Not that we’ll have an answer this evening, or perhaps this week, but today is election day. Like its predecessors, we’re told this is the most important election in American history. Ultimately, someone will win and someone will not. Some of you will pretend otherwise, but you will be lying to yourselves. At this point, the polls inform us that the race is a toss-up and either candidate can win.
If you support Kamala Harris and she loses, why?
If you support Donald Trump and he loses, why?
One of the near universal themes of this election is that neither is the candidate American needs, even if both are the candidate America deserves. But if we are ever to break away from this downward spiral to the bottom, lessons need to be learned. What are the lessons?
It’s argued that if the Republicans ran any candidate less repugnant than Trump, they would run away with this election. It’s similarly argued that if the Democrats ran a better candidate than Harris, they would run away with the election. And yet, here we are, Harris v. Trump. What needs to be learned so that our fate isn’t choosing between the lesser of two evils?
*Tuesday talk rules apply, with the caveat that comments arguing for one candidate over the other will be trashed. This is about the lessons learned from losing, not who you want to win.
I am not avidly supporting either candidate, so if TT allows, I’d like to tackle it this way:
If you don’t support Kamala Harris and she loses, why? There is a global trend against incumbents; and there is the sorry record of the incumbent party here. Lesson: get a new fresh face much earlier in the process, via primaries that will allow the strongest candidate to emerge.
If you don’t support Donald Trump and he loses, why? Reasons “TNTC” (as it is said about bacteria in a microscopic analysis–too numerous to count). Lesson: get any different face, any time in the process.
Interestingly, only the Dems seem to have had a painless pill for clearing their “infection” and getting the incumbent to step aside. For GOP, they had their chance in 2015 and did not do it, and now need surgical debridement.
Going off your proposed lesson that both parties should have learned to get new faces: The lesson I would hope both parties learn here, especially the losing one, is that they are still obliged to actually campaign for votes. I’m tired of elections where both campaigns amount to “our side is right, the other side is evil. If you’re a good person you’re already with me and if you’re not already with me you’re an idiot,” and I don’t think I’m alone in that.
Either party could have run away with this by putting up a candidate who campaigned on issues, set out some kind of actual plan that wasn’t just “The other side is the devil,” and maybe showed the slightest bit of humility rather than total entitlement. I’d like both sides to learn this but I’d settle for the losing side, because if even one side learns it then I’ll have someone I can vote for with enthusiasm next time.
Are you impersonating me or is there really another Luke G who reads this blog. What are the odds?
He’s legit Luke G, so the odds are pretty darn good.
I just very rarely feel qualified to intelligently comment here, so my name doesn’t pop up often. Always a pleasure to meet another member of the fellowship.
Learning why we need more than two parties as the whole nation loses no matter who wins.
Indeed, as of January 20, the nation shall be afflicted with a curse, and the only uncertainty is as to which one.
I am voting for Kamala Harris. If she loses, there is plenty of blame to go around. First, I blame the Trump voters for not bothering to engage in the thought processes that reveal what he is. It was easy to defend Romney when I was outspokenly in favor of his campaign. I would go through a checklist of Obama’s flaws and explain how Romney presented a better alternative. He wasn’t perfect, but he was smart, steady, and presented a coherent plan for prosperity. Second, I blame the GOP for failing to impeach Donald Trump and then cravenly jumping to his side when they realized he was here to stay. Third, I blame the Democrats for engaging Latinxes instead of Latinos and Latinas. And for spending a year reflexively making anything and everything about trans visibility, black women, and whatever else 22-year olds on TikTok were demanding that week. Those things may be important. I’m willing to listen. But first, for the love of God, can we talk about the issues that matter to the electorate more broadly? Last, I blame Donald Trump’s parents for raising him the way they did.
Thank God it’s Friday.
[Ed. Note: What part of this not being about who you voted for eluded you?]
[Ed. Note: Not who you voted for, but lessons. LESSONS!]
[Ed. Note: Hal, take another look at the TT rules for today. You were warned.]
A race between two runners trying to run as slow as possible and still cross the finish line first. If Trump loses, it’s because his troll politics ended up giving him more liabilities (turning people off) than advantages (making his opposition stupider). If Harris loses, it’s because she is a milquetoast candidate for a party that has become a funhouse version of the Bush Jr. administration. If either stopped using the other as an excuse not to Be Better, they would wipe fhe floor.
It’s almost certain that this lesson will not be learned, but that it’s the SJWs, the woke, the progressive, the left wing fringe, that gave us Trump as the reaction and compelled Harris, for better or worse, to pretend to be a centrist while doing everything humanly possible not to offend them.
But the woke never learn anything and never grow up because THEY ARE RIGHT!!!
On the Democratic side, in theory, you have to blame Biden. He could have said he wasn’t going to run again a year earlier, or he could have done something different about the hopeless disaster in Gaza. In practice, maybe neither of those things was feasible or helpful.
On the Republican side, Trump gets the blame. He’s such a bad candidate in so many ways.
Lesson to be learned? As other have said, run viable candidates. Right now the voters are casting ballots for X because they are not Y. We are forced to chose between the lessor of two evils, whichever one will do us the most good or the least bad on the few issues they covered.
Hell, a third party could run a golden lab or a pit bull and they would have more votes they the D and R combined.
And since it’s TT, let me bitch about one particular ad. I don’t know which PAC is sponsoring it, because I don’t want to waste my time, but I find it bothersome.
“Who you vote for is private, but your vote is a public record. Your friends and neighbors can see if you voted.”
It sounds like the winning party will find out how you voted and if it’s a “wrong” vote you will be punished.
1) Whether justified or not, the Electoral College system gives a significant advantage to the Republican candidate (as compared to total votes for each candidate). This could propel Trump to victory.
2) It seems to me that a large proportion (75% to 33%) of voters are incapable of evaluating facts and reaching logical conclusions. [This group could easily me, as you don’t have to be a member of the True Religion to realize that they all can’t be simultaneously correct.]
As a side note, for a country bitterly divided, our two party system is a terrible way of governing as a handful of votes can mean policies changing 180 degrees. And then back with the next election, with essentially no compromise required.
I have some sympathy for the Dems because they began believing their own BS about Biden being sentient, thus waiting way too long to come up with a transparent and engaging process for bringing out another candidate.
To borrow from Hunting Guy, the Reps pretty much did end up with an endearingly goofy and occasionally dangerously incontinent Golden Lab of a candidate. I’ve been around long enough to remember my parents being happy to vote for Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy. Neither were choir boys but both knew how to lead under extreme pressure courtesy of WWII. It’s been a downhill slog since then.
We shouldn’t discount that, barring some very level heads on both sides, an internal or external hot war could became that kind of leadership training ground again.
I don’t support either one of them, but unfortunately, they can’t both lose.
The lesson is that the country needs a third party, so that we aren’t stuck choosing between the shitty candidate chosen by the party elite on one side or the shitty candidate chosen by as few as 14% of eligible voters on the other. The only way to ever get there is to refuse to vote for the shitty candidates when the parties put them forward.
There are plenty of third parties on my ballot. I voted for one of them because my state isn’t competitive. The problem is they don’t win. No third party has ever won an American Presidential election – if they did win, they’d replace one of the existing parties and we’d be right back to a 2 party system. (Whigs -> Republicans, or the various realignments.)
Unfortunately, winner take all systems drift towards two parties, because you have to win elections to have a viable party. The primary alternative to our system is a proportional representation system (what the Brits and Israeli’s have, among others); I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t like that either, since you don’t vote directly for our dear leader, but rather Congress would.
The lesson for me is, that given how our country operates (winner takes all), and the intense scrutiny a candidate receives, it is nearly impossible for a “good” (whatever that means) candidate will be available to vote for that has a chance of winning.
I just don’t think that a “good” candidate would even want to run for president in the current climate.
As well, with the way congress works, even if the president is extremely popular and the majority of the people are fully onboard with the platform, congress can just fully reject it, or (more likely) water it down into meaninglessness.
So yeah, I voted, and I am mostly ok with it, given the two choices.
To all the people saying third party, you just cannot have it in a “winner takes all” environment. All the third party candidate does is take votes away from one or the other candidates and acts as a spoiler. If we changed from a winner takes all, then sure, third (and fourth, etc.) would work.
I think this is a fallacy, which could be discarded in an instant once people widely recognize it as a fallacy. Around 49% of the voters aren’t in either party camp, and each of the main parties is supported by about 27% of registered voters. Neither party candidate has a pre-commitment from the voters in the unaffiliated 49%, so a third-party candidate is, in fact, not “taking” them from one or the other of the shitty party nominees.
Indeed. It’s worth remembering that the majority of votes for Perot came from people who were planning on sitting out. He didn’t draw a significant percentage from either to create a spoiler effect.
Just curious as to where your got your percentages. I found this (which the host will probably remove: https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx ) which is basically saying 30% republican, 30% democrat, and 40% independent. Also, 27%*2 leaves only 46%, not 49% …
So if I do take your numbers as the REAL truth, are you saying that it’s possible that a third party can somehow get enough of that 49% to actually win? We are talking about the far left to the far right groups? I am not sure how that is possible.
As much as Ross Perot is (I believe) the most recent independent with an actual chance, he still only got 19%, which does not make a winner, but still pretty remarkable.
I stand by my initial post. Am I saying it’s IMPOSSIBLE for a third party candidate to exist and actually win in our current structure? No, I’m just saying it’s highly, highly unlikely.
Saw those figures in something I read last year. The “party” voters have probably been pushed up some by people registering in the big pushes.
In most states, it isn’t a question of who is going to win, but of voting with some semblance of personal dignity. Due to the impact of the electoral college, votes don’t really count outside those few states with close margins and significant numbers of electors. If you aren’t in one of those, you have no hope of impacting the result no matter who you vote for.
The Democratic Party should learn not to run someone for whom nobody voted in the primaries. The Republican Party should learn how to cultivate more people like the late Senator Richard Lugar.
[Ed. Note: Seriously? How many times do I have to say this is about lessons learned, not who you voted for?]
OK, let me rephrase it…
[Ed. Note: Stop making me play school marm. You’re still writing about your vote. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, but that it’s still about your vote. Stop it.] Had I to do my vote over, I would have written in P’Nut the Squirrel.
The lesson learned should be that elections ought not be treated as existential crises by either party, however well that might play in the short-term. At best, it encourages a race to the bottom, as it tends to reward those who play in the mud. At worst, it empowers the government to try to justify taking extraordinary measures by citing an existential threat to democracy, though these measures are often every bit as anti-democratic and illiberal as those they ostensibly are meant to protect against.
I am reminded of the scene in “A Man for All Seasons”:
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
If Kamala loses, my kneejerk reaction is to blame Joe for insisting on running as a decrepit. Next up would be Kamala herself for failing to set up a cogent opposition to Trump that stands on its own and isn’t dependent on being “not Trump”. She’s the one who ultimately has to get voters to turn out. Sure, not having a primary was a negative, but the timing was terrible, and that’s on Joe again.
Setting the blame game aside, a Kamala loss would beat me over the head with the message of “economy, economy, economy” being critical to voters. Not actual performance, but perception. Foreign policy, national security, and abortion even also won’t have mattered as much, the last being very surprising. So, she will have failed to convince the majority of voters in key states that her administration would be a good for the economy, whatever that means.
Also Trump’s support will have proved itself to be extremely resilient. I would have expected his support to have died down the more he is in the spotlight because he can’t help but do and say the dumbest shit and because he’s no longer the “outsider” but by now a creature of the very swamp he was sent to drain.
This was a very interesting exercise, so thanks for that, but not so much thanks that this is a tummy rub.
I want Trump to lose.
There are so, so many reasons why Kamala might lose instead. Her performance as a District Attorney and Attorney General was what I would consider poor, and completely at odds with the persona she adopted as a Senator and candidate for president (both times). She refuses to state what she stands for, and considering how she became the democratic nominee that is a very worrying issue. Her primary qualifications for VP appeared to be her gender and melanin content, and as far as I can tell, nothing has changed. She appears to stand for whatever is popular, rather than have any guiding principles.
Not to mention Biden should have held to his original pledge and not have run for re-election. He is/was a big problem too.
I am actually voting in a very important election today – my city council. One slate of candidates could really change the direction of the city.
I am fortunate enough to live in a country with enough checks and balances to prevent the president from affecting us too much. We have endured two bad presidents in a row and will survive a third.
I will sit back and eat popcorn while watching talking heads pontificate. They’re talkin’ a lot, but they’re not sayin’ anything.
By the numbers:
1. I’m glad I’m aging. I won’t live to see the final car crash.
2. There isn’t a hair’s difference between the parties. They both want control, but their plan on issues isn’t as great as they make it.
3. A learned lesson would be the federal government isn’t meant to fix all issues. Want abortion, trans rights or what kids learn? Those are more state or local issues, and the feds should stay out.
4. But they’ll never learn.
You always hear…This isn’t your daddy’s Democrat party and they are right. If/when the Dems lose, it can be blamed on the leaders of the party kowtowing to the miniscule progressive fringe minority that has turned off the moderate majority of the party.
If republicans lose, it’s because the voters stayed home. Say what you will about Trump, but he has been through the crucible of the primary three times.
The one primary the Democrat candidate went through, she got less than 3% of the votes and dropped out before the primary season even got started. Just about every political office she has held, has been handed to her by appointment instead of popular election.
The choice of candidates is a fool’s bargain for everyone.
I hate the Democrats and I hate the Republicans. The only difference I see between them is that the Republicans will spend a little less money than the Democrats. Both spend too damn much. Also too much “end of the world as we know it if we don’t win” bullshit being thrown out by both parties.
I hate the US Presidential election process. Why does New Hampshire and Iowa get to choose the Presidential candidate I get to vote for? By the time of my state’s primary there is nothing left to choose from. All primaries need to the same day nationwide just like the general election.
We need to end private campaign contributions. All campaign money should be funded by the US government. No private funds so no candidate owes anybody any favors.
SHG I apologize for ranting, I know my comments are only trash worthy, but these elections are really getting to me.
“A Short History of Stupid” was published in 2014, written by Razer and Keane, who sit on opposing sides of our notional political divide.
It’s little different in theme to the excellent “On Bullshit” by Harry G. Frankfurt from 2005 which, IIRC, was recommended here.
The immediate cause of the present decline seems to be the internet. The unmediated publication of any old nonsense to millions. The deluge of information available. The shift in commercial publishing measuring success from circulation to clicks. The amplification provided to bad actors who seek to mislead and manipulate.
The answer is intelligent adaptation. Eventually, and I don’t know how long it might take, institutions will emerge as trusted sources of information, having earned that trust. Others as respected sources of analysis and scholarship. Upon those foundations some consensus can be built. I expect it to happen because there is value in these things.
What we can do, is the work I think Scott is engaged in daily here – to stand against ignorance, for principle over emotion and convenience, for rigour over rhetoric. It requires engagement. At least to speak. To prod the unthinking to think again. To be more effective, it requires more than individual actions, but some collective and organised effort to build the institutions I envisaged.
Looking now at the results, I am actually surprised at the scope of the electoral judgment. I wonder if the ideology has reached its end, the stereotypical “identity politics” finally hitting the scrap heap. Democrats need to go into a quiet room and reconnect with reality.
I guess it’s cheating to comment on Wednesday morning, but two lessons the Harris camp could learn would be (1) don’t run on promises of fixing various problems, when you’ve been in power for the past four years; and (2) don’t run on “Trump is a threat to democracy” when literally nobody voted for you in the primaries. Both could be viable issues to raise–just not by you.
[Ed. Note: Usual off-topic nonsense deleted. Some people never learn.]
This election was the Democrats’ to lose. Trump was president for 4 years already, and everyone knows what to expect from him; lots of blovaition and no action unless it benefits him (or one of his benefactors). Half of the country loves him for his witty quips and for the “conservative” values that he pretends to value. This pretense was substantially bolstered by his appointment of Supreme Court judges who reliably rule against the woke left and in favor of “conservative” values, especially on the fake hot-button issues that the uniparty uses to divide us. The other half of the country hates him for the same reasons. One man’s witty quip is another man’s hate speech.
The Democrats needed to put forward a candidate who wasn’t utterly terrible; someone who could read a teleprompter competently, and who could credibly pretend to be a mainstream liberal, while also pulling in the far-left nutjobs by being “better” than Trump while giving them nothing. Joe Biden would have been that candidate, if he had a functioning brain. Kamala was a serviceable replacement, but for some reason they put garbage on her teleprompter. Those word salad speeches weren’t Kamala’s idea; she has no ideas. Her handlers wrote those speeches, and scrolled them on the teleprompter, and she did a decent job of reading them. Why did they choose to have her spew nonsense, and refuse to take any position on anything? If they were trying to lose the election, they wouldn’t have done anything different.