• criss_cross@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      So… the Dem strategy was… run an insufferable, stuffy, haughty narcissist to counter a more bombastic, less classy, insufferable narcissist…???

    • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      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.

      • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        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.

        • khepri@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          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.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            7 hours ago

            In 2020, she had all the time in the world, and she mismanaged things badly enough that she ended up dropping out before a single vote was cast. What happened in 2024 was purely advantageous to her, she got to skip the primary altogether and only had to keep it together for 15 weeks. Few people in history have ever received such a privileged ramp towards the presidency.

            The primary process is an additional hoop that a candidate has to jump through, they have to appeal to a different segment of the people than in the general, which may leave them having to pivot or backtrack on their positions. They may have to endure bad blood, or harsher criticism from people who had been invested in another candidate. You could say that the lack of the primary cost the Democrats the election but only in the sense that Kamala probably wouldn’t have won a primary and we’d have gotten someone better.

            15 weeks is also plenty of time to get a message out. Other countries do much shorter campaign lengths. And in the current situation where most people are driven by “negative partisanship,” voting against the people they hate more, being relatively unknown (not that a VP is that unknown) can be advantageous.

            The main thing was policy but she was also just an unpopular politician with bad political instincts (campaigning with the Cheney 's lol), and she basically got to fail upwards and bypass any of the checks that would’ve recognized that unpopularity before it was too late.

          • bufalo1973@piefed.social
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            13 hours ago

            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.

          • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            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.

          • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            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.

            • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago

              I never understand comments like these. She was elected senator of California. She was an AG. Her list of accomplishments is available on Wikipedia for free. What does a black woman have to do to prove herself in this day?

              • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                Why else would he pick the least popular person who ran for the Democrat primary for vice president??? He straight up said that is why he picked the Supreme Court justice he picked and you can assume the same for Vice President. If you are going to pick someone for that position, then pick someone people actually like.

        • tree_frog_and_rain@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          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?

            • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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              17 hours ago

              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.

            • tree_frog_and_rain@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              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.

          • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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            18 hours ago

            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!