And when Kamala had the entire DNC establishment behind her, what was stopping her from distancing herself from Biden? What was she afraid of?
My guess? The entire DNC establishment wasn’t behind Harris. They were behind Biden, and supported Harris as Biden’s successor rather than on her own (nonexistent) merits. She hadn’t earned their support, and knew it.
Exactly. And the Democrats made it even worse for themselves by claiming there was no economic crisis - that Biden had beaten inflation, beaten unemployment, and claims of a bad economy were just Republican propaganda. The American people looked at their paychecks and grocery bills and called bullshit. Harris was right that Trump would govern as a fascist dictator with Project 2025 as the roadmap - but the Democrats lied to America’s face about the economy and that made everything else they said sound untrustworthy too.
If the Dems had taken America’s economic struggles seriously, Harris would be President now. But Biden refused to admit his economy was bad and Harris didn’t have the guts to contradict Biden. And here we are.
Unfortunately not. She’s already moving to run for governor of California in 2026, as a platform for another 2028 Presidential run.
Was it really an imaginary rule? I think it was Original Sin that talked about how Biden made his support for Harris contingent on “protecting his legacy” - ie, no criticizing Biden, no claiming she would do things different than Biden.
Edit: the claim comes from “FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House”:
But the day of the debate Biden called to give Harris an unusual kind of pep talk — and another reminder about the loyalty he demanded. No longer able to defend his own record, he expected Harris to protect his legacy.
Whether she won or lost the election, he thought, she would only harm him by publicly distancing herself from him — especially during a debate that would be watched by millions of Americans. To the extent that she wanted to forge her own path, Biden had no interest in giving her room to do so. He needed just three words to convey how much all of that mattered to him.
“No daylight, kid,” Biden said.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5191087-harris-trump-biden-harris/
Yes. Exactly. Harris lost, and it is her fault, and her responsibility.
The average American is not a political expert. (Duh.) They rely on information, and persuasion, from the actual political experts, to decide whose policies fit their values and who their best choices as political representatives are.
If a political party has the best policies, but fails to make the case for those policies to the American people, the fault is not with the American people, but with the party that failed to make its case.
In this case, Trump waged a vicious propaganda campaign based on blatant fucking lies. And the Harris campaign was too incompetent or cowardly to effectively call out those blatant fucking lies - partially because Trump was so much better at social media than Harris, and partially because Harris was afraid to stand up for the trans people and immigrants and other marginalized groups Trump was attacking.
(Biden shit the bed so badly nobody in his administration could have won by running on his record, of course, but that doesn’t absolve Harris for her own failures.)
Any political party that starts blaming voters for not agreeing with it, instead of accepting its own responsibility to convince voters, is headed to permanent minority party status. And as happy as I’d be to see the Democrats permanently marginalize themselves and make room for an actual progressive party, right now they’re the only roadblock in Congress against Project 2025.
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Is Craigslist shit now? What happened to it?
Trump thinks he can trade a few weeks of bad headlines and market hit, for some magically reappearing domestic manufacturing. It doesnt work that way. Even if it were possible, it wouldn’t create positive economic conditions on any kind of timeline sufficient to offset the negative effects real consumers are already experiencing.
A few weeks? Try a few months. Or years. I think Trump is fine with bad headlines for months on end.
The positive interpretation is: Trump’s confident that he’s right. He’s confident America will be better off under his tariff plan. OR he’s confident he can use tariffs to force trade deals that benefit America and exploit the rest of the world. And he knows voters have short memories. As long as the economy is strong in fall 2026 he can take credit for it and give Republicans overwhelming electoral victories at the federal and state level.
The negative interpretation is: Trump doesn’t care about public opinion because he doesn’t think elections are going to matter anymore.
Either way, what the media and the voters think about tariffs now doesn’t matter to Trump. Trump does what Trump wants and the rest of the world submits to him. It’s everything he’s always wanted.
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Right. Now is the right time to start.
But it’s too soon to tell if that effort will accomplish anything, because the effort has to be sustained through 2026 and 2028.
And the people showing up waving signs have to become politically active - not just showing up and going home, but writing their congresspeople and boycotting companies and knocking on doors to get out the vote and so on and so forth. Bernie and AOC can stump all they want. If they don’t inspire people to act it means nothing.
The Democrats need a grassroots movement - as angry and passionate and hopeful as the Tea Party was - not just speeches by celebrity pols. It’s too early to tell if liberal citizen voters will accept their responsibility to build that movement.
Save your praise until they actually win some victories. Marches and rallies are a good start, but they don’t necessarily translate into political action. Remember the women’s marches in 2017? The largest single day protest in American history and it did exactly two things: jack and shit. People went out, waved signs, went home, and Trump flipped three court seats and ended Roe.
Bernie in particular has always been great at turning out a crowd, but he’s never been able to turn that into political or legislative victories.
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This is Trump’s strategy too. Make a brutal enough example of a few universities, or law firms, or immigrants, or other countries’ economies, and the rest will comply in advance. Like Trump said in his West Point commencement speech recently: "As much as you wanna fight, I’d rather do it without having to fight. I just wanna look at them and have them fold.”
Reminder: Ender Wiggin is not a fucking hero.