Oh, boy and was it ever effective. Since your policies are anywhere from “concepts” to downright insane, nothing better than to just create strawman opposition ads and pretend that is their real campaign.
I saw so many takes and got into some arguments on Lemmy this week with people claiming that Harris lost because she abandoned the left and changed her campaign at the last minute to be basically a Republican.
No one could provide any concrete evidence of what she did and how though. I’m guessing they either were victims of or were actively distributing this propaganda.
I completely agree. Usually the clue is when:
- A whole bunch of people all start saying the same thing at once
- They all really want to say it, even bringing it up in contexts where it doesn’t completely make sense. Also, when you examine it, it doesn’t completely hold water. It’s just a single thought-pattern that matches up with the appropriate concepts, not necessarily something with any connection to reality.
- They want to “talk” about it, but not in the sense of a conversation, or arguing for its connection to reality. They just want to repeat it, with various levels of insistence, and they don’t respond in a meaningful sense to questions or counterarguments. They just repeat the same thing they said before.
Number 3 is sometimes hard to distinguish from just normal internet jerkwaddery, but the conjunction of all the factors, along with the ever-present conclusion “we’d better not vote for Democrats,” is pretty noticeable once you start looking for it.
There’s a good example here: https://lemmy.world/comment/13459406
Notice how he fills in both sides of the argument to keep it going, to be able to keep repeating his points. For example I say “I also think it’s partly the voters’ fault” and he responds with “I don’t really understand what you’re getting at here. It seems like say you aren’t blaming voters.” I say “I can blame Biden for committing a crime against humanity by arming Israel, instead of doing the human thing,” and he accuses me of sowing division and blaming the voters, and keeps yelling at me that the Democratic Party is at fault.
Again, it’s hard to distinguish from just how people talk about politics on the internet, but the uniformity of the themes and the absence of any attempt at even reading other people’s messages and being responsive to them starts to look a little bit glaring after you run into this stuff a few times.
She was never anywhere close to the left to abandon it, but there is a fairly loose definition of what constitutes ‘the left’, especially in online spaces.
What she did represent was a chance to be a change, but solidified in reinforcing the status quo, which has been resoundingly unpopular.
The Cheney roadshow and advertising the border policy drafted by hyperconservatives didn’t help. Sidelining Walz didn’t either, especially since he was the stronger message on proven policy.
But really it was the most unsurprising course of action the Democratic Party could’ve taken, so I can’t say that bait and switch sentiment should be felt by anyone else but newcomers to American politics.
As a senator, Harris was ranked the “most liberal” voting record for her tenure.
Now I’ll admit I don’t know the exact methodology used and I don’t love the word “liberal”. And of course in a global context that would certainly not be considered “left”.
But, in a US context, to say that Harris was “never anywhere close to the left” is simply falling for GOP propaganda. She may not be Bernie or AOC but she was not as far off as the GOP would have you believe.
I have a hard time upvoting anything from washington post about anything, They suuuuuuuuuck.
