I think the key here is that Harris could have been a better candidate, and at certain points, especially before the convention, she was a better candidate.

She specifically and intentionally pivoted away from the politics that work for the Democratic party, Democratic Socialism, and towards neoliberalism and neoconservatism, a politics that doesn’t work for the Democratic party. It was cheerleaded by many here on Lemmy, and when told that this wouldn’t work, that it was harmful to her electoral chances, that they were pivoting to a non-existent center, we were called bots, schills, fascists, communists, armchair activists (although many of us making these criticisms, like myself have litterally put in thousands of hours into political campaigns). The briggading, the trolling, the abuse, the gaslighting: moderators and some very prevalent posters here on Lemmy were directly responsible, if not complicit. It was structural, and moderation abuse allowed it to happen and allows it to persist. And while it’s not unique to Lemmy (the same process was happening on Reddit), this is our house and we are collectively responsible for the outcomes that happen here.

Yep, she dropped out before Iowa because she was polling this badly when she ran for President in her own right. So yeah:

• no primary (Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson would not have been the only candidates if there was a competitive primary).
• everyone in the media just throwing away their credibility by claiming Biden was a young spring chicken, despite us seeing him have senior moments on the regular.
• gaslighting people about the economy (inflation is down, wages went up, stock market is up). Sure, those metrics were all technically correct, but all of those were skewed by the high end of the income scale, and the average person was still worse off than before. I don’t think Biden could’ve done a lot more besides manhandling Manchin and Sinema to get a higher minimum wage passed and renewing the child tax credit, but at least be honest about this and acknowledge that there’s more to be done, and have done plans about what you’ll do about it in a next term.
• all those previous things (and you could add more stuff to that, like Gaza and the tiktok ban), that were obvious to anyone with eyes, and destroyed the credibility of all mainstream media when they talked about project 2025 and Trump being the next Hitler (again, true things, but you need credibility to get through to people).
• wasn’t helped by Kamala running around with the most unpopular politician around that isn’t liked by Democrats or Republicans, and her unwillingness to draw any contrast with Biden in a change election where he’s underwater in the polls.

The people running her campaign committed malpractice, and because of the 2 party system, it’s but like voters can vote for another party without throwing away their vote (which they still should’ve done outside of the swing states, but the left again didn’t have their shit together and the whole thing was a shitshow with Cornell West wasting everyone’s time running for a Greens nomination he wasn’t going to get).