Something is wrong with this split-screen picture. On one side, former president Donald Trump rants about mass deportations and claims to have stopped “wars with France,” after being described by his longest-serving White House chief of staff as a literal fascist. On the other side, commentators debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris performed well enough at a CNN town hall to “close the deal.”
…
Let’s review: First, Harris was criticized for not doing enough interviews — so she did multiple interviews, including with nontraditional media. She was criticized for not doing hostile interviews — so she went toe to toe with Bret Baier of Fox News. She was criticized as being comfortable only at scripted rallies — so she did unscripted events, such as the town hall on Wednesday. Along the way, she wiped the floor with Trump during their one televised debate.
Trump, meanwhile, stands before his MAGA crowds and spews nonstop lies, ominous threats, impossible promises and utter gibberish. His rhetoric is dismissed, or looked past, without first being interrogated.
nearly perfect anyway
Trump is targeting mostly far-right evangelicals who have a common vision on what they want the country to look like. He has a lot of energy when doing so, and because of how similar their interests are he could get away with all sorts of stuff and they would still vote for him.
Harris (and Democrats in general) is the only alternative mainstream candidate that everyone else has, and that “everyone else” consists of all sorts of people with conflicting interests: liberals, neoliberals, centrists, progressives, leftists, different religious groups or cultures, varying economic demographics, racial minorities, LGBTQ, and immigrants for instance. They’re trying to appeal to all of them at once, but because they don’t have a shared vision, nobody is happy and they get more scrutinized. To make at least some of them happy, they need to focus on certain groups and deprioritize the interests of other groups. However, once they do that then the groups they deprioritize get angry since they no longer have representation, and the groups that are still there remain skeptical because of the history of not working for their interests in the past.
The advantage that third parties like PSL have is that from the start, they’re trying to appeal to a specific group of people with a common vision like Trump is instead of trying to play both sides with conflicting groups and making nobody happy. The problem (aside from the election duopoly bought out by corporations) is that they are a very small political minority so they have no real chance of winning the election without winning over people from other groups which is a challenge, especially when there are many more unknowns when it comes to progressing than there are when it comes to reverting to a previous state so there is more fragmentation due to those sort of disagreements.
Can we stop putting up articles stuck behind paywalls please?
They just want the headline anyways
This is a feature not a bug in a slaver’s system.
It’s the image that each candidate has crafted. Harris is running as an ultra-competent bureaucrat who will follow all the rules. Trump is running as an angry old fart who will break them.
Fascists in the media lionize Trump because they love the idea of a Rebel Billionaire breaking all the rules to MAGA.
And because so much of the media is owned and operated by fascists, you get a stark Trump bias.
But what are Dems going to do about it? Break up these mega-corp news conglomerates? Prosecute flagrant violations of election law by billionaire media magnets? Threaten these oligarchs in any conceivable way?
No. They’re just going to get strung around by the nose, then complain that The Low Information Voter didn’t see through the bullshit filling up their screens and airwaves.
The FTC is just starting to go after oligopolies. So yes, institutions supported by Democratic bureaucrats are going after powerful conglomerates. Results can be seen in the denial of the Capri tapestry merger and the language used by the judge in the case.
The FTC is just starting to go after oligopolies.
Will Harris replace Lina Khan once she gets into Biden’s seat?
Depends if she goes behind Israeli lobby.
sigh
Laughing out loud bruh… A next level one liner burn… ʘ‿ʘ
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about not regressing to a 2004 republican. That doesn’t appealt to Republicans who have moved further right and not to the left who refuse to budge.
It’s willful ignorance to complain that she needs to be perfect when the people complaining are often specific about the things they care about that are being ignored.
And if those are being ignored you can be shocked they won’t vote for her and you must admit she’s clearly not courting those voters either.
This is either a non-issue cause she is going for exactly the voters she wants or she’s willingly creating a flaw by deciding to court votes that won’t be enough to win.
I don’t get how this is still an argument. It’s happening exactly as participants are making it happen.Centrists look on Trump’s base and wonder why they can’t have a mindless cult too.
Micheal Bloomberg hates Donald Trump because he ain’t Donald Trump.
And yet you spineless fucking cowards didn’t endorse, so your words mean nothing
Democrats credentials for presidency - they are not Trump.
Edit - In any other election cycle this is a legitimate question.
What are you bringing to the table? What is your policy position?
For both the parties.
Just because this election only party is eligible to represent doesnt mean that the questions shouldn’t be asked. Browbeating undecided voters for the questions is wrong and might give the result no one wants.
The position is to acknowledge results of an election. That should be enough. For more information there is a ton of resources like Harris’ website.
they are not… a sexist, traitorous sellout and that’s scratching the surface
In a two party system this is always true. But what do you mean by “Trump”. What does it mean to not be like him?
What does it mean to not be like him?
That is the rhetoric that is prevalent on lemmy.
Anyone who equates “not perfect” with supporting a genocide is not worth being read and taken seriously.
Not sure that’s what the op’s point was
“You criticized her for not being good at X so she did X a bunch!”
Yeah but she’s bad at it and it went really poorly for her and hurt her numbers.
These people are fucking idiots.
Seriously? Even Fox News admitted that she handed them their own ass.
I’d love nothing more than to see her just spend an hour straight laying into Trump and Vance with f-bomb strewn attacks and continuous heavy-handed insults. I think she’d probably convert some Republicans if she did that.
Yes, that’s the advantage of leading a cult.
Weird that this has to be explained this late into the game but…
Trump is running on the promise of enacting fascism and using state power to mete out retribution to the ‘undesirables’ that his voters blame for their lack of power. To this end there is nothing he can say or do that will make them not vote for him. He is promising power and as long as he wins his promise is kept.
Kamala is running on a platform of ‘not fascism’ and to that end she does need to provide a coherent alternate worldview to mindless retribution. It’s not enough for her to walk the middle of the road and say as little as possible. She needs to give people a diametrically opposed worldview. She needs to be capable of explaining why fascist retribution isn’t good or helpful. She can not just be a diet Republican. She needs to have coherent answers to their obvious bullshit.
Hope this helps. Horrifying that the people who are a decade into Trumpism and ostensibly responsible for stopping it don’t seem to have the slightest clue what motivates it or how to counter it.
It sounds like you’re coming at this from the perspective that Trump voters like Trump because his fascist talk makes them feel like he’ll wield Presidential power to “fight the evils of the people at the top of society”, but I disagree. I think for a lot of Trump voters it boils down to at least one of a few feelings:
a) abortion is murder, I’ll vote against the side that clearly supports abortion more
b) Immigrants and LGBTQ+ people are the devil
c) I want to afford the stuff I wish I had, and Trump will help me do that.
d) Every left-leaning person of power of any kind is a demon and should get what’s coming to them
IMO only the MAGA voters care about d). The average non-MAGA-but-still-Trump voter doesn’t care really care about “shadowy figures” “getting what’s coming to them”, they just want better lives for themselves as in c).
To sway those people, she doesn’t have to provide a “diametrically opposed worldview” to fascism - that makes it sound like what you think she needs is to run on creating a completely different way of living. It just means appealing to those in the camp of a), b) and/or c). Swaying believers of a) or b) without actually appealing to anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, or anti-LGBTQ+ reform is tricky, and tackling c) comes down to her positioning herself as the better candidate economically, but people in that camp have varied ideas on what’s best for the economy, so that’s tricky too.
But regardless, everyone who cares about the election and isn’t already in any of those camps isn’t gonna vote for Trump anyway, no matter how Harris campaigns.
She has been talking about a different way of doing things though, I got the feeling she talked about many policies in the debate that people have ignored.
Non American here, but it really feels like there is nothing she can do to shake the non-trump thing. Lemmy is full of “Trump bad”, but I’m missing the “Kamala good”. Its as though no one wants to say it, and it feels like it always comes back to Israel. That is understandable too, however she is not a one policy candidate, however it feels like that is how its reduced.
Honestly I get the feeling that its either:
- People being very opposed to one policy enough that its blinding them
- Literal trolls trying to make enough noise to make it a trump vs. Non-trump to disenfranchise the voters
I want to see the “Kamala stands good on policy X” posts here. They should exist but where are they?
No I dont condone the Israel shit, but there has to be more to it. That’s too simple.
Is she?
She just got on national TV and refused to support trans rights. Democrats ran to the right of fascists on militarizing the border. She is pro imperialism. She isn’t committed to climate change. She’s not going to meaningfully redistribute wealth. Looking at how desperate Americans are right now do you really think that coming out with a plan to raise the top marginal tax rate from 30 to 35 percent or whatever is some massive rallying cry that’s going to make people re-evaluate their worldviews? She’s not even that strong on abortion rights.
She just got on national TV and refused to support trans rights.
Not sure exactly what you’re referring to, but if you’re referring to the Fox News interview, I think she addressed trans rights as well as she possibly could’ve to…a Fox News audience…without completely losing them.
Democrats ran to the right of fascists on militarizing the border.
I call BS.
She isn’t committed to climate change
That’s too strong a statement. She co-sponsored the Green New Deal, gave an entire speech about climate change at COP28 and again this past July, and has an entire “Lower Energy Costs and Tackle the Climate Crisis” section on her issues page. On top of that, actions speak louder than words, and the one meaningful action she can wield as VP - casting tie-breaking Senate votes - was used to enact the Inflation Reduction Act, which works in a meaningful way to combat climate change.
She’s not going to meaningfully redistribute wealth. Looking at how desperate Americans are right now do you really think that coming out with a plan to raise the top marginal tax rate from 30 to 35 percent or whatever is some massive rallying cry that’s going to make people re-evaluate their worldviews?
Idk what your metric for “meaningful wealth redistribution is” but the kind of “wealth redistribution” many middle Americans want is the kind where they can afford to start a new family, and/or afford their first home, and/or afford to start a new business. All of those have been addressed explicitly by Harris and her policy plan, and they go meaningfully beyond what we have now. Your other comment that she’d ‘raise the top marginal tax rate by 5% or whatever’ makes it sound like that’s literally the only action she’d take to make the lives of middle-class people better.
She’s not even that strong on abortion rights.
You’re not outright saying she’s weak on abortion, b/c I think you and I both know she isn’t - she is clearly far more outwardly pro-choice than Trump.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/07/14/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-on-combatting-climate-change-and-building-a-clean-energy-economy/ She is far better on climate change than Trump. She supports an energy transition. Trump hates wind farms.
You’re right, let’s go with Hitler instead.
It’s not just “one policy” though. That kind of reduces it to a bloodless difference of opinion or something. We’re not haggling over tax rates or something, this is a literal, ongoing genocide. If Kamala is wrong on genocide, she can’t be “good”, no matter what other policy positions she has.
Sure. I totally understand that, but the stakes are different during an election in a system which at this very moment cannot and will not change. It serves to disenfranchise people.
You can and should campaign about this issue. At the same time, the stakes at present are not about whether the US will exit Israel or not. No amount of disapproval will change that fact, so why not focus on the things that will change, and come back to this later?
There’s no “coming back to this later”. People are being slaughtered as we speak. Later is too late. If we swallow this, then we’ve lost everything.
Why not promise trumpism with a wink, and then deliver none of it?
Because fascists can always move father right. You can’t out Republican the Republicans.
Because trumpists won’t buy the act but Democrats will.
Her supporters on the lemmyverse keep saying that’s what’s she’s doing…
When you sign up for a ml account, is there a test you have to take where all the correct answers are opposite of reality?
Some people (like me) just connect to lemmy the first time and end up on .ml without choosing it. I have no recollection of being given a choice.
I mean when I made an account there was a massive list of instances and I had to choose one.
Did you do some research or did you just click one?
I actually dont remember. I was just trying to figure it out. Maybe I did make an uninformed pick someplace.
Literally nobody is saying or thinking that
That’s too bad; that was the only thing left that could convince me to vote for her.
I haven’t seen anyone here try to convince you of anything aside from the fact that your attempts to convince other people about political shitposts isn’t working out.
And if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass when it jumps.
does need to provide a coherent alternate worldview to mindless retribution
Talking about a border wall is hardly coherent with rejecting mindless retribution. Harris and Waltz aren’t at all blaming the elites for working people hardship, but they do blame the immigrants as well, more indirectly but still.
Yeah, because they need to convince people in the middle to vote for them, and people in the middle are stupid and racist.
She passed the bar exam and operated as a lawyer for years independently defending special assault victims and others victims. She never went bankrupt and has been successful
Trump boasted you need to be “quite” smart to win golf club championships during the debate with Biden, he went bankrupt multiple times and raped women. He can’t even hang onto lawyers
Yet Republicans are now calling kamala incompetent
Well of course Kamala is incompetent to them, their goal is to destroy America and only Trump can deliver that.
He doesn’t even need to be president to do that. He’s succeeding regardless.
So might as well vote kamala if that’s the reason
