It took about a day for Kamala Harris to lock up enough delegate support to nail the nomination. The money spigot that turned off after Biden’s cognitive decline could no longer be denied has been turned back on. Her history as a prosecutor, despite the great many abhorrent things she did (remember Celeste Guap, as Chris Seaton reminds us), is being touted as a strength this time around in order to set up “the prosecutor v. the criminal” campaign against Trump.
Whether Harris is the candidate Democrats want seems besides the point. What they want even less is a chaotic floor fight that will leave everyone bloody. What they want is to pretend Harris is suddenly a desirable candidate where she was a failure of massive proportions before. What they want is to see the first woman of color elected president. What they want is to bring back the pro-Hamas fringe who hated Genocide Joe for what was happening in Gaza, but didn’t connect Harris to the policy, as she declined to be present for Israeli President Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to the House and her and has spoken of the pro-Hamas protesters as “showing exactly what the human emotion should be.”
What they want is for Harris to beat Trump.
As all the potential Democratic challengers have now endorsed Harris, there is no impediment to her getting the nomination, which the DNC still intends to do in advance of the convention, making the convention merely a show serving only to put lipstick on a pig gloss on its coronation of Harris.
A day ago, there was hope that she might earn the nomination, might earn the votes of Democrats and bring some legitimacy to her nomination rather than be anointed by party without a single vote ever being cast in support of her candidacy. Today, it seems almost impossible that Kamala Harris will not be the Democratic candidate for President.
Is Harris the savior of the Democrats after Biden’s aging out of grace? Have the Democrats coalesced around a winner or latched onto the nightmare candidate because she had the VP title and the old man’s endorsement? Can Kamala Harris be reimagined into someone people outside the Democratic base will vote for? Will “I’m not Trump” work for her as it did for Biden in 2020?
Or have the Democrats just made a disastrous miscalculation and put the future of the nation into the hands of a candidate no one outside the base wants and a president who may not be Trump, but will be a disaster in her own right? It’s not that there weren’t better candidates, but that the Dems lacked the guts to let democracy takes its course.
*Tuesday Talk rules apply (within reason).
I’ll emerge from the shadows because its Tuesday Talk. A lot of the focus is on the Dems and if their candidates are qualified, but what makes them worse than having Trump in charge of the country again? I love using the phrase that I first heard from SHG of “the alternative to bad isnt necessarily good, it can always get worse”, but I’m not seeing how that applies here. Biden’s first term wasnt exactly historical but was able to maintain normalcy without having a constant newsfeed of what batshit crazy thing Trump said or did that day (I realize thats not exactly a ringing endorsement but its also not a disaster). On the other side there are promises to gut the federal government and replace it with loyalists, deporting pretty much everyone, cutting VA benefits, and trying to turn the country into a theocracy.
I’m not trying to win the Billy Madison award today, I swear. I guess I’m looking to hear from the other side of the doomers. Because I do read the posts and comments here everyday so it would be nice to hear a measured take on why it’s possible I’m just overreacting. I’m not on Twitter anymore because I couldnt stand it, so I’m only on Bluesky which is kind of an echo chamber for doom.
Her strongest positive is that she’s not Trump. It really seems like it should take something more to be elect President of the United States, unless being a woman of color is the only other “virtue” needed for the Democrats.
The question on the table isn’t “Is she preferable to Trump?” but “Will she be able to beat Trump?” They are connected, because the qualities informing one answer can help inform the other, but they aren’t in perfect alignment. And the selection process can negatively impact favorability on both fronts.
Trump has long been the Democratic Party’s alibi. He’s the excuse they use for embracing dysfunctional policies and candidates in lieu of authentically progressive (small p) ones, and for short-circuiting democratic procedures. It’s a good strategy for keeping tight control of the party but not necessarily for winning. When contending with an adversary with disruptive appeal it can be an awful one.
It might be a better to judge the Biden admin not on the Trump “did he say crazy stuff” (after the debate its seems likely to many that Biden is unable). Instead how about a standard focused on the economy stupid, and maybe a smattering of “how many wars/ did we arm/ support terrorists and people that hate us”
If the dems dont swap back to an open convention (wanted by at least 30 percent) , and depending on who Harris picks for a VP this is a sacrifice play. Her best VP pick (Shapiro who is competent and can deliver PA) but doesnt work for the Hamas crowd.
I’m not sure why I see comments alluding to the economy being a weakness for the current admin. The economy has been ripping with GDP growing from 1.3%-4.6% in the quarters since 2022 and employment growth has been keeping with trends that were Pre-COVID. This despite the White House providing political cover for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at the fastest rate in over 40 years while simulaneously conducting quantitative tightening in the background.
I keep seeing “what makes Harris qualified?”, which is a fair point. But I’m not seeing why we should endure four more years of a Trump admin. Its not like he is an unknown entity, there is information what that was like. Somehow January 6th, trying to withhold funds to Ukraine to get dirt on Biden (which I dont know how i remember this, but SHG made a comment on Twitter about it maybe being time for McConnell to take a walk to the White House when it happened), the COVID debacle, treating NATO like the “fuck you, pay me” scene in Goodfellas, and having Steve Bannon making real decisions gets glossed over.
I’ll be honest, I thought Biden dropping out was a mistake, but I did not expect the reaction to Harris running for the nomination that came. I do think the difference betweeen 2016 and now is that Clinton was such a wildly unpopular candidate that had been the target of vitriol for 20 years.
I appeciate the discourse here, so thank you!
The economy and the GDP may be ripping, but in the past few years my financial expenditures have skyrocketed (sugar, e.g., up 60%) without any concomitant increase in income. [My stock portfolio is non-existent.] The rich getting richer does me no good as more and more things become unaffordable.
Be careful on Harris focusing on the economy:
Under Trump, I could pay cash for our groceries.
Just a simple fact.
I wouldn’t count on Trump being able to make that happen again. His main economic policy is trickle down economics and since Reagan first proposed that for some reason it never seems to trickle down. I really doubt that putting a tariff on foreign goods will change that. I’ve always preferred George Bush’s description of it as voodoo economics.
You mention Harris’ “coronation” and call her “a candidate no one outside the base wants.” That sounds an awful lot like Hillary Clinton circa 2016, except Hillary actually did pull in the votes for the nomination (slanted system to get her there notwithstanding). I’m not nearly smart enough to say whether Harris is good enough to be President, but this feels an awful lot like a repeat of the DNC putting up the candidate whose turn it is, only to be extremely surprised that the voters didn’t just take their word for it.
Making things worse, the Democrats are doing this after already undercutting the nomination process for Biden, ensuring he didn’t have to debate or otherwise make any unscripted appearances to secure the nod until a few days ago. The party loudly screaming about the need to protect democracy seems rather set against letting voters have their say.
Exactly my thoughts on this situation. It feels like 2016 all over again, and those who do not learn from history, etc.
I keep hearing that America would elect a gay man over any woman, so maybe they should have been looking at Buttigieg. I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as that, though, I don’t know if America has a problem electing a woman, so much as with electing just ~any~ woman based on genitalia (or gender, whatever).
Either way, I don’t see it as being any closer to having a president who’s not Trump for 2025. Sadly.
Everybody’s bragging and drinking that wine
I can tell the Queen of Diamonds by the way she shines
Come to daddy on an inside straight
Well I got no chance of losing this time
I rarely submit anything but music, but what the hell, it’s Tuesday.
The pain many are feeling about this election had me ruminating on other types of pain and how they are perceived by those who can never experience a particular pain. Specifically, the different opinions about which is worse, the pain of childbirth, or getting kicked in the nuts.
Of course, men can never experience childbirth, and women can never experience a kick to the nuts. Neither can ever know the pain experienced by the other, yet strong opinions are held nonetheless. So, we must use reason to reach a logical conclusion.
Consider the following. A year or two after giving birth, many women will say, “I think I’d like to have another baby,” in spite of the pain experienced previously.
However, a year or so after getting kicked in the nuts, one never hears a man say, “You know, I think I’d like to get kicked in the nuts again.”
So there you have it. A kick to the nuts is worse.
But you don’t know until the election returns come in whether you’ve given birth or just been kicked in the nuts.
George W Bush was the choice of the Republican elite for what it’s worth.
Polling before Biden’s announcement had similar numbers for Harris as for Biden so there seemed little risk of an outright rejection of the VP by the voters, and Harris has more upside on the abortion issue. One could hope that after four years of familiarity with Harris, the (fictional?) Dem Elites have faith she can do the job but somehow I doubt they are thinking past November.
Donors Donors Donors. We know who our real masters are. Democracy didn’t last 48 hours.
Just a brief time ago , for those that watched Houseof cards, who among us would have thought that the idea that Frank Underwood could have pulled off becoming President was anything other then fantasy?
Of course there are dissimilarities but Harris has done nothing of significance to even be considered; not to mention her disastrous campaign of 2020. So let’s see if she can deliver…. Personally I’m hoping for a contentious open convention ( fantasy I know)
As do I, with a good supply of Orville Redenbacher at the ready.
Money is a factor, several people have said only Biden and Harris can use the Biden/Harris campaign Money. Otherwise I think Newsome was first choice because he has a better public image. Running a repeat of Hilary Clinton’s “president by divine right” campaign is going to fail hard, and I don’t think the “last chance to save our democracy” is polling very well.
I predict that in October the Republicans will attack VP Harris using the Karl Rove playbook. Celeste Guap will be front and center.
Tulsi Gabbard knocked Harris out of the 2020 primaries by focusing on Harris record as California Attorney General. One example: She kept thousands of people in prison, against SJC directive (Brown v. Plata ), so that CA could have cheap labor to fight fires.
Boom. Spot on. Why Celeste Guap hasn’t been mentioned already I do not understand.
To date, she seems a horrible public speaker devolving into word salads. She’s been the least visible Vice President since Alben Barkley during Harry Truman’s term.
Her qualifications seem to be: She’s not Trump and she’s a woman of color. That is enough for Democrats but the money question is will it be enough for the general electorate? If Trump runs on “It’s the economy!” I think he wins.
The Gaza problem isn’t going away, and the pro-Hamas wing of the party will be disrupting the convention as much as they can. Also, she has to clean up the mess of the party lying about Biden until it became untenable.
From a fundraising perspective, her selection makes it easier because she can access the existing Biden/Harris funds, plus new contributions. Maybe she wins by not being Trump, and maybe not, but replacing a dementia patient with a candidate who has brain function has to be an improvement. Part of the panic seems to have been focused on whether the shuffling avatar of senility would take down Democratic House and Senate candidates. Hence, if the switch is enough to avert that disaster, Democrats can claim a victory even if Harris herself falls to Trump.
I can guarantee one thing. The crowd that voted “Anyone but Hillary” will vote against Kamala. They may write in Mickey Mouse so they don’t vote for Trump but that’s a vote the dems need.
Dusting off the “I’m With Her” signs from 2016, and hoping for a different result….
Now that I see Kamala anointed, I am beginning to understand her role. Like Trump, she is one of our greatest living entertainers. Her entertainment style is fresh and new. She’s a teleprompter pro, and she delivers her lines perfectly. Her writers are virtuoso poets, modern-day Mozarts of the political theater. What seems like pointless word salad to her detractors is pure genius to her fans. She’s a modern-day scat singer, rapping political verse with a conversational, “acapella” style. “skeep-beep de bop-bop”
As a president obliged to entertain and distract us. I’m only beginning to realize how amazing Kamala would be. If everyone was a connoisseur of politics, she would have a chance of winning the election, or at least getting within cheating distance. But will the man in the street be able to recognize her talent? This is truly a battle of titans.
Who will carry forward the globalist agenda for the next 4 years? Who will explain to us why we need to give more to the system and get less from it? Will we be ruled by the right arm or the left arm? It’s the most important election ever.