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.
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:
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.
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.
“Better than Trump” is not an alternate worldview. This is why she’s in danger of losing.
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.
I call BS.
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.
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.
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.youtube.com/watch?v=AbVPee2UdJk
https://therealnews.com/as-democrats-fold-to-the-gop-immigrants-pay-the-price
https://www.newsweek.com/dnc-2024-immigration-border-daca-kamala-harris-1942685
https://whyy.org/articles/harris-climate-energy-policy-domestic-oil-drilling/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/09/11/kamala-harris-fracking-gas-climate-change/
https://jacobin.com/2024/08/kamala-harris-economic-plans-verdict
https://fortune.com/2024/10/01/harris-economic-plan-middle-class-discontent-politics/
You’re missing the point. Its NOT ENOUGH to be marginally better than Trump. You need to present a coherent alternative worldview, which she is failing to do by running to the center and saying as little as possible. What has she offered besides vague rhetoric on this? Is she going to end the fillibuster to restore abortion access? Is she going to reign in the extremest Supreme Court? Are they finding creative solutions with the FDA to regulate mifepristone? Will she proactively use the powers of the presidency to save lifes or is she going to talk about how important it is to codify Roe and then never do it?–
I appreciate the sources but c’mon dude, you could at least format stuff a bit.
First off, to your immigration sources: they’d support a claim like “Democrats are appealing to conservatives on immigration policy”, not “Democrats ran to the right of fascists on militarizing the border”. That’s a BS exaggeration.
To your link to Harris’ interview: She was asked if she trans people should have broad gender-affirming care access. Her answer was “I believe that people, as the law states, even on this issue about federal law, that that is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary. I’m not going to put myself in a position of a doctor”. That’s a 2-for-1 answer - “decisions should be left to doctors and patients” + “To any conservatives listening, that’s not just my belief, that’s the fucking law”. Saying “She just got on national TV and refused to support trans rights” is completely inaccurate.
To your economic sources: sure, those are food for thought. Here’re some more:
Nobel Laureate Letter of endorsement for Harris’ Economic Plan Perspective of former US Treasury Chief Economist Perspective by Economic Professor at University of Regensburg Perspective by NHC Perspectives of various other economists
Her implementation of the plan will matter more than what’s on paper, but that’s true of virtually any other economic plan she could propose. In any case “she’s not going to meaningfully redistribute wealth” is still a matter of what you define as “meaningful”, and I assert that your definition is different from that of the average middle American.
To your climate sources: All this is saying is that drilling may likely go up under Harris. If that were all that mattered, I bet you’d say Biden ”isn’t committed to climate change” either, since oil went up under him too. And I’d disagree, because what matters isn’t just reducing dirty energy production, it’s about accelerating clean energy production. So again, BS exaggeration.
> What has she offered besides vague rhetoric on this? Is she going to end the fillibuster to restore abortion access? Is she going to reign in the extremest Supreme Court? Are they finding creative solutions with the FDA to regulate mifepristone? Will she proactively use the powers of the presidency to save lifes or is she going to talk about how important it is to codify Roe and then never do it?
What a loaded last question. “And never do it” like she’ll choose not to sign roe codification into law if given the chance.
Yes, I know that’s probably not what you meant, but your only legitimate questions are the filibuster question and the “reigning in question” (The FDA already approves mifepristone, expanding approval doesn’t mean jack if the SC knocks it down).
To both those statements, to your entire post as a whole, and to this little quote in particular:
> You’re missing the point. Its NOT ENOUGH to be marginally better than Trump. You need to present a coherent alternative worldview, which she is failing to do by running to the center and saying as little as possible.
I say: you’re the one missing the point, by ignoring the context of the thread you started. You opened with your opinion on why Trump’s fascism appeals to people, and you claim she has to give an “alternate worldview” to turn people away from that.
You can’t seriously think Harris could sway those people by talking about ending the filibuster, or reigning in the SCOTUS. Nor will she sway those people by talking more strongly about resolving the climate crisis, about protecting trans rights, about supporting abortion, about chilling out on illegal immigrants, etc. There is practically no one who wants her to take stronger left-leaning stances on all those things AND will vote for Trump instead. I only say “practically” because if the odds of that were say, 1:100mil, then hey, maybe a couple voters will do that. Everybody else? Not bought into Trump at all.
If you really do honestly feel Harris needs to go way farther left, then you’re just projecting what YOU want onto the people who are okay with Trump’s fascism.
It’s literally not. They ran to the right of what Republicans wanted. There are countless articles talking about how it was everything and more than Republicans wanted and they only turned it down over politics. I can find literally dozens of these articles:
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-border-bill-wrong/
https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/2/5/24062710/senate-immigration-bill-border-security-ukraine-2024
She literally got up on national TV and when was asked a direct, completely basic question about whether or not she supported trans peoples most fundamental issues, deflected, dodged and refused to give a vocal endorsement of their rights. You can not be serious with this answer, you know how bad this looks. Literally all she had to do was say “I support trans rights” or any other generic statement but she didn’t because she thinks trans people are a liability to her campaign and she’s hard pivoting to the right.
Haha, incredible. Do you think that Biden IS committed to climate change? Like in a meaningful, taking it as seriously as the end of the world doomsday scenario it is? His administration straight up lied about ‘no new drilling’. They laughed at the Green New Deal. Democrats are all talk on the environment.
Will she prioritize it? Or will she pull an Obama who had the chance to do it but said “It wasnt the highest priority”? You think it’s just gonna land on her desk with a wave of a magic wand? Will she FIGHT for it? Or are we getting another “I think we should obey the law” in a couple years.
It’s about more than one single issue. Its about having a defined set of values that you care about and can be held accountable to. Being “Not Donald Trump” isn’t that. You know why most Americans like Bernie Sanders? (Yes even the conservatives who scream about socialism) Because he’s been saying the same shit for 30 years. You don’t have to worry about him going up on a stage and wonder if he’s going to suddenly backtrack on Medicare for All with some “I think we should follow the law” non-answer. He has values that he expresses, even when they’re unpopular. Do you even really know what Kamala believes in? Or is she campaigning on whatever happens to be polling at 51% or better? For better or worse we all know what Trump believes in.
No you’re not going to flip any single voter by saying you want to end the fillibuster or any given single policy issue. You get them to flip by demonstrating a clear set of values and sticking to them, so that when they have doubts about fascism they can look at the other side and know what it stands for. They know that there’s a moral argument to be made for any of these policy decisions because the democratic leadership has spent every opportunity to educate about them.
These people are inundated with propaganda 24/7. If all they hear from the right is about how immigrants are rapists who steal our jobs and are flooding the border like a zombie apocalypse movie, and then they go to the left to see that the Democrats kind of agree but think we should only deport 50% of the immigrants instead of 100% of them and want the border to be only slightly more lethal, what conclusion do you think they’re going to draw? Imagine for a second we had democratic leadership that weren’t straight up cowards and NOW when undecideds look to the left they hear about how the vast majority of illegal immigration is due to overstayed visas and the border is kind of a sham topic. Now they hear that the border is already the deadliest border crossing in the world by a large margin and making it 5% deadlier isn’t going to fix the issue. Now they hear that immigrants pay taxes into the system and don’t get them back out, and are the foundation of many of our industries that would collapse without them (there’s other issues here obviously). Now they hear about the cost of detaining and deporting people and they hear about what asylum means.
THAT’s what it means to present an alternate world view. If you’re offering people a choice between a Republican who is going to 100% deliver on fascism or a Democrat who barely knows what they stand for and is going to diddle around for 4 years and never make a coherent case for anything, or at best offers some Diet Republican policy, people are gonna just pick the fascist.
I can’t take you seriously. Not after you post a lazily constructed list of links, some of which are your response to me calling your border claim false, only for you then to be like “no actually wait here are more links for what I was actually trying to say”, only for the links to still not back your BS that democrats went “to the right of republicans”. (If you wanna point at anything specific to actually attempt to make your point, then go for it, but if it doesn’t actually back you then stop wasting my time with this).
Also not after you again ignore the specific question she was asked (do you support gender affirming care) and the answer I already quoted her giving (yes, it’s a matter between doctors and patients) so you can claim to know that the precise reason she used her words and not yours is “she thinks trans people are a liability to her campaign and she’s hard pivoting to the right.”
Not after claiming to believe that Biden doesn’t care about climate change - no wait, that maybe he does, but not “in a meaningful, taking it as seriously as the end of the world doomsday scenario it is” kind of way, as though the policy matching that intensity (shutting off all fossil fuel production tomorrow) isn’t a move that’ll DEFINITELY get Trump elected so he can steer us full speed ahead into a climate catastrophe.
Not after acknowledging yourself that “you’re not going to flip any single voter by saying you want to end the fillibuster” but playing that off like it’s just a random “given single policy issue”.
And certainly not after evoking Bernie Sanders as a positive figure, who is himself urging people to vote for Kamala.
The rest of your comment makes it very clear that you’re dug in, that you earnestly believe your projection onto all 70+ million people who are gonna vote for Trump, and that if Kamala was exactly the candidate you wish she was, that she’d magically sway people inundated with Fox News 24/7 because you have it all figured out.
Based on what you’ve said I wouldn’t be surprised if you either intend to vote for Stein or De La Cruz, or just want to push other people to do that.
Bro how desperate are you? The links all say the **same **thing. I could find you hundreds more that ALSO say the same thing. This was a HUGE news story a while back, this isn’t even controversial. Republicans openly admitted that the bill went farther than the one they previously wrote and only killed it because Trump told them to. Are you gonna keep whining the more links I show you that prove me right?
https://newrepublic.com/article/178860/republicans-border-deal-michael-bennet
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/31/biden-border-deal-progressives-00138687
https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/2/5/24062710/senate-immigration-bill-border-security-ukraine-2024?utm_medium=social&utm_content=voxdotcom&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=vox.social
You’re not arguing in good faith at this point.
Timestamp me the part where she says “yes”. That’s not what she said and you know it. You’re just lying now.
That’s the ONLY WAY TO CARE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. If you just pay it lipservice and then do all the bad things that are making the world boil, guess what! You don’t actually care about climate change.
Yeah buddy the problem is structural. Selling out your values to chase after the mystical ‘undecided middle’ doesn’t work. Democrats need to be a party of values that they live up to. If you don’t see the difference between those things then I can’t help you.
Where did I ever say anything about not voting for Kamala? You just don’t have a leg to stand on.
Yes, I do as a matter of fact tend to argue for the things that I think are right and correct. Is this supposed to be some own? Since you’re so right and smart why can’t you even form a coherent response that doesn’t involve straight up lying about the democrats own words.
I don’t live in a swing state so yeah I’m gonna vote for PSL and talk about why I think that is good. Again, is that supposed to be some damning argument? Lol you’re so out of steam.
Crying and shaking RN.
My guy…can you quote anything that specifically suggests democrats went to the right of Rebuplicans.
Here, I’ll help you: if you can link me anything that says that republicans killed the bill ‘because it goes too far to crack down on the border’, then that’d be democrats moving to the right of Republicans. Simply quoting that Republicans shut it down isn’t enough - they shut it down because Trump told them to, because he wanted to campaign on immigration. You’re quoting all this extra stuff about Democrats moving right, but you haven’t quoted a single thing to suggest they’re moving further right than Republicans. That was and still is the part I called BS on. Do you think you can manage that? Or are you gonna keep wasting your own time?
First off…technically, she does say “yes”, 17 seconds in. XD I’m starting to think you didn’t even watch the video.
Secondly, it’s an open-ended question. “Let me ask you this question, very broadly speaking here. Do you believe that transgender Americans should have access to gender-affirming care in this country?” Then, mid-answer, she’s asked “They’re trying to define you on this. I’m asking you to define yourself, though. Broadly speaking, what is your value? Do you believe they should have that access?” She gave an open-ended answer about gender affirming care, to an open-ended question about gender-affirming care, asserting that legislators shouldn’t be overruling doctors on gender-affirming care. I bet if she’d just answered the question with “yes” but no broad explanation, you’d complain that “she doesn’t have any beliefs, she’s just saying yes without thinking so trans people will elect her”.
Follow-up for you: tell me how her answer implies “no”. Oh, but wait, you’re a stickler for the exact words used, so I’ll speak in your language: Timestamp me the part where she says “no”. Because that’s not what she said, and I’d like to say “you know that” but you probably didn’t watch the video.
Awfully convenient of you to cookie-cut straight through my statement mid-sentence to make it look like I don’t care about climate change, and to ignore the second part of that sentence. Y’know, the part you chose not to answer to because it was too hard.
The trump voters and the undecideds are the ones who are okay with Trump’s fascism, from supporting it to simply not caring about it. The group you started this whole discussion attempting to explain. Those voters don’t want Kamala to end the filibuster or to reign in the SCOTUS because that’s bad for moderate and conservative politics, the politics those people believe in. If she proposes doing those things, those people will be more inclined to vote Trump, meaning they’re more okay with him, either in spite of or because of his fascism. The subject of Kamala appealing more to guys like you or I with her campaign promises is a separate subject altogether.
Are you saying I’m wrong to assume YOU aren’t voting for Kamala, or to assume you’re talking about not voting for Kamala in general? I’ll hold onto both those assumptions for a bit longer…
Again, it doesn’t matter what you think, it matters what targets of Trump’s appeal think. You position yourself as someone who’s not okay with Trump’s fascism, but you think people who ARE will react positively to Kamala vocally taking a stronger left-leaning stance on a variety of issues. Even though that’s just what YOU want, hence my accusation of projection that you’ve so far not addressed.
Hey, there’s more of that projection I was just talking about
…Good thing I held on to those assumptions from earlier!
Lol
You’re right, let’s go with Hitler instead.
I don’t even understand the Israel issue because both possible winners of this election are pro Israel, they have the exact same stance.
Exactly! That’s why I just can’t understand it.
It honestly just feels like some active disenfranchisement influence is happening. Yes genocide is bad, no it won’t change by not voting. It just boggles me.
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.
How is letting Donald “finish them” “best king of Israel” “Biden is trying to hold Netanyahu back, he should do the opposite” Trump (who admits he is on the phone almost daily convincing Netanyahu NOT TO CEASEFIRE) not going to be WORSE for Gaza.
If you even gave the tiniest of real shits about the Palestinian people, you would drop your sham “voter purity” nonsense and campaign as hard as you could for the one person who can possibly keep him from becoming commander in chief at a time when we really need an emotionally mature grown up in the White House: Kamala Harris.
They are being finished now. Biden is not doing anything to “hold Netanyahu back”. Calling me a political purist for condemning unmitigated support of genocide is disgusting. If you don’t want Trump to win, don’t come at me about it-- come at the fucking democrat leadership who apparently care more about perpetuating atrocities in Gaza than winning the election.
Trump is spending time and effort unravelling whose ceasefire deal? Biden’s.
So like a true trump supporter, you blame the democrats for what the republicans are doing.
I didn’t call you a political purist. You’re really not. I called out your sham “voter purity” where you pretend to care about Gaza and then advocate for lunatic geriatric genocidal trump to win.
I know it makes you feel better to imagine I’m a Trump supporter, so go right ahead. Biden can say the word “ceasefire” all he wants, but it does not mean a fucking thing if he remains absolutely unwavering in his material support for the ongoing genocide. What possible reason does Netanyahu have for stopping the slaughter? Biden pretends to disapprove slightly? What Trump does or doesn’t talk to Netanyahu about is irrelevant.
It’s not irrelevant. He’s a hair’s breadth from becoming commander in chief and then it won’t be 10% or 20% of Palestinians killed, it’ll be all of them. Trump really is that lunatic and that genicodal. Next he’ll deport or put into camps all the Muslims in America. He’ll not murder them in the street, he has his friend Netanyahu to do that, the people who he promised to shoot are the leftists.