It is true that she didn’t have enough time to put together a viable platform, but if Biden had dropped out early enough for her to develop a viable campaign and platform, that would have meant a primary, and it’s doubtful she would have won that primary.
Even if she had won that primary, it’s still doubtful that she would have assembled a viable platform and campaign. The political cliques she was aligned with were diametrically opposed to the kind of policies that would have made a viable platform.
A break from neoliberal politics was necessary. But basically all of the institutional pressure for Biden to drop out came from neoliberal diehards who were pissed at him for deviating from that line slightly, the age thing was mainly just an acceptable cover story for the insiders. Haris got her chance by appealing to those groups and thus she was never going to challenge those interests.
Oh she never in 100 years would have won a primary. She was like rank 8 of 10 in the 2020 primaries, people do not like her
I voted for her but don’t like her.
Primarily, because of her stance on prison labor which is just slavery with extra steps.
Yeah, I voted for her too, as I would have voted for Biden or for a fucking Funko doll over Trump.
The fact of the matter is in an election where [ANYONE] vs FASCIST is the choices…
YOU FUCKING VOTE FOR ANYONE.
I honestly don’t believe this is still a conversation!! My god you people are not just determined to repeat the mistakes of the past- you’re running headlong right towards it!
So fucking embarrassing.
No no it’s somehow the left’s fault… Not left enough, that might be true though.
It’s hard to blame the voters in the light of recent events.
Voters just handed the Democrats an insane mandate. Ignoring the voters and caving in to the fascists a week later sends a very clear message, “We don’t care about your vote.”
Actions speak louder than words.
Of course there were many foolish voters out there but it’s not good enough for a candidate to be not Donald Trump. The reality is that many people will stay home when they see dirty corporate politicians running for office. And you can blame the people all you want, but that doesn’t change reality, and they’ll still stay home.
I think what’s embarrassing is your approach. You saw 2016 and 2024 and you still haven’t learned from either of them. It turns out that people vote or don’t vote for a variety of reasons, and a simplistic approach like yours is a failed approach.
And you can blame the people all you want, but that doesn’t change reality, and they’ll still stay home.
The problem with this logic, is that these are the options you have, and the DNC doesn’t care about this, so you, as not the DNC have 2 options. Support the democrats, or support trump.
All of the whining in the world won’t change this.
I think what’s embarrassing is your approach. You saw 2016 and 2024 and you still haven’t learned from either of them.
Why are you talking to that other commenter as if they are the DNC? They’re not the ones responsible for their political strategy.
and a simplistic approach like yours is a failed approach.
They’re taking the only logical option within their locus of control, and you’re acting like somehow they should have done what exactly?
lol! Thanks! Needed this.
I’m gonna be devil’s advocate here for a moment. I followed Mamdani’s campaign closely and I think he nailed it on the spot. You had two politicians running whereas one lied that he’ll reduce prices and make America great again and the other… did nothing for the most part. From the eyes of the average voter Kamala promised nothing but the status quo, and they wanted change. That’s how Dem strongholds flipped red during this election and how a lot of them went back to blue for the mid term elections. If she told her donors to get stuffed and worked for the working class instead of exploiting the working class she would’ve won.
What a mess we live in. Both options will fuck you over, only one of them will do it with lube.
It was a terrible campaign spoken to people who where/are hurting telling them they where actually in fact doing great.
It was worse then doing nothing, saying it was mostly nothing is being kind. Once again they just assumed they would win and forgot that people looking for any help will swallow lies over the safer status quo choice. That is why when the big man gamble blew up in their face they vote blue again. The real issue is this is why the dems never have to change, they don’t even oppose the other side anymore, they just wait to have their turn.
Watching this mess is just infuriating, seeing the endless exceptionalism and team based bullshit more so.
If you are in a nation that has only two choices and one is a FASCIST, you are in a fascist nation without real choice. You are once again embarrassing yourself to the rest of the world with this endless team based bullshit.
IF THERE IS ONLY ONE “CORRECT” CHOICE THEN THERE IS NO CHOICE!
This is what you all get when you turn your whole system into a fixed 2 headed hydra for years and years, but when you needed to stand up and change the system you all instead point fingers and blame instead of doing anything.
lol. Good one!
Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Your nation is a joke and the rest of the world is done with your shit.
Your nation is a joke and the rest of the world is done with your shit.
And what esteemed nation are YOU from?
The rest of the world does the exact same shit. I don’t know why you types outside the US think you’re somehow immune to facism, bigotry, and economic exploitation. And i say this living outside the US
K. Byeeee! Blocking you now as you have no dog in this race and just seem to want to bitch at someone.
Perfect, just like your leaders, you would prefer living in a make believe world then live in reality.
Clearly I have no “dog in this race” as if your shitstain of a nation is not in anyway involved with the world at all.
Oh but wait you can’t see this and for some reason trying to make blocking someone some sort of slight.
Truly, the amount of people on this website who will bend over backwards to push third party/protest votes despite all evidence that that is insanely naive and the equivalent to shooting their own legs off is insane.
Somehow, these people, after decades of it not working, think that the democrats losing will magically bring in progressive Valhalla, because they literally refuse to acknowledge that the very obvious solution, that is equivalent to eating your veggies and doing exercise, is that the democrats have to keep winning, and they have to keep voting in progressives through primaries, state and local politics.
Its extremely obvious to anyone who understand the 2 party supporting winner takes all/first past the post system they have.
Oh cool. Another Liberal completely blind to the internal workings of their chosen party. What pearls of wisdom do you have for us?
I voted for Kamala. This was the first time in 20 years that I’ve cast my vote Alone.
I rally everyone I can. And every time I had a rhetorical lever to remind my friends and family about the importance of this casual action, Kamala herself would rush to a camera to undermine everything I tried to say.
“End the genocide!” Well shit, she came out as a full throated Zionist. Her and her party did anything and everything to alienate everyone who views Palestinians as human.
“One genocide is better than two” well fuck, she promised to be harder on the border than a fucking Nazi.
“Trans survival rests on this” aaaand I watched her stand agast at any suggestion that she assert the reality that Trans Women are Women.
“We should codify Roe V Wade” and… Crickets from her.
People were hurting and the economy was in the toilet? All she could do was talk up Biden’s effort, sans evidence.
Her backers, her sponsors, her consultants, her party infrastructure all made sure she refused to stand for anything. Ever.
And I blame you Lemmings for allowing this shit for actual decades. You haven’t had a real Primary since 2008, and you call this Democracy?
Have the day you voted for - A half step up from the Maga reality of today, but with more concessions for Maga than even your own base or agenda.
The fact this is the type of shit that gets upvotes here is why you’re never pulling out.
You rant about democrats as if you choosing to lop your own legs off will make them so angry they’re suddenly going to do what you want.
You act like children, and ignore the obvious because it feels good to be angry at someone, and the democrats are the closest thing to being an org that will listen.
Instead though, you, as you admitted, in the most important election in your life, choose to stop caring.
Look at how childish all of your retorts are about all of the various things that she absolutely would not have specifically hurt if she had won.
You think she would actively be encouraging israel to flaten palestine?
You think she would be making ICE the actual gestapo?
As for Roe v Wade, how exactly do you expect democrats to do such a thing without a senate super majority?
You literally expect the impossible, and then give up and cry when you don’t get that.
Her backers, her sponsors, her consultants, her party infrastructure all made sure she refused to stand for anything. Ever.
Yet that was clearly the better option that shooting your own legs off.
How do you not realize that the DNC literally is incentivised to offer less and less if the country keeps flipping back and forth? Then, all they have to do is correctly assert that they are the non insane option, and offer to undo some of the damage done.
This is what they’ve done. This is what Biden has done, and somehow to you, you think that throwing a tantrum and literally getting marginalized people killed really got one over on the rich conservatives at the head of the DNC who will never see the inside of a grocery store.
And I blame you Lemmings for allowing this shit for actual decades.
What does this even mean exactly. You are clearly angry at some group you can’t actually specify.
This comment really reinforces how much you misunderstand your own system. You’d rather hurt people because you can’t get your idealistic wishes.
Whats the word for when you don’t really fully like someone, so you don’t vote for them, thereby giving the edge to the other guy, who you don’t like even more?
It’s called “right wing stupidity” and we should be calling out these worthless dumbfucks wherever we can. Although we should be clear that it does not seem like those particular brainless fools made enough of a difference.
Spine? Conviction?
Whatever it is, the important takeaway is if future campaigns take the same approach, they’re liable to get the same results.
So she threw intentionally for Israel. Checks out.
Imagine not being able to beat Hitler in an election
Hitler was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg, who ran as a left wing centrist. And at the time they were fighting against a bloc of left wingers and a small group of communists. Sound familiar?
Hindenburg, who ran as a left wing centrist.
There wasn’t anything “left-wing” about Hindenburg. He ran on maintaining the status quo - a status quo that was a rapidly deteriorating depression with very high unemployment. He represented business interests and was never going to do any of the major reforms that would’ve been necessary to save the republic (if anything could).
The social democrats decided to throw unconditional support to these centrist parties for the sake of stability. They didn’t seem to have any actual understanding of why conditions were deteriorating, why extremism was rising, or what needed to be done in order to address it - all they could ever think to do was support the bourgeoisie in order to buy time - in order to sleepwalk into fascism.
Naturally, as Hindenburg represented bourgeois interests, he was always going to side with the far-right against the left, if he had to choose. And, since conditions were declining with no plan to actually fix anything, he was always going to end up in the position of having to choose.
I would say that there are similarities, though, yes.
Imagine not voting for the black lady because she has to prove herself worthy while a criminal senile pedophile can go on insane demented rants for a year and win by default.
There’s a lot of cope happening in America, and everyone is pointing fingers, but the fact is 2/3 of the electorate either voted for fascism or didn’t bother to vote against it.
But go ahead and blame everyone and everything other than the fact that American culture is fundamentally rotten and most people either want fascism or at least don’t care about whether it happens.
Well that’s a gross over-simplification. It certainly wasn’t her and the DNC’s long history of clearly ignoring the needs of the people who want to vote for them while regularly reaching for “moderate” votes. It definitely wasn’t her disconnection from Walz while hanging out with Liz Cheney for a significant amount of time.
People don’t see her as any form of significant opposition to the far-right but they do see opposing the DNC as something worth doing and I’ve come around to supporting them there. It is not their fault that the Republicans won, anyoderately sane and intelligent people would have laughed him into oblivion but the US threw tens of millions of people at Trump.
300 million rotten people sure, this is how I know your opinion isn’t worth the pixels used to display it.
Well stop being right wing democrat
It’s so frustrating that conservatives get to vote for a candidate who shares their morals.
I am so sick of being told the problem is me not holding my nose hard enough.
I have high hopes but exceedingly low expectations that the new chair of the DNC will support democratic socialist candidates.
Flopped? It was incredibly close and if Elon did what he claimed she probably won overall. It’s only MAGAts that think it was a landslide.
Objectively the worst electoral map since the Republicans took California.
When a team loses a basketball game by 1 point, literally every missed shot or turnover (or blown defensive coverage leading to an easy basket for the other side or foul leading to made free throws) could be pointed to as the “cause” of that loss.
So yeah, if she were an actual better politician she probably would’ve won with the cards she was dealt. But there were also dozens of other causes that would’ve made her (or an alternative candidate) win, all else being equal.
And it’s hard to see how a better politician would’ve ended up in that position to begin with. The circumstances of how Harris ended up as VP probably wouldn’t have happened if not for the specific way that her 2020 campaign flamed out.
MAGAts and closeted misogynist.
Article was a great read. This part really resonated with me.
It may seem petty to use this incident, but it does illustrate Harris’s expectation that the world should conform to her needs. Towels on the far side of the room? Someone else must fetch them. A slot as the Democrat presidential candidate that party leaders conveniently made sure would be uncontested by anyone else, a massively well-funded campaign that raked in over a billion dollars and the support of celebrities like Oprah and Beyoncé, a popular vice presidential candidate, a huge boost in the polls as soon as she stepped into the campaign… and, yet, somehow, her loss is still anyone’s fault but her own. Why are my towels on the other side of the room? Who will fetch them for me?
It really did feel that way in hindsight. That we all were just supposed to conform to her and not the other way around.
I remember Hacks on Tap talking about how their contacts were frustrated that Harris wasn’t out doing more national television interviews and that she wasn’t really putting herself out there. This feels like another example of the towel in the bathroom.
So… the Dem strategy was… run an insufferable, stuffy, haughty narcissist to counter a more bombastic, less classy, insufferable narcissist…???
Not for nothing, but trump wasn’t exactly out there either outside of the incel podcasts. She was a poor candidate and the funding bullshit meant she had to be the candidate. Fuck her, but fuck every protest non voter way more.
Edit: knowing I pissed off at least three of you you lazy fuckers makes me smile.
No FUCK Biden for continuing to run even though he was too damn old to. He should have passed the torch properly and allowed for primaries to happen.
I think people forget that Harris only had a mere 15 weeks between Biden dropping out and election day to establish herself and try to bootstrap and run some kind of campaign that wasn’t just her wearing Joe’s skin. It’s insane that anyone expected her to win under those conditions and Biden could not have fucked us harder with his arrogance. Add to that the headwinds of her being a woman of color, not especially charismatic, and to the right of her base on many issues, and the outcome was written in stone from the start.
I always find it funny that the US sees 15 weeks as too short for making a campaign when in Europe we have 2 weeks for the European elections campaign.
The only reason Biden picked her for vice president was that she was a woman and black because she honestly ain’t a good politician in general. Her performance in 2020 is telling. I remember the CumTown podcast was constantly making jokes about her back then and they were still relevant in 2024.
If she had had more time, she would have lost even worse. The peak of her popularity was when people knew nothing about her. She just kept getting more unpopular as the election wore on.
The only scenario that Kamala could have won is if Biden had somehow dropped out just weeks before the election. Her only shot was to get elected before people really got to know her. She’s a deeply unlikable candidate.
Nuance on this site‽ Get out of here before the idiots start yelling “blue maga”!
He not only robbed us of a primary, he broke his one term promise.
And in doing so, shoved an uncharismatic center right candidate down our throats, whose only redeeming quality was not Trump.
Is that what democracy looks like?
he broke his one term promise.
Biden never made a one term promise.
Edit: "I don’t have plans on one term,” Biden told reporters
So even worse, he manipulated and deceived the entire electorate from the get-go.
Did Biden explicitly promise to be a one term candidate? No. But he personally implied it on many occasions, and he had his underlings spread the messaging of him as a one-term president in the press. His minions were out there in the media basing their entire pitch for his candidacy on the idea of him as a one-term caretaker president, running to restore normalcy.
He deliberately put the idea in the public consciousness that he would only run for a single term but without ever explicitly promising to do so. This way the bastard could get woo voters on the prospect of him making a graceful exit, but while still leaving his future options open. It was a Machiavellian move, and it ultimately blew up in his face and gave Trump a second term.
Okay so it wasn’t a promise, it was a leak from several of his aides that was probably calculated in order to help folks feel more comfortable electing somebody that’s 77.
The fact that he spoke out of both sides of his mouth, one being the mouth of several of his aides, doesn’t change my feelings about the man.
Palm trees are not actually trees, just tall bushes.
Look at Mr. Big Genius here!
Yes, but also fuck every protest non-voter even more.
Don’t care how much we get down voted! Fuck yeah this sentiment! Fuck all your protest non voters! I hope you read this and it makes you upset!
Edit: why am I twice as high as homie saying the same thing‽
Edit 2: that’s better, bring on the hate you lazy fuckers!
IMO she lost because her entire platform was:
- i’m a woman
- i’m non-white
- support trans rights
none of that tackles the cost-of-living crisis, none of that gives people an economic future.
To me her platform was:
- I’m not Trump
- I’m going to keep on doing what Biden was doing
- Republicans you should vote for me because I’m not that different than you
The bottom two is what really did her in. Being the status quo candidate when people aren’t happy with the status quo isn’t a winning strategy. Neither is ignoring your base to pander to a group of people who will never for vote for you.
support trans rights
Why do you surrender so easily to right-wing framing? What ads did she run supporting trans rights? What did she possibly do to make it an issue of her campaign?
There were two sides on trans rights. On one side, we had literal Nazis. On the other, silence. You conclude that the side that stayed silent made their whole campaign about trans rights, which is completely delusional.
Read the article. Kamala made her opinion of LGBT rights abundantly clear. She explicitly rejected Pete Buttigieg using the same logic a thousand other passive bigots I’ve met use. “I have no problem with queer people, but I can’t be near queer people because of what people might think of me.”
Not sure why you’re downvoted when you’re absolutely right and Mamdani proved it too. People are suffocating under the economic pressure, they consider other issues less important until that one is resolved.
And she caved on trans rights.
The right was the side that wouldn’t stop talking about trans issues as if they were a pressing matter. More manufactured outrage from the side that has been manufacturing outrage from every non-issue for decades.
Vs. a fascist dictator? It should have been a no-brainer, but instead it proved that a lack of brains is exactly what causes someone to choose not to vote or to protest via 3rd party nobodies.
What? She was a fantastic candidate! The fact she lost to someone so obviously bad just means she was bad at communicating to dumb voters. This is a widely known and predictable problem with Americans and you can’t blame her for that. So you see, she was the best person to not get the job. /s
People are missing your /s unfortunately lol
We didn’t need a memoir to tell us what a fuck up she was
Yea! See how much better things are! My god! Imagine the absolute HELL we would be in had she had won!
It would be more of exactly the same except liberals would be at brunch, not noticing that it’s their party that is chasing down Haitian immigrants on a horseback or deporting immigrants in record numbers or having two back-to-back years of the largest increase of the unhoused. Every time Republicans shift further to the right Democrats are in lockstep right behind them to fill the void just left by Republicans. Did you think that Biden giving ice one of the largest federal increases of funding they have ever seen with the largest expansion of detention centers was going to go unused?
Fucking hilarious. Enjoy your hallucinations.
Hallucinations would be the people doing the same thing over and over and over again and failing every time and always blame other people for their failures
Right? Like…. Not voting and expecting change! Fucking insane, I know!!
Harris adviser says VP ran ‘flawless’ campaign
“I would posit she ran a pretty flawless campaign, and she did all the steps that [were] required to be successful,” she added. “And I think – obviously, we did not win, but I do think we hit all the marks.”
…
Nix, Harris’ campaign manager, also attributed Trump’s decision not to participate in any debate following the ABC News presidential debate on Sept. 10 as detrimental to the Harris campaign’s strategy of presenting the choice between Trump and Harris clearly to voters several times.
“I think that was hard for us to then get the attention that we would have liked to,” Nix said.
Well, there you have it. Perfect campaign. No notes. Just wish Trump had been willing to debate, because we all know the problem Harris had was getting her face out there.
Time of death:
This right here is when she lost me for sure.
So this is why you supported Trump (by not voting against him)? Wouldn’t it still be so much better than what you have now?
Why did you vote for someone even worse than Trump? If Kamala had won, someone even worse than Trump would have got the Republican nomination in 2028. And they would have easily beat Kamala then. She wouldn’t have done anything to alter the conditions that lead to Trump. And now at least Republicans are likely to lose in 2028 (dooming about the end to elections aside.) And more critically, we actually have a shot at getting in Democrats that might actually be able to do something about fighting fascism.
You didn’t vote to fight fascism. You just voted for even worse fascism four years down the line.
Votes aren’t wishes. The electoral college is a thing. Many states are locked down for one side or the other and it really doesn’t matter who any individual votes for. In fact, being from Connecticut, I’ve voted for a third party for decades because I feel like it’s the only way for my vote for president to potentially have an impact. Unless you know this person lives in a swing state you’re being really ignorant by throwing out those kinds of accusations.
I begrudgingly voted for her anyway
Because that’s the sane thing to do.
If you think Trump is worse than Harris but didn’t vote for Harris then you deserve the stupid bed you helped make us all sleep in. 🤷
Edit:
Always happy to get the downvotes from the euro brigade. The true experts of US electoral politics. Thanks guys!
If only our opponent hadn’t made a choice detrimental to us!
I was never a big fan, but I was passionate about supporting her from the moment Biden stammered through that debate until this moment in her DNC speech: https://youtube.com/shorts/-UQliWnKnqY
This was the moment when she did the heel turn away from all the clever, momentum building moves that assembled a surprisingly left-friendly coalition. Everything after this was punching left and she lost as a result.
I still think Biden’s refusal to let go of the reins until way way too late is what doomed her primarily. As VP, she had to hold and defend Biden’s exact policies and positions, even the unpopular ones, while he was running. By the time he finally quit, she was basically stuck inside the rotting corpse of his campaign, having painted herself into a corner on every issue.
Number of times a candidate has run against or in place of the incumbent and failed miserably before Harris: 3
…And succeeded: 0
Number of times a candidate has run against or in place of the incumbent and failed miserably after Harris: 4
It was a terribly weak position, but she foolishly believed in the American people to pick the best of two bad options.
She was misguided.
I am not trying to be political or upset anybody of either side. I blame Joe Biden for this, before you judge or get upset or disagree with me–just wait. I believe this is particularly the reason she lost. She was left only from July to November to figure out her platform, determine a potential running mate, and come up with ideas.
Usually they start campaigning around the midterms leaving nearly 2 years. She only had 4-5 months to prepare. She had limited amount of time to prepare her political campaign, to figure out her agenda how to get her message out there to everybody. Wait for time for people to hear it. They were not sure of her policies, they thought she was just an extension of Joe Biden because she didn’t have time.
This is just one factor. She did a very excellent job for the few months she had left. She could have done a better job if Joe Biden had not ran a second term.
Then it upset people that Democrats didn’t hold an open primary. She would have still won most likely, but for the younger generation and others. It was a turn off, they said it was a form of tyranny. (Of course it wasn’t. Even Republican party in 2020 cancelled primaries in some states)
Then you had states cleaning up the ‘voting rolls’ people didn’t realize they were unregistered, and ran out of time to register again. In a lot of states, I don’t believe you can register on the day you vote. I might be wrong though.
She was left only from July to November to figure out her platform, determine a potential running mate, and come up with ideas.
She didn’t have too little time. She had too much time. She could have won if Biden had died a week before the election, and she had to take over last minute. The peak of her popularity was right when she got the candidacy. And it was all downhill from there. The more voters got to know her, the less they liked her. If she had had more time, it would have been much worse.
She was a deeply unlikable candidate that ran dead last in the primary she ran in. She was chosen by Biden as VP precisely because she was seen as unelectable and thus not a serious rival for Biden’s position.
It is Joe Biden’s fault for not allowing a real dem primary. Kamala did terrible in the 2020 primary though, so she likely would have not gotten to the general election in 2024 without Biden’s meddling.
agreed. But I think it goes back much farther. Biden was never a good senator, always was soft on constitutional rights and civil liberties, and has always been a racist and a demagogue. He never should have been president in the first place. The fact that he was shows how far back the rot thats killing the dem party sprang from.
No she is rightfully to blame. Her platform was “Nothing will change” and “Israel has a right to defend itself”. If she would have not said those 2 things she would have won.
Well I’m pretty sure with a longer campaign he team would’ve figured out “I’ll keep doing what Biden is doing” was a losing message and dropped it. I don’t think there was any chance of them acknowledging the genocide in Gaza by Nov '24, because the general public hadn’t come around on it by then.
I don’t know if that would’ve changed the outcome.
Biden should’ve kept his promise to be transitional and let there be an honest to god Democratic primary.
She pushed a very popular and likable Tim Walz out of the way to put a fucking Cheney front and center. Cheney are historically evil people.
She refused to appear in unscripted events. People point to Trump’s podcast appearances as the reason he won, but in my opinion it’s closer to the truth to say that Kamala refusing to appear unless everything was closely controlled is what really cost her.
Some of that may also be that the secret service doesn’t allow for to much non “closely controlled” environments. Not sure exactly how that works, but I assume you have to let them know where you are going to be in advance and they figure out who is going to be there and set perimeter and everything else, which if you are nervous I imagine you fall into a “I should prepare for this interview” having hours/possibly days to do so.
Low key racism and American idiots who pretended that the black lady was worse than trump and stayed home
