too boring.
Though I disagree about the election being cooked. It's JULY. The Dems haven't even had a convention yet. Forget over, the game is barely in the first quarter. To torture the analogy, Trump comes in as the favorite, and even scored an early touchdown, but the Dems are excited because they responded with a score and have benched their starting QB for the backup, always the most popular player on a losing team.
Hmmm I agree about the lawn signs but I think running on “the economy is good” will lose a lot of ppl for whom the economy is NOT good. I think she needs to thread the needle and take credit for the ways it’s moving in a good direction without overstating the point and widening the very real divide between ppl for whom that feels true and ppl for whom it doesn’t
As for direction, look at unemployment. It's been going up over the last few months. One more month at the same level as last month and a recession indicator called the Sahm rule will be triggered.
I think she needs to find some hope and optimism, and not get bogged down in the question of whether the past was good or bad. We're not living in 2022, but we will be living in 2026. She has to come up with something better than "I'm not Trump"
Crime rates took a historic jump after the pandemic and have yet to return to pre-pandemic (the first years of the Trump admin) levels. Inflation was obviously a huge issue and it's still much higher than the Fed's 2% target. What's more the Fed has jacked interest rates up to the highest levels in decades to try to combat said inflation. Illegal immigration has produced massive budget shortfalls in places like NY, Chicago, Denver, etc. No to mention elevated levels of homelessness, much higher numbers of overdose deaths, much higher numbers of kids missing school and so on.
Pollsters are talking about "Trump nostalgia" and it's not a phenomenon that benefits Democrats.
I agree with you on the homelessness issue, which is out of control, but isn't listed as one of the big voter concerns. Inflation is a mixed bag. Obviously, no one likes it and i's unpopular, but at the same time, the reason we have higher inflation is that Biden (and Trump) essentially poured a bunch of free money into the economy. Those loose money policies got us to near full employment and kept the economy chugging, and now inflation seems to be falling back under control, so much so that the Fed is recommending we lower rates again. Allison's point is well-taken.
Crime has gone down three straight years since the pandemic peak. I did a quick google search on the current levels, and the first hit was from the CCJ. I'll just quote but I can't say I've researched the numbers, so all caveats apply:
"Overall, most violent crimes are at or below levels seen in 2019, the year prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020. There were 2% fewer homicides during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2019 and 15% fewer robberies. Aggravated assaults and domestic violence incidents also are below levels seen five years ago. Gun assaults were 1% higher during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2019, and carjacking, a crime that is relatively uncommon but began to spike shortly after the onset of the pandemic, was 68% higher."
https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-year-2024-update/
I don't do polling, obviously, but I don't see any Trump nostalgia from my experience. It's not even a policy thing. People are just tired of it, from both sides. Trump just required so much energy, both in support and opposition. Biden's big positive was that we didn't have to care about politics.
Larry Summers, Mohamed el-Erian, Joe Machine, etc. all warned Biden not to pass his stimulus packages because there was already too much liquidity in the economy. You can make the argument that Trump was responding to a recession but by the time Biden passed his measures that recession was in the rear view mirror and the country was well into recovery. It was gratuitous pandering and the inflation it jump started has proven to be devastating to low income workers.
The US homicide rate is currently the worst it's been in 30 years, since the bad old days of 1996/1997. I would pay attention to homicide rates because there are (essentially) two ways of measuring crime rates: police reports and victim surveys. The former has shown a decrease over the last few years. The last big victimization survey in 2022 showed the complete opposite, a massive increase. Usually the two measures track closely with one another. Why the recent divergence? One theory is that there is so much crime that people have stopped reporting it to the police because of heightened response times. On the other hand homicides are tough to ignore.
Using 1997 as the "bad old days" is misleading. Crime was already decreasing, and significantly so. The homicide rate was above 8 every year from 1985 to 1995.
The homicide rate, according to the FBI, peaked at 9.8/100,000 people in 1991. Even at the new high mark in 2021, it was 6.8 (yes, the same as 1997). And that has gone down every year since then.
The homicide rate in 2022 was 6.3. The homicide rate in 2019 was 5.0. That's still a 20% increase. Remember, the story about homicides in the US is that was really bad in the 1980's/1990's and then started to get better and better--until around 2014 when homicide rates started to rise again.
Locally, we're not seeing a many lurid murders in the papers as we did during the pandemic, but things like car theft and shoplifting seem to be institutionalized, as is general disorder like subway begging and fare-beating. People don't bother to report this kind of "crime" but we know about it through Citizen and Facebook groups, and it affects our opinions and sense of safety. We also see the slackness and indifference of the police and prosecutors that took hold in the riots, and that hasn't gotten better. So earnest presentation of "the numbers" isn't going to make one bit of difference to them.
Like many people, I snapped out of my white guilt and Trump Derangement Syndrome sometime after 2020. I sort of assumed most liberals had done the same, or at least recognized that it’s not working on the general public anymore.
So it’s really weird to see so many prominent people on social media talking like it’s 2020, as if “white women do better!!” will result in votes for Harris rather than a hearty “fuck off.”
Same with “Trump will literally end democracy.” People are sick of hearing it. To the extent that it’s true, like he really did try to pressure Georgia to change the results, it’s old news. And for gods sake, nobody cares about January 6th anymore.
Trump seems to be blowing it too, squandering the goodwill from the shooting on a VP who can’t stop insulting people. But it’s going to be close, and Democrats can’t afford the current strategy.
The threat from Trump is more that he's super lazy and unconcerned with details and will put in place people who will effectively "Jim Crow" liberal voters so we are hamstrung by uneven voting requirements, gerrymandering, and the ole thumb on the scale when necessary such that we wake up in a one party state that has the trapping of constitutional democracy without an effective opposition.
Isn’t that stuff determined at the state level?
Yes but federal courts and laws can make it harder to fight back against..
I think this is a GOP thing enabled by Trump. Look at what they managed to do in Wisconsin for a long time and in North Carolina still. Plus the SCOTUS is very accommodating of such actions
MAGA is all over state election controls now. They learned from 2020. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-swing-state-officials-election-deniers-1235069692/
Gerrymandering, voting restrictions, and vote stealing are as old as the Republic and all parties have made use of them as a matter of course. Here in New York, the Democrats engage prolifically in all those behaviors, to the point that they have established effective one-party rule. I doubt that liberals have it worse. They should stop whining and try to get together with similarly disadvantaged conservatives to do something about it.
100%, but at least in the last half century or so we have mostly avoided such things until the new GOP party of Trump
Oh, please. Please. We all know how the Daley machine elected Kennedy. That machine was a power into the 1990's, and all large (Democrat-run) cities even today are run by similar corrupt machines (the appearance of the members differ). Often (as in New York, which is run out of a clubhouse in Central Brooklyn) they also dominate state politics. They have invented a wide range of ways to keep opponents off the ballot and to disenfranchise their voters, and are successful to the point where many local races are unopposed. These are all abuses, but liberals should not complain that they are the special victims, or that it just never came into anyone's pretty little head until Trump came along. That's absurd.
Actual ballot-box stuffing is rare or nonexistent now, thanks to the restrictions we have in place that were developed over many decades. If we foolishly remove those restrictions, that practice will come back. Every one of the innovations (mail-in ballots, early voting) advantage some demographics over others: in those cases, motivated, educated Democratic voters (not the poor). It's reasonable for Republicans to oppose them on these grounds alone.
I have been skeptical of these complaints since I realized that the voting laws that the Republicans proposed for Georgia (billed hysterically as "Jim Crow 2.0") were more lenient than the laws in place in Kansas and Minnesota when I started voting there. And that was just fine. We showed up at the polls on election day, and we had our say. We had democracy. As opposed to now, where the politicians in my city want non-citizens to vote and were narrowly stopped by a pesky constitutional provision that was put in place in response to corruption in the 19th century. This, of course, devalues the concept of citizenship entirely. None of these perpetrators are Republicans or Trumpists. They are not crazy to be worried about ballot-harvesting or illegal voting.
Personally, I think we should have mandatory voting like the Australians. Make it a holiday, open up a lot of balloting locations, and let it rip. It's not much to ask for everyone to show up in a voting booth in person once every two years, and think for a couple of minutes about their duties as a citizen. If you're too lazy or disaffected to do that, pay the fine. Simple as that.
If you are saying that we should have laws that make it as easy as possible for as many voters to vote as possible, then I 100% agree. But unlike in Australia, we have in many locations elections every year or even more. In Florida we can have three elections a year. That alone is a problem
No, I'm saying that we should have laws that support the voters in having their democratic say while also maintaining the integrity of the system. That is not the same as saying "easy as possible." I don't think that a requirement to show up personally at the polls and to verify your identity is onerous or blocks democratic participation in any way. It is just a different (easier) means of getting done what we've done since 1900 or so. Anyone who wants to vote will find a way to do it, with the help of the helpful poll volunteers.
In my jurisdiction, elections are scheduled across the calendar to deliberately minimize turnout. This is one of those anti-democratic methods, as it makes the results more predictable and controllable by political operatives. The solution to that is to schedule them into a small number of days.
It’s hard to make the “we are the adults in the room” argument when you want to remake the courts for political reasons, have “White Women for Kamala” zoom calls, and your main slogan is “like, OMG, they are soooo weird!”
No, KHive is weird. Very weird.
I will always vote for the grown up over the non grown up, even with policy disagreements. This is why I voted, as a Republican, for Clinton and Biden.
But if everyone is going to be juvenile, I’ll go with the juvenile who at least shares most of my conservative policy inclinations.
And if everyone is going to act like we’re back in middle school, I will absolutely take the mildly dickish but funny dudes who sat in back and made fun of the teacher over the Cool Girl Bullies who put us not-cool girls in our place by calling us “weird” and were our first introduction to the sublime form of female cruelty that was, and still is, most definitely the point.
This comment was very weird.
Your response says more about you than me.
“…[sarcasm], which I’m sure is a great way to reach women married to laid-off-ironworkers-turned-Uber-Eats-drivers in the Rust Belt.”
It is a minor source of irritation to me that people in the salon and journal set still think this is some significant population. There’s less than 100,000 ironworkers in America, the number has been growing at about the rate of US GDP growth for a long time and unemployment in the sector is only slightly higher than manufacturing in general. There are four times as many ironworkers in Texas as there are in Ohio and three times as many in California. If you want to appeal to people employed or looking to be employed in the industry, you need to care about SME business issues. But Democrats - a long time ago - made their decision on this issue. They prioritize the growth of government bureaucracies and regulation over the employment of structural steel erectors. They prioritize the concerns of utopian environmentalists over makers of finned tubing. When Biden sent Gavin Newsom to stump for him in Bluffton SC, it told you everything you needed to know about what Democrats don’t understand about the manufacturing business in the U.S. They still think ironworkers are some sort of early 20th century population of industrial serfs.
"Iron-workers" was pretty clearly a synecdoche for blue-collar working-class citizens. Don't get hung up on the example.
I'm with you on the absurdity of sending Gavin-freaking-Newsom to stump in SC (or, frankly, anywhere besides maybe an investors conference).
As you rightly point out, iron-workers are not a significant demographic, and I'd extend that (contra Freddie) to say that using blue-collar labor as our mental image for "working class people" is very useful anymore. (So 20th century!) Service industries and workers are more significant by both population and economic measures.
This is my point. The only members of the working class that Democrats appeal to anymore are unskilled labor/hospitality workers and institutional serfs like hospital workers, so removed from the cash flows that they literally don’t understand where the money comes from. The Mike Rowe working class is now so solidly republican that it will be at least a generation before it is in play.
Which is... Ok? Electorally, at least, since there are so many more of them.
If you want to talk about the many, many real-world reasons Dems should do better with a blue-collar demographic, then I'll agree with you. Maybe there are marginal gains to be made? Culturally, though - yeah, they're gone.
Maybe, I’m not sure. I’m personally pretty agnostic about these things. I tend to believe that US political parties are much more efficient than observers wants to believe in terms of tacking and jibing to get to 50.5% (imagine believing we arrived at this state by sheer coincidence!). My own political tribe tends to rule (while suffering the odd indignity here or there), regardless.
Every word of this.
Get ready for the Weird dance with Macklemore and Lady Gaga.
The VERY COOL DANCE that you are some sort of -ist for laughing at
I see what you did there!
I mean, if Harris wants to win, she could do what Trump has done (god forbid) which is stake out the most popular median positions on a number of issues and use them in her platform instead of dying on the hill of "we must do really unpopular shit now and always or else evil wins, or something".
I understand telling voters you will do the things they want you to do with political power is a reasonably good way to get elected.
It's too late for her to do this. Her problem is that very large number of people (including many Democrats) don't trust her or the Democratic Party she represents.
The corollary to your argument is that the swing voters in a handful of states won't encounter this online campaign and positioning and therefore can be separated from it. The online campaign will be important to raise money and volunteers which can then be directed to the handful of places where it can make a difference. Biden won Pennsylvania in 202 for some of the reasons you mention - but he also had a ground game there
Lifting the toxic cloud of doom and paralysis was Step 1 on any path to victory, and the winemom meme-ification has accomplished that and turned the money spigot back on. One thing at a time.
So I thought Freddie was being a little dramatic and exaggerating. And then I saw the cover image of the new issue of New York magazine: https://nymag.com/magazine/toc/2024-07-29.html
I hate post-post-irony.
It doesn’t have to be either/or with online hijinks and addressing Rust Belt concerns. It can be both/and. It’s been literally one week since Biden’s announcement so I’m not alarmed yet (but would be if I didn’t see some gestures from Harris or her VP nominee in the coming weeks).
Also I don’t agree with some of the 2016 comparisons. Hillary Clinton was a uniquely despised singular figure - there was no shortage of polls showing her negative favorability ratings. I can remember a 90s Animaniacs cartoon where Bill was a likable oaf and Hillary was an icy bitch - that impression was widespread and hammered into the public consciousness for 25 years. Harris doesn’t have that same baggage, and people are still learning more about her. Also her favorability numbers just took a sharp positive turn, while Trump and Vance’s have quickly gotten worse this month. And the polls also show the people who’d previously been inclined to sit out this election and were dissatisfied with Trump and Biden are now leaning to vote Democrat again.
Agreed. A lot of the excitement now is because there is someone other than Trump or Biden to vote for. Even if some of it is silly, it had the effect of taking away Trump's momentum from the assassination attempt and RNC.
I truly feel there's a lot of Good Vibes that can be mined from Kamala that appeal to normie suburban people. She can crack an egg with one hand (but also was very proud of her ability to do so). She talks to children like they're people. She giggles with her sister. She seems to have mastered the whole blended family thing (even her husband's ex speaks positively of her!). She was an AG and so can make claims towards the law-and-order stuff. Drew Barrymore said she needed to be Momala to the nation and she had a very genuine but polite WTF reaction. She's kind of kooky and says meme-y things sometimes but can also rake someone over the coals. She seems...fun?
With JD Vance, I almost feel like "snob" would be a better put-down than weird. Seems like that's what really made Clinton unlikable -- she thought she was better than you with all the "deplorables" stuff. And Vance is a guy who left his hometown to go to an Ivy and then wrote a book about how the culture he grew up in sucks and it's their fault they're poor and he's so much better than them.
So, so close (and honestly more thoughtful than a lot of what I read, so I congratulate you). Now let go of the idea that there is a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the most important issues, and understand that what you're watching isn't a thoughtful process to determine the leader of the free world but a contest to pick a mascot because "democracy" in America doesn't mean choice; it means the illusion of choice.
Why do I say the "illusion" of choice? Well, let's just address one of the issues you brought up: have you looked at Kamala's record on "crime" lately? Do you know why she flamed out so badly in 2020? People got to know Kamala and when they got to know her, she couldn't place above fifth in the polling in her home state and dropped out before Iowa. If you think Kamala is an actual choice versus a giant "hate has no home here" sign to place in America's collective suburban front lawn, you've already missed the entire reason we're where we're at (and the real reason Trump got elected in the first place).
There's a rumor that Biden wasn't supposed to endorse Harris on the way out but did so anyway so that he could screw the Democratic Party.
Oddly enough, this was my "conspiracy theory" in my Saturday compilation.
If I were Biden (or his family, more like), I'd be looking for a way to burn the party down. Kamala would be a good choice. She's the albatross around the Clintons and the Obamas necks.
Why did you put the word crime in scare quotes?
Probably not technically right, but given that Kamala Harris jailed a bunch of black men for possession of marijuana and then went on The Breakfast Club and laughed about smoking it herself, or blocked evidence that would have freed a man on death row (he made it out despite her efforts) or delayed the release of prisoners because they made the California prison system money as underpaid laborers, the scare quotes seemed appropriate. All this information is out there. It's what sank her the first time. They're trying to bum rush the election so people don't get a chance to find it all four years later.
It was only five years ago. Have people really forgotten Tulsi Gabbard destroying Harris on the debate stage?
For that matter, have people really forgotten that Harris flamed out early in the primaries after wasting insane amounts of money? Or that she's polled as the most unpopular VP in the history of modern polling?
The answers to your questions, judging by the media, would be yes.
The media's forgotten, or deliberately put it out of mind. The public is a different animal entirely I think.
I'm hoping. I'd hate to think the public was that easy to lead around by the nose.